𝔙𝔬𝔡𝔶𝔞𝔫𝔦𝔱𝔰𝔞

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To everyone, that is, except for Valarr.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But Valarr does not move.

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

He simply steps aside.

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

You feel the knot of indignation tighten in your throat. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's really pathetic, you think.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But not now. 

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

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

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

At that you feel him grow tense beside you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Exhibit A: He always chose the same seat relative to yours. In all classes, he sat at the desk behind you and to the right without fail. The first day of your writing course, you tried to sit in the row furthest in the back as silent retaliation, and a certain blonde haired freakishly-tall man walked up to you and kindly apologized for the disturbance but requested the seat so he could sleep without the professor noticing. He’d looked so disheveled and tired you hadn’t had the heart to say no, and so had moved, and Valarr had been able to claim his rightful place behind you. You’d later found out from Kiera that the blonde was none other than Daeron Targaryen.

Exhibit B: Every. Single. Time. You. Participated. He felt the need to comment on what you’d said, sometimes to add to it but mostly to try to undermine it. And every time you scoffed, or glared, or rolled your eyes, the twinkle in his blue eye grew brighter, and the smirk on his face more pronounced. It was infuriating.

Exhibit C: He tried to talk to you. This happened very seldomly in the three weeks that you’d known him, but when it did it always left you feeling hot all over, in anger no doubt. He had approached you exactly thrice since that fateful day, all on Fridays, all after physics class, as if he scheduled what times to try and aggravate you. The first time, he’d talked about the professor’s midterm, implying he could use a study partner. The second time, he’d casually mentioned- to Kiera, not you- that the Targaryen cousins were hosting a party and everyone was welcome. Neither Kiera nor you went, to her chagrin. The third time, your particular favorite, had been right after lab partners had been chosen. He’d walked up to you with furrowed brows, a few strands of his perfectly styled hair loose from his fingers running through them, and cheeks reddened by a humiliation he’d so often inflicted upon you.

He had looked at you, mouth gaping and open for a few seconds, then had spoken very carefully, words clipped but calm, nonetheless. “You chose Matarys.”

You had smiled innocently “He’s very good. Thinks outside the box.”

His eyes had narrowed as he had opened his mouth again, then closed it, then opened it to scoff, turn away from you and head to his sheepish brother. He knew that you knew that he could not have said anything else without ruining the game. Because, yes, this was all some sort of game, in the end: One of pushing and pulling and rising anger and taunts. To admit to being bothered by the other’s actions would have been admitting defeat, and Valarr Targaryen never lost.

Besides, you hadn’t lied: Matarys wasn’t a half bad lab partner. Presently he was single-handedly setting up your pulleys for the experiment while you were off thinking about his brother again. You hated how he got under your skin. You relished how you got under his.

“Little help would be nice.” The redhead broke the silence.

“Sorry, sorry.” You stepped forward, taking the rope from his hands to get to work. “Just thinking.”

The boy smiled then shrugged. The thing about Prince Matarys was that he never pushed, you’d found out, so you had to make the effort to get closer to him. “If you were curious,” You began teasingly “I was wondering why your brother is in so many of our classes. He’s a second year, and a pre-law. What’s he doing in the science department?”

Matarys smirked, clever hands pausing. “Father always says it is important for Princes to be well-rounded. Perhaps he’s trying to do just that. As heir he has… standards to uphold.”

You hummed in response and focused back on your work. It was a plausible explanation, and perhaps there was truth to it. You told yourself to believe it. You willed yourself to stop thinking about him.

Perhaps it was Valarr’s attitude itself that had you doubting, though. Around you, he didn’t wield the same calm and poise he so perfectly exercised among everyone else. Around you, there was an edge to him, a crack in the mask of the golden boy, a want that he let himself show for once, even if that want was as small as annoying you.

After the lab period was over, you pulled Matarys aside to apologize. “I’m really sorry I didn’t do much. I was distracted.”

Your lab partner shook his head and looked away, biting the inside of his cheek with a small frown. Something was bothering him, you realized.

“What is it? Are you upset with me?” You probed.

“You know how you said that you considered us to be friends?” He interrupted.

You nodded, a small curious smile pulling at your lips.

“Well, friends do each other favors, right?” He continued, then immediately justified. “I know we’re not that close, so you can obviously refuse, and I would totally understand because I mean you met me only weeks ago but-”

“Jeez, where’s the body, Mat?” You giggled at his rambling.

“No! It’s not that!” He reddened, as he so easily did. “Don’t laugh, this is serious!” He exclaimed, but he himself was laughing. “My father and mother are hosting a gala. I, as their spare, obviously have to attend… with a date. The problem is my father has one picked out, but she’s so dreadfully boring and agrees with everything that comes out of my mouth, and thinks she actually stands a chance, so I thought I’d ask a friend instead, so I at least have fun.”

You blinked twice, caught off guard, smile widening. “Are you asking me out? Oh, I’d be honored!” You joked.

“Shut up.” He shoved at you. “I know you somehow guessed the first week of our friendship, but that doesn’t mean I want my parents, or God forbid my perfect fucking brother, suspecting that I… don’t like women.” He said the last part in a whisper, like it was a crime. “Do you know how many gay Targaryens have existed? None! Zero, nothing. If I had a beautiful woman on my arm, not picked by my father, it might… I don’t know, quell the suspicion.” He shifted, clearly uncomfortable. “Please.” He added after the speech had already ended.

Your entire demeanor softened. “Of course I will. Sorry about teasing.”

He finally looked back at you, blinding grin resurfacing. “Thank you. I will send over the dress, bags, shoes, everything. Be ready by nine!”

Your smile disappeared. “Wait, it’s today? Matarys!” But he was already gone, and you were left scrambling to get back to your dorm.

Somewhere in the back of the lab, Valarr’s pencil snapped under the pressure of his grip. He’d been watching the exchange and did not like your …familiarity with his brother.

⊹ ࣪ ﹏𓊝﹏𓂁﹏⊹ ࣪ ˖

It was eight fifty-two. Kiera was sat on her bed in your shared dorm room, and she was laughing at you. Eight minutes until Matarys got here, and she was laughing at you!

“Where the fuck did I put the stupid earrings?” You sighed.

“Calm down! You look perfect, you can wear mine.” She giggled and got up, reaching into one of her drawers to pull out her jewelry, then approached you. “You need to breathe. Since when have you been intimidated by the Targaryens?”

“I’m not intimidated.” You assured. “I just don’t like the feeling of being the odd one out, you know? I won’t belong there. I know no one but Matarys.”

“You’ll be alright. You’ll meet people, and if you feel like leaving text me and I’ll come save you. But like, if you see Daeron there…”

“I’ll beat him up for ghosting, I know.” You laughed.

“Good. Final touches?”

You looked at yourself in the mirror. Matarys had sent a silky gown the color of cream. It had a modest neckline, with a halter scarf being the only thing holding the dress to your body since it was entirely backless. You could feel the silk fabric brushing against your bare back every time you moved. You were adorned with so much diamond jewelry that you felt almost afraid to leave the dorm in case you lost a piece, and half your hair had been pinned up by Kiera whilst you did your makeup. All in all, you’d never looked better, and you decided to swallow your nerves in favor of confidence.

Matarys came to pick you up in a suit that complimented your attire, and you two joked all the way to the venue, drinking perhaps too much bubbly in the limo. You blasted music and sang along and ate tiny cheeses off a charcuterie board, and somewhere along the way you decided that maybe being friends with a Targaryen had its perks.

Unsurprisingly, the venue was something out of a movie. It was a giant ballroom filled with bustling servers carrying champagne in crystal glasses, a live orchestra playing classical music in the middle of the room, pairs of perfectly dressed nobles breezing across the floor as if they were a remnant of a forgotten century, and, of course, a massive staircase where only the Targaryens were allowed to stand, overlooking the guests like they were peasants. Matarys stopped you once you reached the bottom of those stairs with a gentle hand to your waist.

“I need to go.” He said, looking up to his father. He made sure the King was looking, then kissed your cheek in farewell. “I’ll come find you, after.”

You smiled and watched him join his family on the stairs, but you couldn’t help but notice the absence of one particular family member.

“You look nice.” The deep voice spoke into your ear from beside you, causing you to jump.

“’Nice?’ Is that the best you can do?” You retorted, just to say something.

Valarr smirked his stupid, tiny smirk, the one you always tried to decipher. Was it genuine kindness or smugness? Was it mockery or admiration? Was it amusement? You weren’t sure Valarr knew the answer himself.

Nevertheless, he slowly dragged his gaze from your face down to the tip of your toes, then back up, taking his time. After what he surely deemed to be an adequate inspection, he gave a small hum. You tilted your head questioningly.

“Better than anyone here. All for Matarys?” The kind expression remained on his face, but his eyes were dark, pupils blown, and his tone was poison.

“We’re here as friends.” You felt the need to clarify, voice gone quiet.

Valarr scoffed in response, slowly raising his hand to brush his thumb over your cheek, then leant forward to kiss the spot Matarys had not so long ago. “I’ll come find you, after.” He chuckled, in a terrible impression of his brother.

He was mocking you, you realized. He felt entitled enough to mock! And yet, even after he’d left to climb the stupid stairs, a faint tingling remained where his skin had touched yours. You grabbed a glass of champagne off a passing tray and took a big drink, closing your eyes to ingest as much alcohol as possible. When you opened them, you spotted Valarr raising his own glass towards you with a grin. He knew what he was doing. Bastard. You weren’t about to let him win this round of the game.

“Lords and Ladies of Westeros, welcome.” Queen Jena began. “It is our pleasure to welcome you to the annual charity fundraiser.”

She continued speaking, but you found your gaze drifting to the princes unintentionally. Matarys winked at you- which earned him a frown from his older brother- and subtly gestured to the far end of the room, to a set of double doors.

You offered him a small smile and a nod, then made your way through the throng of people to where he had indicated. The doors led to a darkened garden, lit only by the reflection of the moon in a fountain’s water and the soft light the stars offered. There was a man there, Daeron, you recognized. He was downing liquid from a flask, and subsequently hiccupped when he saw you.

“Hello” You greeted. “Aren’t you supposed to be in there with the rest of the family?”

He hummed. “Better I stay here, wouldn’t want to embarrass anyone.” The statement made you sad.

“Kiera’s been asking about you.” You changed the subject, and that seemed like the right move because his eyes lit up.

“Has she? I thought I ruined it when I drunk texted.”

“No, you ruined it when you stopped responding afterwards.” You raised your eyebrows.

He considered your statement for a moment, then whispered, “…She deserves better than me.”

You were about to reply when the sound of a door opening caught your attention.

“Cousin.” Valarr stepped out, hands behind his back. “Your father requests your presence.”

“Daddy’s calling.” Daeron sighed, but he seemed less weighed down than he had been all night.  

Once he left, you turned to face Valarr. And what a face that was. You disliked the man’s attitude, sure, but you had eyes. He wore a black suit with a black undershirt, and threads of red symbols were sewn onto the jacket, depicting dragons and stars and waves like fire. His clothes were just tight enough to reveal the lean body hidden underneath. It drove you to distraction, to say the least: Between the sleeves pressing onto his biceps very slightly and the shirt hugging his waist so perfectly that you could see the dip of his hips, you were close to losing your mind.

The silence stretched between you too long after Daeron left, until he ran a hand through his hair, frustrated, then declared. “I don’t understand you.”

“Excuse me?” You crossed your arms over your chest, defensive.

“You choose him as a lab partner. You laugh with him. You come here, into my world, with him.”

“Oh, get over yourself! Not everything is about you.” You almost laughed and looked away. He took a step forward.

“Isn’t it? Isn’t all of this some big retaliating move for the last time I won our little game?” He taunted.

“Please-” You tried, but he took another step forward, now mere steps away.

“Are you so desperate to get under my skin that you would use my own brother? And poor Matarys. He thinks he stands a chance; he doesn’t know what he’s dealing with. I knew you loved attention, but this is pushing it, don’t you think?”

You slapped him, the ring adorning your finger catching the skin of his cheek. The sight of that one drop of red dripping down his sculpted face filled you with a mix of remorse and strange vindication. He had no right to speak to you that way. Still, that didn’t mean you had the right to hurt him. You opened your mouth to apologize, then backed out at the last second. You took a step back and away from him and rushed back into the party without a word. As the double doors swung shut behind you, you looked back to glimpse a stunned Valarr touching his fingers to his bloody cheek, and in your distraction, walked right into someone.

“There you are! I was just about to come find you!” Matarys exclaimed, and you realized a second too late that he was standing with his parents.

“I’m sorry. I was… powdering my nose.” You offered a smile, then dipped into the curtsy you had practiced with Kiera just in case this exact scenario played out. “Your Majesties.”

“Rise, young lady.” King Baelor spoke kindly. You looked up at him; he had the same eyes as Valarr.

“It is so nice to meet you. Oh, you look so good in white!” Queen Jena stepped forward to clasp your hand in hers.

“Forgive my wife’s enthusiasm, we just never thought Matarys would bring a girl to meet us.” Baelor laughed.

Out of the corner of your eye, you watched the boy in question freeze, his grin faltering slightly. You felt your heart break for him.

“It is my pleasure to have the honor.” You responded, squeezing the Queen’s hand, then gently extracting it from her grip in favor of holding Matarys’s arm. You hoped it provided him some comfort to know you were here.  

“How is your first year of university going? Are your parents missing you terribly? Have you met our eldest, Valarr?”

“I-”

“Mother, this is not an interrogation.” Matarys chastised. “Anyway, we are… going dancing! There will be plenty of time for… whatever this is in the future.” He smiled tightly and guided you away, towards the pairs of people arranged in waltzing position.

Though you were glad to be free from the attentions of the King and Queen, a new kind of fear overtook you.

“Mat, I’ve never…” You started, looking at the dancers nervously.

“Please. For me. I can’t stand them anymore. Just follow my lead and if you do mess up, no one will mention it. I am a Targaryen Prince, after all.” The tightness in his face remained but loosened slightly into the more boyish expression you knew so well. In an effort to do what you originally sought out to do, which was help him, you relented and placed one hand on his shoulder and the other against his outstretched palm.

His free hand slipped around your shoulder to stop at the top of your back, and he gave you a nod of gratitude. As the music started, you began dancing. At first, your eyes were glued to your feet, but as the music progressed and you got more comfortable, you felt proficient enough to look up at your partner. Your gaze, however, caught on something else. From the opposite side of the room, Valarr was watching you.

He held a glass of champagne tightly, too tightly, perhaps, if the whiteness in his knuckles was anything to go by, and his cheeks were flushed an angry red, though it wasn’t nearly as rich in color as the shallow cut your ring had left. His muscles were taut, jaw flexing and unflexing every time Matarys twirled you around. And his eyes -God, his eyes- were fixed on you with an expression that was so full of anger it bordered on hunger. There was a storm brewing in that stare.

“Is something wrong?” Matarys inquired.

“No.” Your eyes snapped back to his face, smiling apologetically. “Just nervous.”

Matarys frowned and followed your line of sight. “My brother? Does Valarr make you nervous?”

“No!” You stammered, heat flooding your cheeks. “I’m nervous about dancing.”

“Right.” He sounded unconvinced.

“I’m serious. Valarr is arrogant, and self-centered, way too egotistical, and… weirdly pretty.” You listed in what you hoped was repugnance.

“Pretty?” He repeated, amused.

“It’s uncanny! He’s too fucking pretty, it’s unnatural.” You justified.

“Of course.” He laughed. “I don’t have a problem with it, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Problem with what?” You huffed.

He just raised his eyebrows, unimpressed.

“That’s ridiculous. I’m not- We’re not… There’s nothing between us.”

“I didn’t say there was.” He grinned.

“I wouldn’t go for someone like him.”

“That is still my brother you’re talking about, and the Crown Prince.” He sighed, “ Look, Valarr is literally sunshine personified. I’ve never known someone kinder. Are you sure you’re not… exaggerating his behaviors to keep hiding your feelings?”

“Do you even hear the words coming out of your mouth? The only feeling I have for him is dislike. Maybe he’s kind around you because you’re related, but I see the truth. I see through his act.”

“He’s watching us, you know?” Matarys interrupted your tirade.

“What?”

“You cannot seriously be this dense.”

You burst out laughing as he pulled you closer, hand falling to your bare back. “Let me kiss your cheek? My mother is watching, after all.”

He was up to something, you were sure, but you trusted him, and so, nodded. The press of his lips was so gentle, barely there, but it was followed by heavy footsteps and sculpted hands landing on Matarys’s shoulders.

“Party’s over for you, hm?” Valarr spun his brother around to look at him.

“Is something wrong?” The redhead smiled devilishly.

“Drunk a bit too much?”

“Fought a bit too much?” He retorted, gesturing to his brother’s injured cheek.

“Just a scratch. You, however, have lost your mind. You’re damaging the family image by-”

“I was a perfect gentleman” Matarys interrupted, closely followed by you.

“Now hold on a second-”

“Go find father. It is time for us to leave anyway.” Valarr spoke, employing a tone more rigid than you’d ever heard from him.

“I won’t leave her.” His younger brother shook his head.

“I’ll take her home.”

There was a charged silence for a moment, and you realized people had stopped in their tracks, and everyone was watching.

“Are you alright with that?” Valarr asked, but he still wasn’t looking anywhere but his little brother’s face.

“Of course.” You said, then smiled, if only for appearances. “Now can you stop whatever this is? People are watching.”

“You’re a natural. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Matarys winked before taking your hand and raising it to his lips to kiss your knuckles. You heard Valarr scoff beside him. “Text me when you get home.”

Your friend walked away with a self-righteous smirk, and then you were alone with the subject of your grievances.

“Come on then.” He huffed, then began walking without bothering to check if you were following.

“Wait.” You tried, pushing through the multitude of people gathered to keep up with him. He was walking fast, too fast. Already you were starting to lose him in the crowd. You reached out a hand and grabbed onto his arm.

He stopped walking altogether. He still didn’t look at you.

“You’re going too fast.”

He nodded once, sharply, then resumed walking. Your hand stayed where it was.

It was a relief once you felt the cold night air against your skin. It had been so hot inside, surrounded by people, that you relished the biting breeze cooling you down. Evidently, Valarr felt the same because as soon as he was away from prying eyes, he ripped his suit jacket off and loosened his tie.

“Fucking suffocating.” He mumbled and huffed.

A sleek black car pulled up to the entrance. A man exited from the driver’s seat to open the passenger door, but the Prince stopped him.

“Hand me the keys, Antonio.” The usual poise in his voice was fraying at the edges, and you recognized the behavior of a person biding his time until he could explode in private. “Dismissed.” He said to the driver as soon as the keys were in his hand.

“Get in.” He spoke, you realized, to you.

You obeyed without protest, buckling your seatbelt.

He drove quietly, hands clenched around the steering wheel, eyes fixated on the road up ahead.

It was the first time all night that you’d had space to breathe, and yet all the air had left your lungs. There was something about him like this: not comfortable or soft, as he usually was, but true. He was unguarded, for once, and uncalculating of every micro-expression that passed over his face. The result was devastating. Shadows covered his face, and yet his brown eye was still kind, his blue one still attentive. His black shirt was unbuttoned, making him look less like a Prince and more like a man. You realized with astounding clarity that he was the most beautiful thing you’d ever laid eyes upon.

“Will you stop looking at me?” He whined, actually whined, pressing his forehead onto the steering wheel in desperation.

“Well, you won’t look at me at all. It evens out” You whispered, as if that justified the staring.

He pulled over suddenly on the side of a dark road, making you grab at your seatbelt in alarm. He turned the car off, stepped out, slammed the door and pulled out a cigarette. You’d never seen him smoke before, never even seen him drink.

You debated what you should do. After a few minutes of seeing him pace, though, you figured you couldn’t just sit here and wait.

“Valarr”

“Don’t say my name.”

What? Is something wrong?”

“Don’t!” He snapped, turning away from you.

“What is your problem?” you huffed. “I’m trying to help!”

“The most helpful thing you could do for me now is go somewhere far away so I never have to see your face again.” His shoulders raised and his fists clenched.

You stopped in your tracks. You knew he didn’t like you, obviously, but hadn’t thought he hated you that profoundly. For a reason that eluded you, the words stung. “Oh” you managed eventually, barely louder than a whisper.

He turned around at that, and his big eyes were glossy, and he looked so sad your heart clenched. Even now he looked at a spot vaguely above your head but never met your eyes. He took a long drag of the cigarette. “I just need you to… stop.” He murmured.

“I haven’t done anything.”

“Yes, you have.”

“Look at me” You pleaded.

“No.” He shot you down, staring at the cigarette burning between his thumb and index fingers.

You scoffed. He was stubborn even now, when no one was watching. “If you care to be reminded, you started this. You approached me that day, not the other way around. I was perfectly satisfied ignoring your existence.” You rebuffed, hating how your voice wobbled.

“Perhaps you’d be satisfied but I wouldn’t.” The words seemed to slip past his lips without him even noticing, if the stupefied look on his face was any indication. “Fuck! You need to stop being so…” He trailed off, pressing his palms against his eyes.

“So… what?” You prompted, but he shook his head. “Valarr, finish your sentence.”

“Stop saying my name!” He pleaded, running a hand through his hair.

“Valarr!” You snapped and screamed. “Valarr, Valarr, Valarr, Valarr!”

“Stop!”

“Then look at me!”

“No!” His voice cracked.

In a sudden fit of boldness, you crossed the distance between you, stood up on your tiptoes, and pressed your lips to his.

His shoulders dropped and his muscles relaxed as he practically melted onto your body. His mouth, however, had seemingly not caught up with what was happening because it remained motionless. You pulled away, breathless from the barest contact.

“There. Now you’re looking.”

Something in his face cracked as he pulled you back in. His kiss tasted like nicotine, stale champagne and desperation. He softly bit down on the cushion of your lower lip, prompting a gasp, then licked into your mouth enthusiastically. It was anything but proper, like what you’d imagined he’d prefer. No, it was dirty and rushed and so, so perfect. Even now, it was all a big game of push and pull. He pushed his tongue against yours and you pulled his hair in response.  He pushed you towards the cars, you pulled the door open. He pushed you down to lay on the backseat, you pulled him into your arms. He pushed his hands up your dress and you pulled his tie out of the way.

You gasped into his mouth when he ran his knuckles over your inner thighs.

“Tell me you’ve been thinking about this.” He murmured.

“Valarr,” You whispered as his hands inched upwards with every passing second.

“Tell me you want this.” He repeated.

“I do. I want you.”

He hooked a singular, long finger to your panties and dragged them down and away from your body, then sunk that same digit into you without warning, working you open. Your back arched, head hitting the hard leather of the seat. He licked a stripe up the column of your neck, then found the crook of your jaw and sucked. Your shaking hands found their way to his chest to unbutton his stupid shirt. Evidently, the task took too long for Valarr because he suddenly sat up, pulled his hand away from you, and ripped the shirt away from his body, black buttons clattering everywhere.

You didn’t even have time to appreciate the lean muscles of his body before he dove back in.

“Do you know what you’ve done to me?” He rasped against your ear as he continued with his trail of kisses.

You reached one hand up to tangle in his hair and the other to touch the dip between his shoulder blades.

“Do you know what it does to me to see Matarys parade you around as if you’re his?”

“Tell me” You whispered into his ear and relished the shiver it elicited from him.

“I’d rather show you.” He pulled away from your neck to look into your eyes as his right hand reached down to unbuckle his belt and free his cock from his breeches.

Your eyes drifted downwards but he guided your chin back up with his free hand and tutted. “No, look at me while I do it.”

And you did. And as he pushed in and you moaned simultaneously, you saw every little tremor in his face: the crease at the corner of his eyes as he squinted from blind pleasure, the scrunch in his nose, the parting of his lips, the bobbing of his Adam’s apple, and it made you crazy.

In the dimly lit backseat of the car, the cut on his cheek gleamed redder than it had ever been. It incensed you, that you were the one to have marked him, even in a way as barbaric as this. You pushed your body up, breasts pressing against his bare chest, and licked a fat stripe across the wound, tasting metal and salty sweat. An inhuman sound left his mouth- a half moan, half whimper- and he buried himself to the hilt, hips flush against yours.

“You feel so good” He groaned and began moving.

It was slow at first, hesitant almost. He watched your face carefully as if studying you every time he pulled out and pushed back in. He drove into you in long, rhythmic thrusts, but was restrained in chasing his own pleasure. He was learning you, you realized, and felt all the blood in your body rushing to your head.

It was torture, how slow he was going. Just as you were about to open your mouth and beg him to move, his cock reached a part of you so deep and so sensitive it made you moan outright. He smiled fiendishly, like he’d just won a prize.

“Found it.”

After those words, everything changed. The gentleness evaporated in favor of quick, hard movements that found that perfect part deep inside of you over and over again. Every time you thought you were getting used to it, that you could bear the stimulation, he changed his pace, sucked on your neck, or reached down to circle and pinch your clit with his fingers.

And every time he drew sounds from your mouth, you retaliated, refusing to be the only vulnerable one. You pulled at his hair, -which you quickly found out he tremendously enjoyed-, you kissed and bit at his lips, or you whispered how good he was doing in his ear.

He was loud, which surprised you. You’d expected his usual composure to be intact, not that you’d been thinking about him, obviously. And though it was considerably dulled, there were traces of it; you could tell he was holding back, swallowing down the loudest noises he was capable of making.

“Let me hear you. No one can reach us here.” You found yourself saying.

His hand buried itself in your hair, pulling your perfect updo loose and tilting your head, and he moaned right into your ear on his next thrust.

“Is this what you wanted? Is this your victory?” He panted, curling his other hand at your side.

It was too much. You closed your eyes to embrace the multitude of sensations. “Valarr.” You whined.

“Are you gonna go back to ignoring me after this? The perfect little student, unfazed by her Prince’s attention?”

You couldn’t answer. You could only breathe and tighten the hold that you had on his hair.

Suddenly, everything stopped. You opened your eyes in confusion. Valarr was flushed and sweaty, and there was a furrow in his brow. “Answer me.”

“What?”

“Answer me.” He repeated, kissing your cheek.

“I haven’t decided what to do with you yet.” You huffed, pressing a heel against the small of his back to drag him in deeper.

His smile was so wide it was damn near blinding. “I think I liked that response more than I would have liked any promise, brat.”

You felt a smile pull at your lips as well, but it quickly dissolved into a groan as he resumed his ministrations. It didn’t take long after that for you to come, his name on your lips and your nails painting a trail of pink scratches on his back. Valarr promptly pulled out of you, grabbed your hand to wrap it around his cock, and made you stroke once, twice. He came with a final whimper, hot spurts of white he aimed at his discarded shirt on the floor so he wouldn’t dirty you.

He collapsed onto you after it was done, smiling against your neck. You stayed there a long time, carding your fingers through his hair and enjoying the little sighs it earned you.

Eventually, though, you had to sit back into the front seats to get back home. He kissed your lips one last time as he carried you out of the car and into the passenger seat. Valarr buckled your seatbelt for you with a gentleness you’d never witnessed from him before, used baby wipes he kept in his glovebox to clean you up, then took his seat beside you, behind the steering wheel.

You were both silent for a long moment, both smiling ear to ear as he began driving again, then you mustered the courage to speak.

“You ruined my hair.” You laughed awkwardly, reaching up to pull it free from the many bobby pins that still held it up, albeit sloppily.

Valarr allowed himself a look, big eyes downturned but sparkling even in the dead of night. “You really are so beautiful.”

You looked away and smiled down at your feet sheepishly, but you were perfectly and incandescently happy.

Your phone buzzed and the spell broke. Valarr turned back to the road, and you unlocked it to see who was calling so late.

“Hello?” You spoke into the phone, voice rough from your activities.

“You said you’d text when you got home. It’s four in the morning.” Matarys’s voice came through distorted, sleepy.

“I’m home, Mat, don’t worry. Valarr dropped me off hours ago. Sorry I forgot to text.”

“Screw you, I stayed up.” He mumbled. “See you, goodnight.”

“Night.” You laughed, then hung up.

You turned your phone off, ran a hand through your hair, then turned back to Valarr.

“Crazy to think we have class in the morning, you know, after everything.” You began, unaware of the sudden shift in the atmosphere.

He only hummed in response, body unexpectedly very still. A few minutes went by before he finally pulled up to the front of your dorm building.

“Thank you for driving me.” You reached out to interlace your fingers. He ripped his hand away from you as if you’d hit him.

“This was a mistake.” He spoke mechanically, not even deigning to look you in the eyes as he said the words. “It won’t happen again.”

You were quiet for a long moment, staring at him in incomprehension, then scoffed. “Fuck you, Valarr.”

You got out of the car and slammed the passenger door before he could get another word out, stomped to the door and desperately tried to get your key in the keyhole even though your vision was growing blurrier by the second. Had you done something wrong? You had cherished this night with him, and he had been so perfect, so what had changed?

Only when you were safely inside the building did you hear the sound of the car’s engine starting again. You went up to your dorm, dazed, with the remnants of what you’d done on your body. You still felt Valarr everywhere. You caught a glimpse of the marks he’d left all over your neck in the mirror, of your rumpled dress and your tangled hair, and you felt disgusting.

Kiera was asleep when you entered the room, obviously. You took off your dress and your jewelry as quickly as you could, slipped on shorts and a shirt, and quietly slipped into her bed.

“You okay?” She slurred sleepily once she felt you.

“No.” You sobbed.

“Oh, my girl” She breathed, putting her arms around you in a gesture of comfort.

You fell asleep like that: tears drying on your cheeks, breaths erratic and unsteady, with your best friend curled around you as the sun was beginning to rise. It had been a long, long night. There was one thing you had learned for certain, though, and it was that you were never going to let Valarr Targaryen hurt you again.

end notes: you guys were very kind for the first chapter (did not expect so much love hahahaha). It's my first time writing smut so that was... something... ALSO i move in to college in 10 days and i'm shitting my pants someone send help

Baelor:

Spanking.

Any chance that he could get his hands on your ass he took the opportunity. Hands squeezing the flesh in the palm of his hands, and then watching as your cheeks jiggled, and the sound of his hand coming into contact with your skin was like music to his ears. Plus your whimpers and moans begging for more was the cherry on top.

“I shall leave a mark upon your soft skin only I shall be blessed with seeing my love.”

Daeron:

Bondage.

He loved having you under his complete mercy, drooling over you tied to the head of his bed. Doing whatever he wanted to you, and hearing you beg for what you wanted. It made him feel powerful and he loved being the one in control. Smirking every-time you tugged against the rope desperate to get your hands on him, and teasing you even more.

“If I could keep you tied to my bed forever my little flame, and you could never leave me.”

Duncan:

Public play.

It turned him on belief taking you against the wall in a main hallway, riding him in the dining hall or legs spread on his bed with the door wide open. Trying to stay quiet and constantly looking around to see if anyone was coming, and going even harder when he heard footsteps. The adrenaline rush was intoxicating and he couldn’t stop himself.

“Anyone could see us fucking my dove, and I wish they would.”

Lyonel:

Hair play.

No matter what position you were in his hands immediately went to your hair, and he was gripping or pulling. Taking you from behind and tugging your hair pulling your body back against his, when you’re on your knees gripping your hair so he can fuck your mouth, or when you’re riding him so you arch your back, pushing your chest closer to his face.

“I love to wrap my fingers around your soft hair, and keep you close to me my wife.”

Maekar:

Pussy slapping.

If there was one thing that he loved more than anything it was his hand coming down on your cunt, slapping your puffy and wrecked folds relentlessly. Legs spread wide as he listened to your wetness echoing around the room, thighs shaking everytime his palm made contact with your clit, giving little spanks as his cock was still deep inside you.

“The whole kingdom can hear how wet you are for me my burning flame.”

Valarr:

Breeding kink.

He absolutely loved the idea of your belly being swollen with his child. Always bringing it up before sex, during sex and after sex, and sometimes you couldn’t tell if he was being serious or just kidding. Getting hard instantly at the thought of how big your breasts would become, and that they would leak milk, and he could suck on your nipples as they dripped.

You had only been trying to help clean him up, giggling that he couldn’t go to training with his face covered in icing. Valarr had been indulging in lemon cakes all morning even though he knew he wasn’t supposed to, and since your husband was quite the messy eater, he had gotten it all over his face

You didn’t think twice to use your fingers to wipe it away and considered it a sweet, innocent gesture. But something in Valarr’s eyes darkened as he watched you bring your fingers to your mouth, sucking them clean before removing them with a pop!

He stared at your glistening digits and his cock immediately began to stir in his breeches. In an instant, Valarr found himself unbelievably hard at the sight, his training forgotten as he pulled you into his arms

Sweet lips met yours, tasting of lemons and sugar and a dark desire to consume you. Valarr kissed you with a passion you had not tasted yet, a bruising thing that you eagerly accepted. You had no idea what brought this upon your husband or why but you liked it, kissing him back with equal desperation

In no time, you found yourself naked, moaning as Valarr slid into you with one stroke. His thick cock stretched you out deliciously, and you wrapped your legs around his back to encourage him to move inside of you

As he did, rocking into you at a steady pace, you moaned and suddenly found his fingers in your mouth

“Suck them,” your husband commanded, pupils blown as he stared down at you. It seemed that you had finally found the reason for his sudden desire and your eyes widened but you were quick to obey

You wrapped your lips around his digits and sucked, enjoying the filthy moan that left him as you did so. The sight of you, innocently sucking his fingers while taking his cock did unexplainable things to him. Valarr felt himself nearly black out with pleasure as he moved faster, angling his hips to pound deeper inside of you

He whimpered and groaned as you clenched around him, coming around his cock with a force that had your back arching off of the bed. You squeezed him so goddamn tight that no sooner did that happen did his own peak come, nearly blinding Valarr with the pleasure it brung

Afterwards, when Valarr had cleaned you up and blushed at how unruly he had become, you thought about how something so…small had completely unmade your husband. A small smile crossed your face as you thought about it, and you made note that if he ever needing cleaning again, you’d be sure to use your fingers to do it

Maekar Targaryen

Marrying an older man was quite often the fear of many ladies in the realm. Growing up, it had always been your friends and even your fear in your youth to be forced off to an old, balding drunk that smelled like sweat and cheese. But when you married Maekar Targaryen and became his second wife, you began to see that being married to an older man wasn’t so bad after all

The ultimate perk was being with a man that knew exactly what he was he was doing. Knowing exactly how to please you in ways only a man of his age and experience would

Maekar knew the right spots to lick, to suck, and to pleasure your body to bring you to your peak. You never knew such a greatness even existed until you married Maekar, and despite what people thought of him, your husband was extremely generous

You whined as he situated himself in between your legs, his skilled tongue and fingers making good use of his experience. You had already come—twice now—but it seemed that wasn’t enough for your husband. He wanted more, demanded more despite your cries and pleas of being overstimulated

“Quiet woman. I’ll have none of that,” he waved you off, and the sensation of his pleasure was so strong that you couldn’t help yourself

You reached down and in a desperate attempt to ground yourself, you accidentally grabbed Maekar’s hair and pulled—hard

The silver strands were firmly in your grasp, your fingers curled in them as it was the only thing that you could do to anchor yourself through another orgasm

Honestly, you didn’t even notice that you were tugging on them until Maekar suddenly growled, his movements stopping as he propped himself up

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” He panted, breathless as his violet eyes grew dark. He looked like a true dragon above you. Full of fire and ready to devour you

“I…” you swallowed thickly, your throat suddenly dry. You didn’t know what to say to your husband about your impulsive actions, and you didn’t mean to upset him. “I-I’m sorry, my prince. I did not mean to. I merely got carried away.”

Your breath hitched, sure that that he’d be mad and curse you for doing such a thing. Your fingers pulled back, ready to grip the sheets if need be but Maekar caught your hands and stopped you in an instant

“Nonsense. Do that again,” he demanded, his voice full of lust

You were shocked and rightfully taken off guard by his request. You never thought that Maekar of all people would like his hair to be pulled but the way he growled again as you complied with his wishes told you that he more than liked it. He loved it

“Gods woman. You’ll be the death of me one day,” Maeker groaned, and that’s how you learned that the feeling of your fingers tugging on his silver hair spurred him on like no other

Aerion Targaryen

You discovered your husband’s weakness for being worshiped at quite literally at the worst possible time

It was in the sept, while you were praying during mass and asking the gods for good fortune, a healthy baby, and a long life

Aerion had never been keen for such a thing, nor he did actually believe in the Andal gods but he entertained it for the sake of appearance and let you be, if that’s what you wished

He had never given the sept or you much attention while you were doing your prayers, preferring to sit in the corner and brood but one day you kneeled in front of him and he was gone

He watched, half shocked and half aroused as you bent over to his feet, repeating:

“And may the father protect my husband, may the warrior make him strong, and may the mother guide his soul as she does with all her children.”

He had been caught so off guard that he could barely speak, and when you rose to your feet and looked at him he was harder than he’d ever been before

“Are you ready to leave now, my prince?” You had asked innocently, but little did you know that the thoughts running through your husbands mind were anything but

Aerion couldn’t get that image of you out of his head. Of you kneeling before him, submitting to him like you were worshiping him. Praying to him like he was your god and—fuck. He needed to see that again, now

You’d scarcely made it back to your chnambers before Aerion descended upon you, kissing you with a wild glint in his eyes and pushing you on the bed

His hands were frantic as he tried to strip you of all the clothing you had on, cursing your bloody maids for making everything so tight. It took him longer than he wanted to get you naked, to get you bare and spread out for him

He marveled in the sight, like he always did, but when you tried to lay back and open yourself for him, he did something unusual

“Kneel,” he said, no, demanded as he looked at you with glazed over violet eyes. They were so dark that they almost looked black. Wild and crazed at the idea of watching his thoughts come to life. Of watching his sweet pretty wife show him her devotion. “Make me your god,” he continued, “kneel before me and worship me as a dragon should be.”

He was in utter delight as he watched your body obey; confused, but obedient nevertheless. You got off the bed and did as your husband said, sinking to your knees and blinking up as he stood above you

Already, Aerion had freed himself from his breeches, his cock springing out to brush against your lips. When you reached out and darted your tongue across the tip he moaned, gripping the back of your head and pulling you closer

“Well, go on then. Worship my cock like you do your gods and we’ll see which one shows you the heavens first.”

Spoiler alert: it was him. After you finished praising him and milking him with your mouth, Aerion placed you on the bed face down and brought you to your pleasure

He took you from behind and fucked you like you deserved, making you see stars as he pounded into you

He was consuming you, chest pressed firmly against your back and whispering in your ear. He spoke softly, encouraging you to say a prayer for your release and you did

You screamed his name, chanting it over and over again until it was the only the word you had left. You babbled and mumbled as your husband’s cock took your higher than the heavens, and afterwards you took his seed as a reward for your devotion

Aerion knew, no, he swore that by the time he was done with you, you would have no need for gods

After all, everyone knew that Targaryens were the closest thing among men. And luckily for you, you were married one—a dragon coated in flesh

Baelor Targaryen

You’re not sure when the habit started really

Mayhaps in some meeting or another, one that your duty required you to attend but didn’t permit you to enjoy. You’d probably sat beside Baelor as he endured the same torture with you, hiding behind polite smiles and chivalrous words while on the inside you were nearly bored to tears

There wasn’t much entertainment while you were listening to complaints and grievances from various different Lords, so you supposed picking up on the habit of holding Baelor’s hand and fiddling with the rings on the them was natural

It gave you something to do to occupy your mind while you sat and listened to men whine like women. A small thing that you could enjoy, and you were sure that Baelor didn’t mind either because he never complained. In fact, he often encouraged you, slipping his hand under the table for you to grab and sometimes giving you a light squeeze

It was such a small thing that you did, really, that no one could blame you for missing how it drove your husband absolutely insane

Baelor had always been good at keeping his composure; after all, it had been expected of him since he was a child. He didn’t break easily or falter when something got to him, but it seemed that one day something about you finally caused him to break

Alas, it was after one of your meetings that Baelor finally grabbed you with a sudden urgency

You had been in the middle of complaining about something, slumped in your chair and completely unaware of the hunger on his face, when all of a sudden your husband pulled you to his chest and kissed you

Your complaints were silenced at once, your jaw going slack at Baelor’s sudden advances

Now, your husband wasn’t exactly a square when it came to your marriage activities, but he was mindful and normally only took you in the confinement of your chambers. Never before had he been so open, so eager to devour you in public and it took you for a shock almost as much as it excited you

Quickly, you returned his affections and moaned as his tongue slipped into your mouth, your back hitting the stone that his desk was carved out of

One hand came to slip underneath your dress, hitching your leg up, and you moaned as Baelor’s fingers brushed against your sex

“Here?” You asked breathlessly, pulling away to look at him with wide eyes

Baelor nodded, “Here,” he said, and you gasped as his fingers slipped into your small clothes. Your core was already aching and slick with arousal. You took your husband’s fingers well, clenching around them as pleasure traveled through your lower half

This new side of him was absolutely maddening. Baelor had never been this desperate before, this willing to be risky and it drove you wild

Anyone could have walked through the doors of his solar and saw him pleasuring you. Saw their prince, their future king with his fingers stuffed in his wife’s cunt. The risk made it all the more exciting, and it had your heart pounding with anticipation

You could feel your peak rising as Baelor’s skilled fingers worked their magic, but you didn’t get there. Instead you whined as Baelor pulled them out, scrunching your face up in disappointment

“Keep going, I was almost there,” you begged him, but Baelor shook his head

“Not yet,” your husband panted, and in the next moment he loosened his breeches and turned you away from him. You took this to mean that he would take you from behind, right up against his desk. Your mouth drooled as his cock dragged along your slick folds, mouth falling open as he pushed inside of you

“Fuck,” the vulgar curses that fell from his lips made you even wetter, your cunt easily spreading apart for his cock

From behind you, Baelor set out at a steady rhythm, fucking into you while your chest hugged the stone. The sound of wet skin slapping filled the room, along with curses that would have made a Septon blush

This new position proved to be overwhelming for the both of you and you could tell that neither of you would last long. Your core clenched with every drag of his cock, your peak threatening to rise again

“My love,” you gasped out, fingers clawing at stone, trying to find something to ground you as that familiar wave of pleasure hit. “I’m…I’m going to…”

You never even got the words out. Instead they were replaced by a loud whine, your mouth dropping open and your rolling back

You came shamelessly around your husband’s back and he followed suit, cursing and groaning as he did. He held onto your hips to steady himself and that’s when you felt it—the cool metal of his rings pressing against your hot skin

When the two of you had settled down, cleaning yourselves up and rearranging your husband’s desk to make it look like you hadn’t just been fucked there, you asked him about it with a shy grin on your face

“Is this what has spurred you on, husband? All this time—playing with your rings has riled you up? Why didn’t you tell me?”

Baelor, with a grin on a face and a twinkle in his eye, only chuckled. “I feared you’d stop, wife, if you knew the terrible effect it had on me. I didn’t want that. After all, I had to have something to get me through such dreary meetings.”

Ser Duncan the Tall

Traveling together on the open road meant that you and Dunk spent a lot of time together, and in that time you had each picked up on the mannerisms and habits of the other

You knew Dunk practically like the back of your hand, and there wasn’t much that he could do or hide from you, which was why you started to notice immediately his lingering stare whenever you braided your hair

Weaving the threads together had become second nature while you were on the road, as it was way to keep your hair from getting filthy and out of your face. Nothing special about recreating a hairstyle you had been doing since your youth but Dunk, for some reason, loved it

He loved sitting beside you as you worked, tattling off about something or the other. You suspected that he didn’t actually pay attention, too focused on your hair and the way that your fingers moved to digest your stories

At first, you simply thought that it was just fascination, with Dunk being curious about the ways of a woman

It seemed innocent enough, but slowly you began to notice the way he changed

Once he was able to sit beside you while you twisted your hair, watching intently but never bothered. Now though, Dunk seemed visibly uncomfortable by something every time you touched your hair around him and you couldn’t quite figure out why

It made no sense why he seemed unable to focus, always shifting beside you like a jitterbug. More often that not, he would excuse himself afterwards and then come back a few minutes later, looking more relieved than before he’d left

He never explained or said why, and he always seemed to stutter out some half excuse that you didn’t believe. As you said, you knew Dunk which was why you knew that he was hiding something

You didn’t figure out what until one day you decided to spy on him

It had been a spur of the moment decision, deciding to pause your braiding to sneak away after him and see what his problem was. You were merely curious, that’s all, so imagine your shock when you stumbled upon Dunk, cock in hand and moaning as he pleasured himself

He had his eyes closed, so he didn’t see you as watched flabbergasted. Never in a million years did you guess that this was what he was up to, but you weren’t entirely upset about it

In fact, you felt something stirring inside of your core as you heard him calling out your name, shamelessly pleasing himself to the sound of it

It was obvious that he was thinking about you, but why? What had brought this on, you wondered?

If Dunk was as thick as a castle wall then your head was as hollow as the moat surrounding it. Filled with water instead of sense, your Nan used to say, as when you stepped forward, your curiosity and desire compelling you to do so, you still did not realize that it had been your hair that spurred him on

Instead you called out his name, “Dunk?” With a shy smile, hoping that you could get to the bottom of this and possibly help him

Dunk’s eyes flew open and the look on his face looked like a rabbit that had been caught in a snare. He instantly panicked, stammering and sputtering out. You thought that he might have been trying to say words but they failed him, and now he was as red as a tomato as you sauntered towards him

“What are you doing?” You asked him, though your head wasn’t that hollow. You knew the answer but rather you were asking why? You weren’t angry. That was apparent by the smirk adorning your face, but it was an embarrassment to Dunk all the same

He tried unsuccessfully to pull his pants up, but his hands were shaking too much and he ended up not being able to get them past his ankles. In a desperate attempt to conceal himself and save his honor, he tried to force them but the act left him unbalanced and he stumbled

Had you not steadied him, your body pressed firmly against his, he might have fallen and broken something

“M-M’Lady, I was just…I was not,” ever the chilverous knight, you both knew that you were no lady but he still referred to you as such. He was trembling underneath your touch, his eyes closed and his head shaking as if he was disappointed in himself. “I-I didn’t…I didn’t mean…”

He was cut off by the touch of your hand as you softly cupped his cock, the action causing a sharp gasp to leave his lips. His eyes flew open and his lips formed an ‘O’ shape, in disbelief that you were stroking him

“Y-Y/N, what…?”

“Shh,” you grinned deviously as you sank to your knees, an idea forming in your head that could not be resisted. You meant to help your traveling companion with his problem, excited by the idea of him being hard for you

Dunk was sure that you were trying to kill him when your tongue darted out to taste his cock. He closed his eyes and let out a moan, not knowing what he had done for the gods to allow this but thanking them anyways

Your hot mouth felt like heaven wrapped around him, so tight and wet and warm. Your head bobbed and you looked up at him with such innocent eyes that he almost collapsed

Quickly, the pleasure threatened to consume him. Dunk had only ever used his hand before and this new sensation was driving him insane. He was seeing stars already, his release fast approaching

From below him, you felt the way he shook and decided to tease him, swirling your tongue around his slit before taking him deep again, hollowing your cheeks while you sucked. You took his balls into your hands and gently massaged them, feeling satisfied when Dunk lost it

He let out a groan that he was sure all of the Seven Kingdoms would be able to hear, and without thinking he reached down and tangled his fingers in your braid to steady himself. His grip was tight, a little confusing to you until it clicked and suddenly you realized what had spurred this all on

Dunk had always seemed to disappear after you’d finished braiding. Oh gods, you hadn’t noticed before, but it was your hair! Playing with your hair had been what riled him up

You reckoned that all those times he’d been watching, eyes dark and unable to focus, what he really was thinking about was this moment. Gripping your hair whilst you sucked him off and you felt ashamed of yourself that you hadn’t realized sooner

“Head as hollow as a moat. Filled with more water than sense,” your Nan’s voice rang

٠࣪⭑ one-shots ;

what isn't his - you grew up between them and you knew, long before you admitted it, that neither of them would ever let you go. valarr loved you the way you always wanted to be loved. aerion wanted you in ways you were not supposed to want back. you were going to marry one of them. the other was not going to allow that to mean anything. (8k+)

٠࣪⭑ drabbles/blurbs ;

⤿ 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑠𝑜𝑜𝑛 !!

.

One would think that the last two weeks before the wedding were the easiest part of any bethrothal. Everything was set in stone, guests were arriving, the dress was made, the flowers ordered, and the cooks began preparing the endless menu for the feasts that would follow the wedding. And for the bethrothed couple, it was time to relax, to know each other as much as they could before their vows were said, to be comfortable around one another after moons of endless courtship.

And thought these past few weeks Valarr had begun to know you, to care for you more than he knew you would believe. He still felt as if you were a stranger to him still. That the friendship, the desperate attempts to get you to grow comfortable around him, had all been for nought. 

It was not rare for strangers to marry in Westeros, but it had been the very thing he had tried desperately to avoid. With Kiera, he had spent moons courting her in the lead-up to what would have been their betrothal, and now with you he was given so little time. 

His family already believed him entirely in love with you; the court thought you had either seduced him to marry you or that you were both so in love that propriety be damned. Yet that was so far from the truth.

He had been honest when he had said he had wanted to start as friends, but in the three weeks since then, he had treated you with the respect and kindness one would give any friend. It was driving him to madness. Knowing you but restraining himself, watching you get belittled, his words comforting you for a time, before the cruelness of the court reached you once more. 

The weeks of being your friend, of stopping himself in acting like more, even though it was what he desired, but knew you were not ready for. Your comfort was vital to him. He needed it like he needed to breathe. And yet the friendship and restraint had only made the already repressed longing and the crush he held for you develop tenfold. And he did, in truth,  regret the promise to start as your friend, not when he had wanted so much more since the start.

He had wanted everything from you, had dreamed of you and hated it. Had resented that you had been the one he dreamt of marrying in the sept when Kiera was the one he had been told he would wed. And that initial resentment had caused so much misunderstanding that he felt as if he was still fighting it. His shock over the sudden betrothal between you both had worsened it. And even though you had vowed to restart. Had taken each day, day by day. Had gotten to know him as a friend with a careful guard up. You still seemed so unsure of him. So oblivious to his feelings and so knowledgeable of the feelings of court.

They were split. Half believed you both entirely besotted, the other believed you wanton and jealous. Though in truth it was them that were. Kiera that was. He had tried to understand her, to express his apology. But when weeks went by, and she still remained bitter and cruel. He could only blame herself for her feelings and try to help you understand that your sisters bitterness was not truly of your own making. Not when Kiera's actions had made it so obvious she had merely wanted him for his crown.

He tried so hard to help you ignore her, to assure you of his friendship. And though he some days believed he had made little progress in your feelings of hatred at yourself for how your sister felt, it did become apparent to him that you were rather happy with the friendship you had made. 

He hadn’t noticed, or had been allowed to notice, how alone you had been before. Where Kiera had flourished, made friends with every lady she crossed, you had only Kiera. And now, you had only him. And though he rather liked the fact that you no longer ran from him, or rolled your eyes at his words, that you spoke to him with interest and not annoyance. 

Knowing you as a friend, he only wanted him to know you more, to court you properly and to make the feelings for you that haunted him mutual. 

So, on the third week of your makeshift courtship, and three weeks after you had decided to restart your relationship, Valarr had decided, close to two weeks to the wedding where a couple should feel secure and relaxed in their impending nuptials, Valarr decided he would court you and woo you. And be as shockingly romantic as the novel you had read to him over the last few luncheons you had shared. 

He knew you needed obvious, knew you were oblivious to nearly everything and if Valarr wished for a marriage of love, not friendship or resentment. The very thing your betrothal started on, and you both feared your marriage could become. Valarr knew he needed to be the most obvious man alive. 

He started with a book. Your favourite book, some tale of knights and princesses, a romance that even Kiera told him you gushed over. You had lost your copy on the voyage to Westros, and though he knew you could recount it from memory, had done so one afternoon when Valarr and you had walked the grounds. The book was rare, out of print and proving to be exceedingly difficult to find, but he, a prince and future king, had many strings to pull and had managed to convince some minor lord to lend him his wife's copy. The book was pristine, though it was in the common tongue and not your native language; so Valarr eager to start your marriage properly, and tired of hearing you call him your friend (It had happened twice, and each time you had stuttered the word with a pretty blush that would have Valarr giddy at the knowledge he had you blushing) had tasked himself with translating it, re writing the book in its entritity just for you. He even added his own notes and thoughts for each passage. Especially the ones you had left out, that had even Valarr blushing. 

He had gifted you the book on the first day of the week, a bashful smile on his face as he placed the wrapped book in front of you as you broke your fast.

“What is this?” you asked, smiling as you untied the pink ribbon around the package, your eyes watching Valarr carefully as he sat across from you, toying with his rings nervously.

“A gift,” was all he said, swallowing roughly as you unwrapped your gift. Confusion laced your features first, then pure, unadulterated joy. 

“Where did you get this?” you asked, flipping through the pages and reading the words Valarr had written, your smile only growing at his annotations. 

“Some lord owed me a favour; his wife had a copy and allowed me to translate from it-”

“You hand-wrote this?” you asked. Valarr nodded, smiling as you reached across the table and kissed his cheek, thanking him softly. 

He would hold his hand to his cheek for the rest of the day, relishing the feeling of your lips kissing him. 

The next day he found you at luncheon, in your usual spot, in the gardens. Typically you ate away from prying eyes, away from the eyes of the court and the ladies that seemed to insist you had whored yourself out to him. But that day he found you, sat alone, with your sister and her gaggle of ladies at a table not far from you. Their eyes set entrily on watching you. 

Valarr approached you without hesitation, greeting you with a smile and a bouquet of your favourite flowers in his hand, his eyes never once moving away from your form, even as Kiera stood up hoping to catch his attention. 

“My lady,” he greeted, presenting the bouquet to you, relishing in the soft smile you gifted him. 

“Valarr, you wish to eat with me?” you asked, watching Valarr take the seat beside you.

“Who else would I wish to eat with?” he asked, confused at your words. He watched your eyes drift over to your sister, as she turned to her ladies, whispering nonsense in their ears.

Valarr shook his head. “As I have said for the past few weeks, my lady, I have no desire to know more of your sister, only you.” he watched you nod, though he knew it was not heartfelt. 

You seemed insistent on causing yourself misery. Even the weeks of friendship, you seemed hesitant to enjoy it. Your eyes always looked over your shoulder, treating his closeness with apprehension, even with his relentless reassurance. 

“My lady,” he shook his head, reaching for your hand, “tell me what truly worries you.”

You looked down, your hand reaching to pull a flower from the bundle, twisting it between your fingers. “Their words remain cruel, and I find myself struggling to believe your kindness.”

“We agreed to restart.” 

“And yet they do not,” you shook your head, clearing your throat, “they make me feel small, that any fondness I believe you have for me is a charade.”

Valarr shook his head, bringing your hand to his lips. “i will say again what i have told you each day for the past three weeks,” he made you look at him with your words, helping you to ignore the ladies behind him, “i am to be your husband, not hers nor theirs, and hence their words mean nothing.” you shook yourhead, still polaying with the flower between your fingers, “they are jealous and it makes them curel and you their undeservivng victim,”, he kissed your hand again, “i had hoped these last few weeks we had made progress-”

“In our friendship?” you asked, your gaze flickering between him and the ladies. 

“Yes, and I had hoped we had become more than friends.”

“Well, we are to be married-”

“No, my lady,” Valarr shook his head, smiling softly at your oblivious nature. “At our relationship, I had said we would start as friends, and now that we are, I had hoped we would be more.”

“I did not-” you stopped yourself, pulling your hand away from Valarr, your eyes focused entirely on the tablecloth. You shook your head, speaking so lowly he almost didn’t hear you, “I did not believe you were serious about that.”

Valarr sighed, frustrated. Not entirely at you, “I was, and I plan to show you that every day until we are wed and after.” Valarr reached for your hands once more, pulling them to kiss lips and kissing them softly, before ordering a servant to find a reason to send the ladies behind you away, allowing you both to enjoy your luncheon in peace. 

The rest of the week, he made sure to fill your days. Not once did he allow the gaggle of ladies near you. You were always on his arm or sat beside him. You were always by each other's side to the point that his father teased him more and more each day about his “fall” for you. You broke your fasts together each day; he would gift you a new bundle of flowers each morn. Lunch was shared when his days were not filled with council meetings. And he would sometimes draw you, though he never once let you see them even when you huffed and threatened to throw your book at his head. You did so once and found the ordeal entirely too funny; he found he could not be mad at you. 

You grew more and more comfortable. Day by day, you accepted his advances, accepted his hand, his soft kisses to your knuckles. He felt as if you were finally accepting that you deserved more than a marriage made of friendship. 

That was until the four days before the wedding. When he had found you in the gardens, your sister beside you.

He hadn't heard the conversation, but he had seen enough, seen your face at her words, the tears that fell from your face, and the smirk on her lips, to feel nothing but pure hatred for Kiera. A feeling so rare to him, so foreign; only the Blackfyres had conjured the feeling before, and yet your sister, the woman he was told was the perfect lady. Made him feel the hate and rage of a thousand suns with how she treated you.

He approached as she left, watching as shock fell across her face as she looked at him, then back to you. And Valarr, had he not been so angry and concerned for you, would have seen the regret in her face. As if his appearing made her realise exactly who she was being cruel to and that it was no random lady that stole the crown from her but her sister. Who until a moon ago, Kiera and told valarr she loved dearly. 

“My lady,” he greeted, sitting beside you, his hand reaching for yours to offer comfort. You pulled your hand back as if you had been burned, turning your back to him. “My lady, please, let me help you.” 

You shook your head, back still turned to him. 

He sighed, his eyes going to the flower bed that surrounded you, plucking a flower as he continued to try and speak to you. “Whatever she has said, it is not true,” he tried to reassure, his hand hovering over your shoulder, stopping himself from touching you. 

“Mayhaps,” he heard you sigh, your breath heavy from crying. “But it does not mean it does not hurt any less.”

Valarr nodded, swallowing roughly, his hand reaching for your shoulder with the lightest of touch, a relieved sigh falling from his lips as you turned to him, your eyes set on the floor. “My sweet lady,” he breathed, “what did she say?” You were silent for a moment, your breath slowing as you seemed to ease the tears. “She did not mean it, she is just sad,” you reasoned. “She is bitter over this marriage; that is it,”

“No, it is not it,” Valarr dismissed, hating how you defended her still after everything, pulling you to face him, his hands tucking your hair behind your ear and placing the flower he tucked into your hair, hoping to offer you comfort, “tell me all that she said,” his hand rested on your face, his eyes set on watching as you calmed yourself down and built the courage to tell him what happened. 

“She spoke of the truth, or at least what the truth was a few moons ago,” you began, your hand covering his on your cheek, “how I never wished to stay here, to marry a lord, let alone a prince from this country and yet here I am,” you shook your head, “she spoke my own words back to me, my hatred for this palace-” you stopped yourself, meeting his eyes at alst, “my old hatred, i have grown fond of it these last few weeks i promise you i-” you rushed out, worry in your voice.

“I know,” he smiled in reassurance, not only to how you have loved this place in recent weeks but your feelings before. He knew you wanted to go home, that you had not seen that palace as your home, or as a palace that would become it, until fairly recently, and even then the thought was still fresh and fragile.

You moved his hand from your cheek, moving away from him slightly as you continued to speak, “She was mean; she spoke of how I would hate you, hate this place, how I did not deserve it, how I betrayed her and how you will resent me for the whole of our marriage.”  you forced your eyes back to him, “how you resent me for stealing you from her,” you shook your head, “she said it as if she believed i was making a decision that would hurt me more than her, that i put myself in a situation would hate and then she-” you shook your head, refusing to say whatever it was that had you in tears, “she was cruel and i-” you cut yourself off, not daring the finsh the thought let alone the words you had been about to say,  before breathing deeply and looking to him, “do you, i mean, have you resented me?” your eyes wide as you waited for his answer. And an answer Valarr did not know how to give.

“No,” he shook his head, “i resented not knowing you first, not having the choice, for the situation we were thrust into, but only because it was not entirely our choice.”

He saw your shoulders relax at his words, and he found himself relaxing as you did. As if his tension was neutrally tethered to yours. 

“Do you still resent me for all that has happened?” Valarr found himself saying after a moment, partly worried Keira's words had made you resent him once again or that you had resented him and never stopped. 

“I do not resent you,” you whispered softly, playing with the flower Valarr had tucked into your hair, “i- i  resent myself,” you stuttered, refusing to meet Valarr's gaze once again. 

Valarr sighed softly, moving to sit closer to you, his hand reaching to grip your chin gently, making you look to him. “What for, my sweet?” he asked softly, relishing the blush the pet name gave you. 

“For liking you, for-” you swallowed roughly, “for stealing you from my sister, accident or no.”

Valarr shook his head, “my sweet, “ he spoke again, “you have no reason, none, to resent yourself.” he choose to ignore your words of liking him, he had only just made you realise his intent to love you, to have a true marriage, he had no desire to ruin that by teasing you, not when you were finally telling him why you still though the match, even if it put your own happiness on the line.  “Truley,” he reiterated, holding your hand and caressing it softly, “you deserve every happiness and just because your sister resents you, is not happy at the idea of you being queen over herself, it does not mean you deserve to suffer. That you should resent this,” he made sure you were looking at him, that you were taking in his words, and you were, your eyes were wide as you listened to him, “you are to be my wife, and i plan to love you, even if it takes years for the whispers of the court to fade, for your sisters bitterness to boil over, i intend for this to be a happy marriage, and if this last moon has not shown that then i-” Valarr, despite his determination felt tears well in his eyes, he shook his head to steady his thoughts, “i will not let them make you unhappy, i promise it, i vow it,” he spoke steady, bringing your hands to his lips. “I promise you, you deserve to be happy, and i will not allow you to live in their misery, not any longer.”

He spoke his words as a vow, determined to show you he meant every word. Because he did. He hated seeing how they made you feel, how they caused you such insecurity. And even if he had to banish them from your life to make you happy, he would. He just did not wish to have to banish your sister. For even if she was the cause of your misery, Valarr could tell you loved her still, and your hope that she would one day forgive you for the misunderstanding that led to their impending nuptials- that was what you needed. You needed your sister, and valarr hoped that you would get her back; he just hoped you didn't hurt him or yourself in the process.

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Bobby

the backrooms broke something in him and rebuilt it harder. the boy who ran from commitment, who kept people at arm's length with charm, died somewhere between you disappearing and getting lost in the yellow corridors. the man who came back holds everything with both hands because he knows exactly how fast it can be taken.

he has the ring for weeks. carries it in his pocket everywhere. waiting for the right moment and then realising there is no right moment. the right moment is just whenever you're in front of him.

proposes in the kitchen on a random, sunny morning. without fanfare, no setup. you're cooking and he's leaning against the counter watching you and he just says it. casual, warm, like asking if you want coffee. except his eyes are wet and his voice cracks on the me.

he hugs you so tight when you say yes. face in your neck, laughing and shaking at the same time, breathing you in.

the wedding is warmth. that's the only word for it. families, friends, the people who loved you through the worst of it. terrence is the best man and cries harder than anyone in attendance. bobby doesn't tease him for it just this once.

someone else films. someone else takes photos. because bobby, the man who documents everything, who sees the world through a lens, can't take his eyes off you long enough to hold a camera himself. his face when he sees you walking toward him is the only photograph that matters from the whole thing.

vows are a disaster in the best way. too long, too emotional, he tears up halfway through and laughs at himself for getting emotional but his words are still croaky after. you're emotional too. because you both feel the weight of the moment, the sheer impossibility after everything you've been through.

kisses you before they say he can. obviously. he's bobby.

slow dances with you at the end of the night, forehead to forehead, eyes closed, whispering "we made it" into the space between your mouths. the sentence means more than vows because you both know what it cost to be standing here at all.

Brendan

has the ring for two months. it lives in his sock drawer. he checks it's still there every morning religiously.

researches proposals at 2am. reads articles. watches movies on tapes for inspiration. overthinks every possible scenario and rejects all of them.

asks you at home, on a tuesday, because tuesdays are when you cook together and it's his favourite night of the week, and he wants the most important question of his life attached to the most ordinary happiness he's ever known.

had a whole speech prepared. forgets every word the second he opens his mouth. what comes out instead is a simple, heartfelt, direct question and it's better than any speech would have been.

his hands are trembling so hard the ring box nearly doesn't open.

when you say yes his whole face transforms. his eyes spill over and he doesn't wipe the tears and he just looks at you with this expression of such... unguarded happiness you understand for the first time what people mean when they say someone is glowing.

pulls you against him and doesn't let go for a long, long time. you can feel his heartbeat slamming through his whole body the whole time.

the wedding is small. neither of you wants anything big. close family, close friends, intimate enough that the room feels warm rather than crowded.

his hand is on you the entire day. brendan, who has always shrunk away frrom human touch, can't stop touching his new wife. your waist, your back, your fingers, your shoulder. he can't stop touching you like he needs physical confirmation that this is real, that you chose him, that he's never going to be alone again.

his vows are short, written on a piece of paper he unfolds with trembling hands and reads in a voice so quiet only you and the front row can hear. every word is the most beautiful thing you've ever heard.

tears up twice. once during his vows and once during yours. wipes his face with the back of his hand and laughs at himself quietly. you reach over and fix his crooked tie and the officiant has to wait because neither of you can stop looking at each other.

TT!AERION

there's no real proposal. more so a moment.

you're both in bed after thoroughly destroying each other. the room is dark, the sheets are a mess around you, and you're lying on your sides facing each other in that gentle aftermath space where the armour comes off.

one of you says it. you've genuinely gone back and forth on which one. the words just appear in the dark between your mouths, quiet, like stating something you've both known would come to pass for years. and the other says okay. same tone, same simplicity, the same knowing. two people agreeing to an inevitability.

you disappear for three days. nobody knows where. a courthouse somewhere, a clerk who doesn't know or care who either of you is. papers signed, rings exchanged (his: plain silver, you suspect he's had it longer than three days. yours: northern steel, dark, sized by guesswork that turns out to be perfect). a kiss in a hallway that smells like cheap cleaner, your hands tangled in each other. it's the best kiss of your life.

you come back married. deal with the rest of it later.

the rest of it: your father deserves a celebration, the maekarlings deserve to be there, too. because you love them, and aerion (despite his grumblings) loves them too. eventually you cave and have a small gathering.

rhae is aghast. she had the whole wedding planned. three binders, colour-coded, she'd been working on it since you started dating and you eloped in your jeans. the grudge lasts six months.

the gathering is beautiful despite being an afterthought. you wear white and aerion watches you walk toward him, his jaw is tight and his eyes bright blue. his hand when he takes yours is shaking. it's the only time in his life that aerion's hands shake for a reason that isn't violence (well, until baby maegor is born <3).

the ring catches the light and he looks at it and looks at you and his mouth twitches, just slightly, as if to say huh, you and me afterall, wolf.

GDGW!VALARR

he's had the ring for a while. he's never hidden it from you, but he's never pushed you into things either.

he hasn't asked, and you understand why. his arc was long and ugly, and the man who came out the other side is better but also changed. he's afraid of the asking now, a part of him still fears you might still leave. last time he offered himself fully, the world cracked in half and you walked away.

so he hesitates. keeps the ring in the drawer. touches the box when he thinks you're not home. takes it out, opens it, looks at it, puts it back (he's been doing it every day since you left).

you give him time. weeks of it. and then one evening on the couch you take his hand and tell him gently that the ring should probably go on your hand at some point.

his face crumbles. composure, rebuilt composure, the version of himself he reconstructed brick by brick after the worst year of his life, all of it just dissolves. his eyes shine, and you have never once seen him so quietly, beautifully happy.

you say yes even though he technically hasn't asked (you both know he asked few months in, and has been waiting for you to be ready to agree). he puts the ring on your hand and his fingers tremble so hard it takes two tries. he laughs at himself, wet and shaky, and then he's kissing you and the kiss tastes like his tears, except they're happy. he's so, so happy.

two weddings follow. the first is big, public, unavoidable. you're both heirs, both public figures, the guest list is a diplomatic document. hundreds of people, a venue that costs more than most people's houses. you wear a dress so beautiful it's on every magazine cover for weeks. his vows are warm and eloquent as the rest of him. the crowd applauds loudly, a hundred photographs are taken.

the second wedding is yours. a week later, a remote island, just you and two witnesses and the ocean. barefoot on the sand at sunset. the ceremony is three minutes long because neither of you needs the words. you wrote different vows for this one, the real ones, the ones too raw for a room full of diplomats and businessmen. his voice cracks on every other word.

you stay on the island for a week. and yes, you make a baby that night. first night, white curtains billowing in ocean breeze, moonlight on the floor. he holds your face and kisses you slow and finishes inside you, pressing his forehead to yours and stays. both of you breathing together, grinning.

He comes searching for a piece of paper he could very well be faxed to. Or forget about entirely — the kind of subordinate-level transactions you handle has no reason to be in the radar of the heir to the Targaryan empire. But Valarr likes to act as if it does. He likes to pretend to care about subsidiaries that make less than 1 percent of his empire.

He likes your smile. 

So on an unassuming office day he gets up from his chair and unbuttons his suit and walks the one minute distance to your room with a sparrow tucked in his ribcage. He feels the nervous flutter of its wings against his chest — anxious, wanting — as he crosses the desks. Desks filled with people, hallway clustered with unimportant underlings looking sneakily at him as he reaches you.

The glass of your office is clear, and he sees only the shadow of a tall man before he pulls the door open and is greeted with the sight of you at your desk, posture straight, face blank. The tall guy — blond, six five, big arms — is taking your picture. You notice Valarr instantly and your eyes widen, alert in a second. 

The shutter of the camera ticks off in three successive clicks. In the airsprayed freshness of your office room, immersed in your perfume, it clinks in Valarr’s ear like the heartbeat of some deadbeat insect. He watches you settle in your seat.

“Dunk, that’s enough,” you tell the guy hurriedly, your eyes not leaving his.

Duncan, Valarr thinks blankly. The new intern.

Another click. The flash bursts in front of you with a clear sheet of dust floating in the air.

“Perfect,” Duncan says, oblivious of Valarr’s presence in the room. “Perfect, darling.”

Something dark and desolate flares behind Valarr’s ribcage. Darling. 

You press your lips in a scathingly polite smile. “Lovely. So we’re done?”

Duncan scratches behind his ear. “I was wondering, if you’d just look more relaxed we’d have—”

“I thought you said I was perfect.”

“You are, of course, but — ”

“So there is no point in — ”

Your half-perturbed, constrained argument gets cut short by the click of the door dropping shut. Valarr realises, after Duncan stops spluttering and turns to look at him, that he’s let go of the door handle without thinking.

Duncan looks throttled, his blue eyes blinking a little too slowly at Valarr, before staring back at you. 

Valarr draws the blind of your door. It slither down unnaturally slow in the silent room.

“What’s happening here?” Valarr asks, his voice doing that constrained, too balanced thing that reads run instead of polite. Inadvertently. The veiled threat comes without his explicit decision. And it doesn’t land right. His question, the strained edge of it… hangs in the air. 

Duncan seems to have sensed it. So have you.

“Mr. Targaryen, hello,” Duncan mumbles. His lips slant into an awkward smile. He offers his hand to Valarr, flushed, his eyes sparkling. 

Valarr coughs, looking over Duncan’s shoulder to find you blushing. A familiar splotch of pink—that he can never stop being fascinated by — splayed on your face now. He takes the hand. 

“Hello,” he says. “Who are you?”

“I’m… uh, I am — ”

“Duncan,” you say, cutting the guy off. “He’s new.”

“Ser Duncan the Tall,” Valarr says, giving his large hand a stiff shake. “I’ve heard about you.”

His ears go pink. “That’s just a nickname.”

“What do you want?”

Your voice cuts through the awkward air again. Valarr glances at you to find you tilting your head at him inquisitively, and his mind goes blank. The closed window from behind your desk is spilling the morning light on your hair — your open hair — in a way that makes your head glow, like halo.

Valarr blinks. He is not used to being in a room and not knowing his place inside, his exact function. It’s a terrifyingly dizzy feeling, a newfound vertigo.

“What do you need, Targaryen?”

That’s his cue to back off. Because the reminder of his name, his last name, is your call to everything proper. Your pull to the real world, as you whisper in mornings where the sun is so mellow Valarr has to wonder if it even exists. In the real world he is an heir and you are his secret. In the real world he shouldn’t come stumbling to your office just to see the bright, pink blush on your cheeks.

What do you need, Targaryen?

What Valarr needs is information — Why is the new guy taking your picture? Why is he calling you darling? How is it possible that Valarr can hear blood sloshing in his head and still the loudest thing in the room is you?

“Just… some papers,” he mutters finally. “What’s going on here?”

“Oh, we’re just updating our pictures on the website,” Duncan says. He steps closer to his desk and Valarr feels his fingers itch. “You know the — uh, the office website. And her picture was so old and — ”

“Beautiful,” Valarr cuts him off. “It’s a beautiful picture.”

You are standing in front of the clear door of your office in that one. Your hair is open. You are wearing a jeans skirt with a dark-red sweater. Head tilted, just slight, eyes on the camera. Your eyes have that careful softness in the picture, as if you are gauzing a particularly itchy calculation, but you aren’t put off by it.

You were looking at him.

“Yeah. Yeah, I mean…” Duncan trails off. “We are just updating.”

Valarr takes a step to Duncan. 

“Right. Don’t you need one with other co-workers, too? To sell the work-life balance of the new culture? We are all like a family here anyway.”

“Um.” Duncan blinks owlishly. “Yeah, that’s true.”

Behind the desk, your lips are tight. Valarr dares to spare a glance at you and you pull your eyebrows, immediately, in a question. He only shrugs, moving closer to you.

“Take our picture, Ser Duncan,” he says cooly.

Everything happens too fast and too slow.

Valarr taps his index on your desk and you arch your eyes at him — with an expression he can’t decipher, not now. Not when his head is ringing ceaselessly. You get up then, without a word, to stand on his side, your face as blank as you can make it. Your lips are tense and tight and at the edge of—

Valarr touches your back.

You stop breathing.

For a minute.

Then, just as the first shutter clicks, he feels your breath quicker, snap and shut like the heartbeat of a deadbeat insect. He stares straight at the camera, stretching his lips to a friendly smile. His expression is polite, unassuming. Inadvertently, his hand flexes on your back, his index flits along your spine. More than that. It lingers. No less insidious than an invisible beetle. The blunt edge of his nail grazes your back, the mauve silk shirt, the warmth of you, and he feels — with a thrill bordering on absurdity — you shiver.

Valarr’s smile widens. He knows you, he knows this. The sudden hitch of your movements, body tight and willing at the same time. He has felt it under his palms enough times to memorise the arch of your back, the slight bend at the side of your left hip as you try to balance yourself. You lift your jaw, just an inch, just to show defiance to his foolery. Just to will yourself to not settle into it — him — just yet.

He moves his hand lower. Just to test his luck, just to feel the blunt out thrill — unbidden, not entirely comfortable — the way he finally settles on your lower back, lower than polite, lower than friendly, even. Valarr feels your lean back, coil in the heat and the weight and the childish, smothering rush of it — of him touching you in broad daylight — the audacity of it. His heart is unbearably, ridiculously fast even when you finally leave each other’s side, and it’s still rushing and raging when Duncan the Tall starts talking again.

“Right,” he says, his voice thick with confusion. “Good pictures.”

Valarr drops to his knees as soon as Duncan hurries out of the door.

—----------------

Valarr Targaryen is a rational man.

Mostly.

He knows his family is more powerful than the gods and he knows his function inside the Targaryen-machine is as scripted as they come. He knows how to snap his head at a competing adversary so he stops talking. Knows how to make accounts and save them. Knows how to multiply money. Knows the mechanics of his father’s empire like the back of his hand. He has a practiced smile for business-deals and one for when he wants someone to be afraid of him. He knows that his future is already written, that the involvement with one of his employees is nothing less than a catastrophe and the split-second relief he felt when you suggested you keep the entire thing secret was only logical.

Valarr is a practical person.

Most of the times.

There are few things that elicit some less than… judicious response in him. When someone has mud on the tip of their shoes, when someone chews at their hair, unapologetic tardiness, sardines in his pasta, sugar in his coffee.

You.

Oh, you.

Little things about you. The arch of your lips when you smile and are actively trying to hide it. They way you pull your hair up when you concentrate on boring logistics in the meeting rooms, eyes scrunched and focused. He feels his eyes float away from the screen to you. His heart picks up, his breathing slows. Valarr, always composed and collected and balanced… he flusters when you narrow your eyes at him from across a room. 

He likes the cloud of confusion in your eyes in the mornings when he has you in his bed. He likes the pestering, shady afternoons when your heels click against the linoleum floor of his lonely penthouse after a busy day. He waits for the gentle surrender when you finally fall asleep beside him — your hair undone, your smell clinging to his senses, your palm on his chest. Moments like these, he can feel his heart ram against his ribcage with a force that should scare him, should make him call his cardiologist, should make him feral.

Moments like these he closes his eyes and counts to ten.

And then instead of prepping for a close collateral damage, he falls asleep. Beside you. In his pain and in his longing, the meat of his heart beating inside him like an animal.

He’s good at hiding it. Usually, he’s good at hiding his emotions. It’s a tactical fact—he comes from a family that thrives on boardrooms, breathes on mergers and acquisitions, that has a hundred-year old pedigree to live up to. He has been taught on his father’s knees to hold that cry in him, to not look wanting. He’s had teachers and therapists and PR counsels breathing at his neck for the first two decades of his life and the final produce of their work is a sight to behold. Valarr can hold his breath underwater for six minutes on a good day. He can chill a well-reformed businessman with one look ten minutes into his presentation. He can walk into a room making no sounds and still be the most important thing in the space. These are not prideful proclamations. These are facts.

He’s good at hiding. Has had years and years worth of practice. Hiding their true intentions is basically a survival necessity for a Targaryen.

But somewhere along the way you happened. And Valarr is careful with words, with semantics, how they can twist reality, alter perceptions. You happened to him. No less a calamity than a storm. On an ordinary Tuesday into an unremarkable year, you collapsed against him in an empty parking lot and changed his reality forever. Now he has your shampoo on his bathroom cabinet and your favourite coffee in his kitchen. Now he has your voice in the back of his head giving commentaries to bad TV shows and your eyes scanning him in a room full of people just to know you can. You have his mind and his body and the remaining few of his nerves coiled into your fingertips. You have him. 

Valarr has been careful all his life.

But there’s a thing that happens, when a man wound too tight, too bright, too perfect finds something that makes him tether at the edges. The tear of it — the realisation that he can want things, can be needy with attention in a way that doesn’t make sense and survive anyway — is addictive. The world makes sense — extraordinary sense — without the mergers and the bank accounts and the name that’s been stone-heavy in the back of his neck for more than two decades.

He is a rational man. Still. Mostly.

Just not most of the times.

—-------------

Valaar kisses you.

He falls on his knees and you fall on your chair and his hands are at either side of you at once. And the gasp you make is all he can register. Is it from the fall or is it from him? He doesn’t know. He doesn’t wait to know. Valarr leans up, desperately catching your lips with his own and kisses you, carelessly, foolhardily. He kisses you without any finesse, without any thought behind it, without even trying to hide that he’s been waiting for this — exactly this — since forever. His hand lifts up to your cheek and he presses his thumb against the fullness of it. You shiver, your palms coiled around his collar. He flicks his tongue against yours and like an invitation, like a doom, you open up and let him taste you. You moan.

Valarr hums, parts for only a moment to breathe before diving back in, like gravity, like his doom. He kisses the top of your lips, feeling your lipgloss sticky against his tongue and tasting cherry on your skin. He tilts his head and kisses your jaw, tracing the slight sharpness of your bones in frenzy. His teeth scrape against the tender, fragile skin of yours and you hiss.

“You absolute madman,” you pant. Hand in his hair pulling his face away, pulling sharp, pulling mean. “What are you doing? Anyone can walk in.”

Valarr leans back. His eyes scan, dizzily, the messiness of your hair. The work of his hands, the undone button of your shirt. Your lips spit-shiny and filled with him. He smiles. “That’s part of the appeal.”

You roll your eyes. “We’re lucky that Duncan is as unassuming as they come.”

The mention of his name flares up his insides. He tightens his grip on your waist.

Your eyes widen.

“Valarr,” you say, as if it’s the most obvious thing. “Duncan’s not interested in me. He likes Tanselle. That’s why he is buttering me up. He wants my help to… you know, impress her.”

Valarr feels as if some giant has stepped off his body. Suddenly, he is as light as a feather.

“Tanselle,” he murmurs. “That’s great.”

You raise your eyebrows. 

“No, I mean.” He lifts his hand to smooth your hair. “She is in accounts, right? What if we transfer Duncan there? That’ll definitely speed things up.”

“Since when do you care about office romance?”

He looks up at you, unable to form an answer. You are genuinely asking. Genuinely confused. And this is the part that really fucks him up — he has seen you solve impossible equations with nothing but a fraction of your attention. He has seen you silence his cousin Aerion with a look in your eye. But you can’t fathom —genuinely cannot understand — why another man calling you darling would wind him up.

“Because it concerns you.”

“Why?”

You go rigid. It’s a miniscule change. Only for a split second. He feels it — your body turning stone, unapproachable in the way it gets when you see a nightmare you don’t want to talk about — for a heartbeat. But then you relax, turn softer. Your hips shift and you move just a little too close. You touch the dimple in his jaw with your index.

“Did you have a bad day?”

And he sighs — Valarr sighs. It’s half relief and half agony. It’s the same near-drown exhilaration he has when you both hover around the edge of ruin. When the intensity becomes too real to be called a secret, a passing thought, a fling, and too heavy to be anything else. It’s a strange, unearthly mixture. A delicate game between the realist in you and the non-conformist in him.

Valarr stares the way sunlight reflects against your eyes, the soft dent in your left cheek. The mole on your upper lip. He can voice the unsaid or he can kiss you again, ignoring the brush of fear against his ribcage. He can pretend for a bit more — he tells himself for the hundredth time. He can pretend he is in control of his heart for just one more kiss.

—---------

Valarr is dizzy when he returns to his office. He falls flat on his chair, the wheels swivel on his weight and back out, a little, from his desk.

His telephone rings. Valarr picks up the receiver without so much as a single thought in him. 

“You were there for twenty minutes,” Matarys’s voice floats from the other end. “With the blinds drawn. Brother, you know how this looks?”

Valarr grumbles. His heart is thick with want, with confusion, with something so deep and hopeful it clots behind his ribcage. He closes his eyes and his senses are full of you, again, already. The smell of your hair, the silky thread of it. The way you gasped his name.

“Val?”

“Like it’s none of your business?” he grunts, finally, but the impacts of the words have gone lost in the silence.

“You are so far gone it’s hilarious.” 

“Fuck off.”

“A question, Val… a riddle, if you will. Is the secret is still a secret if everybody in a six mile radius knows it’s a secret?”

The raucous laughter of the little shit of a brother grazes his remaining nerves.

Valarr slams the phone down. Breathless, panting, the world too real and too close. Entirely devoid of balance. And what truly unsettles him is not the disorientation, the newfound vertigo, not the jealousy brimming inside him like heartbeat... What rattles him is how much he likes it.

more of my stories

valarr adores to corner you.

his favourite past time every time he comes round during family visits is making you increasingly uncomfortable until you find a moment to slip away. because it always gets you right where he wants you, running to a private room, or even outside. leaving yourself completely alone when he finds you.

only this time he finds you in the upstairs hallway, about to go into your bedroom but you’re too late, one hand being firmly pressed against your waist and pushing you into the room next door, your brother’s room.

even at every pathetic plea from your lips, valarr still forces you down on aerion’s bed, letting one of his hands wander underneath your skirt.

you shouldn’t of worn a skirt today, trousers would have been harder to pull off, might have given you a fighting chance to break away and you know it’s a losing match when he positions himself between your legs. you don’t fight against him, don’t dare to scream or cry out for help, but you do beg in the smallest voice for him to not do this.

at least not here. not on aerion’s bed.

but valarr chuckles, “come on, you know you’ll like it. i always take care of you, don’t i?”

you want to scream, that’s not true, but like always you bite down on your words, to scared to alert anyone to the scene of the crime.

his lips fall to your neck at your silence, taking it as your form of consent. he nips at the skin first, before letting his tongue run over the delicate spot. he can’t mark you right now, not there at least but he can let his tongue wander over the soft pulse point, teasing you with the edges of his teeth.

you suck in a harsh breath when his fingers slide over your panties, and like always when his fingers dip inside the item of clothing, he finds you slightly damp.

valarr doesn’t waste any time, he never does.

your thighs squeeze around valarr’s head at the feel of his thick tongue lapping over your folds. he takes his time, kissing and licking around your clit, and every so often flicking the tip of his tongue over the senstive nub. you know what game he’s playing, and your teeth almost draw blood as they dig into your lower lip.

you’re clenching around nothing by the time he eventually gives up, feeling the frown of his face pressed against your pussy before he dove right in. he’s still teasing, circling your clit in the slowest strokes possible but at least when he changes pace, he takes you by surprise, and your mouth accidentally falls open.

you gasp and valarr smirks against you before sliding a finger into your needy hole, earning a risky moan from you.

“not fair,” you let out between gritted teeth.

nothing is fair about this. not the way one hand is clutching at the sheets of your bed. not the way your own cousin is eating you out like your his last meal on earth. and it’s definetly not fair how he seems to know the sweet spots inside of you that have you clenching around him.

but valarr doesn’t care how fair it is. it’s his game, and there’s never been any rules, to him you just suck at playing it.

“fuck, look at you.”

your ears register the words but your mind doesn’t really register that it isn’t valarr’s voice. no, not until valarr is parting from you to look over at his cousin in the corner.

“and look at you,” aerion smirks, noting valarr’s wet lips and blown out pupils. “on my bed as well.” aerion tuts, before sliding the door closed behind him. “could have had the decency to invite me.”

you don’t know what you expected when your brother walked in, fear washed over you and sheer panic as you looked to cousin for an explanation. but you never needed to give one, finding yourself right back down on the same bed again, only with your back pressed against valarr’s chest, both of you looking down as your brother continues the assault on your soaked pussy.

it’s different with aerion, his tongue gathering your juices with gentle licks before he gulps the slick down with a heavy groan. he doesn’t seem to mean to tease like valarr, but instead seems to be genuinely enjoying taking his time with you.

your practically a babbling mess when his the muscle of his tongue slides into your hole, already a needy mess from valarr’s earlier antics, and now with aerion fucking you with his tounge and valarr pinching your nipples, the feelings overwhelming. valarr at least does you the favour of covering your mouth with his hand and muffling your noises, as much as it pains him. but your being too loud even for him when aerion’s thumb presses down on your clit, unable to contain yourself anymore.

you don’t even know what you’re feeling anymore, it’s too much. aerion between your thighs and valarr sucking at your neck, you feel that tense sensation every where. your toes curling, nails clawing at valarr’s arm that’s wrapped around you, and pussy clenching around aerion’s tongue till you feel tears flooding your eyes. till your completely spent, riding out the last bits of your high by grinding on your own brother’s face.

dividers by @/chrisssiren

as always comments and reblogs are appreciated

His eyes narrow slightly. "Are you actually listening?"

"Of course," you lie smoothly. "Financial crime. Misrepresented evidence. Superficial articles."

He sighs, recognizing the signs of your distraction. "You're not listening."

"I am," you insist, reaching for his hand across the table. "I just also happen to be thinking about how good you look when you're explaining complex legal concepts."

A flush creeps up his neck, but he recovers quickly. "You're ridiculous."

"And you're incredibly fuckable right now. Have I mentioned how much I love watching you in court?"

"You've mentioned it several times, yes."

"It bears repeating." You trace a finger lightly over his knuckles, watching how his breathing changes. How it gets stuck in his throat coming in. "But that tongue of yours is wasted on legal arguments."

His swallow is visible now. It'd be audible too, if the bar weren't playing some low indie rock. "We're in public, angel."

"Are we?" you ask innocently, glancing around the dimly lit bar. "Looks like everyone's minding their own business."

You're thinking about his mouth, about how it looks when he's delivering closing arguments, the confidence and precision that make you want to drag him into the nearest empty room. You're thinking about how that same mouth feels trailing down your body, how his glasses fog up when he goes down on you while wearing them, how his normally composed demeanor shatters when you tug his hair just right.

He pretends to look unbothered, but you can see the pulse jumping in his throat. You can see the slight dilation of his eyes, the way he unconsciously licks his lips again. He knows exactly what you were thinking about a minute ago. He knows exactly what you're thinking about right now.

"Finish your drink. We're going home."

The ride back is silent except for the soft sound of rain hitting the windows and your own breathing, which seems impossibly loud in the confined space of the backseat. Valarr sits beside you, close but not close enough to fully touch you, just his leg pressed against yours. Every time the car hits a bump, your thigh slides against his, and you can feel the tension coiling tighter in his body.

When the driver pulls up to his apartment building, he's out of the car before you've fully gathered your things, holding his umbrella by the door as he waits for you. The rain has picked up. Fat droplets are now splashing against the sidewalk, but he keeps most of the umbrella angled over you as you rush inside.

The elevator ride up is torture. The smell of his cologne fills the small space, and you can see his reflection in the polished metal doors. You catch the way his jaw clenches. You catch how his fingers flex at his sides. You're both pretending to watch the floor numbers climb, but you can feel his eyes on you in the reflection.

You've moved on from his mouth and are now contemplating the way his neck looks, how the pulse there matches the rhythm of your own racing heart. You want to press your lips to that spot, feel his heartbeat against your mouth, to slide your tongue along the tendon that stands out when he's tense. You're thinking about the sounds he makes when you bite him there. You're thinking about his very gorgeous cock with its pretty pink flush and the way it twitches when you drag your tongue against the underside of it. And you're thinking about his tongue again.

The ache between your thighs is nearly debilitating by the time you reach his floor.

The moment the door closes behind you, the pretense drops. Valarr doesn't bother with lights; the city glow filtering through the windows is enough to illuminate the space in soft blues and grays. He sets his keys on the table with more force than necessary, and you're on him before he can speak, pressing him back against the door, your hands sliding up his chest to tangle in his hair. The kiss is nothing like the ones you share in public—soft, appropriate. This is hungry, demanding, the kind of kiss that makes your toes curl in your shoes and your head swim.

His glasses are in the way, so you pull back just enough to remove them, setting them carefully on the nearest surface before returning to his mouth.

"Fuck," he breathes against your lips, and then his hands are on you, one gripping your waist, the other sliding into your hair to angle your head just how he wants you. He tastes like the whiskey he had at the bar; you want to kiss him forever.

You break away to trail kisses along his jaw, down his neck, feeling his pulse race beneath your lips. His breathing is ragged now, his composure slipping with each touch of your lips to his skin. When you bite down gently on the spot where his neck meets his shoulder, he groans, and his hips press forward instinctively.

"Bed," he rasps, the word clawing up from his throat.

You shake your head, already sinking to your knees. "Here."

"Angel—"

"Let me," you interrupt, your fingers working at his belt. "I've been thinking about you for weeks, Val."

He swallows hard, watching as you undo his pants and free him from the confines of his boxers. He's already hard, his cock curving up toward his stomach, the tip glistening with precum. The sight of it makes your mouth water. You don't waste time wrapping your hand around the base, stroking slowly. Once, twice.

His head thumps back against the door. "Oh God, that's—"

The first pass of your tongue from base to tip cuts off his words. You flatten it and press firmly, tasting the salt of his arousal, feeling the veins that run along the underside pulse against your tongue. You do it again, slower, watching his face as his hands fist at his sides.

"You taste so fucking good," you murmur, before taking the head into your mouth.

Valarr makes a sound you've never heard before, something between a groan and a whimper. His hips jerk forward before he can stop them, and you welcome it, taking him further into your mouth. The weight of him on your tongue is intoxicating; the musky, clean scent of him is filling your senses so much that you could drown in it. You might want to. You establish a rhythm, then, alternating between long, slow bobs and swirling your tongue around the head, paying special attention to the sensitive spot just beneath the tip. His eyes are fixed on you, watching every movement of your mouth like it's the most fascinating thing he's ever seen.

You swirl your tongue around the head again, dipping into the slit to taste him properly, and his entire body shudders.

"Angel, if you keep—fuck—"

You hum in acknowledgment, and the vibration makes his knees tremble. One of his hands finally moves from where it's braced against the door and into your hair. He's gripping it with a restraint that you can feel against your scalp, but there's a desperation in his touch that makes you wetter than you already are.

When he grips your hair harder, you take him deeper, relaxing your throat until your nose is pressed against his pelvis. The moan that tears from him is absolutely beautiful. Uninhibited. It's the kind of sound he'd never make if he had even an ounce of his usual self-control left. You hold him there for a moment, breathing through your nose, then pull back slowly, hollowing your cheeks on the way up.

He's choking on words now, already having abandoned the idea of forming sentences. You glance up at him to find his head thrown back against the door. His throat is on full display, his mouth is open and each pant is coming out faster than the last, his chest heaving with each breath. You love seeing him like this—completely undone. Valarr Targaryen stripped down to pure sensation by your mouth and your mouth alone.

The power of it thrills you as much as the act itself.

"Stop looking away from me, Valarr," you demand, pulling off him just long enough to speak before going to tongue at his balls.

His eyes snap down to meet yours. They're glazed over with pleasure and entirely unfocused. "I can't... when you... fuck."

The moment the last word leaves his mouth, you take him into your throat again, swallowing around him as his eyes roll back in his head. The hand in your hair tightens, and this time he's the one pressing your face to him. You let him, let him fuck your mouth with short, shallow thrusts, let the drool run down your chin because it's worth it for the sounds he's making in response to the sight.

You feel him swell on your tongue, his cock pulsing with the signs of his approaching orgasm. He tries to pull back, to warn you. You just dig your fingers into his thighs to keep him where you want him. The first hot spurt of cum hits the flat of your tongue, and you moan around him. He cries out as he thrusts softly, his back arching off the door as he comes, his cock twitching with each pulse of release.

You don't let up until he's completely spent, milking every last drop from him before finally pulling back. You open your mouth, showing him the mess he's made, and then your tongue is meeting his before either of you can blink, and you're both swallowing the evidence of what just happened. The kiss is messy and tastes of him, and Valarr devours your mouth like he's trying to crawl inside you.

When you finally break apart, he's panting again, pulling at his tie; practically tearing his shirt open to get it off. "Bedroom," he says again, and this time he's not asking. "Right now."

He's scooping you up into his arms before you can respond, and you wrap your legs around his waist as he carries you toward his room. He tosses you onto the bed and follows you down before you've even stopped bouncing.

He makes quick work of your clothes, his hands trembling slightly as he strips you bare. The look in his eyes when you're finally naked beneath him is pure hunger. His eyes are fixed on your glistening arousal once he shoves your thighs open.

"Look what you've done," he murmurs as he slides a finger through your folds. "So wet for me."

You moan as he brings his finger to his mouth to suck it clean. His eyes flutter closed at the taste, and when he opens them again, there's a determination there that genuinely makes your entire body shiver.

"Val, please," you whisper, reaching for him.

He leans down, but not to kiss you. Instead, he settles between your legs, and you can feel his breath hot against your cunt. "I've been thinking about this too, angel. All day in court. During the deposition. Even when that idiot prosecutor was droning on about financial records."

His tongue barely flicks against your clit, but the sensation is electric. Your back arches off the bed and your hands find purchase in his hair.

"More. I need more."

He chuckles against your skin, drawing yet another gasp from your throat. "Patience, darling. I plan to take my time."

True to his word, he doesn't rush. He explores you with his mouth like he has all night, which, you suppose he does. Long, slow licks, gentle suction, the occasional scrape of his teeth against your inner thigh. He's methodical in a way that makes you want to scream, building your pleasure layer by excruciating layer. When he finally slides two fingers inside you and curls them just right, you almost pass out.

"Valarr, fuck," you pant, grinding against his face. "I'm close."

"Already?" He sounds impossibly smug. "I've barely started."

You're about to give him a piece of your mind when he sucks your clit into his mouth, and the words dissolve into a moan. His fingers pump inside you for a minute longer before he's pulling them out to grip your thighs, forcing them open when they try to close around his head. His tongue is everywhere, dipping inside you, circling your clit, and you're so close you can taste it.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," you chant, the pleasure cresting higher and higher until it finally breaks over you in waves. Your vision whites out. Your body is tensing and then releasing in shuddering spasms. Valarr doesn't quit, continuing to lap at you through your orgasm, drawing out every last ounce of your pleasure until you're shoving at his shoulders with your feet.

"Enough," you gasp. "Christ, Val, I can't."

He finally relents, placing one last kiss on your inner thigh before crawling up your body. His face is glistening with your arousal, his hair is messy from your fingers, there's a stupidly wide grin on his face, and he's never looked more beautiful. You want to frame him just like this.

You pull him down into a kiss, tasting yourself on his lips now, and he hums contentedly against your mouth. When he pulls back, he's still smiling. "Good?"

You run your fingers through his disheveled hair, watching the way the silver streak catches the light coming in from the window. "Incredible," you admit. "But next time you tell me we're going out for drinks, you better keep your mouth shut about work when you promise you will."

He laughs, the sound vibrating against your chest where he's resting his head. "I will. I swear," he says, but you both know he's lying, and that somehow, it's perfect just like this. You'd listen to him talk about legal strategy for hours if it ends like this every time.

"Good. Now, are you going to fuck me or what, counselor?"

The throne room was empty when the last voices faded away. The torches crackled in their iron sconces, casting dancing shadows that climbed the carved stone columns until they vanished into the darkness high above. Valarr remained seated on the Iron Throne, his elbows resting on the arms of fused steel, his chin propped on interlaced fingers while the crown rested on his brow, and he felt its weight grow heavier with every passing hour.

It had been a long day of pleas, of lamentations, of men and women kneeling before him with eyes full of hope and despair. A day of councillors speaking of grain and taxes, of disgruntled lords in the riverlands, of the need to strengthen the defences in the south while winter crept slowly down from the north. Maekar had stood beside him through the whole afternoon, offering counsel that Valarr knew to be wise, yet still it could not silence the voice inside his head that kept asking: what would my father do?

He closed his eyes for a moment, and beneath him the throne creaked faintly, as if the thousand swords that made it up were alive, always ready to remind the one who sat there that this seat had never been made for comfort.

Valarr opened his eyes and looked towards the doors of the hall. They were closed, of course; the guards had withdrawn to the outer corridors when he had ordered that he be left alone. He needed silence, needed to think, but silence, he had discovered, was a luxury a king could rarely enjoy in peace, because silence brought memories.

It was like this every night.

He saw his father in every corner of the hall, walking towards him with a smile that said he knew exactly what to say; saw him tilt his head while listening to the petitions of minor lords, saw him pause for a moment before offering an answer that seemed so natural, so certain, that everyone around simply nodded. Baelor had made it look easy, had made it seem that ruling, even as a prince, was like breathing or walking.

Valarr did not feel that way. He never had.

As a child, he had watched his grandsire on the Iron Throne. Daeron the Good, they called him. A king who had brought peace and prosperity to Westeros, who had unified the kingdoms through marriages and diplomacy. Valarr remembered sitting at the foot of the throne while his grandsire listened to the lords, and he remembered thinking that here was a man who never doubted himself. A man made for the throne.

Afterwards, it seemed that Baelor knew exactly how to balance the weight of the crown with the humanity he carried inside him. He had taught Valarr everything he knew, had sat with him for hours, explaining the intricacies of politics, the subtle games the lords played among themselves, the art of listening more than speaking. Valarr had learned, had listened, had noted it all down in his mind.

But learning and knowing are different things. Knowing and being able to do them, too.

The door of the hall creaked.

Valarr looked up, his body tensing for an instant, but the tension dissolved as quickly as it had come; you were there, in the entrance, wrapped in a dress of pale grey wool that barely hid the curve of your belly. The torchlight danced in your hair, and you were looking at him with that smile he knew so well, the one that came because you were happy to see him.

"You look handsome wearing the crown," you said, and your footsteps echoed softly across the stones of the hall as you drew nearer.

Valarr felt the corner of his mouth twitch upwards, despite everything. You always did that, always found a way to remind him that he was more than just the crown he bore. He lifted his hands and removed it slowly, and the weight seemed to lessen a little.

"It never felt like it belonged to me," he replied, holding the crown before him. "You know that."

You stopped a few paces from the throne, tilting your head.

Your eyes met his, and Valarr felt something unfold in his chest. This was the look you had given him since the day you met, eight years ago, when he was only a prince and you were a young woman who did not seem intimidated by his lineage. You had always seen him — not the prince, not the heir, not the king — just Valarr.

"Do you think anyone is born belonging to a crown?" you asked, stepping forward. "Your grandsire wasn't born with a crown on his head, and you… you are learning. Every day you are learning, my husband."

Valarr took a deep breath.

You were so gentle with him, so patient that there were days when he wondered how he could deserve that patience, that love that seemed so unshakeable. There were days when he felt that everything he did was fail, and yet you remained there, looking at him the same way, as if he were the man you had known at eighteen, before any responsibility to Westeros.

"Come here," he murmured, reaching out his hand.

You approached the throne, but instead of sitting beside him, you stopped before the iron structure, your eyes tracing the blades that made up the seat. Valarr watched as you slowly raised a hand, your fingers brushing one of the swords with curiosity, and he felt his heart quicken.

"Careful," he said, his voice sharper than he intended. "These swords cut."

You turned your face to him, and a smile bloomed on your lips.

"Cut?" you repeated, tilting your head. "Does that mean I would be unworthy of being the king's wife? I've heard that the throne cuts those who are not worthy."

Valarr felt concern mingle with a flash of exasperation. He stood, the crown still in his hands, and descended the iron steps until he stood before you.

"This is a throne made of swords," he retorted, gently.

You stared at him, your smile fading gradually as you looked at him. Your hand moved away from the throne and found his, and you laced your fingers together.

"I know," you murmured, smiling genuinely. "I just wanted… I don't know. Maybe I wanted to see if it would cut me too."

Valarr felt something tighten in his chest. He raised his free hand and touched your face, his palm resting against your soft cheek.

"It wouldn't cut you," he said. "Because it's not the throne that decides who is worthy. And even if it meant something, you could never be unworthy of my love."

You closed your eyes for a moment, leaning your head against his hand. When you opened them again, there was something — a softness — that made him remember why he had fallen in love with you, all those years ago.

"You're worried," you observed.

Valarr let out a sigh and allowed his body to relax slightly. You always knew, always noticed, even when he tried to hide it, even when he believed he was being the king everyone expected him to be, you saw right through him.

"I'm always worried," he replied, and the honesty of the words surprised him.

"I know," you said, holding his hand more tightly. "But today seems a little worse, doesn't it?"

Valarr looked at the throne behind you, at the rows of swords that gleamed in the torchlight. He remembered the day he had first sat upon it as king, feeling the hardness of the iron against his back, the cold of the blades against his skin through his clothes. It was as if all those who had occupied that seat before him were watching, waiting, judging.

"I heard petitions today," he said, shifting his gaze from the throne back to you. "A man whose daughter was taken by bandits, a widow whose lands were seized by a neighbouring lord, a merchant who lost everything in a shipwreck. And I stood there, listening, trying to decide what to do. My uncle was beside me, offering counsel. Other councillors too. Each with a different opinion, each telling me what I ought to do, and I stood there, thinking about what my father would say."

You said nothing for a moment, just listened.

"I don't know what he would say," Valarr continued. "Because he isn't here, and I… I don't know if I learned enough. I don't know if I was a good son, a good heir, a good…" He hesitated. "If I am being a good king."

"Valarr," you said, and your name on your lips always sounded so kind. "You are being hard on yourself."

"Someone has to be," he replied, with a bitter smile. "Won't the realm be hard on me? Won't the lords? They look at me and see Baelor's son, King Daeron's grandson, and they expect me to be like them, but I am not. I am not like my father or my grandsire, I am just… me."

You pulled him closer, and Valarr let you guide him. You were shorter than him, your pregnant belly preventing him from embracing you fully, but even so he wrapped his arms around you, resting his chin on top of your head.

"I knew you before you were king," you said, your voice muffled against his chest. "I knew the man you are, not the king, the Valarr who laughed when I said something foolish, who got embarrassed when he caught him off guard. The Valarr who wept with me when we lost our first child."

Valarr squeezed his eyes shut.

The mention of the boy still hurt, even after all those months. The firstborn who had been born with a strong, healthy cry, who had grown too quickly, who had learned to walk too early, who had run through the castle after his grandsire Baelor; and then the illness, the fever, the small body that grew cold in his arms. He still saw the boy sometimes, in dreams, and afterwards he would wake with a tight heart and a guilt that never seemed to fade.

"I know," he murmured against your hair. "I know."

You pulled back slightly, enough to look at his face. Your eyes were damp, but you did not cry. You were stronger than him in that way. You always had been.

"You don't have to be your father," you said. "You don't have to be your grandsire. You don't have to be anyone but yourself, and if the realm expects something else… well, they'll have to learn. Because I know you, Valarr. I know you're a good man, that you love your children, that you try, every single day, to do the best you can. And that… that is more than many kings have done."

Valarr kissed you then, a soft, brief kiss. You always knew what to say, found the words he needed to hear, even when he did not know he needed them.

"You're too good for me," he said, resting his forehead against yours.

"Maybe," you replied, with a small smile. "But you're the king, and I'm stuck with you. What can I do?"

He let out a laugh, a short and genuine one that seemed to surprise him. You always managed to make him laugh, even on the hardest of days for both of you, and that was one of the many reasons he loved you.

"Come," you said, tugging at his hand. "The children are waiting for you. When I left, they were playing and saying they wanted their father to put them to bed tonight, that I don't know how to tell dragon stories."

Valarr felt the guilt stir again in his chest.

He spent so little time with them, whole days would pass without him seeing the boys, trapped in meetings and audiences, and when he finally returned to their chambers, it was already night. The little ones were asleep, their toys scattered across the floor, and Valarr would sit beside their beds and watch them, wondering if they knew he loved them, if they understood why their father was always absent.

"How are they?" he asked, as they walked side by side towards the doors of the hall.

"Well," you said, your hand still in his. "Aethan asked today if you're the most important king who ever lived. I said yes, of course."

Valarr shook his head, a smile tugging at his lips.

"You shouldn't say things like that, he'll grow up thinking his father is a god."

"He'll grow up knowing his father is the man he should admire," you corrected, and there was something in the way you said it that made Valarr look away. You saw him in a way he could never see himself.

You walked through the torchlit corridors, Valarr's footsteps echoing against the stones alongside yours, lighter. The guards nodded to them as they passed, but Valarr barely noticed; he was focused on you, on the sway of your body as you walked, on the way your hand rested on your belly.

You were a few months along now, enough that the baby could be felt moving, enough that your dress curved around your growing shape.

"How's the baby?" he asked, gently.

You smiled, and your smile lit up your whole face. You always smiled like that when you spoke of the baby, even after so many pregnancies.

"Clever," you said. "Hasn't stopped moving for hours. I think he's impatient to be born. Or maybe it's a girl. Girls are more restless, aren't they?"

"Do you think it's a girl?" Valarr asked, stopping in the middle of the corridor.

The question caught him off guard, because the three previous births had all been boys. Three sons, all healthy, all strong, the loss of the eldest still hurt, but the other two were alive, growing, filling the castle with their games.

You tilted your head, considering the question.

"I don't know," you admitted. "But perhaps the gods will decide to give us something different this time."

Valarr touched your belly with one hand, feeling the soft curve beneath the fabric. There was no movement at that moment, but he knew that he — or she — was there, growing, waiting for the time to come into the world.

"If it's a girl, I'd like to call her Alysanne," he said, and the word came out more easily than he had expected.

He had thought about it, of course. Thought about many names, many possibilities, but he had never said it aloud.

"Alysanne," you repeated, pleased. "That's beautiful. Like Jaehaerys's queen."

"Exactly," said Valarr. "She was a great queen. It would be a good name for a daughter."

You smiled and kept walking, and Valarr followed, his hand still resting on your belly, as if he could feel the baby through the fabric, through the skin, through everything that separated them.

He wondered if the boy they had lost would have grown up to be like him, if he would have inherited his grandsire's smile, that calm way of observing the world. Valarr would never know. That hurt more than he was willing to admit.

When they reached the children's chambers, the door was ajar. A candle flickered inside, and Valarr heard a low voice — the nursemaid, probably — humming a song he recognised from his own childhood. A song about winter coming, about wolves and snowflakes, about a hero who never came home.

He pushed the door open slowly, and the two boys were sitting on the floor, surrounded by painted wooden blocks, but their eyes lifted immediately when they saw their father. The older one now, who was five, jumped up.

"Father!" he shouted, running towards him.

Valarr knelt to receive him, opening his arms as the boy threw himself against his chest. He hugged his son tight, feeling the small, warm body against his own.

"I heard you were waiting for me," he said, his voice muffled against the boy's hair.

"Yes!" the boy exclaimed, pulling back to look at him with his mismatched eyes. "I wanted to show you the dragon I built with the blocks. He's enormous! As big as the Red one Uncle Aerion told us about."

Valarr looked past his son and saw the block structure on the floor. It was, indeed, an impressive attempt at a dragon, with wings made of flatter blocks and a tail that snaked across the floor.

"It's magnificent," he said, letting out a genuine smile. "Did you build that all by yourself?"

"We helped," said the second boy, who was three, approaching shyly. He held a block in each hand and looked at Valarr uncertain whether he should feel proud or embarrassed.

Valarr reached out to the younger one, pulling him close too. Both boys were against him now, and Valarr felt that this went beyond guilt, beyond the feeling of failure. Something that felt like love, simple and unquestionable.

"Are you ready for bed?" he asked.

"No!" they said in unison.

The nursemaid, who was leaning against the wall with a tired smile on her lips, shook her head.

"They haven't stopped since sunset, Your Grace," she said. "I knew they were waiting for you."

Valarr looked at the nursemaid and nodded. She was an older woman, with greying hair and kind eyes, who had cared for the children since the eldest was born. He trusted her more than he trusted many of his councillors.

"We can stay a little longer," he said, looking at the boys. "But afterwards you need to sleep, because Mummy needs rest too. Promise?"

"We promise!" they both said, and Valarr knew they were lying, but he let it pass. It was so rare to have these moments with them that he didn't want to spoil them with discipline.

He sat on the floor with them, helping them build a castle around the block dragon. You sat in a nearby armchair, watching them with a smile on your lips. Valarr could see you in his peripheral vision, your hand resting on your belly, your eyes following him as he played with the children.

"You need another block here," he said, pointing to a gap in the castle structure. "Otherwise the dragon will knock it all down."

"But dragons are like that," said the older one, with all the seriousness of a five-year-old. "They knock down castles."

Valarr laughed, and it was a free laugh, without the weight of his worries. Perhaps, somewhere deep down, his father was watching. Perhaps Baelor was proud to see him like this, kneeling on the floor with his children, laughing as if there were no kingdom to rule.

After a while longer, the nursemaid led them to bed, and Valarr picked up each of them, one at a time, and placed them in their beds. The older one was already heavy-eyed, the younger one completely asleep before his head even touched the pillow.

Valarr watched them for a moment, the two small bodies nestled under the blankets, their chests rising and falling serenely. He thought of all the nights he had arrived too late, when they were already asleep by the time he returned to the chambers. He thought of the times he had promised to spend more time with them and hadn't managed to keep his word.

"I'm a terrible father," he murmured to himself, but you were there, standing beside him, and you heard.

"Don't say that," you said, placing a hand on his shoulder. "You're here now, and they know you love them. That's what matters, and they understand."

Valarr looked at you, and there was something in your eyes that made him want to believe you.

"Come," you said, tugging his hand gently. "Let's go rest."

He let you guide him out of the room, closing the door carefully behind them so as not to wake the boys. The corridor was silent, and your hand was in his, and he followed you without thinking, letting you lead him back to their chambers.

Your room was large, as expected for a king and his queen, but it was not ostentatious. There was a big bed with red velvet curtains, a bronze bathtub that they filled with hot water brought from the kitchens, and a window that looked out onto the sea. Valarr liked to look through that window on nights when he couldn't sleep, watching the waves break against the rocks below, thinking of everything he should have done differently.

You stopped before him and began to undo the fastenings of his cloak. Valarr watched you, your nimble fingers working at the leather knots, your gaze focused on the task.

"You don't have to do that," he said.

"I know," you replied, without stopping. "But I've missed my husband, and I'm making the most of him while I can."

The cloak fell to the floor, and you reached for the crown, which he still held in one hand, and took it gently, placing it on the table by the window. Valarr felt the immediate relief, as if part of the weight he carried had been lifted.

"You look so beautiful," he said, admiring your face. "As beautiful as the day I met you."

You looked up at him, a smile playing on your lips.

"I was wearing a hideous yellow dress. You said I looked like a chicken."

"I was nervous," he admitted, feeling his cheeks warm. "I didn't know what to say, so I said the first thing that came to mind."

"You called a lady a chicken, and yet she still married you."

"She must have had terrible taste."

"She must have seen something no one else saw," you said, placing your hand over his heart. "Perhaps something you still don't see in yourself."

Valarr closed his eyes for a moment, letting your words wash over him. He didn't believe them, not completely, but hearing them from you made them feel more true than anything anyone else could say.

You continued to undress him, removing his tunic with gentle, practical movements. The clothes fell to the floor as you worked, until he was left in only the light breeches he wore beneath; you guided him to the bronze bathtub, where the water still steamed. The heat rose to meet him as he climbed into the bath, the hot water enveloping his tired body.

You sat in the chair by the window, your hand resting on your belly, and watched him relax into the water. Valarr closed his eyes, feeling the tension in his muscles slowly dissolve.

"What did you think about today?" you asked, after a long silence. "About the petitions."

Valarr opened his eyes and looked at you. You were leaning forward, your elbows resting on your knees, your chin propped on one hand.

"I thought about how complicated everything is," he replied, after a moment. "A man loses his daughter to bandits, and I have to decide whether to send soldiers to hunt them, knowing I might be leaving another village unprotected. A widow loses her lands to a neighbouring lord, and I have to decide whether to intervene, knowing I might anger other lords who are watching. Every decision has consequences beyond what I can see."

"Your father felt that too," you said. "He told me once that ruling was like playing cyvasse. You can never see all the pieces, and even the ones you see can be moved by someone you don't expect."

Valarr remembered that conversation, many years ago. His father sitting with him on a damp night on Dragonstone, explaining the complexities of Westerosi politics. He remembered how confident his father had seemed back then.

"I'm not as good as he was," Valarr said, and the confession escaped before he could stop it.

"No," you agreed, and the honesty of the answer made him look away. "You're different, and that's not a bad thing, Valarr. You may not be your father, but you are you. And the realm needs you, not a ghost."

Valarr was silent for a moment, the hot water swirling around him. You were right, of course. You always were, but accepting that was difficult.

"I love you," he said, and his voice was barely audible. "I've always loved you."

"I know," you said, and your eyes were damp. "I love you too."

The silence between you stretched, and Valarr could hear the wind outside, the waves breaking against the rocks. He could hear your breathing, calm and steady, and he felt his own heart settle.

"Come," he said, reaching a hand out to you. "Get in with me."

You smiled and shook your head.

"I can't," you replied, touching your belly. "I don't fit in the bathtub anymore."

Valarr laughed, and it was a genuine laugh, that vibrated in his chest and echoed off the walls of the room.

"You're beautiful," he said. "You know that, don't you?"

"You've already said that today," you replied, with a smile.

"And I'll say it again tomorrow, my wife."

You stood, your movements slow and careful, and walked to the edge of the bathtub. He saw the happiness in your eyes, that happiness he had seen so many times before, and felt his heart quicken. You leaned down and kissed him, your soft lips against his, and Valarr felt warmth spread through his whole body.

"You need to rest," you murmured, pulling away. "Tomorrow is another day."

"But I don't want to rest," he said. "I want to stay with you."

You laughed, stroking the white streak at the side of his hair.

"You have a whole kingdom that needs you, and I'll be here, waiting for you. As always."

Valarr watched you as you moved about the room, your graceful, familiar gestures. You had been with him through everything, through the grief for his father and his brother, through the grief for the lost child, through the endless days when he felt the world was caving in on him. And you were still there, still loved him, still looked at him as if he were something precious.

He climbed out of the bath and wrapped himself in a robe, the water still dripping from his body. You were in bed, the velvet curtains partially drawn, and he went to you, his bare feet cold against the stone floor.

"Do you think," he said, lying down beside you, "that the gods chose me for this? To be king?"

You turned to face him, your eyes meeting his in the dim light.

"I think," you said, "that the gods don't choose anything. It's people who make the choices, and you chose to be a good man, and you chose to love your family. That's more important than any choice the gods might have made."

Valarr smiled, a small one, and he pulled you close, your bodies meeting in the darkness.

The kiss came slow and deep, a kiss that spoke of years of love, of shared losses, of a connection that transcended the weight of any crown. You were warm against him, your belly a constant reminder of the life growing inside you, and Valarr touched you with the reverence of one who understands the miracle you represented.

His fingers traced your soft skin, learning every curve and contour as if for the first time. There was no hurry in that moment, no urgency beyond the desire to be closer, to feel you against him, to remember that despite everything, there was still this. There was still you.

"I love you," he murmured against your lips, and the word seemed so small beside everything he felt, but it was the only one he had. "I love you so much."

"I love you too," you replied, and your voice was full of everything he needed to hear. "I love you too, Valarr."

His hands found yours, lacing fingers together as he moved over you with a slowness that bordered on devotion.

The room was dark, lit only by the trembling light of the candles, and Valarr felt as if he were somewhere between dream and reality. You were there, beneath him, your eyes meeting his with an intimacy that no throne could offer. And in that moment, he was not king, he was your husband, the father of your children. The man you had chosen to love, against all expectations, against all conventions, against the whole world.

His fingers traced your soft skin, learning every curve and contour as if for the first time. Valarr moved over you, positioning himself carefully, his body hovering above yours. He supported his weight on his elbows, ensuring no pressure fell upon your belly.

His mismatched eyes found yours in the half-light, and for a moment he just looked at you, the trembling candlelight dancing in your hair spread across the pillow.

"Are you sure?" he asked, but it wasn't about desire, he knew you desired him, just as he desired you. It was about care, about making sure you were well, that the body carrying their life was not being pressed beyond what it could bear. "I don't want to hurt you."

You raised a hand and touched his face, your fingers sliding along his jaw, tracing the outline of his mouth.

"I'm fine," you said, serenely. "I'm always fine with you."

Valarr tilted his head and kissed the palm of your hand before lowering himself slowly, his lips finding yours again. The kiss was sweet, almost shy, as if it were the first time you had ever kissed; he felt your body relax beneath him, felt your hands slide across his back, pulling him closer.

He positioned himself between your legs and entered you calmly, always careful, his eyes never leaving yours, watching every change in your expression, every small sigh that escaped your lips.

His hand slid between your bodies, finding your belly, and he caressed it with his open palm.

"Is it uncomfortable?" he whispered, pausing for a moment, his forehead resting against yours.

You shook your head, a smile forming on your lips.

"No," you said, slightly breathless. "Don't stop."

He continued, his movements slow and deep, and he felt the warmth of you around him, felt every small tremor that ran through your body, felt the tightening of your hands on his back, but above all, he felt the love that seemed to fill every inch of the room, thick and warm like honey.

You arched your back slightly, a low moan escaping your lips, and Valarr slowed even more, concerned, but the smile on your face dispelled his anxiety.

"It's good," you whispered. "So good."

He kissed your forehead, your cheeks, the tip of your nose, as he kept up the gentle rhythm. His hand never left your belly, stroking it with the same tenderness with which he stroked your face. With every movement he asked: are you all right? is this good? can I continue? And each answer came in the tightening of your hands, in the parting of your lips, in the happiness in your eyes.

The pleasure grew slowly between you, and Valarr felt his body begin to tremble, felt the limits of his self-control approaching, but he did not speed up. He wanted this to last, wanted to stay there, wrapped in you, feeling you, loving you, for as long as possible.

"Valarr," you murmured, his name escaping your lips like a prayer. "Please."

He didn't need to ask what you wanted. He knew. And he moved a little faster, a little deeper, his lips finding yours as you came undone beneath him, your body trembling, your moan muffled against his mouth. He followed you moments later, a hoarse sigh escaping his lips as he lost himself in you, in the warmth, in the love, in the certainty that this moment was sacred.

For a long time, you lay in silence, your bodies still intertwined, your breathing gradually calming. Valarr rested his forehead against your shoulder, feeling the rhythm of your heart slow beneath his cheek.

His hand rested on your belly, and he felt the weak movement of the baby against his palm, little kicks.

"He's strong," Valarr murmured, a smile forming on his lips.

"She," you corrected, with a tired smile. "Alysanne."

Valarr laughed softly, the sound vibrating against your body, and you were quiet for a moment, your hand finding his on your belly.

"Valarr," you began. "What would happen if you weren't perfect?"

The question caught him off guard, and he hesitated, thinking about the answer.

"The realm needs a king who knows what he's doing," he replied finally. "It can't afford an imperfect king."

"But all kings are imperfect," you reflected, your voice a whisper in the darkness. "Your grandsire was imperfect, many others were, and yet they are remembered as great kings. Why? Because they tried, and they loved their kingdoms and their families."

Valarr didn't answer immediately.

"Perhaps," he said finally. "Perhaps you're right."

"I'm always right," you said, and he could hear the smile in your voice. "You should know that by now, after all these years."

He laughed again, and the laugh seemed to dissolve the last traces of tension still lingering in his body.

"Come," you said, pulling him closer to you. "Sleep. Tomorrow is another day."

He closed his eyes, feeling your breath against his chest, feeling the warmth of your body, feeling the peace that only you seemed able to offer him. The realm was still there, waiting for him, the councillors, the petitions, the problems that seemed never-ending. But that night, at least, he was not carrying it all alone.

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