Misguided Asgardian's Must Reads

The sept was empty, as it always was at this hour. Seven walls of cold stone rose around you, each one bearing the image of a god who had never answered a single prayer you'd offered. The Father, stern and judgmental, his stone eyes gazing down with the same disappointment you'd seen in every face since the day you arrived at the Red Keep. The Mother, merciful and kind, who had apparently decided you were unworthy of her mercy. The Warrior, the Smith, the Maid, the Crone. And the Stranger, whose altar stood in shadow, neither male nor female, its face half-hidden beneath a hood of carved stone.

The Stranger was your favorite. You understood the Stranger. The Stranger did not pretend to care.

You knelt before the altar of the Mother, because that was what you were supposed to do. Your hands were clasped, your head bowed, the pose was perfect. Penitent. Pious. The image of a devoted wife offering thanks for her blessings. Anyone who saw you would think you were praying for a child, for your husband's health, for the peace of the realm.

They would be wrong.

Let him die, you prayed. Let him choke on his wine at supper tonight. Let him fall from his horse in the tiltyard. Let him slip on the stairs and crack his skull on the stone. Let a fever take him. Let an assassin find him. Let anything, anything at all, take him from this world so I never have to feel his hands on me again.

The words poured through your mind like poison, bitter and black and strangely soothing. You had never been religious. In Tyrosh, your mother had kept to the old gods of Valyria, and your father had worshipped nothing but his own ambition. The Seven were foreign to you, their rituals strange, their demands incomprehensible. But the sept was quiet. The sept was cold. And most importantly, the sept was the one place Valarr did not follow you.

Let the Stranger take him, you prayed now, your lips moving in silent, fervent supplication. Let the Stranger take them all. Lady Jeyne, with her cold smiles and her crueler whispers. Ser Alan, who watches me with pity and does nothing. Every guard who looks through me like I'm made of glass. Every servant who lets my fire die. Every lord who sat at that table and decided I was worth more as a broodmare than a corpse.

Let them burn. Let them all burn. Let the dragons come back and burn this wretched castle to ash with everyone inside it. I don't care if I burn with them. I don't care if there's nothing left of me but bones and ash and the memory of what they did. Just let it end. Please. Let it end.

The words were not kind. They were not pious. They were not the prayers of a good woman, a dutiful wife, a grateful survivor of a rebellion that could have seen her executed. But they were honest. They were the only honest thing you had left.

You had tried, once, to pray for better things. For your brothers at the Wall, that they might find some measure of peace in their frozen exile. For your sisters in the Silent Sisters, that their silence might not be too heavy a burden to bear. For your mother in Tyrosh, alone now, all her children scattered to the winds. But those prayers had felt hollow, empty, words spoken to stone ears by a woman who no longer believed in anything but suffering.

So now you prayed for death. It was more satisfying. It gave you something to hold onto in the long, cold hours when you were not required to be anywhere else.

Your knees ached against the stone floor. The chill seeped through the thin silk of your gown, raising gooseflesh on your thighs. You had not bothered with a heavy cloak. The walk from Valarr's chambers to the sept was short, and the cold was a familiar companion now. You had grown almost fond of it. The cold was clean. The cold did not touch you with hands you could not refuse.

The silence of the sept wrapped around you like a shroud. The candles flickered in their iron sconces, their flames reflected in the polished stone of the altars. The air smelled of incense and old wax and the faint, dusty scent of disuse. The royal sept was seldom used by anyone but you. The King preferred the Great Sept of Baelor for public worship, and the rest of the court followed his example. The castle's sept was too small, too humble, too easily forgotten.

Which made it perfect.

You heard the footsteps behind you and felt your heart seize in your chest.

No. Not here. Not in the one place that was yours. Your eyes remained closed, your hands clasped, your face a perfect mask of devotional calm. But inside, your thoughts had turned from murderous prayer to desperate, animal fear. If it was Valarr, if he had decided to violate this last sanctuary, you did not know what you would do. Scream, perhaps. Weep. Strike him. Something terrible and irreversible that would shatter the fragile pretense of your existence.

The footsteps drew closer. Measured. Confident. Not the quick, nervous steps of a servant. Not the heavy tread of a guard in armor. This was someone who walked as if they had every right to be here, someone who did not fear interruption or discovery.

You opened your eyes. He stood a few paces away, his head tilted slightly as he regarded you. Baelor Targaryen. The Prince of Dragonstone. The heir to the Iron Throne. Your husband's father.

Your good father. You had spoken to him perhaps a dozen times since your wedding. He had been present at the ceremony, of course, standing beside the King with his hands clasped behind his back and his expression unreadable. He had offered you the traditional words of welcome, stiff and formal, the same words he might have offered a visiting dignitary from a foreign land. He had not sought you out since then, and you had not sought him. You had assumed, insofar as you thought of him at all, that he shared his son's assessment of you: a prize to be used, a vessel to be filled, a Blackfyre to be broken.

But the way he looked at you now was not the way Valarr looked at you. There was something in his gaze that you could not quite name. You rose from your knees. The motion was graceful, practiced, the product of years of training in the courts of Tyrosh. You smoothed your skirts and inclined your head with the precise degree of deference owed to a Prince of the realm.

"My prince. Forgive me, I did not hear you enter."

His mouth curved into a small smile. It was a controlled expression, the smile of a man who had learned long ago to reveal nothing he did not wish to reveal. "There is nothing to forgive. I should be the one asking pardon. I did not mean to interrupt your prayers."

"You did not interrupt. I was finished." The lie came easily. You had become skilled at lies over the past moon. Lies of omission, lies of politeness, lies of the body that pretended pleasure while the mind screamed in protest. One more lie, offered to a man you barely knew, was hardly worth noticing.

Baelor nodded, but his eyes lingered on your face. They were too perceptive, those eyes. Too knowing. You had the uncomfortable sensation that he could see through your carefully constructed mask, that he knew exactly what kind of prayers you had been offering to the Mother's stone ears.

"You come here often, I think," he said. It was not quite a question.

"When my duties permit." Another lie. Your duties consisted of being available for Valarr's pleasure and looking beautiful at meals. You had nothing but time, and everyone knew it. "The sept is peaceful. I find it… calming."

"Yes. I have always thought so myself." He moved past you, his footsteps echoing softly in the silence, and stopped before the altar of the Stranger. His back was to you now, and you watched him study the hooded figure with an expression you could not see. "When I was a boy, I used to hide here. From my tutors, from my father, from the endless demands of being the heir. No one ever thought to look for me in the sept. It was the one place I could be alone."

You said nothing. You did not know what to say. This was not the conversation you had expected, the stiff, formal exchange of pleasantries that usually passed between you and the members of the royal family. He turned back to you, and his smile had shifted into something gentler. Almost apologetic.

"But I have not come here to burden you with my childhood memories. I came to see how you were faring." He paused, and his mismatched eyes searched your face with that unsettling perceptiveness. "You have been married for over three moons now. I know that such transitions can be… difficult."

Difficult. The word was so inadequate it was almost laughable. You had been stripped of your name, your family, your freedom, your dignity. You had been turned into a vessel for your husband's pleasure and his heirs. You had been fucked on the council table like a common whore while the lords of the realm had decided your fate on that very spot. And this man, this polite, unassuming man, asked if the transition had been difficult.

But you did not laugh. You did not scream. You simply inclined your head and offered him the same empty words you offered everyone. "You are kind to ask, my prince. I am well. His Grace is a most considerate husband."

Something flickered in Baelor's eyes. Something that might have been amusement. "I am glad to hear it." His voice was dry, carefully neutral. "Valarr has always been… devoted to the things he values."

Devoted. Another inadequate word. Valarr was devoted to you the way a dragon was devoted to its hoard. He would guard you, cherish you, and devour anyone who tried to take you from him. But he would never see you as anything more than a possession. A beautiful, coveted possession that proved his worth as a Targaryen.

You realized, with a start, that Baelor was still watching you. Waiting for a response. "His devotion is an honor," you said. "One I do not take for granted."

"No," Baelor agreed. "I do not imagine you do."

The silence stretched between you, heavy with unspoken things and then, quite suddenly, his expression shifted. The intensity faded, replaced by something milder, more casual. The change was so seamless that you almost doubted you had seen anything else.

"You and Valarr should join us tonight," he said. "For supper. In my chambers. A small gathering, just family. My wife Jena and myself." He paused, and that small, controlled smile returned. "He used to dine with us often, before the wedding. Now he barely even joins us for meals. You have thoroughly bewitched him, it seems."

The words were pleasant. Complimentary, even. But there was something beneath them, something that made your stomach tighten with unease. You could not tell if he was mocking you, or testing you, or simply making conversation. His face revealed nothing but polite, paternal interest.

"I would be honored to attend," you said carefully. "If it pleases His Grace."

Baelor's smile widened, just slightly. "It will be good to have you at our table. Truly. You are part of this family now, whatever… circumstances brought you here. It is time we treated you as such."

The words were kind. They were the kindest words anyone in the Red Keep had spoken to you since your wedding. And yet, as you met Baelor's mismatched eyes, so like his son's and yet so different, you could not shake the feeling that you were being offered something that would come with a price.

"Thank you, my prince," you said.

He inclined his head, a small, graceful acknowledgment. Then he turned and walked toward the door, his footsteps echoing in the silence of the sept. At the threshold, he paused.

"I hope you find what you're praying for," he said, without turning around.

—

The night had settled over the Red Keep like a shroud, heavy and dark and suffocating. Outside the windows of the Prince's chambers, the moon hung low over Blackwater Bay, its silver light painting a shimmering path across the black water. The fire had burned down to embers, casting long shadows that danced across the walls like specters at a feast.

Valarr had taken you from behind. It was the first thing you had noticed when he pulled you into the bed, the first sign that something was different tonight. He usually preferred to see your face. He was obsessed with it, with watching your eyes as he moved inside you, cataloguing every flutter of your lashes, every parting of your lips, every flicker of pleasure you could not suppress. He needed to see you. He needed to know that you felt him, that you responded to him, that your body belonged to him even when your mind resisted.

But tonight, he had turned you onto your stomach without a word. His hands had gripped your hips with a roughness that bordered on punishing, his fingers digging into the soft flesh hard enough to leave bruises. He had entered you without the usual reverent preparation, without the slow, teasing foreplay he normally employed to make your body ready for him. He had simply taken what he wanted, his thrusts deep and hard and almost angry, his breath harsh against the back of your neck.

You had known, then, that something was wrong. Valarr was many things but he was not cruel in his bed. Not truly. The control he exerted over you was always tempered by that devastating gentleness, those whispered endearments, that desperate need to see your pleasure even as he claimed it for himself. Tonight, the gentleness was absent. Tonight, he fucked you like a man trying to exorcise a demon, or perhaps to summon one.

You had lain there, your face pressed into the silk pillows, your fingers gripping the furs, and you had let him take what he needed. Because that was what you did now. That was what you were for. And when he finally spent himself inside you with a low, almost wounded groan, when he collapsed against your back with his heart hammering against your spine, you had waited in silence for the storm to pass.

It did not pass. He withdrew from you and rolled onto his back, one arm flung over his eyes, his chest still heaving. The silence stretched between you like a chasm, filled only by the crackle of the dying fire and the distant crash of waves against the cliffs below the castle. You turned onto your side, pulling the furs up over your body, and watched him in the dim light.

His jaw was tight. His free hand was clenched into a fist on the mattress, the knuckles white. Even in the darkness, you could see the tension radiating from him, the rigid set of his shoulders, the way his eyes stared up at the canopy with a fury he was clearly struggling to contain.

Something had happened. Something at court, perhaps. Something that had wounded him in a way he did not want to show you.

You should have let it lie. You should have closed your eyes and pretended to sleep and let him stew in whatever dark mood had taken hold of him. His troubles were not your troubles. His pain was not your pain. You owed him nothing, not comfort, not concern, not even the pretense of wifely devotion.

But the silence was unbearable. And some part of you, some weak, traitorous part that you despised, wanted to know what had put that look on his face. Wanted to understand him, even now. Even after everything.

"The council meeting did not go well."

It was not a question. You had learned to read him well enough to know the signs. The roughness in bed. The silence afterward. The tension in his jaw that looked like it might crack his teeth. Something had happened in the Tower of the Hand, something that had left him feeling powerless, and he had come to you to reclaim his sense of control.

He let out a sharp breath that was almost a laugh. Almost. "No," he said, his voice flat and bitter. "It did not."

He did not elaborate. You had not expected him to. Valarr rarely shared the details of his political struggles with you. You were his wife, his possession, you were not his confidante. And yet, tonight, something was different. Tonight, the silence felt less like a wall and more like a wound.

You shifted closer to him beneath the furs. The movement was small, almost involuntary, but his arm moved in response, lifting from his eyes so he could look at you. His mismatched gaze was tired, the blue eye shadowed, the brown one dark with frustration. His dark hair was disheveled, clinging to his forehead with sweat.

"What happened?" you asked softly. He stared at you for a long moment, as if trying to decide whether you were genuinely asking or simply performing the role of concerned wife. You were not entirely sure yourself.

"I presented a proposal," he said finally. "Weeks of work. I consulted with the Master of Ships. I reviewed every harbor tariff from the past decade. I drafted a plan that would increase Crown revenues by fifteen percent without raising taxes on the smallfolk." His voice grew sharper with each word, the bitterness bleeding through. "It was thorough. It was sound. It was better than anything those greybeards could have cobbled together in a hundred years of warming their arses on those council chairs."

He turned his gaze back to the canopy, his jaw tightening again. "They listened politely. Lord Butterwell nodded along like a fucking toy soldier. The Grand Maester made notes he'll never read. And then my father said—" He pitched his voice lower, a mocking approximation of Baelor's measured tone. "'A thoughtful proposal, Valarr. We will certainly give it the consideration it deserves.' And then he moved on to the next item. As if I had said nothing at all. As if I were still a boy playing at governance with wooden soldiers."

You watched him in the darkness. His profile was sharp against the pillows, his features carved from shadow and firelight. He looked, in that moment, less like the man who had methodically stripped away every piece of your independence and more like a son who had tried his best and been told it was not good enough by the one man whose approval he craved.

"The proposal sounds like it had merit," you said carefully.

"It did." His voice was bitter. "But merit does not matter. Experience matters. Age matters. Being a man of one and twenty in a room full of men twice my age matters. They look at me and they see my father's son and nothing else. Nothing I have earned. Nothing I have built. Just the son, playing at statecraft while the real men make the decisions."

He fell silent, and the words hung in the air between you. The heir's heir. You had never thought of him that way before. To you, he had always seemed so powerful, so in control, the man who held your entire existence in his hands. But in the broader hierarchy of the realm, he was merely the son of the heir. Important, yes. Privileged, certainly. But not yet a man of real power. Not yet someone whose voice carried weight in the council chamber. It made him seem, for the first time, almost human.

Your hand moved before you could stop it. Your fingers found his arm beneath the furs, tracing the line of muscle from his wrist to his elbow. The touch was light, tentative, a gesture of comfort you had never offered him before. "Your father should have listened," you said quietly. "Truly listened. Not just nodded and moved on."

Valarr turned his head on the pillow to look at you. His mismatched eyes were unreadable, but something in them had shifted. The anger was still there, simmering beneath the surface, but it was tempered now by something else. Surprise, perhaps. Or gratitude.

"You think so?" His voice was softer than it had been.

"I am not a member of the council," you said. "I do not know the intricacies of harbor tariffs or Crown revenues. But I know what it is to prepare something carefully, to pour your effort into a task, only to be dismissed by those who should have valued your contribution." You paused, holding his gaze. "It is a particular kind of wound. One that festers if left unacknowledged."

He was silent for a long moment. Then his hand found yours beneath the furs, his fingers interlacing with your own. His palm was warm, his grip firm but not demanding. It was the first time he had held your hand without it feeling like an act of possession.

"Sometimes," he said slowly, "you surprise me."

"Is that a good thing?"

His lips curved into a small, tired smile. "I have not decided yet."

He lifted your joined hands and pressed a kiss to your knuckles. It was a gentle gesture, almost chaste, and it made your chest tighten with something you refused to name. You did not want him to be gentle. You did not want him to be vulnerable. You wanted him to be the monster you could hate cleanly, not this complicated, wounded man who held your hand like you were the only solid thing in a world that had stopped making sense.

"I needed this," he murmured against your skin. "I needed you."

You always need me, you thought. But only when it suits you. Only when I can serve a purpose. Only when your pride has been wounded and you need something beautiful to remind you of your power.

But you did not say that. Instead, you said, "I saw your father today. In the sept."

Valarr's head lifted. His eyes sharpened with something that might have been wariness. "Did you?" His voice was carefully neutral, but his fingers tightened around yours. "My father is not a particularly pious man."

"He came to see how I was faring." You paused, choosing your next words with care. "He was… kind. He asked after you. He said that you used to dine with them often, before the wedding. That they miss your presence at their table."

Valarr was silent for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was dry, almost amused, but there was an edge beneath it that you could not quite identify, something that felt almost like satisfaction.

"Did he now."

"He asked us to join them for supper. A small gathering. Just family, he said."

Valarr released your hand and rolled onto his back again, staring up at the canopy. But his arm found your waist, pulling you closer against his side, his thumb tracing idle circles on the curve of your hip.

"Funny," he said. "Since my father was the main opposition to our marriage."

The words hung in the air between you, heavy with implication. You felt your stomach tighten, a cold thread of unease winding through your chest.

"He opposed the marriage?"

"He did." Valarr's mismatched eyes were fixed on the canopy above, but his arm tightened around your waist, pulling you closer still. "When the council debated what to do with you, there were many voices. Lord Darklyn wanted you sent to the Silent Sisters. Lord Celtigar suggested a strategic marriage to some minor house that could be trusted to keep you quiet and out of sight. And Lord Bracken—well, Lord Bracken wanted your head on a spike. He lost two sons at the Battle of the Redgrass Field. He was not feeling merciful."

His thumb continued its lazy circles on your hip, a strange counterpoint to the gravity of his words. "And my father," he continued, "argued against the marriage. Not against sparing your life—he is not a cruel man, my father. But against bringing you into the heart of the royal family. He said it was unwise to bind a Blackfyre so close to the throne. He said it would be seen as a sign of weakness, that the realm would think we were rewarding rebellion. He said…" Valarr paused, and something dark flickered in his expression. "He said I was letting my desires cloud my judgment. That I wanted you for the wrong reasons. That I was not thinking clearly."

He was right, you thought. He was right about all of it.

But you did not say that. You could not say that. Instead, you studied Valarr's profile in the dying firelight and asked, "Then how did the marriage happen? If the Prince of Dragonstone opposed it?"

"The King overruled him." Valarr's voice was quiet, but there was a fierce pride in it now. "My grandfather saw the wisdom of binding your bloodline to ours. He understood that marriage was a stronger chain than execution. That you would be more valuable as a Targaryen wife than as a Blackfyre corpse." He turned his head to look at you, and his mismatched eyes gleamed in the darkness. "I won. Despite my father's objections. Despite everyone who thought I was making a mistake. I won."

You did not point out that you were the one who had lost. That your family was dead or exiled or imprisoned. That your body was no longer your own. That you prayed every day in the cold stone sept for death to take everyone who had done this to you. You did not point out any of that, because it would not have mattered. He would not have understood. Instead, you said, "Perhaps your father has come to terms with it, then. Perhaps his invitation is an olive branch. A gesture of reconciliation."

Valarr was quiet for a long moment. His hand had moved from your hip to the small of your back, his fingers tracing the bumps of your spine with idle, proprietary tenderness.

"My father is a practical man," he said finally. "He knows when a battle is lost. He accepted his own limitations. He has accepted every disappointment the gods have seen fit to hand him with that same dignity." There was something in his voice now, not quite admiration, not quite resentment, but a complicated mixture of both. "Perhaps he has decided to accept you as well."

"Or perhaps he wants something." The words left your mouth before you could stop them. You remembered Baelor's mismatched eyes watching you in the sept, his patient, assessing gaze, the way he had said I hope you find what you're praying for as if he knew exactly what darkness lived in your heart. "Your father seems like a man who always wants something."

Valarr turned his head to look at you, and his smile was thin and knowing. "Now you are learning," he said. "My father always wants something. The trick is determining what it is before he takes it."

The words lingered in the darkness, heavy with unspoken warning. You thought of Baelor's calm, measured voice in the sept. His careful questions about your wellbeing. His invitation to supper, delivered with the casual ease of a man who was accustomed to getting what he wanted.

"Will we go?" you asked. "To the supper?"

Valarr shifted onto his side, facing you. His hand slid from your back to your waist, pulling you against the warmth of his body. His face was close to yours now, close enough that you could count the flecks of amber in his brown eye, the flecks of storm grey in his blue one. His father's eyes. His father's coloring. The Dornish look that marked him as more Martell than Targaryen, despite the single streak of silver gold that ran through his dark hair like a brand.

"Of course," he murmured. His lips brushed your forehead, then the bridge of your nose, then the corner of your mouth. "We would not want to disappoint my dear father. And besides…" His voice dropped, low and dark and almost hungry. "Let him see what he tried to prevent. Let him see you on my arm, in my colors, wearing my name. Let him sit across the table from the most beautiful woman in the Seven Kingdoms and know that I claimed you despite his objections."

His mouth found yours then, soft and searching, and you kissed him back because it was easier than resisting. Because his body was warm against yours, and his hands were gentle now, and some traitorous part of you was grateful that the anger had drained from him. Grateful that the man who held you now was not the same man who had taken you from behind with punishing, wordless fury.

When he pulled back, his mismatched eyes were dark with something that looked almost like tenderness. "Sleep," he murmured. "Tomorrow, we will dine with my father. And you will see what it means to sit at a table where every word is a move in a game you did not agree to play."

—

The next evening, your ladies in waiting descended upon you like vultures to a carcass.

They had been unusually eager when you informed them of the supper with Baelor and Jena. Usually, they performed their duties with the bare minimum of effort, a few quick tugs of your laces, cold water in the basin and colder stares in the mirror. They did their work and left as quickly as propriety allowed, retreating to their own chambers where they could whisper about you without the inconvenience of your presence.

But tonight was different. Tonight, there was an event. A royal supper. A chance to dress you up like a doll and send you out into the world with their fingerprints all over your appearance. A chance to claim credit if you looked beautiful and to whisper about your inadequacies if you did not.

Lady Jeyne was the worst of them. "Hold still, my lady," she said now, her fingers working the laces of your bodice with unnecessary force. "We cannot have you looking disheveled for the Prince of Dragonstone. First impressions are so important—though I suppose it is rather late for that, isn't it?"

You said nothing. You had learned that lesson within your first week in the Red Keep. Silence was safer than words. Words could be twisted, weaponized, turned back upon you with those sweet, poisonous smiles. Silence, at least, was your own.

Lady Alia giggled from her perch on the window seat. She was the youngest of your attendants, and the cruelest in her own careless way. She did not hate you the way Jeyne did, she simply found you amusing, a plaything, a source of entertainment in a court that could be dreadfully dull.

"I hear the Prince could barely keep his hands off you in the gardens last week," Alia said, her voice light and musical. "One of the guards told my maid, who told me—apparently His Grace is quite… enthusiastic in his affections."

Your jaw tightened. The memory of that afternoon in the gardens, the cherry blossoms, the stone bench, the rough press of Valarr's body against yours while the guards pretended not to hear, flashed through your mind like a brand.

"It must be so flattering," Lady Mariene added from her position by the wardrobe, where she was selecting your jewelry with the air of someone choosing funeral ornaments. She was the quietest of your three ladies, but her silences were somehow worse than the others' words. She watched. She remembered. She reported everything to someone, though you had never been able to determine who. "To be so desired. Most wives can barely get their husbands to look at them after the first month, and here you are—the Prince cannot seem to let you out of his sight."

"I heard he took her against the wall in the east corridor," Jeyne said, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial murmur that was perfectly pitched to carry through the entire chamber. She tugged viciously at your laces, and you felt your breath constrict. "One of the servants saw them. Said Her Grace was making the most indecent sounds. Like a common camp follower."

The mirror showed you your own face, you watched yourself the way you might watch a stranger, noting the almost imperceptible tightening of your jaw. You would not give them the satisfaction of a reaction. You would not.

"Perhaps the Prince will bend her over the dining table tonight," Alia said, clapping her hands together with mock delight. "Right there in front of the Prince and Lady Jena. A bit of entertainment between the fish course and the roast. I'm sure the musicians could provide appropriate accompaniment."

The three of them laughed. The sound was bright and tinkling and utterly venomous, like bells dipped in poison.

"The Blackfyre whore becomes the Targaryen spectacle," Jeyne said, meeting your eyes in the mirror with that cold, triumphant smile. "Your mother must be so proud."

Something hot and sharp rose in your chest rage, pure and undiluted, the same rage that fueled your prayers in the sept. You wanted to turn around and slap the smile from Jeyne's face. You wanted to grab Alia by her perfect honey colored hair and drag her across the floor. You wanted to scream at them until your voice gave out, to tell them that you had not chosen this, that you had not wanted any of this, that you were a prisoner in all but name and they were the jailers' mocking chorus.

But you could not. Speaking back meant punishment. Not directly, Valarr would never raise a hand against you, would never lock you in a dungeon or have you beaten. But Lady Jeyne's cousin was a captain in the City Watch. Lady Alia's father sat on the King's council. Lady Mariene's uncle was the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard. Their families were powerful, respected, loyal. Your family was dead or exiled or imprisoned. You had no allies. You had no power. You had only the thin protection of Valarr's obsession, and even that was a fickle thing, a fire that could warm you or consume you depending on his mood.

So you said nothing. You sat perfectly still as Jeyne finished lacing your bodice with punishing tightness, as Mariene draped a necklace of rubies around your throat, as Alia powdered your cheeks and painted your lips with rose scented salve. You let them transform you into the image of a perfect Targaryen wife, beautiful and silent and utterly hollow.

"There," Jeyne said, stepping back to admire her work with the critical eye of a sculptor examining a statue. "You look almost presentable. Perhaps the Prince will not regret inviting you to his table after all."

"Though I'm sure His Grace Valarr will find some way to muss her before the evening is through," Alia added with a wink. "He does so hate to see her looking tidy."

More laughter. More poison. You rose from the dressing table without a word and walked to the door. Your heart was pounding in your chest, your hands trembling slightly at your sides. But your face remained calm. Your posture remained perfect. You had learned to walk as if you were made of glass and steel, fragile enough to be beautiful, strong enough to survive.

Ser Alan was waiting for you in the corridor, his white armor gleaming in the torchlight, his weathered face as unreadable as ever. He did not comment on your appearance. He did not ask if you were well. He simply fell into step behind you as you walked toward the Prince of Dragonstone's chambers, where your husband was waiting to escort you to supper.

Let them choke on their own venom, you prayed silently. Let the Stranger take them all—Jeyne and Alia and Mariene and every poison tongued snake in this wretched castle.

—

The supper was, against all expectations, perfectly pleasant. You had braced yourself for disaster. For veiled insults wrapped in courtesies. For Jena's cold stares and Baelor's measured silences. For Valarr's possessiveness manifesting in some humiliating display of ownership across the table. You had prepared yourself for every possible horror, every conceivable cruelty, every way the evening might become another weapon in the slow, grinding war of attrition that was your life in the Red Keep.

None of it happened. The private dining chamber was smaller than you had expected, intimate rather than imposing, with tapestries depicting Dornish landscapes on the walls and a fire that crackled warmly in the hearth. The table was set for four, simple but elegant, with silver candlesticks and fresh flowers arranged in a crystal vase. It felt less like a royal audience and more like a family gathering. A real one. The kind you had not experienced since before the war.

Jena Dondarrion rose to greet you with a genuine smile. She was handsome rather than beautiful, her face lined with age and laughter, her hair a deep auburn threaded with grey. Her eyes were kind and she took your hands in hers and squeezed them gently.

"At last," she said. "I have been asking my son to bring you to us for weeks. But he keeps you all to himself, the selfish boy."

Valarr made a sound of protest, but there was no real irritation in it. He kissed his mother's cheek with an ease that surprised you, you had never seen him so relaxed, so unguarded. Here, in his parents' chambers, he seemed almost like a different man.

"He is rather possessive," you said, before you could stop yourself.

Jena laughed, a warm, rolling sound that filled the chamber. "He gets that from his father. Baelor was insufferable when we first married. I could not sneeze without him appearing at my elbow with a handkerchief and a look of grave concern."

"Lies," Baelor said from his seat at the head of the table, but his eyes were warm with amusement. "I was the very model of restraint."

"You were a menace," Jena said fondly. "But a charming one. I suppose that is why I forgave you."

The supper proceeded in much the same manner. Easy. Utterly ordinary. The food was excellent roasted duck with orange glaze, buttered parsnips, fresh bread still steaming from the ovens but the conversation was better. Baelor asked you about Tyrosh, about the architecture and the sea and the dye markets that had made your mother's family wealthy. He listened to your answers with genuine interest, asking follow up questions that proved he was paying attention rather than simply performing politeness.

Jena asked about your childhood, your tutors, the books you had read. When you mentioned a fondness for history her eyes lit up.

"You must speak with Baelor about that," she said, gesturing toward her husband with her wine glass. "He is a dreadful bore when it comes to history. He will talk your ear off about King Jaehearys if given half a chance."

"I prefer Aegon the conqueror," Baelor said, his eyes meeting yours across the table. "But my wife is right. I am a bore on the subject. You must forgive me if I become tedious."

"You could never be tedious, my prince," you said, because it was the polite thing to say.

Valarr's hand found your knee beneath the table. His thumb traced small circles on the silk of your gown, a proprietary touch that was becoming as familiar as your own heartbeat. But it was gentler than usual, less demanding. He was relaxed, you realized. Happy, even.

"You mentioned that your younger son is fostering in the Stormlands," you said to Jena, partly to fill the silence and partly out of genuine curiosity.

Something flickered across Jena's face, pride mixed with the particular melancholy of a mother missing her child.

"Matarys," she said, and her voice softened around the name like velvet wrapping a blade. "He is squiring with my brother, Lord Dondarrion. The boy has always been wild—too much Stormlands blood in him, my husband says. We thought some time in the marches might temper him." She smiled, but there was a wistfulness to it. "I miss him terribly. But he writes often. He has his father's gift for words, if not his father's restraint."

"He has his mother's recklessness," Baelor said dryly. "Which is why he needs the discipline of a proper knight. My good brother will make a warrior of him, or die trying."

"Matarys is a good lad," Valarr said. He had leaned back in his chair, his posture easy, his wine glass dangling from his fingers. "A bit too fond of brawling and drinking and chasing servant girls, but his heart is in the right place. Usually."

"When he can find it," Baelor added, and the table shared a quiet laugh.

You listened to them talk about Matarys and felt something strange settle in your chest. It took you a moment to recognize it. Longing.

This was a family. A real family, with inside jokes and shared memories and the easy affection of people who had known each other for decades and loved each other anyway. They teased and laughed and argued about trivial things and through it all, there was no cruelty and then you remembered: you were not a Targaryen. You were a Blackfyre. This family had destroyed yours. This warmth was not for you. This belonging was an illusion, a pretty lie told over roast duck and Dornish wine.

But it was such a pretty lie. And for one evening, you let yourself believe it.

When the supper ended, Valarr escorted you back to his chambers with his hand resting lightly on the small of your back. He was in good spirits, humming a tune you did not recognize, his earlier frustration with the council seemingly forgotten.

"That was not terrible," he said as he closed the door behind you. "My mother likes you. I can always tell."

"How?"

"She asked about your reading habits. My mother only asks about books when she approves of someone. If she disliked you, she would have spent the entire evening discussing embroidery."

You thought of Jena's warm hands, her genuine smile, the way she had squeezed your fingers and said at last. It had felt real. It had felt like acceptance. And you did not know what to do with that.

"Your parents are… not what I expected," you said carefully.

Valarr turned to look at you, his mismatched eyes glinting in the firelight. "What did you expect?"

Coldness. Cruelty. The same poison that drips from every other soul in this wretched castle. But you could not say that. Not to him. Not when he was looking at you with that soft, almost tender expression.

"I do not know," you said instead. "Something different."

He crossed the room and took your face in his hands, his thumbs brushing your cheekbones with that reverent tenderness that always made your heart ache with confusion. His touch was gentle. It was always gentle, even when it was demanding.

"My father may have opposed the marriage," he said quietly, "but he is not a fool. He can see your worth. Everyone can see your worth." He pressed a kiss to your forehead. "You are beautiful and clever and full of grace. How could they not love you?"

They do not love me, you thought. They tolerated me at a supper. That is not the same thing.

But you said nothing. You simply closed your eyes and let him hold you, and tried not to think about how much you had wanted that supper to be real.

—

It started three days later. You were in the gardens, enduring another afternoon of Lady Jeyne's poison-sweet company. The cherry blossoms had long since fallen, replaced by the first blooms of summer, roses in shades of crimson and gold, lavender that scented the air with its clean, sharp perfume. It should have been pleasant. It was not.

"I noticed His Grace was rather… attentive during supper last night night," Jeyne was saying, her voice pitched to carry to the guards who flanked the garden path. "One could hardly blame him, of course. You were practically spilling out of that bodice."

"You have such a keen eye for fashion," Alia added with a tinkling laugh. "Perhaps Her Grace can offer you some advice. Tyroshi styles are so… revealing, are they not? One can only imagine what the ladies of the Free Cities consider appropriate dinner attire."

You kept your eyes fixed on the roses. Your hands were clasped in front of you, your posture perfect, your face as blank as polished marble. You had learned to retreat into yourself during these moments, to find a small, quiet place deep inside where their words could not reach you. It was not always effective. But it was better than the alternative.

"You are too kind," you said, your voice flat and distant. "I am certain the ladies of Tyrosh would find Westerosi fashions equally fascinating."

Jeyne opened her mouth to deliver what was surely another perfectly aimed barb, but the words died on her lips. Her eyes fixed on something over your shoulder, and her expression shifted, surprise, then wariness, then the careful, calculated deference of a courtier who had spotted someone more powerful than herself.

"Prince Baelor," she said, dipping into a curtsy.

You turned. He was walking toward you along the garden path, his hands clasped behind his back, his stride unhurried and easy. He looked harmless. That was the first thought that crossed your mind. He looked like a man who had come to the gardens for a quiet stroll and happened upon you by accident.

"Lady Jeyne," he said, inclining his head. "Lady Alia. I trust you are enjoying the gardens?"

"Very much, my prince," Jeyne said. Her voice had lost all its venom, replaced by cloying deference. "Her Grace was just admiring the roses."

"Was she?" Baelor's gaze shifted to you, and his smile was warm and conspiratorial. "Then I must apologize for the interruption. But I find myself in need of Her Grace's company. A matter of some urgency, I am afraid."

Jeyne's eyes flickered between you and the Prince. You could see her mind working, trying to determine whether this was a genuine summons or something else. But Baelor's face revealed nothing but pleasant expectation.

"A matter of urgency?" Alia asked, her curiosity getting the better of her.

"Books," Baelor said gravely. "I have recently acquired a new history of the Rhoynish migration, and I am told Her Grace has an interest in such things. I was hoping she might offer her opinion on the author's treatment of Nymeria's conquest."

The silence that followed was almost comical. Jeyne and Alia stared at Baelor with the blank incomprehension of women who had never read a book that was not forced upon them by their septas. Mariene, hovering in the background as always, looked equally perplexed.

"I would be honored, my prince," you said, before your ladies could recover their wits. "Please, lead the way."

Baelor offered you his arm with the easy gallantry of a man who had been doing such things for decades. You took it, feeling the solid warmth of him through the fabric of his doublet, and let him guide you away from your ladies and their poison tongues.

"I hope you will forgive the deception," he said quietly, once you were out of earshot. "There is no new history of the Rhoynish migration. I simply observed that you seemed in need of rescue."

"I am certain I do not know what you mean, my prince."

"Of course you do not." His mismatched eyes sparkled with something that might have been amusement. "You were the picture of serene contentment. The roses could learn a thing or two from your composure."

You did not know how to respond to that. You settled for a small, noncommittal sound. Baelor led you along the garden path, past the rose bushes and the lavender beds, past a fountain that burbled cheerfully in the afternoon sun. The guards had fallen back to a respectful distance, and for the first time in what felt like weeks, you were not being watched by hostile eyes. You were not being prodded and pinched and picked apart. You were simply walking, the sun warm on your face, the air fragrant with the scent of flowers.

"I meant what I said about the book," Baelor said after a moment. "Not the Rhoynish history—I am afraid that was purely fictional. But I do have a rather extensive library, and I recall you mentioned an interest in reading during our supper. If you would like, I could lend you some volumes."

You hesitated. The library had been denied to you since your arrival. You had asked, once, if you might be permitted to borrow some books. The request had been passed to Valarr, who had said something. You could not remember the exact words. Only that the answer had been no.

"I would not wish to impose," you said carefully.

"It is no imposition. I have more books than I could possibly read in a lifetime. They sit on their shelves gathering dust, waiting for someone to appreciate them." He paused, and his voice softened. "And I think, perhaps, you might appreciate them."

There was something in his tone that made your throat tighten. It was not the possessive hunger you heard in Valarr's voice when he spoke to you. It was not the cold contempt of your ladies. It was something gentler. Something that felt almost like kindness.

"Thank you," you said. "I would like that."

Baelor smiled. It was a quiet smile, controlled and careful, but there was a warmth in it that seemed genuine. "Excellent. I will have some volumes sent to your chambers. Or…" He paused, as if considering something. "Perhaps you would prefer to select them yourself? The library can be overwhelming if you do not know where to look. I would be happy to guide you."

"Valarr said the library was not—" You stopped yourself. You had not meant to say that. The words had slipped out before you could catch them.

Baelor's expression did not change, but something flickered in his eyes. Something patient. Something knowing.

"My son can be protective," he said. "It is one of his less endearing qualities. But I am the Prince of Dragonstone, and the library is my domain. If I invite you to borrow some books, there is no one in this castle who would dare object." His arm tightened slightly under your hand. "Not even Valarr."

After that, Baelor Targaryen seemed to be everywhere. He would find you in the gardens when your ladies were being particularly cruel, and offer you his arm and a stroll among the flowers. He would appear in the corridor outside the sept when your prayers were finished, as if he had business nearby and had merely happened to cross your path. He would send a servant with a book and a note in his precise, elegant hand: I thought this might interest you. This chapter is particularly illuminating.

The books were always exactly what you wanted to read. Histories of Old Valyria. Chronicles of the conquest. They were the books you would have chosen for yourself, if you had been permitted to choose. It was as if he had reached into your mind and plucked out your interests one by one.

When Valarr was busy—which was often, now that the council had taken an interest in his harbor tariff proposal after all—Baelor was there. He did not crowd you. He did not demand your attention. He simply… waited. Available. Present. A steady, calming presence in a castle full of enemies.

You began to look forward to his company. It was a small thing at first, a flicker of relief when you saw him walking toward you along a corridor. Then it grew. You found yourself thinking of questions you might ask him, observations you might share, books you might discuss. You found yourself wondering what he would think of this or that, a passage you had read, a thought you had, a story you had heard.

He was so easy to talk to. He listened when you spoke. He remembered things you had told him days or weeks before. He asked after your comfort, your health, your peace of mind. He seemed genuinely interested in your thoughts and opinions. He treated you like a person rather than a possession.

One afternoon, you found yourself in the library with him. It had become a regular occurrence, an hour here, an hour there, whenever Valarr's duties took him away and your ladies could be safely evaded. Baelor had shown you the sections he thought you would enjoy, had pointed out rare volumes and first editions, had even pulled a heavy tome from a locked case and let you hold it in your hands. Septon Bareth's Unnatural History. A book so rare and so controversial that most copies had been burned centuries ago.

You were sitting by the window now, the afternoon light slanting across the pages of a history of the Rhoynish migration. Baelor sat across from you at the reading table, a stack of documents at his elbow that he had been neglecting in favor of a worn volume of Dornish poetry. The silence between you was comfortable, the kind of silence that did not demand to be filled.

"You were right about the chapter on Nymeria's landing," you said, not looking up from your book. "The author is unfairly dismissive of her tactics. He calls them desperate when they were clearly calculated."

"I told you." Baelor's voice was dry with satisfaction. "Mekon has never met a female leader he could not diminish. It is his great failing as a historian. His great failing as a man, perhaps."

"Perhaps I should write a rebuttal. 'A Lady's Defense of the Warrior Queen.' I am certain the Citadel would welcome it with open arms."

"They would burn it in the courtyard."

"Then I shall have to publish anonymously. Some masculine pseudonym. Archmaester… Gwayne."

Baelor chuckled. It was an undignified sound for a Prince of the realm, and it made the corner of your mouth twitch upward despite yourself. "Archmaester Gwayne. A fine choice. Very authoritative. No one would ever suspect a woman."

"Precisely." You turned a page, though you had not finished reading it. "I will dedicate it to my patron, the Prince of Dragonstone, without whom I would never have had access to the texts necessary to prove Mekon wrong."

"Your patron. I like that." He leaned back in his chair, his mismatched eyes gleaming with amusement. "Does that make you my protégée?"

"I believe it does. I hope you take your responsibilities seriously. I am told the education of a Blackfyre is a delicate undertaking."

"Exceedingly delicate. One wrong book and you might develop opinions. We cannot have that."

You laughed. It was a small sound, barely more than a breath, but it was real. You could not remember the last time you had laughed in this castle. The last time you had felt light enough to try. Baelor did not remark on it. He simply smiled and returned his attention to his poetry, giving you space to recover yourself without comment or scrutiny. That was something you had come to appreciate about him, he knew when to push and when to withdraw, when to speak and when to let silence do its work. He did not demand your emotions the way Valarr did, dissecting every reaction, claiming every pleasure. He simply let you be.

"You know," he said after a while, "my son is going to notice that you spend more time in my library than his chambers."

"He is busy with the council. His harbor proposal has been approved for further review. Apparently Lord Celtigar was impressed."

"I heard." Baelor's voice was carefully neutral. "I was the one who suggested Celtigar take a second look. He can be stubborn, but he respects thorough work. Valarr's proposal was thorough."

You looked up from your book. "You did that?"

"I mentioned it in passing. Nothing more." He turned a page of his poetry with studied casualness. "My son and I do not always agree. But I have never doubted his intelligence. It seemed a waste for his work to be dismissed without proper consideration."

"Why?" you asked.

"Because he is my son." Baelor met your eyes, and there was something steady in his gaze. "Because I could not give him the Valyrian coloring he prayed for as a boy, or the place at the council table he wants now. But I could do this. So I did."

"You could tell him. He would want to know."

"No." Baelor shook his head. "He would resent it. He wants to succeed on his own merits, not because his father smoothed the path. And he did succeed on his own merits. The proposal was his. I simply… ensured it was seen by the right eyes." He paused, and his mouth quirked into a wry smile. "Parenting is a thankless occupation. You will understand one day, when you have children of your own."

The mention of children made something twist in your stomach. You thought of Valarr's nightly attentions, his insistence on spilling his seed inside you, his muttered hopes for an heir. You thought of what it would mean to carry his child. To be bound to him not just by marriage vows but by blood.

You pushed the thought aside.

"Same time tomorrow?" he asked.

"You assume I have nothing better to do."

"Do you?"

You thought of your ladies and their poison tongues. Of the cold stares in the corridors. Of the suffocating emptiness of Valarr's chambers when he was not there to fill them with his presence.

"Not particularly," you admitted.

"Then I shall see you tomorrow." He opened the door for you with a small, almost paternal gesture. "Bring your rebuttal to Mekon. I expect at least three pages of scathing critique."

"I shall endeavor not to disappoint my patron."

"I have every confidence in you, Archmaester Gwayne."

You were still smiling when you reached Valarr's chambers. It was only later, lying in bed with his arm wrapped around your waist and his breath warm on your neck, that you realized how easy it had become. How natural. How much you looked forward to those hours in the library, those walks in the gardens, those moments of respite from the grinding weight of your existence.

Baelor Targaryen had become your refuge. And you did not stop to wonder why a man who had opposed your marriage so vehemently was now so eager for your company. You did not stop to wonder at all.

—

The sept was empty, as it always was at this hour. You knelt before the Stranger's altar, your knees aching against the cold stone, your hands clasped in a posture of devotion you no longer felt. The hooded figure gazed down at you with its carved, impassive face, offering neither judgment nor comfort. The Stranger did not pretend to care. That was why you preferred it.

Your prayers had grown less bloody in recent weeks. You still wished death upon Lady Jeyne and her poison tongue, upon the guards who looked through you like glass, upon the servants who let your fire die. But the prayers came less frequently now, and with less heat behind them. You had other things to occupy your mind. Books to read. Conversations to anticipate. A quiet library where the afternoon light fell golden across the pages and no one demanded anything of you.

You did not pray for Baelor's death anymore. You had stopped that weeks ago.

The footsteps behind you were familiar now. You did not flinch at the sound. You did not feel your heart seize with the fear that it might be Valarr, come to violate this last sanctuary. You simply remained where you were, your head bowed, your eyes closed, and waited for him to speak.

"I thought I might find you here."

Baelor's voice was quiet, respectful of the space. You heard him settle onto the kneeling bench beside you, his movements slow and careful. The scent of him reached you, parchment and ink and the faint, clean smell of soap. It was a familiar scent now. A comforting one.

"Your ladies are looking for you," he added. "Lady Jeyne seems particularly determined. I believe she has prepared a new gown for you to try on. Something in Targaryen red."

"She can wait." You opened your eyes but did not rise. "Let her search the entire castle. It will give her something to do besides sharpen her tongue."

"That was uncharitable."

"I am not feeling charitable."

"Good." There was a smile in his voice. "Charity is wasted on women like Jeyne. She would not recognize it if it bit her."

You turned your head to look at him. He was close, closer than he usually sat in the sept, his shoulder nearly brushing yours as he knelt beside you. His mismatched eyes met yours, and something in his expression made your stomach tighten. You could not name it. It was not the patient warmth you had grown accustomed to.

"Have you been praying?" he asked.

"After a fashion."

"To which god?"

"The Stranger." You nodded toward the hooded figure before you. "The only one who does not pretend to answer."

Baelor followed your gaze, studying the altar with an expression you could not read. "Most people find the Stranger unsettling. They prefer the Mother, or the Maiden. Gods who offer comfort rather than silence."

"I have had enough of false comfort."

"Have you?" He turned back to you, and the sharp thing in his expression had softened into something that looked almost like concern. "I had hoped you might say otherwise. I had hoped you were finding some measure of peace here. In the castle. In your marriage."

The mention of your marriage made you look away. You fixed your eyes on the Stranger's hooded face, on the carved shadows that hid its features from view.

"Peace is not the same as survival," you said quietly. "I am surviving. That will have to be enough."

"It should not have to be enough." His voice was low, almost gentle. "You deserve more than survival. You deserve to be seen. To be valued. To be…"

He trailed off. The silence stretched, heavy with something unspoken.

"To be what?" you asked.

When he did not answer, you turned to look at him again. He was closer than before. Much closer. His mismatched eyes were fixed on your face with an intensity that made your breath catch. His hand was on the altar rail, inches from your own.

"To be wanted," he said softly. "By someone who understands what you are. What you could be." And then he leaned in and kissed you.

It was not a gentle kiss. It was not the reverent, worshipful press of lips that Valarr gave you when he was feeling tender. It was firm and deliberate and utterly assured, the kiss of a man who had been waiting a long time and had decided the wait was over. His hand came up to cup your jaw, his fingers warm against your skin, and for one frozen, terrible moment, you could not move.

Then the shock broke, and you wrenched yourself backward. Your spine hit the edge of the kneeling bench behind you. Your hand flew to your mouth, your fingers pressing against your lips as if you could erase the sensation of his touch. Your heart was pounding so hard you could feel it in your throat, in your temples, in the tips of your fingers.

"What—" Your voice came out as a croak. You swallowed and tried again. "What are you doing?"

Baelor had not moved. He remained kneeling before the Stranger's altar, his hand still raised where your face had been, his expression unreadable. But there was something in his eyes now, a flicker of surprise, quickly suppressed. As if he had expected a different reaction. As if he had been certain of it.

"I thought you might like it," he said. His voice was calm. Reasonable. The voice of a man discussing the weather. "I thought you might… want to."

"Want to?" You were on your feet now, backing away from him, your hands shaking at your sides. The cold stone of the sept floor bit into your feet, grounding you, reminding you that this was real. This was happening. "You thought I wanted—why would you think that? Why would you ever think that?"

"You have been spending a great deal of time with me." He rose slowly, his movements unhurried, his hands raised slightly as if to calm a spooked horse. "You sought my company. You confided in me. I thought…"

"You thought what?" Your voice was rising, echoing off the stone walls. The Seven looked down at you with their carved, impassive faces—the Father, the Mother, the Warrior, the Smith, the Maid, the Crone, the Stranger. All of them silent. All of them useless. "You thought that meant I wanted you to—that I would—"

"I thought we understood each other." His eyes narrowed slightly, the calm facade cracking just enough to reveal something harder beneath. "You are not happy in your marriage. Anyone can see that. My son does not see you as a person—he sees you as a prize. A possession. I thought you might welcome an alternative."

"An alternative?" The word tasted like bile in your mouth. "You are his father. You are my good father. There is no alternative. There is nothing—" Your voice broke. "There is nothing I want from you. Nothing like that. I never—I never gave you any indication—"

"Didn't you?"

The two words fell into the silence like stones into still water. Baelor's expression had changed now. The pleasant mask was gone. The patient warmth was gone. What remained was something cold and calculating, the face of a man who had been playing a game and had just realized his opponent had not been playing at all.

"I see," he said quietly. "I misjudged the situation."

"Misjudged—" You could not finish the sentence. Your whole body was trembling. You had trusted him. You had laughed with him. You had let him into the small, fragile space you had carved for yourself in this wretched castle, and he had—

"I will take my leave." Baelor straightened his doublet with a calm, unhurried motion. His composure had returned as quickly as it had slipped, the mask settling back into place. "I apologize for any… misunderstanding. It will not happen again."

He turned toward the door. His footsteps echoed on the stone, measured and unhurried, as if nothing had happened. As if he had not just shattered the only sanctuary you had left.

You opened your mouth to speak—to shout, to curse, to say something, anything—

And then you were being pushed. A hand slammed into your shoulder, spinning you around. You caught a glimpse of Baelor's face—his expression no longer calm or calculating but something else entirely, something raw and furious and utterly without restraint—before your back hit the small prayer table with a crack that drove the air from your lungs.

Pain lanced through your spine. The edge of the table bit into your hips. The candles on the Stranger's altar flickered wildly, casting long, twisting shadows across the stone walls. Baelor's hands were on your shoulders, pinning you against the table, his weight bearing down on you.

"You think you can refuse me?" His voice was a low, dangerous whisper, his face inches from yours, his mismatched eyes blazing with a fury you had never seen before. "You think you can spend weeks accepting my gifts, my company, my protection, and then play the scandalized innocent when I ask for something in return?"

"Get off me." The words came out hoarse and trembling. "Get off me now."

"You are a Blackfyre." His grip tightened on your shoulders, his fingers digging into the fabric of your gown. "You are nothing in this castle without my goodwill. Nothing. My son will tire of you eventually—he tires of everything—and when he does, who do you think will protect you? Who do you think will keep you from the Silent Sisters, or a cell beneath the keep?"

"Let go of me." Your voice was steadier now, but your heart was hammering against your ribs, your blood roaring in your ears. "Let go of me, or I will scream."

"You will not scream." His lips curved into a thin, humorless smile. "If you scream, who will come? The guards? They despise you. Your ladies? They would love to see you humiliated. My son?" He leaned closer, his breath hot against your ear. "My son will believe whatever I tell him. And I will tell him you threw yourself at me. That you begged me to take you from him. That you are exactly what everyone always said you were—a Blackfyre whore, faithless and grasping and always, always reaching for more than you deserve."

Your blood went cold. He was right. He was right, and you both knew it. If you screamed, if you told anyone what had happened, it would be your word against his. The Prince of Dragonstone against the Blackfyre bride. A man renowned for his calm wisdom against a woman everyone already believed was a traitor's daughter and a whore.

No one would believe you. No one had ever believed you.

"There." Baelor's grip loosened slightly. His voice softened, losing its fury and settling back into that calm, reasonable tone you had come to trust. "Now we understand each other."

He looked down at you, his eyes scanning your face with a mixture of hunger and absolute contempt. There was no warmth in his gaze, only the cold calculation of a man who knew exactly how much power he held over you. "You will not scream."

Before you could find your voice, Baelor reached down and grabbed the fabric of your skirts, ripping them upward with a violent jerk. The sound of tearing silk echoed through the silent sanctuary of the Seven. You struggled, your hands pushing against his chest, but he was far stronger, pinning your wrists above your head with a single hand, locking them against the stone.

He didn't bother with foreplay. He didn't care for your pleasure or your consent. With his free hand, he fumbled with his breeches, freeing his thick, rigid cock. It was heavy and pulsing, smelling of musk and aggression. He didn't use any lubrication; he didn't care if it hurt.

Baelor stepped between your thighs, forcing them wide apart. He gripped your hips, his fingers bruising your flesh, and drove himself forward. He slammed into you in one brutal, singular motion, his cock tearing through you and burying itself deep inside your pussy.

You let out a choked gasp, your back arching as the sudden, violent intrusion stretched you to the limit. It wasn't the practiced, rhythmic sex you had with Valarr; this was an invasion. Baelor groaned, a guttural sound of triumph, as he felt the tight heat of your walls clamping around him.

"Look at me," he commanded, his voice harsh.

You tried to turn your head away, but he squeezed your wrists tighter, forcing you to stare into those mismatched eyes so much like his sons. He began to fuck you with a savage intensity, his hips slamming against yours with a rhythmic, wet thud. Each thrust was deep and punishing, driving you further back against the wall, the rough stone scraping against your skin.

He wasn't looking for intimacy; he was marking you. He wanted you to feel every inch of him, to know that while you belonged to his son by law, you belonged to him by force. He grunted with every shove, his breath coming in ragged bursts against your neck.

"My son… is a boy," Baelor growled, his pace increasing, becoming more frantic and violent. "He doesn't know how to break a woman like you. But I do."

You sobbed, the sound muffled against the silence of the sept, your body shaking under the onslaught. You weren't a virgin, but the sheer brutality of his movements made you feel raw and exposed, Valarr never fucked you this way, not even when he was mad. He shifted his grip, hooking one of your legs over his hip to drive even deeper, his cock hitting your cervix with a jarring force that made your vision swim.

The friction grew intense, the heat between your bodies building into a fever pitch. Baelor’s movements became erratic, his thrusts shorter and harder, hammering into you as he neared his peak. He leaned in, his teeth sinking into your flesh as he let out a low, animalistic roar.

With one final, crushing thrust, Baelor stiffened. He buried himself as deep as he could go, his entire body shaking as he erupted inside you. You felt the hot, thick gush of his cum filling your pussy, flooding you with the evidence of his conquest.

He stayed there for a moment, panting, his forehead resting against yours, his mismatched eyes wide and glazed with lust. Then, as quickly as the storm had come, he pulled out. The wet sound of his cock sliding out of you felt like a final insult.

He stepped back, adjusting his clothes with a calm, methodical precision, leaving you slumped against the wall, your legs shaking and your ruined clothes clinging to your damp skin. He looked down at you, broken and leaking his seed, and a thin, cruel smile touched his lips.

"Now," he whispered. “Consider this a lesson in your place within this family.”

—

You did not remember walking back to your chamber. The corridors stretched and blurred around you, torchlight smearing into gold streaks against the stone. Your legs moved without your permission, carrying you past guards who did not look at you, past servants who pressed themselves against the walls to let you pass. You must have looked like a ghost. You felt like one. A ghost drifting through the Red Keep, still wearing the body of a woman who had been destroyed in a sept.

The door to Valarr's chambers was heavy beneath your hands. You pushed it open and stepped inside, and the warmth of the room hit you like a blow. The fire was burning high in the hearth. Someone had been tending it. Someone had been waiting for you.

You did not care."Bath," you said.

The word came out wrong. Hoarse. Brittle. The two servants who had been arranging the bed linens turned to look at you, their faces carefully blank, their eyes flickering over your disheveled appearance. Your hair was tangled. Your gown was wrinkled and torn at the hem.

They saw. They had to have seen. But they said nothing. "My lady?" one of them ventured.

"Hot water. Boiling. Now." Your voice cracked on the last word. You swallowed hard, trying to steady yourself. "Fill the tub. All of it. Hurry."

They moved, but not fast enough. Never fast enough. They shuffled toward the door with the unhurried pace of servants who had long ago learned that rushing only earned them more work, and something inside you snapped.

"FASTER!" The word tore from your throat like a blade. Both servants flinched. The younger one actually stumbled backward into the doorframe.

"I said boiling," you heard yourself say, and your voice was not your own. It was high and sharp and trembling with something that felt like hysteria. "If it is not scalding, I will have you both dismissed. I will have you thrown out of the castle. Do you understand me? Do you understand?"

They fled. The door closed behind them with a soft click, and you were alone.

Your hands were shaking. You looked down at them, at the fingers that had gripped Baelor's shoulders, that had pushed against his chest, that had clawed at the stone wall while he—while he— Your fingers found the laces of your gown. They were still tight from Jeyne's attentions, knotted and stubborn, and your trembling hands could not work them free. A sob rose in your throat. You choked it down. You pulled harder, and the laces snapped, and you tore the gown from your body with a violence that made the stitches groan.

The silk pooled at your feet. Your shift followed. Your smallclothes, torn and stained. You gathered them all in your arms, every scrap of fabric that had touched your skin while he was inside you, and you hurled them into the fire.

The flames leapt and crackled. The silk curled and blackened. The smell of burning fabric filled the chamber, acrid and sharp and strangely cleansing. You stood naked before the hearth, your skin prickling with the heat, and watched your clothes turn to ash.

It was not enough. It would never be enough. You could still feel him. Between your legs. On your skin. Inside you. His seed was drying on your thighs, sticky and warm, and you wanted to claw it out of you. You wanted to reach inside your own body and scrape away every place he had touched, every cell he had violated, every trace of his presence.

The servants returned with buckets of steaming water. They did not look at you. They kept their eyes fixed on the floor as they filled the copper tub, bucket after bucket, until the water rose nearly to the brim. Steam curled from the surface, thick and white, fogging the mirrors and softening the edges of the room.

"Get out," you said.

They left without a word. You climbed into the tub. The water was scalding, hot enough to make you gasp. You did not care. You lowered yourself into it inch by inch, letting the heat swallow you, letting it burn away the cold that had settled into your bones. Your legs. Your hips. Your stomach. Your breasts. Your shoulders. You sank until only your head remained above the surface.

And then you began to shake. It started in your hands, a fine tremor that spread up your arms and into your chest. Your teeth chattered despite the heat. Your breath came in short, ragged gasps. You wrapped your arms around yourself, clutching your shoulders, your nails digging into your own flesh, and you rocked forward and back in the scalding water like a child comforting herself in the dark.

He was kind to me.

The thought rose unbidden, and it broke something inside you.

He was kind to me. He gave me books. He walked with me in the gardens. He rescued me from Jeyne and Alia and their poison tongues. He remembered what I said. He listened when I spoke. He made me laugh. He made me feel safe. He was the only person in this wretched castle who treated me like a person, and I trusted him, I trusted him, I trusted him—

A sob tore from your throat, raw and ugly. You pressed your hand to your mouth, trying to stifle it, but another followed, and another, until you were weeping with your whole body, your shoulders heaving, your chest burning with the force of your grief.

Baelor had been different. Baelor had been kind. Baelor had made you believe that there was one person in this castle who did not want to use you, who did not want to break you, who simply wanted to sit with you in a quiet library and talk about books and history and the absurdities of Archmaester Mekun.

And it had all been a lie.

Every conversation. Every borrowed book. Every stroll through the gardens. Every gentle question and patient smile and carefully timed rescue. It had all been a performance to make you weak and vulnerable and ripe for the taking.

And you had fallen for it. You had fallen for it completely.

"Stupid," you whispered into the steam. Your voice was a wreck, hoarse and broken. "Stupid, stupid, stupid—"

You had thought you were so clever. You had thought you could navigate this court, survive this marriage, endure this life. You had thought you could tell friend from enemy, predator from protector. But you could not. You had let a wolf into your sanctuary dressed in sheep's clothing, and now—now there was nothing left.

Your body was still shaking. The water was growing cooler, the heat leaching away into the evening air. You should get out. You should dress. Valarr would be returning from the council soon, and he would expect to find you composed and waiting. He could not see you like this. He could not know what had happened. If he knew—if anyone knew—

If you scream, who will come? My son will believe whatever I tell him. And I will tell him you threw yourself at me.

Baelor's voice echoed in your mind, calm and reasonable and utterly without mercy. You pressed your hands over your ears, but it did not help. The voice was inside you now. It would always be inside you.

You stayed in the bath until the water went cold and your skin was wrinkled and raw. You stayed until your tears ran dry and your breathing steadied and the shaking subsided into a dull, hollow numbness that felt almost like peace.

And then you rose from the tub, dried yourself with slow, mechanical movements, and began to dress for your husband's return.

Because that was what you did now. That was what you were for.

—

That night, you dined alone.

The servants brought food to the chambers but you could not eat. You moved the food around your plate with your fork, rearranging the slices of meat into patterns that meant nothing, while the candles burned down and the fire crackled in the hearth and the silence pressed in on you from all sides.

Valarr had sent word. A servant had appeared at the door an hour before supper, a nervous boy who had delivered his message in a breathless rush: the council session had run late, there were matters that required his attention, he would not be able to join you for the evening meal. He would return as soon as he was able.

You had nodded and dismissed the boy and said nothing. What was there to say? Your husband was busy. Your husband was important. Your husband had a place at the council table now, thanks to his father's quiet intervention—the same father who had cornered you in the sept and forced himself inside you and threatened to destroy what little remained of your life if you dared to speak of it.

The servants cleared the dishes. The fire was stoked. The candles were replaced. And still Valarr did not come. You changed into your nightgown and you had not looked at yourself in the mirror as you put it on. You did not want to see your own face. You did not want to see the woman who had been so easily deceived.

Then you climbed into the bed and sat against the headboard, your knees drawn up to your chest, and you watched the door.

The hours crept by. The fire burned down to embers. The candles guttered and smoked. Outside the windows, the moon traced its slow path across the sky, and the Blackwater murmured its endless song against the cliffs below, and still you watched the door.

You were afraid. You watched the door and imagined it opening. Imagined him stepping through—not Valarr, but Baelor, with his calm eyes and his quiet smile and his hands that had held you down while he—

You closed your eyes. You opened them again. You kept watching the door.

If he came back, what would you do? Scream? Fight? There was no one to hear you. No one who would believe you. You had learned that lesson in the sept, carved into your body with bruising force. You were a Blackfyre. You were nothing. Your word meant less than the ashes of your burned gown.

So you sat in the darkness and watched the door and waited for something terrible to happen.

When the latch finally clicked, your heart stopped. The door swung open. A figure stepped through, silhouetted against the torchlight from the corridor. Broad shoulders. Dark hair. A familiar outline that made your stomach clench with equal parts relief and dread.

But it was Valarr. Only Valarr.

He closed the door behind him and stood there for a moment, his eyes adjusting to the dim light. He looked tired. His dark hair was disheveled, his doublet unbuttoned at the collar, his shoulders slumped with exhaustion. The council session had clearly been grueling. His mismatched eyes found you sitting upright in the bed, and his brow furrowed with confusion.

"You are still awake." He crossed to the bed, unfastening his doublet as he walked. "It is late. The hour of the wolf has come and gone."

"I know."

He stopped at the edge of the bed, looking down at you with an expression you could not quite read. His gaze flickered over your face, your posture, the way your fingers were gripping your knees. He was perceptive, your husband. More perceptive than you sometimes gave him credit for.

"Why are you still awake?" he asked.

"I was waiting for you."

The words came out before you could stop them. They hung in the air between you, fragile and honest, and you saw something shift in Valarr's expression. Surprise, perhaps. Or something softer.

"Why?" His voice was gentler now. He sat on the edge of the bed and began to pull off his boots. "You did not need to wait. I told you the council would run late."

"I could not sleep."

"You should have sent for a maester," he said. "A sleeping draught, at least."

"I did not want to trouble anyone."

"Trouble them. That is what they are for."

"I had a nightmare," you said. "Earlier. It was… unpleasant. I did not want to go back to sleep."

Valarr set his boots aside and turned to look at you. In the dim light of the dying fire, his mismatched eyes were soft with something that looked almost like concern. He reached out and brushed a strand of silver gold hair from your face, his fingers lingering on your cheek.

"What kind of nightmare?"

"A bad one." Your voice was barely a whisper. "I do not wish to speak of it."

He studied your face for a long moment. His thumb traced the line of your cheekbone, gentle and unhurried, and you leaned into the touch without meaning to. His hand was warm. Solid. Familiar. It was the hand of a man who had hurt you in his own ways, yes, but never like that. Never with the brutality that his father had shown you.

"Lie down," he said. "I will join you in a moment."

He finished undressing with the efficient movements of a man who was too tired to stand on ceremony. His doublet was draped over a chair. His breeches followed. He crossed to the washbasin and splashed water on his face, then dried himself with a cloth before climbing into the bed beside you.

The mattress shifted under his weight. The furs rustled as he settled against the pillows. And then his arm found your waist, pulling you against his side with that familiar, possessive grip that had once made you feel trapped and now—now—made you feel something closer to anchored.

You lay there in the darkness, your head resting on his chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart. He was warm. He was solid. He was here. And Baelor was not.

"Valarr?"

"Mm." His voice was drowsy. He was already half-asleep.

"Can you hold me?"

He went still for a moment. Then his arm tightened around your waist, pulling you closer against his body. His other hand came up to stroke your hair, slow and rhythmic, his fingers carding through the silver-gold strands with a tenderness that made your throat ache.

"Of course," he murmured against your hair. "I will always hold you when you ask."

You closed your eyes. The tears came then, silent and hot, sliding down your cheeks to soak into the fabric of his undershirt. You did not make a sound. You had learned long ago to cry without noise, to swallow your grief and your fear and your rage until they became a hard, cold knot in your chest. But you could not stop the tears. They flowed from you like water from a broken dam, and Valarr held you through all of it.

He did not ask why you were crying. He did not demand explanations or details. He simply held you, his arms wrapped around you like iron bands, his lips pressing occasional kisses to the crown of your head.

"Whatever it was," he said quietly, "it was only a dream. You are safe here. You are with me."

You are safe here.

The words were a lie. You knew they were a lie. You had never been safe in this castle, not from the moment you arrived. And the man who held you now was part of the reason why—his obsession, his possession, his slow, methodical erosion of everything you had been before the war.

But he was not his father. He was not his father, and that mattered more than you had ever imagined it could.

"Thank you," you whispered.

He pressed a kiss to your forehead. "Sleep, sweet wife. I will be here when you wake."

You closed your eyes. The tears were still falling, but they were slower now, softer. The knot in your chest was still there, hard and cold and unyielding. But wrapped in Valarr's arms, held against the steady rhythm of his heart, you felt something you had not felt in weeks.

Not safe. Not truly. But something close to it.

You slept.

The file hit his lap. Ben looked down with the kind of flat, exhausted annoyance he had been wearing since he woke up in that obscene room high over the city. Homelander’s room. Homelander stood across from him bright-eyed. “Think about it again”, he had said. Then the file.

Ben almost told him to go fuck himself twice. His fingers were already closing around the folder to throw it. Then he saw the label. A name. Not yours when you were his wife. Not Mrs. anything. Not the name on the marriage license, or the bills, or the little card at the dry cleaner back when there had still been ordinary days. Your name. The one from before him.

Ben went still. The suite got very quiet.

Ben looked down at the folder again. SUBJECT STATUS: CRYOGENIC CONTAINMENT STABLE For one second his brain refused to understand the words in the right order. Then it did.

His thumb slipped under the edge and opened the file. The first page was a photograph. Black-and-white. Studio-lit. Clinical in a way that made his stomach turn. You were in your twenties in it. He knew that before the file told him, because he knew your face. Not the lined, careful face you might have worn if life had kept happening to you. Not the older version time should have made. This was you as you had been when he left you. Soft mouth, watchful eyes, hair set neatly back from your face, trying so hard in the picture to look composed that it hurt to see.

Twenty-seven. Frozen there. Eighty-five years gone and not a day on your face.

Ben stopped breathing. Below the photograph, line after line of text blurred and sharpened and blurred again.

Initial retrieval. Unauthorized domestic association with asset. Emotional leverage viability high. Compound V survivability unexpectedly successful. Long-term storage authorized. Pressure contingency. Pressure contingency. Pressure contingency.

His hand tightened on the page hard enough to crease it.

Across the room, Homelander lifted his glass and watched him with open interest. “She´s alive”.

Ben did not look up. The suite had narrowed to the file in his hands and the sound of blood rushing hot and violent in his ears.

There were more pages. Medical charts. Temperature logs. Monitoring summaries. A diagram of some buried facility with sectors blacked out in thick ink. One page clipped in later than the rest with a new date stamped at the top and a note: Subject remains non-public. Retention advised. Utility value may increase if Soldier Boy becomes noncompliant.

Ben stared at that line until the letters stopped being letters and became something else. Something with teeth.

He had thought leaving you had been the worst thing he ever did to you. Not because he had not done worse things to other people. He had. Plenty. Enough to wake sweating with names he never let himself say out loud. But leaving you, walking out of that little kitchen for good, letting Vought sand down whatever was left of Ben until Soldier Boy fit cleanly over the top, had always sat in him like rust. Hidden. Eating through from the inside.

And all that time… All that goddamn time… They had had you. Kept. Stored.

“I figured that might get your attention”.

Ben lifted his head then. Slowly. He had looked dangerous before. Hungover, heavy-eyed, broad across the shoulders even in borrowed clothes. Now he looked like something much older and uglier than danger.

Homelander’s expression flickered, just a little, delighted and cautious at once. “She was always there”, he said lightly, as if discussing an old account finally brought current. “Cute trick, really. Vought keeps all sorts of contingencies. You of all people should appreciate preparedness”.

Ben rose from the couch.

“So”, Homelander said. “Now that you understand the leverage, are you ready to be useful?”.

“You knew”.

Homelander tilted his head. “I know lots of things”.

“You knew”, Ben said again.

The file hung at his side, crushed under his fingers now, your photograph bent where his grip had warped the paper.

Homelander gave a small shrug. “I knew enough”.

That was all it took. Ben crossed the room. He caught Homelander by the throat and hit him through the edge of the bar. Marble split. Bottles exploded and glass sprayed the room.

Homelander laughed. Even half-crushed under Soldier Boy’s hand, he laughed. “Ah”, he choked out, eyes bright and mad, “there he is”.

Ben hit him again. This time the sound was wetter. Angrier. A lamp went over. A slab of black stone cracked down the middle.

Homelander’s smile came back bloodied. “She’s alive”, he rasped. “That’s the important part”.

Ben’s fingers tightened at his throat. For one terrible second, he really might have killed him. Then Homelander, even pinned and bruised and half-grinning through blood, said the one thing that cut clean through the red: “You kill me, you lose her”.

Ben froze. Homelander smiled wider despite the hand at his neck.

Ben looked at him and saw, all at once, every Vought man he had ever hated. The executives with polished shoes. The handlers. The doctors. The ones who turned human beings into concepts and concepts into assets and assets into pressure. Homelander was just the latest model, shinier, but made from the same rotten blueprint.

Very slowly, Ben let him go.

Homelander staggered back, still smiling because he could not help himself. Because getting under skin was the only intimacy he understood.

Ben wiped his bleeding palm on his shirt and looked down at the file again. Your picture stared back up at him. Twenty-seven. A whole life stolen and held in a drawer.

His chest went tight in a way no fight had ever managed. Not even Russia. Not the furnace. Not the years in a tube under a foreign sky while his own name turned into a mascot and then a joke and then a warning. You.

He thought of the side yard between your houses. Your mittened fingers tucked into his elbow. Your voice, soft and bossy at sixteen: Hold still. The little kitchen table where you had cleaned blood off his face while his father’s voice still rang in his ears, calling him a fucking disappointment. The way you had looked at him when nobody else looked at him like there was anything worth saving.

He had left you. That was his sin.

But this… This was something else.

They had taken what he left behind and turned it into inventory.

Homelander straightened. “Get Butcher for me”, he said, as if the room were not half-destroyed around them. “And I show you where she its”.

-

The air bit cold enough to sting the back of your throat just breathing it. Frost filmed the pipes overhead. Ben stood in the middle of the bunker, bloody from wrist to collar. Some of it was his. Most of it wasn’t. Bodies lay where they had fallen. One by the far control panel, neck bent wrong over a spill of shattered glass. Two by the blast door, rifles kicked out of reach. One half-slumped against the wall. Another near the alarm box, hand frozen inches from the switch he never got to hit in time. Ben had not made much noise doing it. That was what frightened him now, standing there with the little remote in his hand and your tank in front of him. Not the killing itself. He had done too much of that for it to feel new. Not even the speed of it. It was how easy it had been. How clean. How Soldier Boy it had felt.

The remote was small in his palm. One red button under a flip-cover guard. Ridiculous, really, that after eighty-five years, after Russia and fire and Butcher and Homelander and all the rot in between, the distance between him and you had come down to one ugly little button.

He stared at it. Did not move. In front of him, behind a curved wall of glass gone pearly with cold, you stood upright in the tank. Frozen. Perfectly still. Twenty-seven. That was the first thing that had wrecked him when Homelander shoved the file at him in the tower. Not the reports. Not the coordinates. Not even the word cryogenic typed in neat black letters above your name. Your age. Twenty-seven.

He had been old enough to rot and be reborn and rot again. The world had gone through wars and presidents and hairstyles and goddamn moons and computers in people’s pockets.

He had been buried under Russian steel while his own legend got sold by men who had never once had to dirty their own hands. And you were still twenty-seven. Still wearing the same face he remembered from the last years before he left. Softer in rest than in life, maybe, because whatever fear or sorrow Vought had dragged through you hadn’t made it through the ice.

Your hair was pinned back from your face by frost and suspension gel and machinery he did not understand. Your lashes lay dark against your skin. Your mouth looked pale and closed and familiar enough to stop his heart. You looked exactly like all those years ago.

And the second he saw you, all the time between then and now collapsed so violently it left him dizzy. The little house. The kitchen table. Rain on the windows. Your pink satin nightgown. Your face wet with tears while he stood in the doorway and let Soldier Boy win.

He had imagined finding you a hundred different ways on the drive out here. Older. Dead. Bones in a box. A grave with some false name. He had not imagined this.

You looked like you could open your eyes any second and ask why he was home so late.

Ben’s fingers tightened around the remote until the casing creaked. He was afraid. Afraid of pressing a button. B ecause once he did, it became real. Once he did, there would be no more distance between the idea of you and your body in front of him.

You might wake and not know him. You might wake and know him too well. You might look at him and see only the man who left. Worse—you might not wake right. Vought had held you for eighty-five years like inventory. Shot you full of V and put you under glass. Used your name as leverage in files. He had no reason to trust anything about what came next.

“Jesus Christ”. He stepped closer to the tank. Up close, he could see where frost feathered over the seams of the metal braces holding the glass in place. Tubes snaked from the back of the chamber into your arms, your spine, the base of your skull. Machines had been kissing you longer than he had. The thought made something black roll over in him.

He lifted his free hand and pressed his palm to the glass. The cold bit instantly through blood and skin. Behind the fogged surface, your face stayed calm. Untouched by any of it. Soft in that old familiar way that used to wreck him even when he was a boy with split knuckles and too much pride. You had always looked gentler than the world deserved.

He bowed his head once, just enough that his forehead nearly hit the glass. Blood from his hand smeared across the frost in a rust-dark streak. For a second, all he could see was another kind of red. Lipstick on a collar. Then your tears. Your wedding band glinting while you tried not to cry in front of him. All the little moments he had buried under war and whiskey and Vought work and rage because digging them up would mean admitting what he had done with his own hands.

His thumb found the edge of the safety cover on the remote and flipped it open. Ben’s heartbeat kicked hard. Then something inside him, something older than Soldier Boy and uglier than pride and maybe closer to Ben than he had been in years, made the decision for him. He pressed the button.

For one horrible second, nothing happened. Then the chamber gave a low hydraulic thud. Lights changed from green to amber. Somewhere under the floor, machinery woke in layers—pumps, vents, hissing valves releasing pressure in precise bursts.

Frost shivered loose from the tank seams and fell in powdery sheets. The hum deepened into a mechanical roar.

Ben took one step back, then stopped himself and stood his ground.

Amber turned to white. Warm fluid began draining in spirals around your body, slipping down the inside of the glass in pale pink streaks where blood had mixed into the solution somewhere in the tubing.

Numbers on the monitor started changing faster now. You did not move. Ben’s throat tightened until breathing hurt. “Come on”, he muttered.

The glass clouded, then cleared in patches. Your skin changed color by degrees, from the waxy stillness of preserved flesh to something nearer living. Frost melted from your lashes. One lock of hair slipped loose against your temple. The line of your mouth softened as the cold released it. Still nothing.

Ben stepped closer again without realizing he had. The chamber hissed. A latch somewhere deep in the mechanism disengaged with a heavy clunk. Then your fingers twitched. So small he might have imagined it in another life. Not now. Ben stopped breathing altogether.

A second later your hand jerked again, this time harder, tendons pulling under your skin. Your chest gave a shallow, ragged hitch as if your body had forgotten the shape of breath and was trying to relearn it by force.

The front seal cracked with a metallic snap. Ben was moving before the door had fully opened. It swung out in a gust of freezing vapor, and you pitched forward with the dead weight of someone waking into gravity after a century. Tubes tore free. Glassy fluid spilled over the lip of the tank onto the floor. Your knees buckled instantly. Ben caught you.

Your body convulsed against him. Then you coughed. Ben looked down and saw the tube shifting at the back of your throat. “Shit”. He dropped to one knee in the spill of coolant and freezing fluid, one arm locked behind your shoulders to keep you upright. The other hand hovered for a second over the tubing, his fingers slick with blood and condensation.

You gagged again, harder this time. “Easy”, he said, though his own voice was shot through with something dangerously close to panic. “Easy, sweetheart, I got it”. He had no idea if he did.

He slid two fingers carefully to the base of the tube, trying to ignore how unnatural it looked disappearing past your lips, trying to ignore the old terror that came whenever your body was involved and his hands had to do something delicate.

His touch, for once, was painstakingly light. Your throat worked around the plastic. Another cough tore through you. Ben pulled. The moment it cleared your mouth you folded forward with a choking gasp. Your forehead knocked weakly against his collarbone. Cold fluid soaked through the front of his shirt where you leaned against him. You kept coughing. Your whole body shook with it.

“Breathe”, he said, low and rough. “Come on. There you go”.

There were wires everywhere. Thin sensor leads plastered to your skin. Adhesive pads at your icollarbone, your ribs, your temples. A cluster of ports and lines trailed from your back and arms and disappeared into the ruined chamber behind you. The monitor to the side was beeping too fast now, numbers climbing. Ben glanced at it once. He didn’t know what most of it meant. But he knew the sound of a heart trying to decide whether it belonged in a living body again. Fast. Wrong. Then skipping. Then racing.

His jaw tightened. “C’mon”, he muttered, more fiercely now. “Don’t do this”.

He reached for the first wire at your chest and peeled it back with maddening care. Then another. Then another. The adhesive came loose with soft wet sounds against your skin. His fingers shook once when one of the leads snagged in your hair and you flinched faintly even half-conscious. “Sorry”, he said instantly. The word left his mouth before he could stop it. He stared at your face after saying it, as if even now some part of him expected you to open your eyes just to tell him it was too late for apologies. But your eyes stayed shut. Your mouth was parted, drawing in broken little breaths that. Every now and then another cough shuddered through you, weaker than the one before.

Ben stripped the last wire from your throat and shoulder, then found more at your wrists. At the inside of your elbows. At the base of your neck. Whoever had put you in there had instrumented every inch of you like they were trying to measure a miracle and own it.

He tore the leads free one by one. The monitor screamed once before the rhythm smoothed. Still too quick and shallow. But steadier. Ben went still long enough to listen. And there was your heartbeat. Fast. Frightened… Human.

He frowned and looked toward the monitor again. That made no sense. They had pumped you full of V. He knew that from the file, from the notes. He had come down here half-prepared to find something else in the tank. Some glowing-eyed Vought experiment wearing your face. Some twisted answer to a question nobody should have asked.

But your heart didn’t sound like his. Didn’t sound like Homelander’s, his own or any of the monsters and mascots he had spent too much of his life around. It sounded breakable. Human.

Your breathing hitched again and your eyelids fluttered.

Ben’s pulse hammered. He had faced gunfire with less dread. He could fight. Kill. Blow through steel doors. March into a bunker alone and paint the walls with guards and not blink. But waiting for your eyes to open… that nearly undid him.

Because now there was nothing between you. Now it was just you waking up. And him. The man who left. The husband who broke your heart before strangers finished the job. The one who had not come back in time. Not in 1970. Not in 1980. Not in any of the years after that.

The one who had let himself become Soldier Boy so completely that the company had thought the only way to control him was to freeze the last soft part of his old life and keep it in storage.

Ben sat back on his heels in the freezing slush and watched your face with the kind of terrible focus that made everything else disappear. A dozen possibilities chased each other through his head, none of them good. You might wake confused. You might wake screaming. You might wake and remember only the worst of him. You might wake and hate him on sight. You had every right.

That last thought lodged in him hardest.

Did you still hate him? Worse—had the hatred had eighty-five years to sharpen somewhere inside whatever dreaming half-life Vought had trapped you in? Or had the ice kept you right at the moment of your ruin, your grief as fresh as blood under skin?

Ben rubbed a hand once over his mouth and came away with red still drying there from someone else. He looked down at it with sudden disgust and wiped it on the concrete.

Your heartbeat jumped again. His attention snapped back to you instantly. “Hey”, he said. “Stay with me”.

Your fingers closed weakly around two of his without any strength in them at all. The contact hit him so hard it almost made him bow forward.

There you were. Cold. Half-conscious. Newly dragged from eighty-five years of dark. And still, by some reflex too old for either of you to kill, your hand had reached.

Ben swallowed hard enough it hurt. “I know”, he said softly, though you had not spoken. “I know”.

He didn’t know what he meant by it. That he knew you were frightened? That he knew he shouldn’t be the one you woke up to? That he knew exactly what kind of man he had been the last time you saw him properly and how impossible it was to ask for anything gentler from this moment? Maybe all of it.

Your breathing steadied a little more. Still shaky. Still too quick. But less torn-up on the way in. Less like drowning.

The lights buzzed overhead. Down the corridor, a distant alarm warbled and cut out, maybe killed by the same broken circuits that had left this section half running on backup. Cold fog curled low around the empty chamber. Corpses stared at the ceiling in silence. And in the middle of all of it, Soldier Boy knelt on a concrete floor holding your hand like it was the only thing in the world he couldn’t afford to break.

Your lashes trembled again. This time your eyes opened halfway. Blurred. Unfocused. They moved over the room in fragments—white light, concrete, the silver of the blankets around you, the dark shape of him kneeling in front of you. Your brow drew faintly, confusion coming first. Then discomfort. Then the weak animal fear of waking somewhere wrong.

Ben saw the exact second your gaze snagged on his face and tried to make sense of it.

He was older. The face was still Ben’s. The damage wasn’t.

Recognition came slowly and painfully in pieces. Your lips parted. No sound at first.

Ben’s chest went tight. “Don’t push it”, he said, instinctively rough, then caught himself and lowered his voice. “You don’t gotta—”.

Your mouth worked again. This time a thread of breath shaped itself into a word so faint he almost thought he imagined it. “Ben…?”. There was no hate in your voice. Not yet. Not understanding either. Just stunned, impossible recognition.

His eyes closed for one beat. When he opened them again, something naked had slipped through the cracks in his face before he could stop it. “Yeah”, he said. “It’s me”.

Your gaze held on him, still struggling to focus, still dragged under by cold and waking and the sheer wrongness of the room. He could see your mind trying to fit him somewhere it understood and failing. The last Ben you knew should have been twenty-something and standing in a little house with his shadow too long on the wall. Not this.

Your fingers tightened weakly around his. Then your gaze dropped to the blood on him. To the bodies beyond. Back to the tank. Confusion turned to fear in a quick, bright flare. Ben felt it like a knife. “No”, he said at once, too fast. “No, easy. You’re okay”.

That was a lie, and both of them knew it. But he could not bear the look in your eyes when it landed on the room.

He shifted closer, slowly enough to give you time to recoil if you wanted to. You tensed anyway. Only a little. Only instinct. Still enough. Ben stopped right there. His throat worked once. “I know”. The words were almost to himself. He loosened his hand under yours, giving you the room to let go if that was what you wanted. His other hand stayed braced on the concrete beside your hip.

“You were in there”, he said quietly, glancing toward the tank. “They had you under. Long time”. His mouth tightened. “I got you out”.

Your eyes flicked to the tank again, then back to him. Your voice, when it came, was no more than a scrape. “How…?”.

Ben let out a breath through his nose. How did one answer that? How did one bridge war and Vought and Homelander and files and eighty-five years buried under concrete and ice? He chose the only part that mattered first. “I found you”.

Your lashes fluttered. Confusion still clouded everything. “You left”, you whispered. The words were so weak they should not have had any force at all. They hit him like a bullet. Ben went motionless. Of course. Of course that was the first clear thing. Not the bunker. Not the blood. Not the impossible machinery. Him leaving. The door. The kitchen table. The keys.

Your mind had come back through ice and nightmare and whatever half-life Vought had forced on you, and the first solid fact it reached for was the one that hurt most.

He looked at you and did not even try to defend himself. “Yeah”, he said.

Your face changed, not into anger exactly, because you were too weak yet for anything so hot. More like the old wound had opened before the rest of you had even finished waking.

Ben felt panic rise in him then. Helplessness. The kind he had always hated most.

Just then, your world tipped sideways.

One second you were looking at him and the next, everything in you simply gave out. Your fingers slipped from his. Your eyes rolled shut.

Ben caught you before your head hit the concrete. “Hey”. The word cracked out of him, sharp with fear.

He felt for your pulse before he even realized he was doing it, two fingers at the side of your throat, then lower when his hand shook too much to trust the first reading. Your heartbeat was still there. Fast, too thin, but there. Your breathing came shallow and uneven against the front of his shirt. You were alive. Just unconscious.

Ben closed his eyes for half a second and let the relief hit him hard enough to make his teeth grit. Then he wrapped the blankets tighter around you, slid one arm behind your back and the other beneath your knees, and lifted you with a care that would have looked unnatural on anybody who knew what his hands could do.

Your head fell against his chest. Damp hair brushed his throat.

He got out of the bunker before the next wave came. More alarms. More men. Maybe Vought cleanup. Maybe Homelander changing his mind.

He didn’t stay to find out.

The car crooked in the gravel behind the bunker entrance, engine still idling.

He laid you in the back seat of the car he’d taken from the last guard first, then stopped, swore under his breath, and moved you again.

“No”, he mumbled. Not back there. Not where he couldn’t hear every breath right beside him. So he settled you in the front instead, reclined the seat as far as it would go, belted you in with maddening care, then pulled both emergency blankets up to your chin before slamming the door and getting behind the wheel.

He took back roads first, then frontage roads, then some dark stretch of highway lined with shut gas stations and chain restaurants glowing in the distance. He didn’t know where he was going until he saw a motel sign.

The place sat off a quiet road outside town, the sort of motel people used when they didn’t want questions or company.

Ben carried you in through the side entrance of room twelve with the key still warm from the clerk’s hand.

Inside, the room was dim and ugly and blessedly quiet.

He set you down on the bed and for a second he just stood over you.

Your face was pale against the motel pillow. Your lips still had that bluish cast around the edges that scared the hell out of him. Coolant and thawed frost and fluid had soaked through everything. Blood, other people’s, maybe some yours, marked the silver blanket and his ruined jacket wrapped around your shoulders.

You looked small. Not fragile exactly. You had always hated that word. But small in a way the world had no business making you.

Ben turned on the bathroom light. Found washcloths, thin towels, a sealed little bar of soap. Ran the sink until water came hot enough to steam. He went back out with a wet towel and sat on the edge of the bed.

Then he hesitated.

Not because he hadn’t seen your body. Christ, he had. A thousand times, in better years and worse. In satin and cotton and nothing at all. In the narrow bed of your first house with summer heat making the sheets stick, in dark mornings before he left for work, in the rare soft pauses where he had once believed wanting and keeping were the same thing.

That was exactly why it hit him so hard now. Because all those memories came from a life before he broke the right to any of this.

Still, you were half-frozen and unconscious and shaking every now and then in little leftover aftershocks. He could not leave you soaked in chemicals and blood. So he did what needed doing. Carefully.

He cleaned you with warm water and the washcloth, rinsing fluid and blood from your arms, your shoulders, your legs, your throat. Wiped the residue of adhesive from your skin where the sensors had been. Smoothed damp hair away from your face with fingers that dwarfed your temple and yet somehow barely touched.

Every now and then he stopped just to listen. Heartbeat. Breathing. Human. Still there.

When you shivered hard enough to make your teeth knock together in your sleep, he stripped off the ruined top half of his suit without a second thought. Underneath, he had the long-sleeve undershirt Vought had built under the costume warm from his own skin. He pulled it over his head and for a second stood there in only his suit pants.

Then he dressed you in it.

That took longer than it should have. One limp arm at a time. Your head supported in the crook of his elbow while he eased the shirt down over you. The fabric swallowed you whole, hem falling to your thighs, sleeves past your wrists. His shirt on your body looked indecently intimate in a way that had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with history. He hated how much that undid him.

By the time he got you under the blankets, you were warmer than before. Not warm enough. But no longer ice. Ben sat beside you and stayed there.

-

At 2:07, you woke with a gasp that hurt all the way down. The room lurched into view in broken pieces. A yellow lamp with a stained shade. Floral curtains pulled almost shut. A ceiling painted the color of old nicotine. The stale smell of motel soap, dust and somebody else’s cigarettes soaked into the carpet long before you ever got here.

Your body felt wrong in every possible direction and for one wild second, you did not know where you were.

Then you tried to move and everything came back badly. The tank. The bunker. The blood.

Ben.

You pushed yourself up on instinct. Pain and dizziness hit at once. Your head swam. Your stomach turned over hard enough to make you press one hand against it. The blankets slid down your lap. Something warm and steady moved in the chair beside the bed.

“Don’t do that”. His voice came low and immediate. Awake already. Waiting.

You turned your head.

Ben sat in the chair by the bed with his elbows on his knees. He had no shirt on. Only those green superhero suit pants still clung to him. He looked tired enough to split. His hair was damp, pushed back from his face by impatient fingers. There was gray at his temples now, not the gray of age so much as damage that had decided to show itself there first. Faint scars cut across his chest and shoulder, old and pale. His eyes stayed fixed on you with the kind of concentration men used on bombs.

You realized then that what you were wearing was not yours. A dark long-sleeve shirt swallowed your body whole. It smelled like soap and something underneath it that was unmistakably him. Not cologne. Not city. Not the chemical glitter that had clung to him in the last years before he left…. Just Ben.

Your throat went tight.

He saw your gaze drop to the shirt. “You were freezing”, he said. The explanation came out rough, almost defensive, like he was bracing for accusation. “You had all that fluid shit on you”.

You tried to speak too quickly. Your voice came out scraped raw. “What—”. You stopped to swallow.

Ben was already reaching for the bottle on the nightstand. You took a sip and looked around the room again, slower this time. Cheap dresser. One door with a heavy chain lock. A purse-sized Gideon Bible on the nightstand. “This…”. Your voice failed. You tried again. “Where are we?”.

“Motel”, he said. His eyes did not leave your face. “Outside the city”. That answered almost nothing.

You licked dry lips and looked at him more carefully. Really looked. The last time you had seen him properly, he had still been young in a way that made sense. Dangerous maybe, yes. Mean, yes. Already turning into something… cruel. But still recognizably anchored to the world you knew.

This Ben was not that.

The face was the same underneath. The mouth. The brow. The shape of his jaw when he clenched it. But time—however it had touched him—had done it from the inside out. He looked like a man who had been lived through by too much. A man who had survived things badly.

Your eyes dropped to the green pants again. To the ridiculous costume piece in a room that might have existed nowhere in the world you remembered. Cold crept into you from somewhere deeper than your skin. “What year is it?”.

Ben went still. You saw the way his shoulders locked and the way his eyes changed. As if this had been the question he had been dreading most. When he answered, he did not soften it. “2026”.

You stared at him. The number meant nothing for a beat. Then too much. Your hand loosened around the bottle. “No”, you said.

Ben’s jaw tightened. “Yeah”.

“No”. You shook your head once, then regretted it instantly when the room tipped again. The clock on the nightstand glowed red. 2:08. That horrible little digital brightness alone looked wrong enough to make your chest pull tight. “That’s not…”. You swallowed. “That’s not funny”.

His face changed at that. Something like pain crossed it fast and was gone. “I’m not joking”.

You looked at the lamp. The clock. The cut of the curtains. The shape of the phone on the nightstand, plastic and smooth and alien compared to what memory expected. The air itself felt different. Colder in some mechanical way, flatter, less alive than the rooms you remembered.

You pressed your hand harder to your stomach. Eighty-five years. The number opened under your feet like a trapdoor.

Your mind reached for smaller things instead. Safer things. The last details it could still trust.

Rain on the kitchen windows. The tick of the clock above the stove. His keys on the table. The newspaper on the floor.

Your breath started coming too fast.

Ben heard it immediately. He pushed out of the chair before you could register the motion, then stopped himself halfway to the bed, hands open at his sides, as if remembering all at once that moving fast toward you was no longer neutral. “Hey”, he said, lower now. “Breathe”.

You looked at him and wanted to ask ten things at once.

Where had he been. What had they done to you. Why were you still twenty-seven. Why did he look the same and not the same. Who had dressed you. Why did the room smell like bleach and old heat.

Why, why, why.

Instead what came out was, “I was dead”.

“No”. The answer was immediate. Too sharp. Almost angry.

Ben dragged a hand over his mouth and forced his voice back down. “No. They had you under. Frozen”. His mouth twisted around the word, hating it. “Long time”.

Your eyes burned. “Who?”.

“Vought”. The name sat between you like acid.

You looked away. Of course. Of course it was them. Who else took people and turned them into property with a clean desk and a typed memo?

Your fingers curled into the blanket. “Why?”.

He laughed once through his nose. No humor in it. “For me”.

You turned back to him. He did not look away. “They kept you as leverage”, he said. “Pressure. In case I ever stepped out of line”.

You looked down at your own hands. Pale against dark fabric. A stranger’s motel light on skin that had not aged. The shirt sleeve hanging over your knuckles, his shirt, because there had been no time or right or choice left in anything. “For you”, you repeated.

Ben’s throat worked once. “Yeah”.

A hundred feelings moved through you at once, too tangled to separate—shock, fear, grief, humiliation so old it woke up instantly, and somewhere under all of it a raw little thread of anger that had somehow survived even the ice.

You laughed once, softly and without any joy in it. “That sounds about right”.

He flinched.

You had not meant to make him do that. Or maybe you had. You didn’t know. Your whole body felt like it belonged to someone else.

Silence settled.

Ben stayed standing where he was, not near enough to crowd you, not far enough to pretend he wasn’t waiting for every breath.

You looked at the motel door with the chain lock, then the window, then back at him. The movement was instinctive. Measuring exits. Safety. The habit felt new and old at the same time.

Ben noticed. “This place is clean”, he said. “I checked”.

You almost smiled at the phrasing. Almost. It died before it got there.

“Did you kill them?”.

Ben went very still. You already knew the answer. You had seen the blood on him in the bunker. The bodies. The way he carried violence now like a second skin. Still, some part of you needed to hear whether he would lie.

He didn’t. “Yes”.

You closed your eyes. When you opened them, he was still watching you with that unbearable focus. “They were keeping you in a tank”, he said, voice roughening. “I wasn’t gonna ask nicely”.

No. He wouldn’t have. That answer should have frightened you more than it did. Maybe because there was no room left for new kinds of fear yet. Only the old one, sitting between your ribs with his name on it.

You shifted under the blankets and the motion pulled a small, involuntary wince out of you. Ben caught it instantly. “What hurts?”.

You blinked at him. The question came so fast it sounded as though he had been waiting to ask it for hours. “Nothing”, you said automatically.

His expression said he didn’t believe you for a second. “Everything?”, he tried instead, and there was something almost grimly dry in the adjustment, something old-Ben enough to catch you off guard.

A tired, disbelieving breath escaped you. “Pretty much”.

That did something to his face. Softened wasn’t the word. Wounded maybe. Or maybe just made him look like a man listening to damage he could neither fix nor fight. He sat back down in the chair slowly. He leaned forward, forearms on his thighs, giving you less height to have to look up at. That seemed deliberate too. You watched him for a while.

“You were waiting for me to wake up”.

Ben looked at the floor for a second before answering. “Yeah”.

“How long?”.

He flicked a glance at the clock. “Couple hours”.

The absurdity of that hit you strangely. The world had moved nearly a century. Vought had stolen your life. You had woken in a motel wearing your estranged husband’s undershirt while he sat shirtless in superhero pants beside the bed like a sentry. And still some small, intimate truth survived in the middle of all that ruin: he had waited. You didn’t know what to do with that. Neither did he, by the look of him.

He was quiet for a long moment. Then he said, lower than before, “You can go back to sleep”.

You almost laughed. “Ben”, you whispered. “I woke up in 2026”.

His mouth flattened. “Yeah”.

“I don’t think I’m sleeping”.

No answer at first. Then, almost under his breath, “Fair enough”.

Around three, Ben started talking, because the silence had become its own kind of cruelty. He gave you the shortest version he knew how to give, which still wasn’t short, because his life after you had been one long chain of violence, bad choices, and men using one another like weapons.

He told you about Countess first. Not gently. Ben had never known how to make ugly truths pretty. He sat there half-turned in that ugly motel chair, forearms on his knees, looking at the carpet instead of you when he said, “Yeah. I loved her. In my way”.

The words hit low and hard. You kept your face still, but your fingers curled tighter in the blanket. He must have heard the change in your breathing, because his jaw tightened. For a second you thought he might take it back, soften it, say something to save you from the shape of it. He didn’t.

“She wasn’t you”, he said after a beat, rougher now. “Never was”.

That should not have helped. It did and didn’t, both at once.

Then came the rest. His team. The betrayal. Countess turning on him with the others. The Russians taking him. Decades in a lab, drugged and buried and cut open and studied. He told it flatly, like if he stripped the feeling out of it first, maybe neither of you would have to touch it.

You listened with your arms around yourself. Every now and then you asked a question, and every answer only seemed to make the world wider and colder.

Then Butcher. His guys. Homelander. Vought changing shape over the years without changing its soul. Companies swallowing countries. Supes becoming celebrities and products and idols and nightmares all at once. The world getting louder, faster, filthier, greedier. Men in suits still running everything, just with better technology and whiter teeth.

You sat there trying to imagine all of it and couldn’t.

Television everywhere. Phones without cords. Cars that barely made noise. People living half their lives inside screens.

And then, for some ungodly reason, Ben spent far too long explaining porn.

At first you thought you had misheard him.

Then you realized, with growing horror, that no, he was seriously trying to explain the scale of modern depravity through the existence of instant filth on demand, as if that were somehow one of the key pillars of civilization you needed updated on.

“Ben”, you said at last, appalled, while he sat there shirtless in his green suit pants talking in the calmest voice imaginable about how “there’s whole websites for every weird thing a person can think of”.

“What?”, he said, actually looking offended. “It’s relevant”.

“It is not relevant”.

“It tells you a lot about the culture”.

“It tells me people need church”.

That shut him up for half a second. Then one corner of his mouth twitched.

You saw it and hated that part of you still recognized that almost-smile. “This is funny to you?”, you asked.

“A little”.

“Benjamin”.

That made the smile vanish properly, because you only used his full name when you were genuinely scandalized, and apparently even after eighty-five years that still worked on him.

You straightened under the blankets as much as your weak body would allow and gave him, in your raw half-frozen voice in a cheap motel room in 2026, a tired, sincere lesson about morality, modesty, Christian decency and the collapse of civilization.

Ben sat there and took it. Mostly because he looked too tired to fight. Partly, maybe, because hearing you sound like yourself again, even lecturing him, did something to his face he could not hide fast enough.

When you were done, he rubbed a hand over his mouth and muttered, “You wake up after eighty-five years and your first real opinion is that everybody needs Jesus”.

“Yes”, you said. “Obviously”.

That got a breath of laughter out of him. Quiet. Brief. Gone almost immediately.

From here, Ben should have let it go there.

He should have taken the small, strange mercy of that moment. Your outrage, his almost-laugh, the fact that for half a second the room had felt less like a grave dug up and more like two people who once knew how to talk.

But Ben was still Ben. Which meant the second the air got almost manageable, he ruined it.

He leaned back in the chair, scrubbed a hand over his jaw, and said, with the kind of false casualness that was never a good sign, “You should probably hear about Herogasm from me too”.

You blinked. “What”.

His eyes flicked to you, then away. “It’s… a thing”.

“A thing”, you repeated.

“Yeah”.

The way he said it made your stomach drop before you even understood why. You stared at him. “Benjamin”. That full name again. Sharper this time.

He shifted in the chair, suddenly looking like he knew he’d stepped wrong and had decided, in typical fashion, to keep walking anyway. “Look, I’m telling you now because if you find out some other way later, it’ll be worse”.

You sat up straighter despite the ache in your body. “Find out what”.

Ben exhaled through his nose. “It’s this yearly—”. He made a vague motion with one hand. “Supes-only event. Vought pretends it doesn’t know about it. Everybody knows about it”.

You kept staring.

His mouth flattened. “Basically a giant degenerate free-for-all”.

Your mouth fell open. For one full second, you could not even form words. “A what?”.

That won you the smallest twitch at the corner of his mouth, which only made your horror worse. “A giant degenerate free-for-all”, he repeated, less flippant this time, as if he knew very well how it sounded and had accepted that there was no better version.

You looked around wildly as though the motel room itself might confirm you had finally lost your mind. Then your eyes snapped back to him. “And you”, you said, each word distinct with disbelief, “were involved”.

Ben had the nerve to look almost rueful. “I kind of started it”.

You made a sound so scandalized it barely qualified as language. Then you grabbed the nearest pillow and threw it at him. Not hard. You were too weak for hard. But with all the outrage and heartbreak your body could muster at four in the morning in a motel in 2026.

The pillow hit him square in the face. Ben caught it a beat too late and let it fall into his lap.

For one stunned second, he looked at you over the top of it like he couldn’t quite believe you’d done that. Then, because he was exhausted and half-broken and still somehow capable of being amused at exactly the wrong moment, he let out a quiet huff of laughter.

You pointed at him from under the blankets, appalled. “Do not laugh”.

“I’m not laughing”.

“You are”.

“A little”.

“Ben”.

That cut it off again. He dropped the pillow to the floor and held up both hands in surrender, though there was still a trace of something almost warm in his face. “All right. All right”.

You stared at him in open horror. “A yearly—”, you broke off, unable to even repeat it properly. “With other people”.

He rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah”.

Your cheeks felt hot now, which was ridiculous after everything. After tanks and bunkers and eighty-five years and blood and Vought and the end of the world as you knew it. And yet this—this obscene, careless, public filth attached to the man you had married in a church while wearing white gloves and trembling because you loved him so much—this was somehow what undid the last of your composure.

“You are disgusting”, you whispered.

Ben took that one. Didn’t argue. Didn’t posture. Just sat there in the chair, shirtless, looking more tired than offended. “It was a long time ago”, he said after a beat.

“That is not helping”.

“I know”.

“And you thought I needed to know this now?”.

“Yes”.

“Why?”.

He looked at you then and whatever joking edge had been there faded. “Because if you hear it from someone else, it’ll sound worse”.

You gave him a stricken, incredulous look. “How could it possibly sound worse.”

His mouth opened. Closed. To his credit, he did not try to answer that.

The silence that followed trembled with the remains of your outrage. Your heart was beating too fast again, but for a different reason now—less fear than a kind of mortified heartbreak, the shame of imagining too much and wishing you could imagine none of it. Because beneath the scandal, beneath the appalled moral horror, there was something much simpler and more painful.

He was your husband.

He had been your only man. The only body you had ever made room for in your life. The only one you had ever known like that.

And now here he was, matter-of-factly admitting to entire arenas of dirt and excess and other people and acts so vulgar your mind kept swerving away from them before they fully formed.

Your eyes stung. You looked down at the blanket before he could see it, but too late. One tear slipped free and landed dark on the fabric pooled over your knees.

Ben went still. All the humor dropped out of him at once. “Ah, hell”, he said quietly.

You wiped at your face angrily.

“I didn’t mean—”.

“You never mean”, you said and your voice broke halfway through.

That shut him up.

You pressed the heel of your hand to your mouth, furious with yourself now. Furious that after everything he had already told you, this was what pushed tears out. Furious that your body still kept finding new ways to humiliate you in front of him.

But it wasn’t just Herogasm. It was Countess. It was the years. It was his body becoming public in every possible way while yours had been locked underground and forgotten. It was the obscene scale of all the lives he had lived without you. The filth of it only made the distance easier to picture.

Ben leaned forward in the chair, elbows on his knees again, hands hanging between them. He looked stricken in that angry, helpless way of his, like if there had been someone else in the room to hit, he’d have preferred that to watching you cry. “I was trying to tell you straight”, he said.

You laughed once through the tears, a soft miserable sound. “And that worked out beautifully”.

His eyes shut for half a second. “No”, he muttered. “Guess not”.

You kept your face turned down, breathing carefully, trying to stop the tears before they became more than a few. The blanket bunched under your fists.

After a moment, Ben said, lower now, “It didn’t mean anything”.

There were so many things wrong with that sentence you almost laughed again. Instead you looked up at him with wet eyes and said, “That might be the saddest part”.

You sat there for a long time without speaking.

The tears had mostly stopped, but your face still felt tight with them. Your throat ached. The room had gone dimmer in a way that only happened toward morning, when the lamp seemed too yellow and the window too pale and everything looked exhausted with you.

Ben watched you from the chair.

He was bad at silence on a good day. Silence left too much room for things he didn’t want to sit with. Guilt. Shame. Memory. The sight of you in his shirt with your eyes red from crying because of him.

So, after a few minutes of the kind of quiet that made the whole room feel held underwater, he tried again. Not with anything important. That was how you knew he was trying. He started telling you stupid little things about the new world. Not the big terrible ones this time. The ridiculous ones. The things that seemed to offend him personally on principle.

He told you about self-checkout machines that made customers do the cashier’s job for free. About electric scooters left all over sidewalks “like some kind of plague”. About men in suits paying nine dollars for coffee and thanking the barista like they’d just been handed medicine. About something called “influencers” and the look on your face at that word alone was so baffled that one corner of his mouth twitched before he could stop it.

“They just… influence what?”, you asked weakly.

“Everything, apparently”.

“That is not a job”.

“No”, he said. “It is not”.

Then he told you about juice cleanses and gender reveal explosions and people filming themselves crying on the internet for strangers, and for the first time all night a sound escaped you that wasn’t pain. A small, startled chuckle. It slipped out while your cheeks were still damp. The noise seemed to hit him almost as hard as your tears had. His face changed around it. Not into a smile exactly. Something quieter. More careful. As if hearing you sound like yourself, even in that tiny way, made him afraid to move too fast and lose it.

“There she is”, he murmured.

You wiped under one eye with the heel of your hand and gave him a tired look. “This world sounds ridiculous”.

“It is”.

“And immoral”.

“That too”.

“And badly dressed”.

That got a real laugh out of him. Low and brief and gone quickly, but real. “Yeah”, he said. “You’re gonna hate half of it on sight”.

“Only half?”.

“Maybe seventy percent”.

You gave a weak, watery breath that was almost another laugh.

The room loosened by one thread. Not fixed, but loosened.

Ben shifted forward a little in the chair, elbows on his knees. The lamplight caught the line of one scar down his shoulder. He looked, suddenly, less like a myth and more like a very tired man trying and failing not to scare the one person he most wanted near him.

His hand lifted. Slowly.

You saw what he meant to do before he did it. Just brush your arm, maybe, or smooth the blanket where it had bunched near your elbow. Your body flinched back anyway. Small. Quick. Pure reflex.

Ben froze and his hand stopped in midair. Then dropped. The look that crossed his face was so nakedly guilty it made something twist in your chest. He looked down at his own hand like it belonged to someone else. Then, very quietly, “I’m in control now”.

You didn’t answer right away.

His voice roughened. “I am”. Ben swallowed once and kept his eyes on the floor. “I know that doesn’t mean much coming from me”, he said. “But it’s true”. A beat passed. “I spent years in Russia with every goddamn thing in me chained down and measured. Then more years after trying not to level a room every time I got pissed”. His mouth tightened. “I know my own strength now”.

You watched him.

He finally looked up. “I would never hurt you by accident again”.

The sentence sat between you, heavy and imperfect. Not because you didn’t believe he meant it. Because “by accident” still left too many other kinds of hurt in the room. Maybe he knew that. Maybe that was why he looked away first.

Your voice came soft. “That wasn’t the only problem, Ben”.

His jaw flexed. “I know”.

And there was too much history in those two words to press any farther right then. So you didn’t. Instead you asked other things. Smaller things. What music sounded like now. Why everyone’s clothes looked so cheap in the brochures he found in the motel drawer. Why women wore running shoes with dresses. What a microwave was. Why cars all looked rounded.

Ben answered as best he could. Sometimes badly. Sometimes with surprising patience. Sometimes with that old dry streak of humor that had once caught you off guard in kitchens and backyards and school corridors before life had filed all its edges into weapons.

By the time the clock dragged toward six, your body had started losing the fight. The adrenaline had burned off. The shock had settled deeper. Every muscle in you felt borrowed and sore. Your eyelids turned heavy between one blink and the next. The room kept going a little soft at the edges no matter how hard you tried to keep your thoughts lined up.

Ben saw it before you said anything. “You’re done”, he said.

You frowned faintly. “I’m awake”.

“Barely”.

“I am”.

He gave you a look. Not mean. Not even amused, exactly. Just familiar in a way that hurt. “You look like you’re about to fall over sitting still”.

You wanted to argue. Instead you yawned. That made one side of his mouth twitch despite everything. “Yeah”, he muttered. “Thought so”.

He stood then, slowly enough not to startle you, and crossed to the lamp.

“Don’t”, you said, more quickly than you meant to. His hand paused over the switch. You looked toward the window, where the first weak gray of dawn was beginning to thin the dark. “Not all the way”.

Ben glanced back at you and seemed to understand. The lamp stayed on, just dimmed lower.

Then came the awkward part. The room had one bed.

You looked at the chair. At him. At the bed. Your tired brain could not quite make those pieces into a shape that felt sensible.

Ben solved it the way he solved most things: by making a decision and standing still inside it. “I’m not sleeping in that chair”, he said.

The bluntness of it would have annoyed you in any other life. Now you only looked at him through the fog of exhaustion. “I wasn’t asking you to”.

He studied your face for a second, like he was checking whether that was true or just politeness shaped like surrender. Maybe it was both. You were too tired to sort it out.

He came to the bed carefully, pulling the blanket aside on the far edge and lying down over the comforter first, not under it, as if to prove he wasn’t assuming anything. The mattress dipped with his weight. Your body noticed immediately. Tensed a little. Then, because you had nothing left in you for another flinch, slowly let go.

He kept his distance. An honest distance. A strip of mattress between you. One arm folded under his head, the other lying still on top of the blanket where you could see it.

You didn’t complain. Part of that was exhaustion. Part of it was that your thoughts had gone too loose and strange to fight anything except sleep by now. And part of it—though you hated admitting it, even to yourself—was older than all of this. Older than Vought and tanks and neon motel signs and digital clocks. Old training in your bones. A wife did not make a scene over a bed. A wife did not tell her husband no just because the world had ended and remade itself around them. Not when she was raised in the years you were. Not when love and obedience and habit had been braided together so early you could no longer always tell where one stopped and the next began.

Ben must have sensed some of that in the silence, because after a long beat he said into the dim room, “If you want me out of the bed, say it”.

You turned your head on the pillow and looked at him.

The offer sounded almost painful coming from him. Like it had cost him. You were too tired to unpack that too.

“I don’t”, you murmured.

It wasn’t the whole truth. It wasn’t a lie either.

He nodded once, eyes on the ceiling. “All right”.

———————————

A/N: Didn’t plan on posting it this soon, but… well, here we go because Lila can’t wait. Like always. The next one will probably be up in a week.

Also, just so you know, I had this one finished before season 5 aired 🙃 I wrote it after that teaser of Ben in Homelander’s suite came out. Kinda funny considering all the church and Jesus stuff… well, you’ll see in the following chapters 😭

Please let me know what you think.🥰 

-

he pulls out with a grunt, then collapses beside your spent body. your heart beats faster than usual from both the intensity of the orgasm and the little human/supe growing inside your womb. ben on the other hand, doesn’t have a drop of sweat on his sculpted body. part of you is envious, wishing you had the same stamina as he. he sits up, his head leaning against the headboard as he waits for you to catch your breath.

once you do, he comments, “i’m surprised you didn’t ask for me to go harder. you usually do.”

“i figured i need to get used to being handled more gently.”

“where’s the fun in that?”

“didn’t say it was.”

“so why the sudden change?”

you turn your head, and with a smile on your face, you confess, “i’m pregnant.”

he laughs at your words, a little too hard. “t-that’s a good one, doll.”

“i’m serious.”

“sure you are.”

“i am.”

his brows crease before his neck turns to finally look at you. his eyes search your face to detect a lie, but he can’t find any. you’re telling the truth, and that was a problem for him. he already had one kid he couldn’t stand; he didn’t need another. your hand finds its way to cradle your swelling belly, and his eyes follow. oh, fuck. he noticed you gaining weight, but figured you were just getting fat. there was no use in insulting you; he knew good pussy when he had it, and he wasn’t going to ruin that. but then you had to go and tell him you’re pregnant.

“you’re shitting me, right?”

“not at all.”

he almost looks unbothered when he turns away and says, “‘s alright. we gotta doctor here that’ll take that sucker right out and have you fuck-ready in a few days.”

“w-what?”

“you think you’re the only one who’s been impregnated by a supe? we have a doc on standby for these type of situations. vought doesn’t want another ryan.”

his words unsettle your tummy, forcing you to sit up. “ben, i’m not...i’m keeping it.”

“the hell you are.”

you’re mortified. you weren’t sure how this conversation would go, but this was something you didn’t plan for. sure, you figured he’d mention the abortion, maybe even push for it, but this...no, this was on another level. he isn’t giving you a choice.

“i-i’m not killing our baby!”

“relax, you won’t be. trained professionals will.”

hell, no. you hop out of bed and practically run to your discarded clothes, needing to re-dress as fast as possible so you can get the hell out of there.

“nuh uh. no. absolutely not. no one’s fucking touching me. not, you. not those fucking doctors—!”

he clutches your arm and forcefully pulls you away from your clothes. he tugs you into his chest, his nostrils flaring and his face hard as stone. you’ve never seen him angrier. his fingers dig into your fragile skin, and though you whimper, he doesn’t let up. tears flood your eyes from pain, but they fall once you hear his words:

“i’m afraid i must insist.”

“ben, please. just let me go, y-you don’t have to help—”

Currently, he was recalling a story to you of a Wilding encounter at the Wall a few months back before you'd married. "Full of deepwood, that one, fucking mors." he pauses, "Sorry, m'love. Don't mean to curse like that."

But you're staring at him through your vanity mirror like he has two heads.

"I didn't hurt your feelings, did I?" he asks, suddenly worried. "Swear to the Old Gods, I didn't mean it."

"No, I am not mad. I..." Your head tilts. "I just do not understand what you are saying."

He loved the rigidity in the way you spoke the Common Tongue. So precise in that little southern accent of yours. "Did I speak too fast for ya? I can slow down."

"I am sorry," you sigh. "I am trying to keep up, but you use words I do not know."

"Oh. What parts?"

"How can you be full of deep woods? That does not make sense to me."

He can't stop the way his lips quirk up, even as he actively tries to fight it. "Just an expression, sweet girl. He's... uh..." He thinks for a moment, trying to decide a good explanation for an expression he was so used to. "...full of shite."

He sees the panic that swirls in your eyes. "And what is that?"

"Fuck. Forget that one. Hogwash," he snaps, proud of thinking on the spot. "You know hogwash?"

There's no recognition in your mind. Just increased panic.

"Don't cry over this, m'love," he says, immediately moving towards you when he sees tears brimming in your eyes. "Look at me, eh?"

When you turn to look up at him, it's a pitiful sight. Your bottom lip trembles. He curses to himself, bending down next to your stool to be eye level with you. "'s alright. I'm bad at explaining things is all."

"I... I am so smart," you begin to cry. "If you could hear me in Valyrian--"

"I do hear you--"

"No, really hear me," you sob. "If you could hear me in Valyrian, I would not seem so... so s--"

"Do not finish that," he warns. He cups your cheek with practiced ease. "I know how intelligent you are. I have to explain a few words to you. Doesn't change anything."

You sniffle. "I just w-want to understand you."

"And I want to understand you," he comforts. "You slip back into that dragon language sometimes. Always when I so desperately want to know what you're saying."

"I... sometimes," you acknowledge. "But it is different."

"Teach me," he softens. "We can be even. I can be utterly lost in High Valyrian and you can then not understand a few words in the Common Tongue."

"That is not even at all."

He leans forward, laying a kiss to your forehead. "'s even enough, m'love. C'mon. Give me my first lesson."

You gawk. "W-What do you want to say?"

"Something easy. Like... I love you."

Finally. Something you were exceptional at. "Avy jorrāelan," you quickly say.

He blinks. "What?"

"Avy jorrāelan," you say again.

"Right. Again, but slower."

"Avy," you drag out.

His eyes are on your lips, trying to see how you form the sound. "Ah-ve," he tries.

"Avy," you correct.

His northern tongue keeps him from getting even close, but he tries nonetheless. "Ah-vy."

"Jorrāelan," you sound out.

He tries, even as your hands come to his mouth and help form the sound. It's a pathetic sound, but an effort all the same.

"Avy jorrāelan," you begin to smile.

"So beautiful when it comes from your lips. You're just beautiful to me."

Your cheek grow warm and you try to look away. He follows you, moving into your line of sight again. "The way you speak, m'love, it ignites something in me. Must be all that dragon speech."

You run a hand through his hair. "Lykiri (be calm)," you whisper, then hearing a sound close to a moan break through his lips.

"You're mors, you are," he warns lowly.

Your brows twitch, and he become amused. He leans in, lips brushing against yours. "Means you're fucking unbelievable."

Warm and hungry, his lips meet yours. Though your tongue is southern, and his stubbornly northern, they have no problem meeting in the other's mouth.

Now that you've taught him even that simple phrase, he recognizes it between your scattered Valyrian whines and moans the next time the two of you are making love. You claw at his shoulders, back arched, and it spills from your lips so softly, "Kessa, kessa. Avy jorrāelan. Sīr sȳz. (Yes, yes, I love you. So good.)"

He kisses the corner of your mouth. "Love you too, my girl." Your cunt clenches in delight at his praise.

He made a mental note to continue lessons if it pleased you that greatly.

.......................................................

There was only one true highlight to your days: Rickon Stark.

Cregan's son of 18 moons now, Rickon inherited his father's looks but none of his aloofness. He was a glad child, chubby and giggly. And though he was not your own, there was some motherly instinct that pulled you to him.

Thus, you spent your time avoiding Cregan. And instead, playing with little Rickon.

What you didn't know was that Cregan noticed it. Of course, he did. 

He would watch you two in doorways, from balconies, far enough to not interfere, but close enough to see the way your eyes twinkled with little Rickon. 

Your eyes didn't twinkle like that with him. 

… 

You were currently outside, the two of you bundled up, as you played in the snow. 

Rickon jumped happily, kicking with his pudgy legs. His coordination was still often tested. But with the snow so thick, it cushioned his falls. 

You scooped up a handful of the white powder and tossed in the air. He giggled as it fell around you. 

He always had this way of making your days happier just by being in them. 

It quickly turned to a game of tag. You ran around the snowy courtyard, trying to give the boy a chance. He'd spend half of his energy just trying to turn around in his heavy furs, then shriek to see you so close to catching him. When you caught him, you spun him around in your arms. You pretended to drop him once, making his face turn pink in happiness. 

When you set him down, it was his turn to chase you. You happily obliged, barely speed-walking to keep the distance manageable. You gave a mock sound of fright when he got too close. 

You saw a heavy snow pile nearby and plopped yourself into it. Rickon laughed and crawled up after you, wrapping his arms around your neck as if "catching you." The two of you were pink, from both laughing and the cold. 

"Lady Stark."

You sat up with true fright this time, wrapping an arm around Rickon in your lap to keep him steady. Your hair was covered in snow and you no doubt looked a fool. 

Lord Stark stood there, shoulders wide and back straight. His head tilted as he studied the two of you. "What are you doing out in the cold?"

The happiness that was warming you left, making you realize just how cold you were starting to get. "I… forgive me, my lord. Rickon merely wanted to play."

Rickon, immune to the tension between his two favorite people, trudged his way to Cregan, arms extended out. 

"There's my boy," he murmurs, already reaching down to pick him up. He does it with ease. 

You'd seen his biceps a few times now— you knew lifting a 10 kg toddler was no hardship for him.

"You just wanted to play?" He asked him, blue eyes searching. Rickon nodded happily, hands coming to his father's face. When the Warden got whatever answer he was looking for, he turned to you again. "Is your ladies' tea not soon?"

You shy, standing and trying to brush some of the snow from your cloak. "Another hour but yes."

"An hour?" His brows furrowed. "An hour and you are not in your chambers preparing?"

You sigh. It felt like half of your day was spent in your chambers trying to look presentable. "Once this snow has fallen from my cloak, that is presentable enough. Rickon asked me to play with him, and that was far more important."

Saying such a thing was foolish. Cregan might begin to believe that you wanted to neglect your duties as his Lady. But it did quite the opposite. 

He blinked, mind unsure, lips parted, as he tried to register the fact that you believe his child to be important.

It was a deep fear he'd never voiced. That a second wife may cause a rift with Rickon. 

But it seemed he was worried for naught. 

"It…" he stumbled over his words for a moment before hardening. "Get inside before you freeze."

You obeyed without resistance, not wanting to anger him anymore than you believed you already had. 

He cursed under his breath. He hated his own harshness sometimes. 

As Cregan trailed in far behind you, Rickon rambled about what he did outside. The Warden tried to pay attention to his son, but part of his mind was on his second wife and how you dropped everything just to entertainment his boy. 

…

That night, a servant comes to your bedchamber late, saying Cregan was calling on you. 

As he did occasionally. 

You gave a polite nod, dressing in your robe. After all, he was calling you just to do your marital duties. There was no point in dressing up if he was just going to hike your skirts up anyway. 

It was a bit later in the night than he usually called for you, but you hardly noticed as you walked down the corridor. 

On regular nights, you'd enter and the two of you would awkwardly stare at one another for a moment until you laid yourself on his bed. 

He didn't touch you more than he had to. Didn't take his time to make you preen. You figured he was just not interested in you. And that was alright. You were not Arra, and nothing would change that. 

But this time, you opened the door to see him still in his day clothes. He sat by the hearth of his large room. His head didn't snap at the sound of your entrance. Not like he usually did. He stared at the flames. 

You stood there in the doorway for a moment, waiting for him to take initiative. Or even just to acknowledge you. But he didn't.

"M… My lord?" Your voice carried, softer than you wanted. "I was told you called for me. If you did not… I apologize—"

"I've been thinking," he interrupts, eyes still on the red hearth. "About things."

"I understand," you try to ease. "Being the Warden leaves your mind quite occupied. If you wish for me to come back at a better time, I will."

"No. I've been thinking about you."

That's when his head finally turns to you, eyes right on yours. There's something knowing, something scrutinizing, something almost soft. It's complicated, but it fills you with both warmth and a chill.

"Oh," is all you manage out. 

The edges of his lips twitch in amusement. "Oh?"

"I… I'm confused, my lord."

"'S alright." He waves a paw of his in a beckoning gesture. "Come sit with me."

You shut the door, your feet cold and pattering across the floor. 

You sit so politely on the chair next to the settee Cregan is on. He's spread out, naturally from his broad frame, but also in his relaxed state. 

You won't admit it, but his room was always warmer than yours. It was quite nice.

The silence settles over the two of you as Cregan's gaze gets hazy with deep thoughts once more.

Worries started to flood you. "I know I have not been a proper wife to you." You miss the way his expression hardens. "But I can do better. Be better. For you. If you want to give me a second chance." You find yourself fidgeting with the hem of your robe. "I understand if not, as well. Wherever you send me will be fine."

You can feel his gaze on you now, but you refuse to meet it. The embarrassment was already warming your cheeks enough. 

"You think," he speaks uncharacteristically soft, "that I called you in here to send you away?"

"I understand if you did, my lord. Being the Lady Stark is a task that not many can do. If I've disappointed you, then I apologize."

Then, he begins to laugh. Not a loud one, not a demanding one. Quiet. Much like the rest of him. 

Cregan was a quiet man, but everything he did was noticeable all the same. Not because he demanded attention, but because he earned it. 

"Too kind for the likes of me, my girl." He shifts in his seat, grunting like an old man whose muscles ached after sitting for long amounts of time. "Calm yourself. Why are your shoulders always so tense?"

You try to force yourself to relax, dropping your shoulders immediately. It did little to ease you inside. 

His head tilts. "I'm not sending you away. Far from it."

A breath leaves your lips in relief. Now, your shoulders truly begin to slack. "Thank you, my lord. Thank you for a second chance—"

"Quiet," he teases, raising a hand up. "This is not a second chance. You had not ruined your first. Tell me." He leans forward, resting his wrists on the top of his knees. "Do you love me?"

You hesitated. You loved the North. Winterfell. Rickon. But did you love Cregan?

He already detected an answer in the silence. "I see." His tongue ran over his teeth. "I hold no anger towards you for it. You love my son. I see that now. I suppose that's all I need."

"Oh, yes. I love him very much," you can't help smiling about. "He's a cheery boy."

"Aye." He runs a hand over his chin. "You've made him so. He was… rather quiet after…" he stopped. 

You hum. "He just needed someone to play with, I think."

"He needed someone to listen to him. To care for him. And you're doing so. Thank you, my lady."

"Do not thank me for that. I did not do it for your favor."

"I know that. I do."

You take a moment. "I still don't understand what you were thinking about then? Were you thinking of children? Is that why you called for me?"

"Hm? Oh, gods no. Well," he's suddenly stumbling over himself. "I didn't call you in here to sleep with you. Not tonight. I want to know you a bit more. That's all. I can't help but believe that I've been the poor one. You've moved from your home, everything you know. I have not even tried to help you adapt. Even after your kindness to my house… our house."

"Our house?"

"Aye. Our house."

"I do like that… our house."

Something jumps in his heart when you smile at him. 

He didn't think such a thing would affect him. But he finds himself nervous like a young boy again, wanting to keep that joy on your face. 

"It's quite late, my lord. Perhaps I should return to my chambers. If I may."

He takes a deep breath. "Of course. Sleep well, my sweet lady."

The walk back to your room leaves you with a lot to think about. Cregan… intimidating Cregan… finally extended a hand to you. He wants to know you. It feels a bit late, but better he wants to know you at all, even late. 

But something about him was still a bit frightening. You'd heard rumors of things he'd done as Warden. Like any hardened Stark, he'd killed men. He'd done horrid things, won battles. His hands were far from soft. 

Could his grip be gentle enough, despite callused palms? You weren't sure you wanted to find out. 

Still, there was something about him that you loved. 

You told yourself it was because Rickon shared his eyes. 

…

There you were in Rickon's little chamber, playing on the ground with him.

Rickon was not a spoiled child, despite what you were sure many northerners believed. Cregan kept a strict house, teaching Rickon from a young age to not take things for granted. 

No, Rickon had only a few toys. But even those, he was eternally grateful for. His father carved a new one for his every name day. Most of his toys were the gifts from his name days, where other lords would bring various things for him. 

His favorite was the wooden wolf Cregan had carved. It was a hardy thing, smoothed to perfection. The snout was broad, paws large. A male dire wolf. 

Rickon loved it very much. 

He would hand you one of his other toys so that you could play alongside him. Today's was a hare. 

You gigged at him. "Am I to be prey?"

He giggled back, answering you with a firm nod. 

"I suppose I must be quick, then?"

On the rug you played for far too long. His direwolf would catch your hare with ease. He'd growl like he believed the animal would, then restart the hunt all over again. 

If you ever had any question that he was a Stark, this answered it. 

After catching your hare for the fifth time, you heard Cregan's presence in the doorway. You cocked your head back but said nothing. 

His eyes moved from you to the 'violent' scene of Rickon pretending to eat your hare. His brows raised. "He's not giving you a fair chance, is he?"

"I'm a hare against a direwolf, Lord Stark. It's only truthful."

"I dunno." He steps in, his frame taking up more space in the room than you thought. He bent down on his knees. "Easy, son." He interferes, saving your hare. "Hares are quick, don't you know? It's hard to catch something so delicate." His eyes flicker to you before going right back to the mission at hand. "They can be too fast if you're not careful. Sometimes you have to decide if they're worth the hunt."

Rickon half listens, his eyes on each toy as his father holds them up. "Sometimes, direwolves must soften, be merciful. What if, this time, you let the hare get away?"

The toy is pressed to your palm, a glimmer in Cregan's eyes that you didn't notice before. 

The scenario plays again, and Rickon let the hare go. Both you and the boy look to the Warden to seek approval. 

Cregan smiles at his son. "Good. That was good."

Rickon just as quickly hands the direwolf to his father and moves to entertain himself with something else. 

He twirls the wood in his hand, looking over every detail, but not truly seeing it. 

The hare in your own stills. "How do you know which hares are worth chasing, my lord?"

He thought for a moment, before he pushed back a smile. "I only chase hares that are kind enough to let young direwolves win the hunt every time."

Your cheeks warm. 

"Tell me, my lady, would you let an older wolf win the chase as well?"

Your thumb runs over the face of the little toy. "He must run fast but… perhaps."

A sudden red comes up his neck. You made the Warden blush. 

The man whose hands were metaphorically painted in red blood. No, you reddened his skin in an entirely different way with a mere tease. 

"Perhaps," he whispered like a promise. "Perhaps he will."

"He sounds determined. I heard predators give up if the chase is too difficult."

"Aye, most would. Is that why you haven't been caught yet?" He placed the toy down, leaning into you with a lower voice. "I'm an efficient hunter, my lady, should you decide you want to be hunted."

Your eyes flit to him, finding him not far now. His gaze is purely on you, drifting down to your lips once. 

You nervously turn away, unsure how to answer.

He chews at his bottom lip, accepting the way you did not jump at the opportunity. No matter. He's patient, and you will come when you are ready. 

He stands, clearing his throat. "I originally came to ask if you wished to attend petitions with me. But it seems you're quite busy here."

"It is important work, but I would like to attend. Since you invited me. I'm sure Rickon could be entertained by his nursemaid for a while."

He extends a hand to you, helping you up from the floor. You don't remember him being so careful natured. As soon as you're up, you pull away. 

"Rickon could attend as well," he suggests. 

"He could? It would be distracting enough to have me there, much less a boy. I don't want you to feel as if—"

"As if what?" He asks, tone suddenly hardened. 

"I…"

"No. Tell me. Tell me why you and Rickon would be a burden to me. And I will tell you why you are wrong."

When you don't respond, he softens. "You are no burden to me." He takes your hand in his own, bringing it to his lips. "Never. Rickon is a part of me, as are you now." He kisses your knuckles so softly, you barely feel it. But his eyes stay on you. "Tell me again. Would you like to come to petitions with me?"

You only nod. And soon, Rickon is scooped in one of his arms, his other hand wrapped around your own. 

Any lord that is surprised to see the three of you enter together quickly covers it. 

Rickon stays on Cregan's lap most of the time, content with the direwolf in his hand. He bangs it on the table, even growls a few times. 

He growled once at a lord he didn't like, and Cregan did nothing to stop him. He didn't like the lord either. 

Petitions ran long, and soon Rickon was growing tired. He reached for you. 

You naturally took him without question. It made Cregan warm. 

Rickon curled up with ease, nose tucked into your shoulder. And with just a few squirms, he was fast asleep. 

Towards the end, Cregan reached out for your hand. You let him intertwine his fingers with your own.

And it felt natural. 

…

Time with Cregan became more common. You'd walk outdoors together, play with Rickon. Even silence in the library was nice, for it was still together.

And finally, you'd decided that yes, you did want the Wolf of the North. You wanted him to chase you. To want you. To have you in the proper way a husband should.

One night, when the two of you had spent long hours in the library (because neither of you wanted to part), you made the first move. 

You closed the tome you were reading from, choosing instead to move to Cregan's side of the table. 

He watches you, though pretends not to. 

"I'm tired of this," you declare to him. 

He finally looks up at you, brows furrowed. "Aye? Of what exactly?"

"Of… well, I'm not sure." You pull out the chair next to him, sitting down. 

He turns to you, giving his full attention. "You're tired, but have no knowledge of what or why?"

"I am tired of… Do you remember what you said, a few weeks ago? With those toys with Rickon?"

"I do," he answers with ease. It had been at the forefront of his mind since it had happened. 

"I want that. You and I… I think."

Something lit behind his eyes. There was no indication that he heard you besides the small turn of his head. "Aye?"

"If that's alright. If you are still offering it—"

"Can I kiss you?"

You still. "You've kissed me before Cregan. You need not ask."

"I do," he insisted. "Those… they were not like this. Not like what I want with you. Can I kiss you, my girl?"

You nod, cut short by his hands on you suddenly. He pulls you to him, lips capturing your own. 

You all but melt into his hold. He'd held you a bit. Kissed you just a bit. But he was right. Not like this. 

The kisses before— they were meaningless, a mere guilty habit between two political figures that were expected to produce heirs. 

This one was hungry, filled with something you couldn't explain. A final climax to a building tension of months. It was warm and purposeful, not to ease guilt, but to prove something else instead— that he loved you. A hand cups your cheek, the other at your arm to pull you closer.

You kissed back just as quickly. Your own hand goes to his wrist, obeying his plea to have you near. 

It doesn't take long for you to find yourself in his lap. 

Your fingers find the hair at the back of his neck and experimentally pull, earning a growl from your wolf's throat. 

His lips part from yours to start kissing down your neck. You let him, hands tightening your grip. "I'd have ya if you let me," he huffs against your skin. "Clear this fucking table and have my way with you, hm? Show you how often I think of ya."

You groan in satisfaction when he nips a soft spot. "Kiss me."

No hesitation, he returns his mouth to your own, his tongue moving across your bottom lip. "Love you," he tries to speak between kisses, though muffled. "I love you so fucking much. My girl, aren't you?"

"Just wanna kiss you," you whine. 

He pulls back just enough to be teasing. He looks into your eyes, hazy with intent. "As my lady wants," he purrs. 

His hands roam over your lower back, arms wrapped around you to keep you against him. 

His lips connect with yours again, sweeter and slower. 

…

The next day, as you go to Rickon's room, you find Cregan already there. He's speaking lowly to him, as he tends to do when teaching him things. 

"It's important to respect a she-wolf. This one is a match for your direwolf." In his hand is a new toy, the she-wolf in question. It's a bit smaller, with more narrow shoulders. "They work together, yes? The direwolf here, he loves the she-wolf. When he hunts, he hunts for her. He cares for her. Understand?" When Rickon nods, he's satisfied. "Good. Go play now."

Cregan stands, leaving the boy to his devices. His back straightens, large and imposing. Then he freezes, chin up. You hear it, the way he takes a deep inhale. Then he begins to chuckle. "Knew I smelled a sweet scent." He turns, eyes on you with a grin. "What are you doing here?"

"I was merely being curious of your lessons. A new carving?" You see how he shies, giving a small shrug. "It looks nice. He seems to love it."

Rickon peers up, quickly running to you and extending the toy out towards you for you to see. You bend to his level, taking it from his pudgy hands. "Ah, how beautiful," you coo. "She seems quite fierce. Is she a kind wolf?"

Rickon thinks over it for a moment before looking to Cregan for the answer. 

Cregan shrugs. "Is your mother a kind wolf?" He asks the boy.

You gawk, looking back to see that he's gesturing at you. 

Mother. It tastes odd on your tongue. 

"I believe you need a pup next to complete the set," you finally speak. "Papa, mama, and baby?"

Rickon agrees, taking the toy and moving to play once again. 

You don't move for a while. 

Mother. 

Cregan said it so naturally. 

"Is that alright?" He asks from behind you. 

You look up at him, tears brimming in your eyes. "Yes. Gods, yes. I didn't… Thank you."

"Oh, my girl," he coos, pulling you up. He pulls you in and you utterly collapse against his chest. He kisses the crown of your head. "You needn't thank me. Not for this. This was all your doing."

When your tears begin to dry, he pulls you away enough to examine your face. His eyes move down your nose, across your red cheeks. "So beautiful. What a beautiful mother you are."

You push yourself up on the tips of your toes to meet his lips. 

Being Lady Stark was a difficult task. But being Cregan's wife and Rickon's mother? That was the easiest thing you'd ever done.

...................................................................................

Only last moon, a man had come to Storm's End with tales of monsters that lived in the seas. He had scars and deep scratches to prove it. 

Lyonel should have been scared. But he wasn't. The Laughing Storm was ecstatic. 

The moment the last barrel was loaded, he jumped into action. The high seas called his name.

…

"My lord," Lord Swann comments. "Forgive me, but I fear we cannot be hasty. We have no idea what these creatures are."

"Ye of little faith," the laughing storm sneers towards him. He looks about the room, noting the same unsure look in the other men gathered around. "Don't you see?" 

Lord Swann's head tilts. "You have to understand our caution. Should the rest of the crew fall because we were unprepared—"

"We won't be." Lyonel ran a hand through his hair, an amused smile pulling up his lips. "What do you believe is out there in those waters?"

"I couldn't be sure. The scratches on that man… they were almost human like."

The Baratheon's eyes lit up. "Yes! Yes, they were."

"But he said it was a creature of the sea, not pirates or anything of the like," Lord Tarth said. "This isn't something we've seen before."

Lyonel nodded, his hand going to his beard now. "Indeed. For you." He retrieves a thick journal from his effects and slams it on the table. "My grandsire was said to spend more time on the waters than on the shore. He documented every unusual trip."

That caught the attention of every man in the room.

Lyonel flipped to a specific page. One he'd read over and over as a younger lord. And now, it came in handy. His eyes wander over every word carefully as if a religious text in this moment. "'17 of April, 125 AC. The dragons of the skies have died, leaving me to wonder what horrors lie beneath the waters. There is tell of creatures who are so human-like, they are entrancing. But should you get close enough, you fall for their trap.'" Lyonel pauses for a moment, looking up at the men. "My great grandfather spent two years hunting for these creatures. Do you know the stories our parents tell of the shipwreck that almost took him? Well, he wrote that one of these creatures spared him and got him ashore. And though he spent the rest of his life searching, he never saw it again. He had one thing as proof of its existence."

He placed on the table a small box. Opening it, he revealed a shimmery fish scale. It glimmered a deep green that flashed blue in the right light. The men all gathered around. 

"This could be any fish scale, my lord," one of the other's argued.

"It could be," he shrugged. "This could all be fictional and I've dragged my best men out here for no reason at all. Or," he reveled in how the silence took over the room, "there's something out there."

"MILORD!" Came a yell from one of the crew down the stairwell. "ESSOSI PIRATES!"

Lyonel cursed under his breath, closing the box and tucking it and the journal back into his satchel. "Man the stations! Don't let the cunts get aboard!"

He yells in frustration, strapping his belt back on. He tugs up the sleeves of his loose tunic. And he paces the room once, twice, running both hands through his dark curls. 

When he appears on the deck, he sees most of the men on one side. He shoves past them with a grunt, leaning over to see exactly what the worry was. 

A small Essos boat is indeed down below, flying a flag he didn't recognize. There's about 10 men aboard. They're confident enough that they can rob a Baratheon boat in daylight. "Let down the sail!" He yells back to his crew. 

A hand grabs the back of his tunic tightly and yanks him back over the railing as an arrow narrowly misses his head. 

He gains his footing, eyes wide. "Fucking cunts." He nods to the crew member that saved him. "Get this ship moving!"

On the other side of the ship, a grappling hook wraps around the railing. 

There were multiple ships surrounding the Baratheon vessel.

Lyonel starts barking orders left and right, doing all in his power to get out of the area. 

When multiple grappling hooks make their way over, Lyonel thinks the worst. 

Then…

There's a faint sound. Almost like singing.

It felt like silence fell across the water. Not a wave in sight. 

That's when the screaming started. 

Lyonel's crew leans over each side of the deck, trying to desperately understand what was happening. 

There was splashing, screaming, the sound of struggling. 

Blood mixed in the water. 

And soon the boats were nothing but fragments of wood.

When silence returned, the crew was pale. No one dared to speak. All of them turned one by one to Lyonel for answers.

He was leaning over the railing, so far that he had to lift himself up to the tips of his toes, just hoping to catch a glimpse of what happened. 

His eyes caught motion, a flick of something under the water. Something that shimmered. It disappeared as quickly as it came. 

His eyes remained on that spot for a while, hoping he'd see it again. 

Something calmly broke through the water. Something human. 

His eyes met that of a beautiful woman. She was oddly calm, almost serene. He felt something in his chest twist. 

When her head tilted up at him, he was leaning in further and further. It was a long distance to the water from here. He was safe enough to be curious. 

The woman watched him closely. There was something she was clearly contemplating. 

When he almost lost his balance, many hands reached out from behind him to keep him on the safe side of the ship. They all yelled and hollered to try to break his attention on her, but it didn't work until he fell onto the hard wood of the deck, no longer looking into her eyes. 

He sat there for a while, catching his breath. 

He understood why his grandfather was so insistent on finding these creatures. 

When the boots of Lord Swann came into his vision, Lyonel grinned widely. "Are you a believer now?"

…

"We can't allow this!"

The Laughing Storm was sitting in the ship's dinghy, his antler crown askew. "And why not?"

Lord Tarth gawked. "We can't… Sending you out there alone is a death wish, my lord. You saw what happened to those men."

Lyonel had grown obsessed. The last three days were spent with him over the side of the ship, just hoping to see the woman again. 

This was his next option. 

If she wouldn't come to him, he could go to her. 

"My great grandsire spent years looking for this and we have it right under our noses," he huffs. "I'm not leaving without knowing what she is!"

The men looked at one another. Perhaps their Lord was going insane. 

But damn it, they were loyal men. 

That's how three other men found themselves on the dinghy with him. And many of the crew stood at the railing with bows and arrows in hand. 

The small boat was lowered into the water, causing a small ripple in the far-too-calm water.

Lyonel's nerves were outweighed by pure excitement of getting to find the creature that his ancestor could not. 

"What does she look like again?" One of the men asked after an hour had passed. 

Lyonel leaned back, eyes closing as he reminisced. "You'll feel your heart fall right out of your chest."

"I just meant… brown hair? Or…?"

His eyes snap open. "You'll see. You'll see soon enough. It's been an hour and I feel I should get something to entice her, yes."

Lyonel took the dagger at his hip and cut a clean line down his palm. The blood immediately pulled to the surface bright. And when he held his hand over the water, drops of red began to mix into the blue.

"We're going to die," one of them said.

"Aye, but perhaps we're going to live first," came his reply. 

And there she was. 

She circled the boat, looking at each of the men carefully. And when she'd caught sight of Lyonel, she swam to his side. 

He waited patiently for her to break the surface. He watched her hair float in the water in beautiful waves. Her eyes were set on him like recalling a lost memory.

"Take heart," he called to the others. "I think she's friendly."

"I saw what happened to those pirates—"

"Aye, but we are not pirates, are we?" He snapped.

She broke through the surface, water droplets falling down her cheeks and nose in a way that mesmerized him. 

His lips parted, but it took a while for him to remember how to speak. His voice was soft. "You…"

Something about his voice drew her in. She got closer, resting her hands on the side of the boat and pulling herself up just enough to see him clearly. But as soon as she does, her face falls. 

Lyonel yearns to keep the distance as little as possible. He reaches out his bloody hand, palm up. "Wait—"

"You are not him," she finally spoke, hoarse and with an accent he can't place.

"Who? Who are you looking for?"

He sees her eyes move up to his antler crown. "You wear what he wore."

Lyonel's eyes lit up. He snatched the large antler crown from his head. "You've seen this?"

She doesn't answer, only stares.

"This crown," he tries again. "You've seen it on another?"

He holds it out towards her, and she reaches out to gently brush wet fingers over the antlers. "What have you done with him?"

While the others panic, Lyonel smiles widely. "Who? Say his name."

"Barros."

Barros Baratheon. This was the creature that saved him all those years ago. 

"I am his great grandson. Look at me. See his eyes and his hair. I am of his blood."

She took the invitation carefully, leaning up on the boat to look at him— really look at him. She stares deep into his eyes, trying to find answers.

"Go on," he whispers. "Come closer."

He sets the crown aside, not breaking eye contact. And though he told her to come closer, he's the one that begins to lean in. 

He holds the higher ground, having to look down at her. His necklace, the silver one with the seven-pointed star pendent, dangles from his neck. 

Her eyes move to it, and she's suddenly shying away. 

Lyonel reaches up to it, grasping the pendent in his hand. "What's wrong?"

She shakes her head.

"It's probably the silver," one of the men whispers softly, not wanting to break the moment. "I heard'a things like this. Evil things can't touch silver."

"She's not evil," he says wistfully. "She's beautiful." He tries to move closer to the edge of the small boat. "Is it true? Are you hurt by the metal?"

With her nod, he doesn't hesitate to snap the straps of the necklace with a grunt and threw it out into the sea. 

The moment it's out of sight, she gets closer, practically leaning into the boat to look at him. Not that he minds. 

"You smell of him."

"Aye," he breathes. "You can trust me, just as you trusted him."

For once, his eyes shift over to the other men, whose jaws are all open at the sight before them.

Suddenly, her soft hand is on his face, her fingers tracing his beard in fascination. 

"Why did you kill those men?" He finally asks, keeping his voice low and soft to not scare her. 

She doesn't answer for a while, leaving him to think that maybe she didn't even hear him. But she finally speaks, "Evil men."

"Were you going to attack my ship? Are their evil men aboard it?"

Her fingers hesitate over his bottom lip. "I thought you were Barros. I would not attack."

"Ah. And now that you know I'm not him?"

Her fingers move down his beard, the wiry hairs satisfying under her fingertips. "I only attack evil men."

He gets closer, almost laying down belly first across the bench of the dinghy now. "Well, what makes a man evil?"

"Evil men take. Lie. Hurt."

"That they do," he smiled. "Very wise, you pretty thing. Tell me, You attacked a man a moon ago. I saw the claw marks on his cheek. What did he do to earn your vengeance?"

He sees the way her eyes flash with recognition. 

"Cut fins of sharks and dropped the rest back into the water."

It was a common form of fishing to do so, taking the teeth or fins of sharks and leaving the rest to sink in the ocean. "I see. Good thing you were there to stop him, then. Hm?"

She inches closer now, able to feel his breath upon her face. "Why have you come, grandson of Barros Baratheon?"

"Lyonel," he corrects. "I guess… I want to know if my grandsire's stores were true."

"Lyonel," she breathes out. He feels that familiar flutter in his gut. Her hands cup his face, pulling him closer to her and she begins to sink down into the water. But he hardly notices. "Are they true?"

"Aye," he whispers, lips ghosting over hers now. "Very true…. Very… beautiful…"

The men all reach out now that he's close to the water. One stands and grabs a spear, hoisting it up at the ready. 

"No!" Lyonel roars.

The creature hisses out, sharp teeth showing. She turns back into the water with a flick of her green tail that splashes water up into the boat. 

Lyonel's face is downtrodden, his shoulders slack. "No," he whispers. "No, no, this is all wrong." He turns to the man, tone harsh now. "I had it! She was there!"

"She was gonna kill you, she was!"

"You fucking cunt! She's gone!" He reaches out into the water, splashing about lightly as if she'd appear again. He slams his hand down in frustration. "Damn it all!"

Even as the dinghy was rowed back to the main ship, his eyes never strayed from where she'd disappeared. 

He wasn't going to give up, not anytime soon. They still had enough supplies for another two weeks, and she was just at his fingertips. 

It would become his obsession, just like Barros. He would fill his own journal with stories of her, for she invaded every corner of his mind. 

Lyonel Baratheon has been in love with you ever since he laid eyes on you at his very first tourney. Stags and dragons, they’re not supposed to mix but he’d found himself enamoured by your ferocity, your humour.

However, before he had a chance to court you properly, you’d been snatched away by his tyrant of a brother, bartered into a bargain that you had no control over because Samuel, he can’t let Lyonel have good things, not when he’s the oldest son, not when he’s the heir.

That cruelty, it extends to your marriage.

Samuel isn’t prepared for a spirited girl like you. He’s not ready for your joy, your energy, your cleverness or curiosity. He silences you with his fists, and Lyonel, he’s forced to watch the woman he loves wither, the light in her die with every bruise, every angry word he spits in her direction.

The thing his brother forgets about dragons is the fire. How it simmers low in their bellies, how it builds and builds until it erupts like an inferno, burning everything up in its path.

When he enters the room that night, he fears that Samuel has killed you, that he’ll find his brother standing over your corpse. Instead, there you are with his brother’s dagger in your hand, covered in his blood. He burns the gown you’re wearing in his fireplace, scrubs the crimson from your hands, cleans your features.

And then he acts out the pantomime of finding his brother, claiming he saw a figure bolt down the staircase.

The murder is cast as a political assassination, because the men of the realm could never believe a slip of a woman could be so vicious, so brutal, even if she was sired by the Targaryens.

They don’t see your courage, your fierceness, your wildness.

But he does, he sees it all and he claims it for his own during the nights that follow. Making love to his brother’s widow, bringing her unspoken pleasure on the evenings he steals away into your chambers.

They may call you the Daughter of Flames but to him, you’re his storm rider. The only woman whose ever made him come so hard he sees stars behind his eyelids everytime she fucks him into oblivion.

“We’re soulmates, you and I.” He tells you one night when you’re tangled together in his tent at the tourney. His thumb chases over the apple of your flushed cheek, his eyes rich with affection as his mouth brushes over yours. “I will never try to temper you, to tame you.”

“I know.” You whisper, rolling him onto his back and straddling his hips. Your hair falls over his features, blocking out the rest of the world. “Every minute I spend with you is an adventure, one that I want to spend the rest of my life having.”

You take him again after that, drawing out his ectasy until he begs you to let him see nirvana and when you do it’s glorious, a ruinous crescendo that leaves him exhausted and overwrought as he clings to you.

You slip out from his tent just as the sun starts to rise and he watches you with a heavy heart, burying his face into your pillow, inhaling the scent of smoky cedarwood you leave in your midst.

It’s at breakfast that he overhears of Tris Tyrell’s plans to marry you. He’s sitting at the damn table, nursing half a hangover when the little twat’s voice carries through the canvas of his tent as he walks by. “Her father agrees it’s time for her to be a wife again, a young widow like that would be such a waste otherwise…”

It’s happening again, he realises. Another deal, another unwanted husband.

Lyonel wants to break something. He wants to grab the little prick by the back of his head and smash his face into that shiny fucking shield of his until it’s nothing more than bone fragments and grey matter.

“We shall tourney at noon.” He tells the other man later that day. He’s standing in the Tris’s tent, watching him shine his armour so thoroughly his own reflection stares back at him. “If you want her hand you’ll have to kill me, because that’s the only way it’s happening.”

“Picking up your brother’s sloppy seconds.” Tris tuts in that irritating way of his. “The House of Baratheons had her once. It’s Highgarden’s turn to dance with dragons.”

Lyonel almost murders the cocky shit right there because he was your first, once upon a time, in a meadow just like this one, surrounded by wildflowers.

“Noon.” He snarls instead, jabbing his finger at the arrogant cunt. “Make sure you have Maester nearby, you’re going to fucking need one.”

He obliterates Tris Tyrell, he becomes the other man’s worst fucking nightmare as they break lance after lance on each other’s armour. He loses count of the blows he takes, the ways his body bruises underneath each impact. His grip tightens on the reins as he sways with the last one, but he stays upright, stays strong because this isn’t about guts or glory, this is about love.

It’s about a woman that burns so fucking bright that he’d die without her.  

When he finally unseats the little cretin, he picks up the crown of poppies he’s had woven by a couple of the small folk on the tip of his lance and offers it up to the stands where you sit, alongside with the rest of the Targaryens.

“My Queen of Love and Beauty.” He addresses you, inclining his head in respect. “Daughter of Flames and my betrothed if you’ll have me?”

The look in your eyes in that moment, he remembers it well. He was just a boy wrapping a daisy around your ring finger, and you were just a girl falling in love, telling him yes.

“Oh, I’ll have you Ser Lyonel.” You say your voice full of dark promises and mischief as you pick up the laurel, placing it on your head. “After all who else could ride the Laughing Storm.”

Love Lyonel? Don’t miss any of his stories by joining the taglist here.

Before you join the taglist make sure to read the rules here as you otherwise you won’t be added.

Like My Work? - Why Not Buy Me A Coffee

Now, people feared him, ducking down corridors to try to avoid his ire. They wished to be spared another of his screaming fits, though his son's seemed to fare less favourably with those. His punishments for his son's poor behaviour had grown even harsher, callous and cruel, sending even them into a state of fear around their father.

His ability to manage his impulses had completely gone, too, Maekar now demanding his wants be fulfilled immediately, without care for the cost. He could barely hold meetings due to his newfound like of leaving the room at a suggestion he didn't agree with. He found no reason to hold back.

But there was one person who this new, crueller version of Maekar seemed to hold his temper with: his youngest daughter's nursemaid. You.

He'd always been fond of you, finding you a constant in his life since you entered his service upon Rhae's birth. A pretty young thing you were, eager to earn your keep in a harsh world by looking after his daughter.

You weren't boastful or loud or ostentatious in any way. You simply did as you were told, just as a good nursemaid should. Never bothering him, never causing any trouble.

Little Rhae adored you. Knowing little of her own mother, she found comfort in you, clinging to your skirts and squaking if you tried to move away from her chubby little hands. She would constantly cry for your company on the rare days you had off.

Maekar would roll his eyes at the way she would scream for you, and yet he would send for your presence quickly as her cries grew louder. And when you would appear, your servants' uniform disregarded for the simple wool gown you would wear in your own home, he would sigh in relief. He would have a moment of peace.

It had led to you holding a larger role in family life than a nursemaid typically would, lingering on the sidelines of feasts, family gatherings, trips to the capital – wherever Rhae was, you were the person whose arms she cuddled into.

Despite your constant presence, you never truly spoke much with the prince except for matters of his daughter, and even then, it was short and clipped; he made you nervous, and you often sought to spend as little time with his gaze upon you as possible.

It had always been that gaze that sent shivers down your spine, aware of the way it would linger ever so slightly longer than was proper. You would swear to your fellow maids that you'd feel his eyes trail over your body, though they would laugh it off – why would he lust over a servant?

You'd agreed; of course you had. He was a prince… why would he lower himself to think of someone like you like that?

It had been barely a month before the family's journey to Ashford Castle when he'd demanded you move into Summerhall; his daughter was growing needier, and you would be needed to soothe her throughout the night now. You'd had no choice, despite your protests, and soon your belongings were being moved to Rhae's room.

The sweet girl had been elated, a toothless grin on the toddler's chubby cheeks as you brought her into your chest. Despite her happy giggles, your body was stiff at the sight of the prince standing in the doorway, watching the sight with an unreadable expression.

It had been over a week of living at Summerhall when, in the early hours of the morning, you had been disturbed from your sleep, awoken with a fright by the crash of a door. The prince had barged into the apartments, demanding to see his daughter, naught a care for the hour nor your indecent state of undress.

To be in only a nightgown in front of such a man was more than improper, and handing his squirming daughter over, you were exposed – and the prince knew it. His eyes trailed over your frame as he mumbled to his child, taking in the way the moonlight highlighted your figure to him; shapely hips, full breasts, nipples peaked under the fabric from the chill of the room. He thought he might give in in that moment. His daughter's sweet nursemaid was all ripe for the taking – but he didn't. He held himself back, despite the stirring of his loins. He was better than that.

Quietly, he'd told you of Aerion's threat against Rhae, his brain refusing to allow him an ounce of rest without first checking on her. It wasn't an apology, but he could see you understood.

It was when he handed her back to you, her grabby hands making for the robe you'd managed to scrounge up, that he realised something. Rhae's tiny fingers grasped at your breast, tugging at the fabric and eager for a meal, and he understood then that Rhae thought you were her mother, or at least the closest thing to a mother she would know.

Something niggled at his brain, a thought that he shoved down, ignoring the way you blushed as you tugged her hand away, cooing down at the sweet girl. You looked at her like your own, he thought.

All had been well until the tourney, but once he returned from Ashford Castle, something was off.

Maekar hovered more. He claimed it was to see more of his daughter, her growing limbs having allowed her to begin toddling around the solar, but whenever you chanced a glance his way, you would see his eyes on you – intense, as if taking every inch of you with his scrutinising gaze. It was unnerving.

His gaze would linger, pervasive and constant, to the point you started to worry. Was he planning to send you away? Was he unhappy with your work? Had you done something while he was away that he didn't like?

Others in the castle had noticed, too. First, they worried for you – for your wage. But when they quietly stood back and watched how he spoke to you, looked at you, and treated you, they began to grow more concerned. This wasn't the look of a father watchful over his daughter's carer; it was something different.

It was lustful and hungry. It was frightening.

He'd made it four days.

You'd made it four days.

Four days after his return, he'd summoned you to his apartments under the guise of tending to his daughter. He'd taken her earlier, so you'd had no reason to worry.

You should have. You realised that when you found yourself on his bed, face shoved into the velvet covers, his hands rucking up your skirt with vigour.

He was inside of you before you could really comprehend the situation, a calloused palm coming to cover your mouth as you cried out at the burning, stretching feeling that he was forcing upon you.

His hips harshly rutted into you, pushing him deeper, harder, inside of your walls and you felt your tears spill over, wetting the fabric beneath you.

Maekar's harsh grunts were echoing around the room, joining the sound of his hips meeting the flesh of your backside, the rhythmic pounding drowning your cries.

The sound of the door opening caught your attention: a younger maid you'd often seen in the nursery standing wide-eyed at the sight before her; the Prince of Summerhall pinning a woman to his bed, forceful thrusts pushing her body deeper into the mattress, his hand muffling her cries.

You don't know what you'd thought she'd do – save you, perhaps? It was a foolish thought, but when she walked past the bed towards Rhae's cot, your heart sank.

And then she left, and you were alone with the prince once more – not that the interruption had halted his movements at all. It wasn't enough to take you like this, but he had to humiliate you, too.

Once he was done, his seed slowly leaking out of you, all you could do was lie there for a moment, your brain trying to comprehend what had just happened. It's not until he's pulling you up, tugging your skirts back down and tidying up your hair that you finally look at him, finding him smiling at you unsettlingly.

Smiling.

You were too stunned to speak as he guided you to the door, mumblings leaving his lips of how Rhae would likely be crying for you now. He'd send you off with a firm grope of your ass, and you could only mindlessly wander to Rhae's rooms, tearily cuddling the sweet baby girl in your arms, seeking solace in her sweet, good-natured giggles.

It's only when he's having a guard escort you to his rooms the next night that you realise that this new version of Maekar is not so content to let you go.

His voice carried down the halls of Storms End, loud and triumphant.

“A son,” he proclaimed to all who could hear as he yelled from the doors of your chambers, outward to the crowd “An Heir! And gods be good, the boy is built like a fortress.” He exclaimed jovially, his back to you.

You lay back against the pillows, exhausted beyond words, holding a swaddled bundle that felt less like a newborn and more like a sack of potato’s. The midwife hovered nearby, wearing the fragile expression of a woman who had seen many births and would remember this one for the rest of her life. You smiled weakly at her.

“Lyonel,” you said, your voice thin from the exhaustion, but no less dangerous, “If you continue to shout, I will personally see to it that you never father another child.” You threaten glaring, as his dark eyes meet yours in an excited glee.

He crossed the room in three long strides, face glowing with pride. He peered down at the baby the spitting image of him, then laughed, full and booming. Placing a loving kiss to your cheek. “You my love, are a marvel. Ten pounds at least,” he said. “Look at those arms. Proper Baratheon arms.”

“I am aware, he came out of me, remember” you snipped tiredly, gazing down at your sleeping son, a tuft of dark Baratheon hair already visible.

Lyonel kissed your brow, utterly unrepentant. “And you did it magnificently.” Spoke in awe as he gazed down at you and his son in adoration.

You smile up at him placing a soft kiss to his lips. An heir at last.

—————————————————————————————————-

By the time the Ashford tourney arrived, Lyonel had decided the baby needed to attend.

“This is where it begins,” he said, fastening his cloak with the seriousness of a man preparing for war as you looked on incredulously.

“It is a field full of shouting men hitting each other with metal,” you replied, adjusting the blanket around your son’s round cheeks. “He is but five moons old.”

“And already a legend,” Lyonel said. “He should hear the sound of glory.” He says in true earnest.

“He should hear the sound of silence,” you said, holding your son close. The stag embroidered blanket snugly wrapped around him “Preferably indoors.”

Lyonel came over to you both smiling down at his son before meeting your gaze, that look in his eyes that meant he had already won “Everyone will want to see him.” He simply replied, wiggling his eyebrows.

That turned out to be painfully true.

Knights stopped mid conversation. Lords leaned in too close. One man laughed outright and asked if you were feeding the child whole cows.

Lyonel beamed through all of it, holding the baby like a trophy.

“Look at the size of him,” he boomed. “He will enter these lists one day and conquer the lot of you.” Smiling manically in utter pride.

The baby snorted in his sleep, heavy and content, completely unaware of his future reputation.

You smiled tightly and accepted congratulations like a woman accepting condolences.

————————————————————————————————-

The boasting did not stop with the child.

It only grew worse once Lyonel realized people would listen. You were resting outside with your maids in the sun, the baby asleep against your shoulder when you heard his unmistakeable voice echoing from the training yard.

“I am telling you,” Lyonel said, “no man alive could have managed it. Gods themselves would have needed a rest.” He cried jovially

You closed your eyes.

“He came out roaring,” Lyonel continued, undeterred. “Ten pounds of him. Bigger than some squires I have seen. And she did it without a scream”

You absolutely screamed.

The baby shifted, heavy and warm, and you adjusted him with a sigh. As you listened to Lyonel talk through the entire birth, there was no stopping this.

Later, Lyonel burst into your tent flushed with triumph, cloak half undone, eyes bright.

“They are all in awe of you,” he announced, smiling in glee as his arms wrap around you both, large hand gently covering yours on the baby’s back.

“I am aware” you replied dryly “You made it sound like I had faced the Seven themselves and lived to tell tale.” Your eyes meeting his

“You bore him,” Lyonel said, softer now but no less intense. “Gods, I watched it. I thought the walls would split with your scream.”

“You fainted,” you said smiling.

“I stood back up,” he countered. “Quickly.” A faint pink painting his cheeks.

You snorted despite yourself. Looking down at your son.

“I have fought men twice my size,” Lyonel went on, voice rising again with wonder. “I have broken shields. Nothing has ever terrified me the way watching you bring him into the world did.”

That made you look at him.

“You were magnificent,” he said, words tumbling out, fervent and sincere. “Ferocious. Cursing the gods, cursing me, refusing to let anyone touch you unless they did exactly as you said. I knew then that the boy would be unstoppable. How could he not be, when he came from you?”

Your throat tightened. You shifted the baby slightly, pretending it was for comfort.

“He is strong because you are strong,” Lyonel continued. “And I swear to you, every tourney field, every hall, every fool who looks at him will know who made him.”

You exhaled slowly. “Lyonel.” Smiling softly as your adoring husband.

He grinned, sudden and boyish. “I love you.”

You shook your head, helpless. “You are impossible.” You breathed as he stole a kiss.

“And you,” he said, kissing your lips almost reverently, “are the marvel of the Stormlands.”

The baby let out a snort between you, heavy and content, as if in agreement.

Lyonel laughed, delighted.

————————————————————————————————-

You lost track of Lyonel just before the first games. That was your first mistake.

You found him near the stables, horse already saddled, his massive frame bent low as he held the baby out in front of him.

“He should get used to the height,” Lyonel said thoughtfully. “Build confidence early.”

Your blood went cold.

“Lyonel,” you said, very calmly. Eyes dangerous

He turned, cheerful as ever. “He likes it.” Holding his son securely on the saddle.

“He is a baby,” you hissed, striding forward. “Not a barrel. Just because he is chunky does not mean he will bounce if he falls, you cunt.” You scolded.

A nearby squire choked on his own breath at the language from a lady of your station.

Lyonel instead laughed, still looking delighted, and drew the baby back closer against his chest. “I love giving you something to yell about.” He explained smiling fondly at you.

You snatched your son from him, heart pounding, and pressed his warm weight close. He yawned, fat fist curling into your dress, perfectly unconcerned with your terror.

“You will kill me,” you said to Lyonel. “One day you will simply kill me.” You admonish.

“Not today,” Lyonel said. “Today I show him off to Dunk.” He simply replied as he took his son from your arms.

“By the fucking Seven, who is Dunk?” You replied as he sauntered off smiling

—————————————————————————————————-

Dunk took one look at the baby and froze.

Lyonel thrust the child toward him proudly. “You are tall. You will appreciate this.” He said simply, like it was the explanation needed.

Dunk blinked, looking at the large bundle being dangled in front of him, then carefully accepted the weight, arms tensing immediately.

“He is,” Dunk began, searching desperately for the right word, “solid.”

Lyonel roared with laughter. Already picking up a goblet now his hands were free.

Egg circled them, staring. “Is he really a babe of five moons?” Looking perplexed at the large child, eyes wide

“And one day he will conquer all you cunts on the field of battle!” Lyonel roared raising a glass with his cheering men.

Luckily your son was a good sleeper.

———————————————————————————————————

That night, long after the cheering faded and the fires burned low, you found Lyonel asleep with the baby sprawled across his chest.

Your husband’s hand rested protectively on the child’s back. The baby snored softly, round and safe and utterly adored.

You stood there for a long moment, watching the rise and fall of them both. A soft smile gracing your face.

Lyonel stirred, one eye cracking open to see you standing there. “See,” he murmured. “Already conquering hearts”

You huffed quietly and adjusted the blanket as you climbed in next to home “Sleep,” you said. “Before I conquer your skull.” You tease lightly, curling around him pressing a soft kiss to his lips.

His smile was slow and smug and impossibly fond.

And for once, you let him take the win.

You’ve noticed when he walks the deck of this ship, he doesn’t even falter or stumble. He swings around the ropes because he’s done it all his life. Trades bawdy songs with the sailors. Laughs that thunderous great laugh when the ship breaks a tall wave. Cuts it through like a butter knife.

Barrelling through life as he usually does. His ship is no exception. As much a part of him as his own arms and legs. You watched him on deck. Authority sewn in every step.

You were sailing from Tarth. Homebound. Any minute now, the colossal mountain of brick that was Storms End, would be rising upon you out of the headland. Ser Quentyn Tarth had hosted you at Evenfall Hall for the name day of his son.

You’re stood at the side of the ship. Watching the waves leap. The silver blue scales that rolled and tossed under the seers eye of the sun. The spray that spat up.

The ship lists. Tilting to one side. Bobbing and slamming down. Waves dash salt and foam up the side. Your stomach curdled in protest.

You reach out and steady yourself holding onto a rope. Close your eyes and fight the wave of sickness that grips you bodily. A dizzying rush pulsing your insides. Your breakfast roils unpleasantly in your stomach.

“Now you are emerald green. My storm.”

You sigh. “I am not unwell. I am just… tender.” You decide.

You swallow. Throat dry. Mouth feeling salt stung. When you open your eyes and peer across. Lyonel has not moved. Not an inch. His expression unchanged.

“Tender…” He chews the word around.

“Hmm. Well, I suppose the things we got up to last night was enough to make a Dornishman blush. It is entirely unsurprising that parts of you are… tender.” He raises his brows with that last word. Curls it around his tongue all salacious.

You’d both been drinking. Quite a bit. Too much wine. It had led to a carnal encounter in the beautiful Evenfall gardens.

Your hands pressed to the castle wall as he pinned your skirts to your waist. Took you hard and rough from behind. Hands dug into the globes of your ass. Slamming into you. All rough passion and bruising teeth on your neck. Left you dripping when he was done. Then kindly got to his knees to lap you up.

Between your thighs throbs now with the memory of it.

You shift where you stand. His beard left a burn on the backs of your thighs. “Not like that.” You inform.

“I could take your mind off it….” He offers. Standing with his back to the water. Eyes turned to you. The look he gives is dipped in flirt.

“How?” You check. Frowning.

“Take you to my cabin right now for a quick tongue fuck.” He leers. “I have a large bed and a very nice cabin.”

“Thank you. But I fear I must decline. I need the air.”

The ship lurched and slammed down again. He barely flinched. Your breakfast threatened to make a sudden appearance. Bile building on the back of your tongue like clammy wildfire.

He’s watching you with continuing interest.

You were a Stormlander. That is no meagre title. It is a feat earned with determined grit and sheer tenacity. Born and bred. Iron spine. Sailing shipbreaker bay should have been a stroll for a girl like you. You were raised on ship and sea and storm before you could even walk or talk.

“You are not usually so unsturdy. Sweeting.” Suspicion narrowed his eyes.

You close your eyes and breathe the mineral sharp air. The fierce breeze whipped hair back off your face. Twirled it behind you. The sun spun through it.

It swayed the cold gems that draped your ears. Bashing them into your neck. Sapphires set in gold. Glinting in the sun like you’d captured a piece of the sea to take home.

“I attribute that to the loud company I keep. And the revelries of that feast last night…I suppose I overindulged. I had two flagons of arbour gold. is it any wonder my head is delicate this morning.”

“It was merry was it not?” He grins. Fantastically so.

“You drank a barrel of wine to yourself. And ended the night dancing on the tables so I would say so.” You remind him.

He looks awfully smug. “When have I ever wasted a good celebration.”

“Never, my heart.” You assure. “And I’m sure you never will.”

He comes across. Tucked his arm around you. Drew you back. Letting his cloak enfold you at the sides. Rests his chin on the crown of your head. Nectarine honey blossoms of your perfume meets his nose. Your soft silky hair at his lips.

“You’re sure it’s just seasickness?” He asks.

His cloak snaps on the wind where he tried to keep it around you. Burnt birch and clove oil. The scent that wraps him up. So you can always tell what way the storm is coming from. You just have to find that clove-woodsy scent on the air he brings. It comforts you.

“I’m fine.” You repeat. “The sooner I can plant my feet on sturdy land. The better.”

The ship lists to one side again. You groan. Grip that rope tight once again. Closing your eyes. Breathing evenly and exhaling low and slow. Bile climbing into the back of your mouth too easily.

“I have you.” He mumbles. Arms strong around you. Chest at your back.

You smooth your gloved hands around his.

You smile. Cause he always does. Always had. Even when you weren’t intended for each other. He loomed large in your life like storm clouds. And you’re never the type of girl to run from the rain they threatened.

“No wine with supper tonight.” You propose. Leaning back to the brace of his arms. “And perhaps we’ll retire early”

He smiles. “As my lady commands.” Hands linking around your waist. Pulling you back to his larger frame.

Arms crossed over your belt. The golden one he’d gifted. It slinks to rest low on your hips. The clasp was a stags head. And the pin slotted in your braided hair coiffure, was a golden stag with sapphires set as eyes.

You’d rolled your eyes. But ultimately let your maid slide the decorations on you. You were a Baratheon bride. It was naturally expected to support your husbands sigil and colours.

But let it be known he saw with a hint of pride that the clasp for your cloak chain around your neck, was a lightning bolt. The old with the new. You’d insisted.

His mouth snuck its devious way down to your neck. Beard scratching behind your ear in a way that suddenly got your stomach swooping for a different reason.

“Quick tongue fuck is still on the table by the way.” He offers again.

You pat his hand.

“I know you can’t. But, do shut up.”

You pushed your spoon around the bowl for the third time.

He watches you out the corner of his eyes. You think he’s studying a letter. Crop figures. Dull as dirt. Hence why his eyes turned to you.

Breakfast you always took together in the dining hall. A tradition you clung too after you married.

He was carving and picking over his own plate which groaned with crisped bacon, baked crusty bread, oiled fish, two fried eggs and a dark stout beer.

His attention couldn’t be more on you.

You’re tracing shapes in the gloopy porridge. Seeing what impressions the spoon carves.

Looking at it like it was a bowl of slugs laid before you. Steam wafting up into your face. Curling tendrils of sugary milk and the warm earthy hum of oats.

You swallow. Leave the spoon on the side. Push the plate away. Reach for the green mint tea you’d asked for. It was sharp, but you seemed to prefer the taste of it to the thick porridge you used to take. Cream and sugar. Each morning.

Now the thought of it made you heave.

He thought back to your dinner the previous eve. Mutton chops, fried but still tender, with sage. And duck fat scalded potatoes and yellow turnips.

You barely ate more than two mouthfuls. Yet come the sweets, you’d asked for seconds of the sharp blackberry and cream tarts.

He lowers his letter to the table. Studying your face carefully.

“Everything alright, my storm?” He asks.

Voice falling loud and sudden off the cavernous walls. Skipping over the swish and burn of the tallow candles that soared gentle smoke up in the air. Trickling to enmesh with the thick shafts of light from the high windows.

He studies your face when you turn to him. The sudden smile that plastered over your expression. Masking the frown that had been there.

A careful smile. He doesn’t do careful.

“I think I need some fresh air. I’ve been shuttered up inside too long. Maybe a ride out would do me some good. Care to come?” You seek. Placing your teacup down.

“Unless you’ve business to attend.” You add. You know there’s usually three or four things per day that require his attention and input.

“Of course. But I can ignore that. One of my skills.” He grins.

“Shall we?” He asks. Pushing his chair back from the table.

“Irresponsible. But I’ll take it.” You answer.

His hand lands in the dip of your lower back as he leads you through the hallways to change.

You’d need your thick wool riding dress on. The weather of these lands were never kind to fancy silks or fine cottons.

You do look more yourself. He thinks. As his huge black destrier, Storm, clops nicely alongside your temperate chestnut gelding, Bolt.

You look more recovered. Out on horseback. In the misty enclave of ancient gnarled trees. The scent of dried leaves, churned with mucky thick mud. The miserly wet hanging of fog on the air. Cold ozone and the flavour of old rain on your tongue. It’s like manna to you. Home.

The feeling of a saddle beneath you. The creak of leather. The slow rhythmic pace. It’s like it returned something of you to yourself. You were never a lady to sit idle.

You take deep breaths. Silver air spurning out your mouth like a ghostly spirit. Gentle rain beading in white gems down your dark purple cloak. The way it framed your face with the hood. The back of it spilling over your horse and around you to shield from uncaring elements at that snuck in anyway.

You turned to look skywards. Face tilted up. Rain speckled across your cheeks like a soft caress.

Still he watches you. Cataloguing your renewed energy. The way you’re looking at these misty rainy woods like they’re a part of you, you’ve missed. The easy countenance of your smile does something to his heart he can’t lay name too. Something he’s happy to know is ownership

You turn back and catch him staring. Brown eyes sunk into you. He’s forgone a cloak. Rain tamps his wild hair back. Beads down and drips off his beard, and the end of his nose.

“What is it?” You ask. Cheeks gleaming with dewy rain.

“Nothing. My storm.” He smiles.

He’s climbing the stairs of the tower to your room. When he spies the maid who tends you.

She curtseys a polite bob of a nod. And tells him that you’re sleeping.

It’s barely nightfall. He takes that with a nod. Thanks her. Makes his way to your shared chambers.

Now you had his concern. His entire concern if he was honest. The little changes of late had been mounting;

The bags under your eyes had darkened. You complained one of your dresses now felt tight around the waist. The other day he’d slid his hand under your nightgown to cup your breast, when you were slowly waking up abed, and you’d hissed like a poisonous beast had bitten you.

You’d been snappish with his steward too. - though the bastard often deserves it. Over some nonsense grain accounts. You’d flung vitriol at him and corrected him with a viciousness bred in your tongue.

He reckons he can determine the root cause of these changes.

The creak of the door whines on its hinges like a dying gull. Showing him the serenity of the room within. All is soft and dark. Copper candles spurn the black clumps of dark that stick to the corners. Shapes that shiver with the flame from the large hearth.

You are a wrapped sprawl on the bed. Curled into the pillows. The poster drapes drawn up a little. Skirts spilling over the side of the bed like a toppled bottle of ink.

He kept his steps gentle. Soft boots on the stones. Eases down onto the mattress. Slinks across and settled with a sigh by your side.

He watched your expression. The caramel copper of your face caught in the half light. Dark shadows that melted in the corners of your eyes. Down your lashes. Caught the smooth of your cheeks in the light. The pull of your lips. Shine of your hair.

“My savage storm.” He whispers. Trailing his lips along your temple. His beard abrading your soft skin.

You groan. A sleepy soft noise that wrinkled at the back of your throat.

“Lyonel.” You whisper. Silk shifting where you moved. Said his name with peaceful reverence, like a lover would. All soft edges and lulled tones. Sleep husked whispers.

You crack open your eyes. Candlelight sparks and glimmers across them like amber sherry caught in a glass.

He leans back. Shared the pillow with you. Strokes his thumb over your warmed cheek. Grazed red from where it met with the pillow.

“I think I should tell you something.” He begins gently.

“What is it?” You ask. “Something wrong?” you ask. Peeling your sleepy tongue off the roof of your mouth. Going to sit up. He keeps you pressed where you are.

He grins. He can’t not.

“No. Everything is very, very, quite right.”

Your eyes squint at him.

“Are you drunk?” You seek. It wouldn’t be a complete shock if he was. That was mostly his prevailing condition.

He cups your face. Thumbs your cheek. He is drunk these days. Drunk at all times even when there isn’t a cup in his hand. Drunk with love of you - and now the little one that is to come.

“Sweeting. I think you might be with child. Our child.”

Your expression is an absolute picture. He watches the gears click and turn in your mind. Adding up all the little happenstances of late. A crinkle forms between your brows. Crowning the space there.

“Pregnant?” You surmise.

“Hardly a surprise. The way we’ve been going about it. Frankly, I’m shocked it’s taken this long.” He leers. Winking at you like a scoundrel.

“We’ve hardly been discreet. I’ve been spilling in you every damn day since our wedding night - and quite a bit before.” He cheeks.

“Pregnant.” You repeat. As if tasting the word for the first time. A revelation.

He laughs. It’s such a joyous sound.

Fracturing the silence of the chamber.

“I shall send for the Maester in the morning. To confirm. But from what I’ve seen, I’m certain.” He smirks.

“For the rest of the night. I want nothing beyond these four walls. I want it to be just you. Me. And our little stag makes three.” He beams.

Sliding his hand down to rest on your stomach. Thumb swiping an arc over your belly. The tide of gratitude and excitement in him was a huge swell he couldn’t quash.

“How in the seven hells did you figure it out before I did?” You gawp.

He winks. “Dogged husbandly intuition.”

“I thought it was just- tiredness. I suppose I have been abnormally tired. I did bite your poor stewards head off too. But he deserved that he was being an ass.”

Lyonel smiles to hear that. You do keep everyone on their toes that’s for certain. You are whip smart and so fantastic at beating out the laziness or slothful attitude from courtiers, or cousins, or stewards. Never let it be said Lady Baratheon met this world with a placid, winsome nature. You met it like a spark to a line of gunpowder.

“And the food- I wondered why the smell of roast boar suddenly makes me want to heave.” You speak aloud. As if to yourself. Eyes wandering across the room.

He chuckles. Slides himself down the bed to march an onslaught of kisses to your silk clad stomach.

“Your mother is usually the most hard-headed, sensible woman. Don’t hold this against her. Little stag.” He nudged his nose into you. Kisses your belly in quick succession after he speaks. Nuzzling.

“You will be glorious. Storm bred. Look at you? Barely a moon old. Already you are weakening the mighty house of lightning.” He catches your eye.

“Enough cheek out of you.” You sass.

“Making your poor mother green on a ship. Putting her off her food. You’re a relentless little thing already. Can’t wait to see you tumbling around. Knocking into this world like the stormy fury you’ll be.”

“My heart-“ you reach down and lose your fingers in that tangle of grey curls. “You do know this child will not be born with antlers. If anything only for my sake...”

“Hush your impertinence. He will if he knows what’s good for him. He’s a Baratheon with a Dondarrion for a mother. He’s going to be the storm that will shake the world.”

“He might be a girl.” You point out. Stroking your hand through his hair.

He grins up at you, like a mad man.

“All the better. Then she’ll have your lightning, sweeting. Of that I’ve not one shred of doubt.” He shakes his head. “And she will be fucking splendid.”

He leans down and kisses your stomach once again.

Before he moves up and throws his lips to yours in a powerful kiss that crushes you to the bed. Enough to make you squeak. Cupping his face. Thumbs on his cheeks. The heel of your hands brushing against that greying beard.

“You’d be happy if I bore you a daughter?” You check. The crinkle between your brows was back. Sharing the muggy air after a heavy kiss. Pressed nearly nose to nose.

You know how deep the lines of succession run here. Rooted deeper and more bloodied than any vein. An ancient old monster that hangs over every noble castle like a great beast. Long teeth. Ruthless. Waiting in the dark. Stubborn and as punishing as flames.

Men, women, and children have died in their thousands on the cursed altar that was the succession. Wars and death have followed lines like hunting hounds. Many a mishap too. Murder disguised as the gods fate.

Falls from cliffs. Hunting accidents. Dying in the battlefield that was the birthing bed. Poison dropped in a cup. All things designed to slip someone out of the way and place another heir in the family seat.

It would break your heart to pieces and grind it to powder, to see it happen to your roaring, boisterous husband. The sour faces and sneering talk it would bring, scorn and disappointment, if the mighty house Baratheon’s first heir to the laughing storm was a girl.

He makes his opinion very plain. Forcefully so.

“Our child is a blessing. No matter what they are. Soon the Stormlands shall have three fucking storms to contend with. I ask you. What could be more glorious?” He beams.

Caging you to the bed. Kissing up your neck til you laugh at the tickle of his lips. He finds your mouth again and kisses you like a drowning man whose seen land for the first time in weeks.

Married in a storm.

Married to a man who follows storms like they are his birthright.

And now you’ve bred a little storm of your own making in your belly. Seven help you.

“Good thing we’ve never had a taste for peace and calm in this house.” You decide. Resting your forehead to his. “I’ve a feeling we’ll be having none of it in due course.”

He kisses your cheek. A soft smack that brings a huge smile to your mouth. If that’s his sole occupation in this place, then so be it.

“Excellent.” He smirks.

Your voice pulled him from his thoughts, and Maekar’s gaze fell on you. You sat across from him, fingers curled loosely around the goblet, staring at it like it personally offended you. 

He could not help but take a sip from his own goblet. His brows shot up as the taste hit his tongue. You had asked for it as you always did, warmed slightly, sweetened with honey and spice. The servants prepared it no differently than any other evening.

Maekar glanced at the goblet in your hand, then at you. “It is the same as before.”

“It is not.” You insisted, giving it a small sniff and setting it aside with displeasure. “It tastes… wrong.”

He huffed a small laugh. “You asked for wine with spice and honey, wife.”

“This is not it.” You complained and looked at him, lips pursed. 

“It is the same as yesterday.”

“It is not.” You insisted again, your gaze moving to the hearth. “Yesterday was better.”

Maekar studied you for a moment longer than necessary. Could it be? He thought, but said nothing.

After that, the details began to gather. Small, easy to dismiss, if one was not paying attention. If he was a different man he would have missed it. 

But Maekar Targaryen missed very little.

You lingered in bed longer than you usually do, rising slower in the mornings. Where once you would rise with purpose to claim the day, now you remained beneath the covers, half-curled towards him, your hand finding his arm or placed on his chest as though you were reluctant to let him go.

And more than once, he awoke to you pressed closer than usual, your body warm against his. 

You did not seem aware of it. And he chose not to comment on it.

He noticed that your appetite changed next. You ate more, more than usual and not always sensibly. You mixed sweet with salt. You dipped bread in things where it has no business being dipped in. Once, you reached for both sweetened fruit and cured olives in the same breath, only to frown as if something was still missing. 

“You will ruin your own tastes.” He remarked dryly.

“You already think them questionable, dear husband.” You replied, unbothered.

Another time, you ate an entire portion meant for two, and then looked faintly annoyed when there was no more.

He said nothing then either, only watched you more closely.

And then you began seeking him. Not in the evenings or the privacy of your chambers where you usually did. 

But during the day.

At first, he thought it was a coincidence. You came to his solar in the middle of the day while he was reviewing letters from the capital. You made some light remark about the household before drifting closer, your fingers idly tracing his desk as you spoke.

“You look buried underneath them.” You said.

“I am…” He scowled.

“You should not be.”

You moved closer, resting your hand against his shoulder, a touch that lingered just a breath longer than it needed to.

“You should be buried in me.” You whispered, eyes ablaze with desire for your beloved husband.

Maekar looked at you then, surprised by your words. Then he stood, kissing you with a ferocity that caught him off guard. You giggled, fingers gripping at his shoulders as the world narrowed to the closeness and his solid presence.

It was not the last time you came to him like that, and it was not the last time he let everything else fall away for you.

He had seen it before, six times before. Not identical, for no two ever were, but close enough that the patterns were unmistakable. 

And though you did not yet understand the reason behind all of this, Maekar did.

There was no awareness in your eyes, no guardedness in your movements. Only mild confusion at yourself, at your tastes, at your energy, at your sudden need for him.

He allowed himself to keep the knowledge hidden from you. It settled in his chest, heavy and deep, pride threading through it.

You were with child. His child. 

His child with you. You, who came into his life not as love, not as choice, but as duty, now carrying something that was both, that was now everything.

That quiet, private pride only deepened in him.

He did not expect that it would ever matter, not like this. Yet it did, more than he would ever admit it out loud.

That night, when he retired to your chambers like he always did, he stayed closer to you. His hand lingered on you longer than necessary. And his touch carried a different weight now, not just desire, but something steadier beneath it.

You did not question it. You only leaned into him.

And Maekar found a quiet, private satisfaction in knowing something you did not.

Just for a little while longer.

You stared out the window of the nameless castle that you were now held in. Your brothers had dragged you up some tower and left you locked in the room alone. You tried to open the door, resulting in a broken chair now lying on the ground, but the lock held. The windows had been barred, most likely in preparation of your forced arrival.

There was no way out. Not yet anyways.

The release of the lock caused you to turn away from the window. Your father stepped into the room, alone, before the door closed and locked behind him. You did not say anything and merely turned to look out the window once more. Your fingers wrapped around the bars as Daemon approached you.

“You were always so stubborn, even as a babe,” he commented, causing you to scowl.

“I wonder where I got that from.”

Although you did not see it, Daemon’s lips curled into a smile at memories that seemed so long ago. But his smile dropped when he was only met with your cold indifference.

“You should have come to us sooner.”

“I did not come to you,” you snapped back over your shoulder. “You had your little minions kidnap me and drag me away in the middle of the night.”

“We could not exactly stroll into King’s Landing and request your presence.”

“And who is the cause of that inconvenience?” You turned around to glare openly at him. “Who caused the war that is tearing the realm apart?”

Daemon scoffed. “Do not tell me that the Dornish princeling has filled your head with lies.”

“My husband,” you corrected him, “is the first man I have met who has not sought or demanded control of my thoughts.”

“He is merely slier than the rest.”

“You do not know him.”

“I know enough.”

“You know that your pride was wounded when he unhorsed you!” you yelled at your father, emotions rising to the surface. “You speak of his barbarism but you were the one who sold me off to a man you did not trust merely to save your pride! Where is the honor in that!?”

Daemon did not respond, staring at you as if he did not recognize his daughter in front of him. It was as if his worst fears had come true. His own child turned against him by the enemy.

The door opened once more and your mother stepped inside. You wondered if she was waiting outside the door the entire time for the moment where everything blew up, as was guaranteed to occur.

“How are you feeling, sweeting?” your mother asked softly, moving forward to take you into her arms. You did not fight your mother, accepting her embrace.

“I would be better if I was left in King’s Landing.”

“I meant the babe.” She held you at arm’s length, inspecting you. “You look only a few moons away from the end.”

“Yes, I believe I am.”

“Have you decided on any names?”

“Not yet. I did not wish to select a name without my husband’s input.”

“So he does control you,” your father spoke up, earning matching looks from both you and your mother.

“Daemon,” your mother murmured with an edge of warning in her tone, “it is perfectly normal for a wife to consult with her husband on names for their babe.”

“It will not be Daemon,” you snapped back, earning a reprimand from your mother.

You could see the anger steaming out of your father’s ears as he growled out, “If the babe is a boy, his name will be the least of his concern.”

You felt your blood run cold at the threat. Your mother was quick to scold your father, but the damage was already done. With the look in his eye, you knew that there was truth to the statement.

If you were to bear a son, he would be Baelor’s heir and, in turn, another support to King Daeron’s claim. And a threat to your father’s own claim.

Your hand dropped to protectively lay on your belly as you took a step back from your father. You had no weapons to defend yourself, but you would not allow any harm to befall your child without fighting to the death yourself.

“He did not mean that,” your mother tried to smooth over, but the hairs on the back of your neck remained raised.

“Yes, he did,” you corrected her, staring down your father. “He would rather the death of a grandson born of love than yield the integrity of his own ego.”

Although your glare and scowl showed pure unadulterated rage, the tears building in your eyes hinted at the betrayal that stabbed at your heart.

Perhaps you were naive to believe that this war had not changed your father’s affection for you. When the war was announced, you expected such horrific sentiments from Aegon or Aemon as well as Aegor, as they all held contempt for you predating your marriage to Baelor.

But your father’s affection for you appeared to die the moment that your belly swelled with Baelor’s child.

As if he could no longer handle the sight of you, Daemon turned and stormed out of the room. The door shook as it slammed shut behind him. You did not flinch, still on edge.

Your mother sighed and moved to take your hand. She led you to the bed and encouraged you to sit down. You did not fight her, though you did not move to relax either.

“He did not mean that,” your mother repeated, rubbing your back. “He is merely angry.”

“And that removes any sting from his words?” you asked rhetorically, staring at the door. Turning to your mother, the fear slipped into your expression more openly. “He means to murder my child.” Your mother moved to speak, to grant more excuses, but you would not allow it, “What possible reason would justify the murder of an innocent child?”

Your mother did not have a response to that. You were uncertain if any words would have soothed you in that moment. So your mother simply took you into her arms and pressed a kiss to your head. You buried your face into her shoulder, as you did when you were a small child, and let the tears flow.

*~*~*

It had been over two moons since you were taken from the Red Keep and Maekar was noting increasing changes in his brother.

As far as their mother was concerned, Baelor had been born the perfect heir. The realm thought differently when the news of Baelor’s dark hair and Dornish features spread. But at every opportunity, Baelor proved that he was worthy of the mantle. He was reserved in his emotions, but easy to speak with. Humble and kind, but also well learned and seemingly wise beyond his years. As good with diplomacy as he was with a blade, Baelor had earned his right to the throne.

But Maekar could see the dam starting to break in his brother’s demeanor.

Baelor was always the first to advocate for means of punishment other than death. But more heads had rolled as the Blackfyre supporters were slowly picked off one by one. Baelor had not complained about the bloodshed and had not moved to stop it except in a handful of cases. Maekar was waiting for his brother to truly break.

And when word reached them that Aegon Blackfyre had been captured, Maekar quietly prepared himself for it.

Baelor led the way into the cell block and stood outside of Aegon’s cell with a steeled expression as Maekar moved to stand behind his brother. The guards opened the door and Baelor led the way inside. Aegon Blackfyre stood up from his stool and offered Baelor a sickly smirk that only made Baelor’s stare harden.

“If it isn’t my good brother,” Aegon drawled, folding his arms across his chest. “I was wondering when you would show your face.” He leaned against the wall of his cell, as if he was expecting a casual conversation. “Looking for information on your whore?”

Baelor folded his hands behind his back, not cracking under the insult to you. Despite the rising temperature of his boiling blood, he knew that giving into the temptation to sever your brother’s head from his shoulders would not solve the issue.

“Where is she?” Baelor asked instead, voice even.

Aegon shrugged his shoulders. “Don’t know.”

“Lies will not lessen your punishment,” Baelor warned, though it only made Aegon’s grin widen.

“Oh, you actually care for her, do you? Didn’t think I’d ever see a sentimental Dornishman.” Aegon leaned back, a sickly grin twisting his lips. “Though I suppose that must have more to do with the bastard she’s growing in her womb for you. Unless you share your wife like others of your kind.” Aegon turned to Maekar. “Did you get a ride?”

Maekar took a threatening step forward, but Baelor held out an arm to prevent him from smashing Aegon’s teeth down his gullet.

“If you tell us where she is, you will survive this war,” Baelor bargained, dropping his arm back to his side. “But only if she is unharmed.”

“Looks like I won’t live then,” Aegon drawled, causing Baelor’s blood to run cold despite his best efforts.

Now that the knife was placed, Aegon intended to twist it around.

“After we got her out of King’s Landing, we had to remove the parasite growing inside our dear sister, of course. She screamed and cried, so we had to tie her down as we gutted her like a fish. She begged for you to come and save her, but you were off elsewhere, weren’t you?”

Aegon shrugged, tilting his head up as he prepared to deliver the final blow.

“Well, at least she bled out before she could witness the crows plucking at your bastard’s little corpse. He didn’t even cry as we threw him in a ditch to rot.”

Maekar did not even see his brother move until he heard the crack of Baelor’s fist against Aegon’s head. Aegon tried to fight back, but Baelor was not thinking, he was merely allowing the rage to guide him. Baelor pinned Aegon to the floor and had started to rain his fists down onto Aegon when Maekar was finally able to intervene.

Pulling Baelor off of Aegon, Maekar struggled to regain control of the situation. He pushed his brother against the wall, gritting his teeth as Baelor fought against him. But as the sting of his knuckles grew, Baelor seemed to remember himself.

“I think you got him,” Maekar murmured as Baelor stopped fighting him.

Aegon remained on the floor, blood dripping down his face and staining his tunic. But despite the broken and missing teeth as well as broken ribs, Aegon dared to laugh.

“And she called you gentle.”

Baelor, breathing heavily, leaned against the wall. Maekar released his hold on Baelor, who held his head in his bloody hands as he struggled to pull himself back together. He swore that the rage had blocked out his memories of the fight. Or assault based on the lack of injuries on himself. He felt sick with how he had lost control of himself.

Maekar, however, was not above kicking a man while he was down. Aegon let out a pained yell as Maekar picked him off the floor and pinned him to the wall. Baelor dropped his hands and turned to watch his younger brother hold Aegon off the floor by his tunic.

“If you do not want to spend every last second of your pathetic life in the most excruciating pain imaginable by your puny little mind, you will answer our questions," Maekar snapped lowly, with thinly veiled rage.

*~*~*

You stared out the window as your sister, Calla, spoke to you from the other corner of the room. She had taken to the task of bringing you your meals and the two of you would spend some time together before she left once more. But as the days droned on and there was no sign of Baelor anywhere, your interest in small talk with your sister declined dramatically.

Today, you sat quietly on your bed, not even moving to touch the stew that she had brought you. It was surely cold by now.

"How is the babe today?" Calla asked softly, looking up from her needlepoint that she brought along.

The babe in your belly appeared to be just as anxious as you were, but the babe was not the type to sit and sulk. No, the little babe had kept you up at all hours of the night, kicking your organs and crushing your bladder. Your back was sore and had taken to throbbing pain lately. But you would endure all of that for years if it meant that your child remained safe.

The moment that your child drew their first breath, if you were still held in your family's custody, their fate would be decided. While they were inside your womb, they were protected. If your family attempted to kill your babe, they would surely kill you along with them. And it seemed that at least your mother refused to accept that as an option.

But once your babe was born, and their sex revealed, then your ability to protect them would end. If the babe was a girl, you would be allowed to keep her. If the babe was a boy, however . . . you could not even think about that outcome.

"Meddlesome," you decided on, causing your sister to smile.

“I do hope that the gods bless Aegor and I with a child soon after our wedding."

Calla was too focused on her needlepoint to see the expression of disgust that crossed your face. Aegor Rivers could die a thousand deaths, and you would still not be satisfied that it was a sufficient punishment. And if you were not a prisoner among your own family, you would have announced your distrust of their union. But now, your words were meaningless and only fell on deaf ears.

“When is the wedding?” you asked quietly, staring off into the mist.

"Father says that we must wait until the war is over to prepare a proper celebration."

You let out a breath through your nose at her comment but did not allow the words dancing on your tongue to be spoken. "Where do you wish to get married?"

"Aegor wants to be married in King's Landing, just as you were."

She did not say Baelor's name aloud and for that, you were thankful. If she had, you very well might have burst into tears.

A sudden, sharp pain in your back caused you to tense up and despite your best efforts, a gasp escaped your lips. Calla looked up from her needlepoint and hurried over to you.

"What is it? Is it the babe?"

"No," you breathed out, leaning back against the pillows. "It was nothing."

"Are you certain?" Calla looked concerned as she studied your face. "I can call a maester."

"It was indigestion. I am fine, Sister."

Calla appeared like she did not believe you and abandoned her needlepoint to sit on the edge of your bed. You discussed more mundane things about her courtship with Aegor. The pains returned and you tried hiding them, but your sister knew you too well to believe your lies.

"I believe your labors may be starting, Sister," Calla stated, standing beside you.

"No, they are not," you bit back stubbornly.

"I am getting Mother."

"Calla, I am fine!" you called after her, but she had already summoned the guard to the door to collect your mother. With a scowl, you swung your feet over the edge of the bed and moved to stand up. "I am fine."

The splash of fluid on the stone floor caused you to freeze, unadulterated fear shooting up your spine.

*~*~*

Baelor climbed up onto his horse, staring ahead into the heavy mist surrounding the hidden Blackfyre stronghold. He searched for any sign of you, hoping and praying with every last bit of sanity that he possessed that you were here. That he could save you and your child from your family before it was too late.

"Ready?" Maekar grunted, riding up beside Baelor. When Baelor did not respond, Maekar turned to the mist as well. "If she's not here, that does not mean that we stop looking."

"I know that," Baelor replied quietly.

"Then adjust your face accordingly."

Baelor turned to shoot his brother a look in response, but, in truth, he was thankful for his brother's presence throughout the war. Baelor was not certain how he would have handled the mantel without Maekar by his side, though he did know his brother would not care for sentimentalities.

"Be safe, Maekar."

"I'll be waiting for you to catch up inside," Maekar returned before kicking his heels into his horse.

The brothers shared a nod before Maekar headed down the path to join his own men. Baelor turned back to the castle and slipped on his helmet. Letting a breath out through his nose, Baelor flicked his horse's reins and moved to take his position.

*~*~*

"No!" you sobbed as your mother and sister tried to get you to lay down on your bed. "No, it cannot be happening now!"

"I'm afraid it is, sweetling," your mother replied, gently taking your hand. "You must not fight it."

"No!" You tried to fight their holds on you, but the pain and weakness of your captivity had sapped much of your strength. Sitting on the bed, you let out another sob. "You cannot take my child from me!"

"We are not here to take your child from you," your mother assured you, kneeling in front of you. She brushed your hair from your face and offered you a smile. "We are only here to support you through your labors, sweetling."

"But Father—"

"—Your father is not here. I am. As is Calla," your mother corrected, trying to snap you out of your sobs. "And you know that neither Calla nor I would ever harm you or any child you bear."

You shook your head, tears still streaming down your face. You slowly moved to meet your mother's gaze, admitting softly, "I'm terrified."

"I know, I know, my sweet girl," your mother whispered, gathering you in her arms. "I was terrified when I was in your position. But you will get through this, and you will have a beautiful squealing babe in your arms before you know it."

With reluctance, you laid on the bed and allowed your mother and sister to assist you through your pains. Choking back a scream as another contraction struck you, you flinched when the door to your room slammed open.

Aegor Rivers strode into the room and surveyed your condition.

"You should not be in here," your mother snapped at him, keeping a protective arm around you.

"They are attacking the castle," Aegor replied coldly, glaring at you as you withered in pain. "We must leave."

"She cannot leave!" your mother defended as you let out another pained cry. "Surely, the defenses can hold for a bit longer!"

"Her safety is not my concern," Aegor scoffed, before turning to Calla. "Come, we must leave."

Your sister remained at your side, clearly hesitating as she was pulled in two directions at once. Aegor grew increasingly annoyed and looked ready to snap when your mother spoke up once more, "Go with him. Take your other siblings."

"And what of you two?" Calla asked, glancing between you and your mother. "We cannot leave you."

Your mother's stare hardened. "You must. Your sister cannot be moved. And I cannot leave her in such distress." She glanced up at Aegor before returning to Calla. "Go. Now."

Calla nodded and with one last squeeze of your hand, stood up and turned to Aegor's side. They hurried from the room, and your mother turned her full attention to you.

"You will be fine, my sweet girl."

You nodded and a shaky smile tugged at your lips. "He's coming for me."

Your mother managed a small smile before turning back to tending to you through your labors. As a woman who delivered countless children herself, you trusted your mother above anyone else in this matter. The pains grew more intense and closer together as the noises outside the castle walls became louder. Cannons went off and steel slammed against steel in the fields surrounding the castle.

"You are nearly ready to push, sweetling," your mother called to you when the door slammed opened again. Aegor reappeared, looking stony as he glared at you. Your mother stood up from her position and stepped in front of you. "I thought you evacuated."

"Calla handled the other essentials," Aegor replied before returning his gaze to you. "I had to ensure that this situation was properly handled."

You closed your eyes as terrified tears built up. Your mother's hands clenched before she released them. "I must get some materials quickly. I will be right back," she announced, causing you to open your eyes.

You shook your head, begging her to remain by your side, but your mother quickly pressed a kiss to your head before she disappeared from the room. You sniffled, tears streaming down your face as you glanced up at Aegor. Emboldened by your mother's disappearance, he stepped forward to the edge of your bed.

"It seems that you will repent sins today," he stated calmly, causing you to look away. You could not move or flee, you were in so much pain, and so you could only hope that your mother or Baelor was close by. "One way or another."

His hand shot out and grabbed your neck. You grabbed his wrist, struggling as he choked you briefly, just enough to spark greater fear in you. He wanted to watch you struggle and beg for your life.

"The Dornish brute did not deserve you, and yet you let him take his fill of you. And I bet you enjoyed it, like the harlot you've always been." You struggled, choking as his grip tightened on your throat once more. "It will be my greatest satisfaction to slice his bastard's little throat."

The sound of your mother's hurried footsteps caused him to release you and step back. She appeared in the doorway and hurried to your side, fearing what had occurred while she was briefly away. Rohanne shot Aegor a look, retaking her position in front of you.

"You must wait outside. It is undignified."

"We must be certain," Aegor replied, folding his hands behind his back. "I will wait here."

Your mother wanted to argue and scream and throw Aegor out of the room, but she could not. He was stronger than the two of you, especially given your state. And your child was beginning to crown.

"It is time to push," she told you, causing you to shake your head.

"No, I cannot," you pleaded, glancing up at Aegor.

"You must." Your mother held your gaze and with firm determination, restated, "You must."

Your screams echoed through the walls of the castle, quickly drowned out by the cannons and clashes of steel. Rohanne glanced up at Aegor when each push abated. She subtly uncorked a bottle and pressed it to a patch of fabric. With one last screech, you pushed your child into the world.

But you did not hear a cry.

"No," you whispered, trying to sit up.

Tears streamed down your cheeks as you struggled to see your child. Your mother, sliding the scented cloth she had held over the babe's nose under the sheet, stood up with an apologetic expression. She lifted the child higher and when you did not see movement, you burst out into uncontrollable sobs.

Your mother severed the umbilical cord and wrapped the babe in a blanket before placing your child beside you on the bed.

"It is dead?" Aegor demanded gruffly, earning a look from your mother.

Aegor stepped forward, staring down at the silent babe, trying to determine if the babe was truly dead. You took your child into your arms as your sobs and screams of pain echoed around the room. But the sound of a crash from a cannonball that shook the castle down to its foundations quickly shifted his priorities.

"We must go," he told your mother, who reluctantly nodded.

Rohanne turned to you one last time, knowing in her heart that she would not see you for a long time, perhaps ever again. Leaning down, she pressed a lingering kiss to your head.

"He will wake," she whispered to you in her Tyroshi dialect.

But then she stood up and departed the room with Aegor, leaving you to mourn your son alone. The door was left open behind them. Your cries continued to echo down the halls, where the Blackfyre banners began to burn.

Tags (Only Those Clearly 18+):

@purplecloaks

@lightdragonrayne

@inloveallthetime

@baelorandmaekarinparis

@starryhiraeth

@allthingsimagines

@f-wrtr

Today, Lyonel took you on a ride through the woods, your young palfrey barely keeping pace with his mighty destrider. It was a lovely stroll, a rare sunny day in Storm's End.

That was, until your palfrey's foot caught a root of a tree and nearly sent you flying. Lyonel was there to catch his reins and soothe the poor thing, but he was not going to let you ride home on the spooked creature.

So he pulled you onto his destrider, pressed tight to his chest, and his hand rested firmly on your hip—to make sure you don't fall, of course.

His hand burned through your dress, igniting a fire in you that you were still not yet accustomed to. Since you arrived, Lyonel has made his desire you very known, and while you made it clear you wished to wait until your wedding night, that does not mean you could not find... other ways.

You lay your hand on his wrist and he moves to pull it away, but you stop him. For a moment the two of you just freeze, the only noise your breathing and leaves under horsefoot.

And then you guide his hand between your thighs, and the rest is a fucking blur. His lips descending on your neck, fabric shuffling to reach and get under your smallclothes, wanton whispers from your lips and his.

"Are you sure, my girl?" Lyonel teases, running his fingers through your slit to find you wet already.

"Yes," you whimper, leaning back to press your head against his shoulder. He giggles against your ear, maddening and sweet, turning your head slightly to kiss you.

It was not long before he had you whimpering like a common tavern whore.

You do not know how he managed to stay so steady, one hand strong and finger around the reins as if the other wasn't three fingers deep in your quim.

"Do not fret, my love," he purrs in your ear, his thumb circling the apex of your pleasure. "Many ladies break their maidenheads on horseback."

That is what undoes you, and Lyonel nearly loses control of his stead when you turn your head to capture him in a fierce kiss.

Sorry this took so long to get out. Technical difficulties were blowing my shit, but I hope yall enjoyed!

Being your father's youngest and his only daughter meant that he held you close. He was softer with you, less stern, and more forgiving.

He held off as long as he could with marrying you off, but the time had come and your grandfather was losing his patience.

You stood in the room with your uncle and father, feeling as if your feet were going to fall from underneath you.

"We think wedding you to Aerion is the most appropriate choice." Your father spoke.

Your palms were sweaty, fingers digging into your skin as you listened to him.

"No, please." You pleaded.

Maekar rolled his eyes. "You are being dramatic, girl. We do not have time for these silly games, you have to get married."

Your eyes watered, fingers digging deeper into your skin.

"Please.." you spoke.

Baelor stared at you, trying to understand your feelings.

"My sweet daughter, he is a suitable match and it keeps his behavior under our watch."

You gritted your teeth.

"Both of you know what he is, how he will treat me.."

"He broke two of my fucking fingers over a game, burnt me with a match—what do you think he will do if I am his wife?"

"There's no need to be vulgar." Baelor cautioned.

Baelor and Maekar both glanced at each other. Deep down, they both understood your fear but didn’t want to confirm it.

You left the room for fear of getting yourself more worked up. It wasn’t that you minded the idea of doing your duty, it was the idea of being subjected to marrying Aerion. You would rather throw yourself out of an window than marry him, bed him, and give him children.

The mere thought sent chills down your spine.

To clear your mind, you went down to the library—hoping you could find something else to read. The library was often your sanctuary, a place away from everyone and everything. A place of peace and quiet.

You spent a few hours there, completely head deep into the book that your father had given you.

Later that night, you laid in your bed and thought about who your father could pick for your betrothal.

You just hoped that they were at least somewhat normal.

The next day, during the afternoon—your father summoned you.

He sat at his desk—his sleeves rolled up, papers strewn on his desk, and his goblet empty.

He looked at you with a smile when you entered.

"Sit." He politely commanded, pointing at the chair in front of him.

You sat down, staring at him—because he's clearly already had a busy day.

"I have agreed to a betrothal for you." He spoke plainly.

You blinked a few times, trying to process the information.

"So soon?" You questioned, your voice coming out smaller than you expected.

He tapped his fingers on his desk.

"Yes, it took some looking—but we found someone."

You sat up in your chair, your curiosity getting the best of you.

"Who?"

"We have chosen and agreed to Lord Lyonel Baratheon." He admitted.

Your mind raced— trying to remember if you'd ever seen him. You wanted to put a face to the name.

"Okay." You replied.

Baelor watched your facial expression, trying to see if there was a change upon the new information.

"He is older, but good. He has no children and has never been wed before. It's a clean start for both of you."

You didn't particularly have many feelings about the news as you did not know the man. You looked down at your palms, seeing the scars from the times that your nails have dug in.

Baelor taps his desk. "You are quiet, is everything okay?"

You glanced up with a nod.

"I am fine, just processing what you have said."

"I do hope you understand, that I have really sought out the best man for you. I would not accept anything less than that." He reiterated.

Your lips curved in a slight grin.

"Thank you father, I am grateful for you."

You got up from your chair and gave him a hug. The same hugs that you would give him as a small child.

Baelor smiled, hugging you back and giving you a kiss on the head.

He appreciates your hugs and his time with you. You are his only daughter, his pride and joy.

After your conversation with your father, you went to your chambers. The news was not what you had expected, not for a while at least. Unless something extreme were to happen, you will be a Baratheon. Your children will be a Baratheon and you'll live at Storms End. Although it isn't the worst fate, you could feel the sadness building inside of you. You were not ready to leave your family and your home, not yet.

Tears welled in your eyes at the mere thought.

You did not want to be confined to the role of only being a wife and mother, hoping that a man will fulfill your wishes.

Your feelings were complicated and they weren’t going to get any easier with a wedding approaching.

Over the next week, you spent quite a bit of time by yourself. You found another book to read and you practiced hitting farther away targets with your bow. Your father would always tell you that you were alarmingly excellent with a bow, better than any man he had seen.

You practiced out in a secluded field a bit away from the courtyard, enjoying the peace and quiet. Suddenly there was a lot of commotion , which caused you to miss your target.

You retrieved your arrow and decided to go peek around the corner, trying to see what was going on.

You see multiple carriages with the stag on it.

"Oh, God's." You mumbled.

That could only mean one thing. Your betrothed was here sooner than you had expected.

You decided to continue practicing, keeping yourself hidden from your father and Lyonel.

— —

Your father greeted Lyonel, a firm handshake and faint smile.

"Welcome to King's Landing, Lord Baratheon."

Lyonel smiled, taking in the area and sniffing the air.

"The smell is something that you never truly get used to?" He laughed.

Baelor smirked. "I'm afraid not, my lord."

They walked to your father's solar to further discuss the betrothal.

"I hope your travels weren't too rough, Lord Baratheon." Your father spoke as he shut the door.

Lyonel sighed loudly as he took a seat in chair.

"Hardly, my prince."

Baelor sat in his chair at his desk, his hands in his lap.

"We are expecting everything to go without an issue. I suppose the two of you will leave shortly after the wedding, correct?"

Lyonel shook his head absentmindedly as he glanced around Baelor's solar.

"This is a judicious match in the eyes of the crown, but I am her father before anything else. Do you intend to do right by my daughter?"

Lyonel gave a quick cackle. "Of course, I wouldn't dream of harming my wife."

Baelor pulled his dagger from a drawer in his desk and placed it in view of Lyonel.

Lyonel glanced at it, but he refrained from saying anything.

"She is my only daughter and she brings me great joy. She reminds me of her mother—bright, soft, kindhearted, smart." He spoke.

"She is the best part of me and her mother, I trust that you shall maintain that?"

Lyonel smiled as he always does.

"She will be safe with me and always loved. I would never want to dim her light."

"Good." Baelor nodded.

The conversation continued for a bit longer, Baelor speaking of certain wedding arrangements.

On their way out of his solar, you bumped into them—not paying attention.

"You should be paying more attention to where you are going—“

“Where exactly are you going?" Baelor asked.

Your heart stopped in your chest at the sight of Lyonel. He was the complete opposite of what you were expecting. Tall, lean, beautiful curly hair, a mesmerizing smile.

"I'm sorry.. I was just going to my chambers."

Lyonel had an amused smirk on his face, his tongue swiping his bottom lip.

Baelor pointed at Lyonel. "This is Lord Baratheon."

You smiled, your stomach in knots.

He shook your hand and placed a gentle kiss to it.

"You are absolutely beautiful. You will make me a lucky husband."

Baelor awkwardly interrupted the interaction, trying not to frown.

"Well.. we have to go handle a few urgent matters. Please, pay attention on your walk."

You nodded as you walked away.

The man you were betrothed to was not a beast, fat, bald, or ugly. He was what most women would dream of their betrothed looking like.

When you got into your chambers, you took a deep breath. Your nerves were all over the place, something completely unexpected.

In order to keep your mind from fully thinking of him, you sat in the window and read your book.

The next morning, in the early hours—you went to the field to practice with your targets. The morning was always the best time to practice as there were less distractions.

You hit all of your targets, near and far. Your arms were starting to sting from the repeated task.

"You are an excellent shot." A voice spoke.

You dropped your bow, completely startled by him.

"Do you always linger around people without saying anything?" You questioned, a bit of annoyance in your voice.

He chuckled. "No, I do not my lady. I was just going on a walk when I saw you."

You rolled your eyes.

"Hmm."

You continued to practice, trying a farther distance— but you struggled a bit and kept missing your target.

"Fuck!" You seethed after missing another one.

Lyonel approached you, "may I?"

Despite your hesitation, you agreed.

He came behind you, mindful of his touch and adjusted your posture— his hand on your side.

Your breath hitched in your chest as he leaned closer and spoke into your ear.

"Take a deep breath and hold it at this angle.. just like this my darling." He spoke softly.

The way he held you made you struggle to focus on his directions. He was so close to you, far too close.

"Now, relase." He whispered.

You released and hit your target with ease.

Lyonel stepped back with a grin.

"A bit more practice and you'll be just as deadly at that distance."

You turned to him, the morning glow hitting his face.

"Thank you, my lord."

He waved you off. "No, need to thank me and you can call me Lyonel. There's no need for such formalities when we are to be wed soon."

"Okay, I will keep that in mind." You replied.

You tried the method that he taught you, while he watched behind you silently.

His method worked.

You could feel him watching you, your every move as you practiced. You weren't sure if he was judging or enamored.

"You know, my father would have you gelded if he knew that you were out here alone with me." You spoke, aiming at another target.

"Then, I guess that he shouldn't find that out?" He teased.

You laughed, continuing your practice.

The birds began to chirp and people were going to be moving around soon.

You picked up your arrows and held them with your bow.

"Well, Lord Baratheon—I need to get back to my chambers."

He nodded. "It was wonderful getting to help you."

You walked away, a smirk tugging at your lips.

You were absolutely riveting to Lyonel, the way that you carry yourself, how your words fall out of your mouth, the messy braid that you keep your hair in, the way that you have better archery skills than anyone he knows.

You would be the perfect match for him and he knew it. You weren't focused on being perfect or meek, you were still you regardless of who watched. That's what he wanted, what he craved. You were a sight to behold and he could not let that slip through his grasp.

You got to your chambers and took a warm bath, against your better judgment— you had overworked your muscles. While in the tub, you finished reading your book and allowed yourself to relax. Your relaxation did not last long as your lady in waiting— Falena entered your room with breakfast.

"My lady, are you going to go watch some of the men practice sparring in the early afternoon? I heard Lord Baratheon is joining."

You opened your eyes, the steam still rising from the water. "No, that's quite alright. I plan to lie down after this."

She placed your towels on the closet table and saw herself out of your room.

You spent a bit longer in the tub, hoping to take your mind off of everything. After your bath, you dried off and climbed into the bed.

The cool sheets instantly soothing you and helping you fall asleep.

You slept most of the day away, which was frowned upon— but your father let you be. He understood that with Lord Baratheon being here, you might want more time alone.

When you woke up— the night was quiet, the wind blew and the leaves rustled. The faint noise of chatter from the courtyard.

You lit your fireplace and cracked your shutters, allowing some of the moonlight in.

Everything was fine until your stomach growled, since you hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast. You put on your robe, grabbed your book, and decided to head down to the kitchens.

The hallway was dimly lit, empty, and too quiet.

You made your way into the kitchen, hoping to find something to eat while you read.

You almost jumped out of your skin when you turned the corner to see Lord Lyonel.

"God's be good."

He pushed his hair out of his face as he was also startled.

"What are you doing in the kitchen at these hours?" He asked playfully.

You clutched your book in your hand, walking further into the kitchen.

"I could ask you the same thing—“

"I figured that you would be tired after your sparring." You added.

He had a devilish grin on his face, amused at your remark.

"M'lady, only a boy would be exhausted after a few short hours of sparring."

You shrugged and leaned against the counter.

"Do you know where they keep the leftover batches of wine?" He asked, his brow raised.

"If you do not see any, then there's probably none left. Normally, there's not much left." You responded.

There was an awkward, palpable silence.

"Is there something that you're looking for in here?" He pried.

"I was hoping there would be a few blueberry lemon cakes from earlier. Falena had mentioned that they would be made today and I must've missed it."

He licked his lips.

"I have some in my chambers, I took a few for later."

You shook your head. "That's okay, I should get back to my chambers. Father would have a fit if he knew that I was roaming the halls.”

He walked closer, "I insist on you having them."

You caved, you shouldn't have—but you did. It was impossible to resist those delicious cakes.

He led you through the hall, down to his room at the very end.

He opened the door to his chambers— the scent of wood, wine, and lemon in the air.

You walked in and sat near the window as he shut the door.

He walked to the plate of cakes and brought them to you.

"You do not have to stay in here, if you do not wish to. I would not want to make you uncomfortable."

You took two cakes, taking a bite out of one.

"I am fine."

He shrugged and sat the plate down.

"Do you read all the time?"

You finished chewing your cake, taking your time to answer.

"What better way is there to stimulate the mind than to read?" You replied.

He laughed as he sat in one of the chairs. His mind went to the most obvious thing, the thing that he wouldn’t allow himself to say.

"Drinking, dancing, fighting and a plethora of things.”

He managed to get a laugh out of you.

"That is the most brutish thing I've heard all day."

He grabbed a cake. "It is not brutish, it is honest."

You ignored his response and asked a more pressing question.

"How do you feel about this betrothal?"

He wiped his mouth. "I feel how any man feels doing his duty. I don't want to dread it, I want it to be something that I can grow to love—“

“How do you feel?”

You just simply gave him a shrug, not answering his question. You had plenty of feelings and reservations about getting married, but you weren't going to tell him. It would do neither of you any good.

He took note of your silence, not that there was a problem with it— but he understood what it meant.

"Have you ever been to Storm’s End?” He questioned.

You propped open your book to the bent page that you marked.

"Once, when I was a baby. I don’t remember anything about it, but I hear that it is rather dull.

He watched as you began to read in the middle of the conversation.

"It can be.."

"Am I boring you m'lady?"

You looked up at him. "No, I just promised myself that I'd finish this chapter."

He brought a blanket over to you, trying to keep you warm while you read. He did not want to disturb you, so he looked over a few of the papers that Baelor had given him.

The room was mostly silent, except for the sound of you turning pages and the fireplace cracking.

Lyonel watched you from his seat, truly amused. You were a princess that was alone in his room, reading a book, and you had no intention of getting to know him. You weren't full of questions or even trying to seduce him. You just kept to yourself.

The two of you spent two more hours amongst each other in complete silence.

"Hmm." You mumbled as you your book.

Lyonel glanced up at you as you adjusted the cover and stood up.

"I guess, I shall call it a night Lord Baratheon."

He smiled. "So soon, my sweet doe?"

"Doe?" You questioned, your head titled.

"You are a dragon now, but once we wed you'll be part of house Baratheon. So, a doe."

You smirked as you walked to the door.

"Goodnight, Lord Baratheon."

You walked to your chambers, your interest piqued by your betrothed. You laid in the bed, completely restless and thinking about him. Although, you and Lyonel did not talk much—you enjoyed his company.

The next morning, the courtyard was bustling with people and things being moved. The crown had agreed to Lyonel's request for a small feast and event with his bannermen.

You could hear Lyonel's boisterous laugh down from the courtyard as you opened the shutters.

You took your morning bath and started a new book with it. You also made sure to mention to your lady in waiting, Celesse that you wanted afternoon tea in courtyard today.

The sun shined into your room, providing just enough light. The light partially on the tub and your arm as it draped over the side.

You tried reading, but you found it particularly difficult due to the noise outside. You enjoyed a quiet morning and that morning had been far from.

You got out of the tub a few minutes later, a bit agitated.

As you sat in front of the mirror and brushed your hair, Celesse walked in.

"M'lady, the tea is being prepared— if you are ready."

You nodded, staring at your reflection.

"I will meet you in the courtyard." 

She smiled and walked away, leaving your door cracked.

Shortly after, you left your room— heading to the courtyard. You saw your father talking to a member of the council in the hall. He ended his conversation and walked to you, as you were a few steps ahead of him.

"You did not join the rest of us for dinner last night." He pointed out, walking beside you.

You smiled at the servants in the hall who spoke to you.

"I was tired, but I did intend to go."

He nodded, his fingers interlocked in front of him.

"Lord Baratheon and his men will be having a feast tonight in their tents outside of the gates."

You raised your brows and pretended as if you did not know.

"Oh."

He chuckled, amused at your feigned ignorance. 

"I do not want you anywhere near them and their nonsense tonight. I trust that you will follow my rules?"

"Of course, father." You replied.

He kissed your head as the two of stood and waited for a piece of furniture to be moved.

"Do not test my patience, daughter."

Your father was hardly ever strict with you, but he meant his words this time. He would never want to risk having your honour besmirched. You planned to obey him regardless, as you had no interest in being surrounded by their inevitable drunken nonsense.

You made your way outside to the tables near the garden. Your three ladies in waiting — Celesse, Falena, and Janna were anticipating your arrival.

When you sat at the table, they were gossiping and practicing their needlepoint.

"It is a beautiful day today." Falena spoke.

You squinted watching Lyonel in a conversation a bit away.

"Indeed, it is." You mumbled.

"Have you met your betrothed yet, m'lady?" Celesse asked.

You brought your focus back to them and what they were saying.

"I have."

"What is he like?" She followed up.

You grabbed a cake from the tray on the table and began eating it.

"He is nice, he just seems a bit loud.." You mentioned.

Janna adjusted in her seat, a mischievous grin on her face. "I have heard wild tales about him."

Your eyes flicked to her, but you did not respond.

"I've heard that he is a rake— he loves women. Especially older ones, not the ones that are young like yourself M'lady—“

Your skin was hot, your eyes staring at the flowers in the garden.

"They also talked about his cock, the size, the length—“ she continued.

"Enough." You spoke sternly.

"I've heard that he's slept with most women around here, two or three a night."

You slammed your hand on the table, the tray and silverware rattling.

"I said enough!" 

Celesse and Falena looked around as you startled them. Janna continuing her needlepoint with a smirk.

"Must you always get under my skin?" You questioned.

Janna glanced at your frustrated frown.

"M'lady, I was only trying to gossip."

You closed your eyes and took a deep breath.

"You are dismissed, Janna." 

She got up with no hesitation and left the table. She knew how far to push you and just what buttons to push.

You fucking hated having ladies in waiting, they were forced company that you did not want. Celesse and Falena were not awful, but Janna made you consider murder more times than you cared to admit.

You rubbed the bridge of your nose as you felt a headache coming on.

Lyonel came to the table, his laugh catching your attention.

"You look absolutely stunning today." He commented.

"Thank you, Lyonel."

He watched as you sat there, seemingly in pain.

"Are you alright, my love?"

You just stared at him, trying to ignore the pet names.

"I am fine, I just think that I have a headache coming about."

You saw a flicker of concern on his face.

"Do you need anything?" He asked softly.

You shook your head.

He stood there a second longer. 

"Will I see you tonight?" 

Your brow raised, Celesse and Falena watching your response.

"I cannot go, father said no exceptions."

He chuckled, his tongue swiping his bottom lip.

"I look forward to seeing you." He taunted as he walked away.

You rolled your eyes.

He had such a smooth way of straddling the line for boundaries and teasing you to see if you wanted more. You hated that he made you feel wrong in a way, having your mind go to inappropriate thoughts. 

"M'lady, Lord Baratheon seems like he will make a fine husband." Falena spoke.

You laughed under your breath.

"I pray to the God's above that he is." 

You abruptly got up fron your seat, leaving Falena and Celesse at the table.

You made your way from the courtyard to your chambers. Upon entering your chambers, you closed the shutters and collapsed on the bed. 

Your head was pounding and it was worse than normal. You needed absolute darkness and silence.

Being alone in your room did stop your headache, but it did very little to put your mind at ease about Lyonel. Was Janna telling the truth about him? You understood that he is a man before anything else, but being married to a rake is not what you wanted. Not what any lady would want.

The sun had begun to set outside and you could already hear the loud music from the tents.

You took a bath and changed your clothes, trying to kill time.

Falena sat in the chair across from you and Celesse lit the fireplace.

"Are you going to go see him?" Celesse asked.

You played with the ends of your hair.

"I am not allowed to go."

Falena snickered. "M'lady, not being allowed to go hardly means that you won't go."

You bit your lip as you were in deep thought.

"I do not wish to break my father's rules. He was very serious about them.”

Falena shrugged, not buying your excuse.

"Are you scared of him?" She asked.

Your brows furrowed and you had a scowl on your face.

"What kind of question is that?"

She adjusted in her seat, staring at you—while Celesse looked everywhere but at you.

"You do not wish to talk about him, you were short with him at the table, you seem uninterested in knowing him." She pointed out.

You put your hands in your lap, beginning to get frustrated.

"This is an alliance for the crown, not one made out of love. I intend to do my duties and keep myself away from him."

"That is such an easy mindset before marriage, m'lady. If only things were ever that simple." Falena responded.

Celesse smiled, making her way closer to the two of you.

"Maybe things will get to the point of love between both of you, especially if you reach your peak after you wed."

Falena and Celesse both laughed as if they had told a joke, but you were not amused.

"Peak?" You questioned.

"Yes, m'lady—it brings two people closer." Celesse smirked.

Your brows were raised in confusion, which they picked up on shortly after.

"Forgive us, we have said too much." Falena spoke.

You were embarrassed as you did not understand what they were talking about. It felt like they were laughing at you almost, like you were an idiot.

You dismissed both of them a few minutes later.

Things in the keep had quieted down— dinner had been served, your family was in their chambers, and less people walking around.

You opened your door and peaked your head out, the hall was empty. You decided to take your chance and go see this feast.

You snuck out of your chambers, keeping your head on a swivel so that you did not get caught.

The hall was almost completely empty further down, just a few servants walking around.

The flame in a few of the sconces were starting to die, making the hall darker than usual.

You could finally breathe once you made it outside, no longer feeling the need to be frightened that your father would see you.

The music and laughter from the tents was incredibly loud and you were not close yet. 

The wind blew against your skin, the temperature dropping as the night crept in.

You walked for what felt like an eternity, before reaching the gates. Upon exiting, you saw men everywhere and you stood out like a sore thumb. You were in your silk gown with your house colors displayed proudly, which was maybe not your smartest idea— but you looked pretty.

The music past the gates was so loud that you could barely hear yourself think. The smell of ale and piss flooding your nose.

As you walked, confused on where to go—the large tent towards the back caught your attention. When you approached, you could hear Lyonel's laugh and you knew you were at the right place.

You stood outside of tent and leaned closer, staring through the slit in the front.

The tent was filled with drunken men and drunken women. You saw Lyonel standing in the center, antlers on his head, and his arm wrapped around a woman's waist.

His closeness with that woman made your stomach twist in disgust, your nails instinctively digging into your palms. The way she laughed and whispered into his ear along with how he smiled in response.

You started to feel inadequate. You were not that woman, she was older and neither of you looked similar.

Lyonel left the woman and moved through the crowd as people danced. There were so many people that you lost track of him, but you looked around and watched everyone else.

"Are you going to come join me or stand out here and watch me all night?" A voice asked behind you.

You jumped, completely startled and your heart in your chest.

It was Lyonel standing behind you, a big smile on his face.

"You did not have to frighten me." You huffed.

"Why are you standing out here?" 

You rolled your eyes, fixing your gown. "I was on a stroll, but I shall return to my chambers now."

He laughed. "You should stay, you already took the risk."

"I do not think I will. I think you have enough enjoyment in that tent and I do not wish to get in trouble.” You replied.

His brow raised, "what are you implying?"

You hesitated, wanting to bite your tongue but you could not.

"I saw you in there with that woman, holding her and dancing with her."

He tilted his head in amusement, holding back a laugh.

"My sweet doe, are you jealous?"

You frowned, your brows furrowed. "Of course not."

His hand caressed your face. "We were merely just dancing. Nothing more."

You started to walk away.

"Well continue to dance Lord Baratheon, I shall bid you goodnight."

"Stay, stay here with me." He replied lovingly.

His words tugged at your heart and made you feel warm inside, even when you wished they didn’t.

You turned around and walked to him, taking his hand—following him inside. He pulled you inside a grin on his face.

"My betrothed is here to party with us!" He shouted.

The people cheered and beat on the table as you walked with him, his hand around your waist.

You were completely out of your element. You immediately realized that you did not belong, it was completely different from what you were used to.”

The two of you approached his table in the back, only his seat remaining. He sat down and waited on you.

"Where am I to sit?" You asked.

He patted his leg with a smile. You scoffed and folded your arms.

"I can stand."

He grabbed your waist and pulled you into his lap. Sitting in his lap was not what you should've been doing, not even remotely close— but you could not bring yourself to get up.

A woman brings you some ale, setting it down in front of you.

"I am glad that you came, even though you were going to leave." He spoke into your ear.

You took a sip of the ale, almost nearly spitting it out. It was extremely bitter and had more of a kick than you were expecting.

He laughed, his hand on your thigh.

"Good, huh?"

You wiped your mouth in disgust, "absolutely not. I prefer wine."

He waved a servant over. "Can you bring some wine over here for my lady wife?"

"I am not your wife." You pointed out.

"Not yet." He teased.

As the night went on, you had indulged yourself in far too much wine and eventually Ale. You and Lyonel engaged in playful banter, which did turn him on and make you smile.

You leaned back against his chest, your head lying against his collarbone.

"Am I getting to heavy for you?" You mumbled.

He kissed your temple. "Not at all, my love."

A woman approached the table, all smiles, and in a dress that was far too low cut.

"Your feast has been wonderful, Lyonel."

He nodded as he ate a fig. "Thank you, Orrinna."

You had never seen her before, but it was clear that the two of them knew eachother.

"I wondered that maybe if you were not busy tonight, I could join you in your tent."

His eyes widened from shock, as he did not expect her bluntness. 

"That is, if she does not mind sharing." She teased.

Your eyes narrowed, fingers digging into your palms. "I beg your fucking pardon?"

You sat up, your mood completely soured.

"Orrinna, I—“

"I will not sit here and be made a fool of by your whore's." You seethed, whispering into his ear.

You got up from his lap and threw your ale in her face.

"How about we share that." You spoke as you stormed out of the tent.

Lyonel was completely shocked by your response. He did not expect that from you of all people.

Orrinna gasped and a few people noticed, watching in confusion.

Lyonel got up from his seat—took his antler crown off and walked after you. The music and loud conversation continuing.

You walked, but not fast enough—because he caught up to you and grabbed your arm, pulling you to an empty tent.

You yanked your arm away.

"Why would you do that?" He questioned, rubbing his hand over his face.

You pushed against his chest, pushing him back.

"Fuck you!—“

"Fuck you, Lyonel!" You yelled.

He grabbed your wrists as you pushed him.

"You are angry for no reason and your behavior is ugly, my darling." He replied.

"No reason?!—" you scoffed.

"Your whore comes to the table in front of everyone and asks to fuck you later, but I am wrong?"

He let's go of your wrists.

"She should not have done that, but I cannot control her.. I have shared a bed with her many moons ago, but I do not want her."

Your chest rose and fell fast, this deep rooted anger taking over you.

"You disgust me." You spat.

He walked closer to you, a twinkle in his eye—making you stumble back.

"I do not disgust you, but you like to pretend that I do—“

"Stop." You demanded.

"I make that pretty little heart of yours beat fast.. I make impure thoughts creep into your head.. I probably make you touch yourself at night.”

You slapped him across the face, making him smirk.

"I have done no such thing!"

"You are a fiery little thing—“ he chuckled.

"You punish me and distance yourself for craving more than a maiden should." He teased.

Your feet were stopped by the table that stood behind you, Lyonel closed the gap— his body pressed against yours.

"You are a dog." You roared.

He caressed your face and stared into your eyes.

"Yes, but I am an honest one."

Your heart raced, unable to think or feel anything other than want from him.

"You should have chosen someone else."

His thumb traced your chin.

"I do not want anyone else."

"What exactly do you want, Lyonel?—“

"I do not want a philander for a husband. I may be a princess, but I also want to try reaching my peak and being happy with someone."

His brow raised in interest.

"I am never deceitful with any woman. I would never hurt you in any capacity, let alone with another woman."

Your anger had started to fade, you looked down at the ground instead of at him.

He raised your head with his finger.

"Do you know what a peak is?"

You shrugged. "Not really, Falena and Celesse mentioned it earlier. They just said that I'd be much happier if I reached it, which I intend to do.

He laughed, a deep laugh as he was thoroughly entertained.

You frowned, moving his hand away. “Why is that funny?"

"It's not funny, my love. It is just that a peak is something sexual, not a causal thing that you reach."

"Oh." You spoke softly.

He stared into your eyes. "Do not be embarrassed, you did not know."

Lyonel was still far too close to you, closer than you should've allowed.

His tongue swiped his bottom lip, as it always does when he stared at you. He pressed his thumb against your bottom lip, slightly parting them.

"I so badly want to make you feel good, my love—“

"Show you what true pleasure is."

"I am not a whore." You reminded him.

"I never said that you were."

"I will not have sex with you tonight." You reiterated.

He leaned in closer to you, taking your breath. "There are more ways to pleasure than having sex."

You didn't say anything, trying to restrain yourself—but you could not.

"Show me." You muttered.

He moved his thumb. "I do not want to ruin things between us, souring our marriage before it starts. I don’t want you to regret it.

You batted your eyelashes. "I won't."

He left from in front of you and walked outside. He grabbed two of his men and had them protect the tent from anyone coming in.

"If you tell anyone what you've seen or heard from this tent, I will kill you myself." He told the men.

He walked back over to you, his hands gently holding your face.

"Are you sure?"

You nodded.

He pressed his lips against your, the kiss soft and tender. You could taste the ale and sweetness from the fig still on his lips. You had never kissed anyone before, but with him it felt effortless. The kiss deepened, his tongue entering your mouth and strings of saliva connecting both of your lips. He groaned as your tongue moved around his, almost in sync. The kiss made you feel like the world had stopped, like you had found the one for you.

He pulled his lips from yours and placed kisses alongside your neck, showing another side of intimacy. His tongue licked the vein along your neck, his open mouthed kisses and the sweet sucking sensation. 

You whimpered.

"You are everything." Lyonel groaned.

He kissed along your chest, burying his head in your cleavage.

"I could stay here forever." He mumbled.

He pulled away from you and grabbed your hand. He brought you to chair in the corner and had you sit down. He then dropped to his knees in front of you, which confused you.

"Have you ever touched yourself?"

"No.. I don’t understand how to.”

He pulled your gown up, his fingers trailing the inside of your thighs. He slowly pulled down your tights and placed kisses on your thighs.

He groaned. "You are soaking, my sweet doe."

His fingers brushed over your cunt, making you tense up.

He pressed a finger against your folds—slowly spreading them.

"Lyonel." You whined.

His finger rubbed between your folds and against your clit, making your hips buck.

Your fingers gripped into the wooden chair as you moaned.

"Ah, there she is." He muttered.

The feeling was unlike anything that you had ever felt. You were in heaven as his finger circled your sensitive clit. You threw your head back as you gripped the chair.

"Fuck." You cooed.

"I love hearing you, you sound magnificent." He growled.

He moved his finger down further and slowly pressed it inside of you. Your legs tensing and coming together as he worked it in.

"Easy, my love. Allow yourself to get used to it." He coached.

It was not pleasant at first, but the uncomfortable feeling subsided. He pushed in and out of you as his other finger circled your clit.

"Oh my." You whined.

He chuckled and was hard as a rock at the sight of you. "Do you like that?

You nodded, your eyes half lidded.

He grabbed your thighs and brought you closer to the edge of the chair. He kept his finger inside you and then you felt the warm sensation of his mouth.

"This.. feels so good." You panted.

There was a weird sensation building in your stomach that worried you, you felt as if you had to pee.

You tapped his shoulders, barely able to focus.

"Lyonel, I think.. that i have to pee."

He laughed, but he did not stop.

The feeling was continously building, your moans getting louder and higher pitched. Your knuckles were gripping the chair harder than you believed possible.

"Oh—“

Lyonel's name spilled from your mouth as you cried out from intense pleasure. The feeling was so great that you needed to catch you breath.

Lyonel pulled his finger out and moved his head, while pulling your gown back down.

"Did you enjoy yourself, my gorgeous doe?" He smiled.

You sat up in the chair, "what was that?" 

He sucked his finger clean.

"That was you reaching your peak, what your delightful friends had mentioned earlier."

You took a minute to recover before standing up and heading to the front of the tent.

"I must get back before my father or anyone notices." 

He grabbed your hand and pulled you closer to him. "I do mean it when I say that I am only interested in you."

You looked up at him and his handsome face.

"I know."

He brushed your hair from your face, pressing a soft kiss to your lips.

"I will see you again soon, okay?" 

You nodded.

You left the tent, stepping outside to see people still drinking and laughing. The entire walk to your chambers all you could think about was him, maybe you were becoming soft to him after all. You got into your chambers, changed, and then finally climbed into your bed.

You were sleeping peacefully in your bed, sound asleep as the morning sun had risen. At least, until you were violently awoken by cold water being thrown on you.

You jolted up in the bed with a gasp, wiping water from your face.

“What the fuck is going on?” You shouted.

Your father was in your room, accompanied by a septa and two knights. You were confused as to why they would be there.

“Grab her.” The septa spoke.

The two knights grabbed your arms pulling you from the bed. You kicked and screamed, trying to get from within their grasp.

“Father!” You pleaded.

Baelor stood there, his lips pursed and his eyes filled with disappointment.

Someone from Lyonel’s feast told your grandfather that you were present at his feast for a few hours. The news angered him as you had no business being there. He summoned your father and uncle in the early hours of the morning. He questioned them and their competence, asking why you were at the feast. The information was news to both of their ears as Baelor warned you that you could not attend. Your grandfather called for a punishment due to your behavior, which your father protested. Your grandfather did not want to hear it and he was not going to allow your father to handle it, because he knew how soft he was with you. He ordered a punishment and told them that if it were to ever happen again, they would get the same punishment.

They dragged you downstairs to one of the rooms near the dungeon. You kicked and screamed the entire way, calling for your father but he did not engage. The septa opened the door to the room, where you saw the table and the straps.

“No!—“ you screamed.

“Father, please.”

With little to no struggle, they laid you on your stomach and strapped you down. You fought against the restraints, hoping your father would change his mind.

“Please.. don’t do this.” You whined.

“Did you attend Lord Baratheon’s feast last night?” The septa asked.

Your eyes flicked up to her face as she blocked your view of Baelor.

“Fuck off!” You barked.

The septa looked at the knight, “begin.”

He struck your feet with the whip and you cried out in pain. The kind of pain that hurts so bad it doesn’t feel real.

“Did you attend Lord Baratheon’s feast last night?” 

You shook your head no. “Father said that I could not go.”

The septa nodded, “again.”

The whip came down across your feet again, a guttural scream leaving your throat.

“Did you attend Lord Baratheon’s feast last night?”

Tears wet your face and the table.

“No.” You whimpered feeling helpless.

She nodded, “again.”

Your ears began to ring as the pain was unbearable, radiating up your legs and back.

“Did you allow Lord Baratheon to take your maiden hood?”

Your voice now hoarse, “no.”

The septa looked at the knight and fear coursed through your veins. A terrified look on your face.

“I didn’t—“

“Father, please. I swear that I didn’t.” 

“Again.” The septa spoke.

You cried and screamed until you couldn’t anymore, the pain consuming you. They whipped your feet bloody, making you unable to stand on them. You passed out from the pain, your face wet from tears and slobber. Before taking you upstairs, they forced milk of the poppy down your throat.

They dragged your limp body back to your chambers and laid you on your bed.

Your father stared at you on the bed and had to fight back tears. He knew that you meant no harm and he’d never want to see you punished, but it was out of his control.

You laid there, barely awake— drool coating your pillow and your bloodied feet bleeding through the bandages.

The septa told you that you would learn to be a lady again and that you would never disgrace your house again with your unruly behavior or your vulgar language.

You repeated it over and over again in your mind, regretting ever having met Lyonel.

˗ˏˋ ♡ ˎˊ˗