#FIREANDBLOOD

Aerion hates Lys. 

Between magisters angling to secure a dragon for a son-in-law and perfumed courtesans drifting through torchlit halls like painted ghosts, the city feels poisonous. Decadent. Drowned in silk and scented oils thick enough to choke on. He cannot breathe without tasting rosewater and myrrh. He cannot think without fury curdling his blood and indignation fogging all coherent thought.

He curls his hand around the goblet at his side until the thin Myrish glass cracks beneath his grip. They do not understand him here—no one understands him anywhere, but at the very least, Westeros is home. Westeros hates him—fears him, whispers about him, judges him—but it knows him. They look at him and see what he is—a dragon, fire and blood—they speak his name in the Seven Kingdoms with caution, and lower their eyes when he walks by.

These Lyseni look at him and see only opportunity. A displaced prince to take advantage of. A scandal dressed in silver hair and violet eyes to exploit. A dragon clipped of its wings and sent across the Narrow Sea to be made more palatable. Aerion sees all of their calculations when they think they’re being slick. He sees the way fathers present daughters in hopes of tying their line with a prince of the blood; in the way servants watch for signs of temper, eager to report whether the exile is manageable or monstrous. 

He lifts the goblet and drains it in a single swallow. The wine is sweet—too sweet. Everything in Lys is sweet, and syrupy, and soft, and he’s sick of it. It coats the tongue and dulls the senses, trying to keep him weak and malleable. He wants something sharp enough to cut. He wants hard-packed earth and steel, not mosaic marble and silk. 

He throws the goblet at the wall furiously, watching it shatter against the pale stone, ignoring how a servant girl flinches and scurries away as he rises to his feet and paces the solar, agitated. 

He hadn’t even done anything wrong. He’d meant to teach a lesson, that was all. The puppet girl incited rebellion, the hedge knight overstepped, and the crowd dared to laugh. 

What was he meant to do? Smile? Yield? Laugh along with them?

A dragon who endures mockery without response ceases to be a dragon at all. A dragon answers with fire and blood. He had done what he was meant to do, and they treated him as though he’s the villain of the tale. As though it was his hand that struck his uncle down, his arm that swung the mace. As though Baelor wasn’t the one who chose to stand against his own blood, with some fucking oaf who dared to lay hands on a prince of the blood. 

The gods answered the Trial of Seven as they were meant to, and still, they blame him. As if divine judgment must bend itself to their comfort. Aerion might have withdrawn his accusation, but if the gods struck his uncle down on that field, perhaps it was not Aerion they judged. Except no one wishes to speak that truth aloud, because it’s easier to name him the monster and send him across the Narrow Sea to pretend the problem has been solved. 

He swallows the bitter lump in his throat, chest tight with something that he refuses to name.

Lys will suit you, his father had said while Aerion was still tasting his own blood with every swallow. While his ribs still ached with every breath, and his face was still swollen and split from that brute of a hedge knight’s blows. He couldn’t rise from the bed to argue properly, wasn’t even given the chance to defend himself. Maekar had spoken the words and turned his back on him, treating him as though he were an inconvenience to be managed rather than a son to be defended. 

His next exhale is shuddered—furious, betrayed, pained, he’s not sure. His hands wrap around the railing of the balcony, looking over Vyrano’s manse, over the glittering city and pale marble domes, knuckles white and fingers trembling. Music drifts upward to where he stands, lutes and soft laughter ringing incessantly in his ears.

He hates it.

———————

Aerion hates Lys, and Aerion hates you.

As if this wretched city of silk could get even worse, you had to come along with it. You laugh when he threatens, and lean closer when he snarls. You speak to him in the old tongue as if it’s your birthright, poured into your mouth with your mother’s milk; as if High Valyrian were not a privilege of fire and blood, but a toy to be rolled across your tongue for amusement. Aerion wants you dead, but he can’t even get people to answer questions about you, much less the opportunity to put his blade through your throat.

You are impudent, and disrespectful, and whorish, and you have left bruises up and down his throat, scratches along his abdomen, like a wild beast. 

He stands before the polished silver, fingers tracing the marks you left on him, studying them with a deep frown—bruises bloom dark where your mouth lingered, lines sting across his body when he moves the wrong way. The haze of pleasure is long gone, and Aerion is enraged. The marks do not suit a prince of the blood—a dragon. He looks almost—

His jaw tightens, gaze flicking away.

He had not meant for it to happen that way. He meant to remind you of your place—to show you the edge of the blade you thought to play with and make you flinch, to teach you that dragons are not toys to be handled at whim. Instead, you had laughed and mocked him, drawing him into a guessing game of identity, and he had let you. You had straddled him like he was some perfumed boy from a pillow house, like he was yours to take, and he had let you. 

Aerion hisses as he turns his back to his own reflection, pacing. He cannot sit. He cannot breathe. The memory of your mouth at his throat feels like flames beneath his flesh, and every time he thinks he has doused it, it flares again. The audacity you had to just leave, he thinks furiously. To rise from his lap, fix your dress, and leave him there—breathing heavy, cock softening inside silk, blood and spit smeared around his mouth like a maiden who’d just been kissed silly. You had strolled back into the festival with the ease of someone returning to their seat at supper, and he’d been left reeling, trying to pretend he wasn’t.

He drags a hand through his hair, nails catching on tangles—he needs to cut it again. He’s been trapped on this flowery prison for over a fortnight, and already he’s starting to look like one of the silk boys. His thoughts flash, sharp and ugly, when he catches sight of the bruises on his reflection as he whirls around again. He should have taken you with him that night. Should’ve hauled you down from that balcony by your hair and dared the magisters to stop him. Should have made you scream his name in the middle of their jeweled garden until the whole city remembered what it means to touch a dragon.

The doors to his solar creak open, and a servant hesitates in the threshold, bowing deeply.

“My prince,” the boy begins cautiously, “Magister Vyrano asks if you will attend supper—”

“Get out,” he says, not even turning to look at him, pacing back over to the balcony, knuckles white around the railing as he stares out to the west, where the Summer Sea gleams beneath the setting sun. Somewhere beyond it lies Westeros—packed dirt and steel, storm and smoke, not silk and perfume, not you.

The servant flees, as they always tend to when they realize he’s in a foul mood, and the doors fall shut with a muted thud that leaves the room too quiet. 

He remains at the railing, breath coming hard through his nose—everything feels wrong. He can’t sit, can’t breathe, his skin feels too itchy, too tight, too hot, burning the same way it always does before waking dreams. 

It’s just anger this time, he tells himself. 

He’s not Daeron—not weak, not a mad man, no matter what everyone else says. He’s Aerion Brightflame, a dragon—in control, always. You just pissed him off enough that he cannot think straight, so he needs to handle this, handle you. 

Still, he exhales deliberately—long, counting, forcing his breath to even out the way Daeron once taught him when they were kids, the first time he found Aerion screaming on the floor, nails bloody and ripping through the skin at his neck, before he turned to the bottle and forgot he was a brother. His pulse pounds at his temples, fingers flexing against the stone rail. 

He forces his mind elsewhere, and to his frustration, he finds it drifting right back to you, but this time, a more pleasant feeling sweeps over him. Your laugh. Your mouth. Your hands on his skin, fingers brushing through his hair, tracing his jaw, lips caressing his. 

His jaw tightens, equally incensed by the idea of feeling calmed by you as he is by the idea of feeling disrespected by you. 

He still doesn’t know anything about you, he realizes furiously. Well—he knows some. He knows the sound you make when he presses his nail into your wrist and drags his tongue up your throat. He knows the shape of your hips beneath silk, and the taste of your blood. 

But he doesn’t know your house. He doesn’t know where you’re from, or who your father is, or what banners would rise if he dragged you into the street and put a knife to your throat, or why nobody in this god-forsaken city will answer any of his questions about you. Why doors close when he asks, and smiles turn bland, and answers turn slippery, as though you’re the only thing in Lys that cannot be purchased, and he—Aerion Brightflame of the House Targaryen, dragon blood, prince of the Seven Kingdoms—must simply accept that.

He will not. 

He cannot.

He slams his palms against the railing and paces away, agitated again, itching at his too-hot skin. He needs to do something about this. 

Westeros would never have allowed this.

In Westeros, he would have dragged you into a chamber and barred the door. In Westeros, no magister would dare interfere. In Westeros, his name still carried weight enough to bend the room around it. In Westeros, he could’ve fucked you and then killed you, and nobody would’ve bat an eye. 

Here, he must calculate. He must tread carefully and pretend to be agreeable while they measure him like livestock at auction, because for every slip of restraint that gets back to his father, he’ll be stuck here longer. The humiliation of it burns deeper than your scratches, and you are complicit in it—the primary enabler of it, even—with your treacherous games.

Aerion hates Lys, and Aerion hates you.

He just wants to go home.

———————

He finds you at dusk in the same place he first met you. 

You’re sprawled on that same sun-warmed rock, red chiffon instead of purple clinging damply to your thighs, the edges of it drifting lazily in the Summer Sea. The sky bleeds gold and violet overhead, the horizon swallowing the sun in a slow descent. You look exactly as you had that first day—untouched by consequences, unbothered by the world and exile and him.

As though he has not spent the better part of three days unraveling over you. 

He already finds himself irritated, and you haven’t even spoken a word yet. He stops several paces away at the edge of the water, boots sinking slightly into wet sand. He doesn’t announce himself, but you know he’s there—he can tell by the faint curl of your lips.

“You took your time,” you say lightly, not even opening your eyes.

His jaw tightens. He steps closer, close enough that the tide laps against the edge of his boots. The hem of his coat flutters in the salt wind. You finally open your eyes and tilt your head back to look at him, and Aerion finds his mouth drying, gaze slipping to the way you unintentionally—intentionally?—bare your throat to look at him, the way silk clings to your skin, the way you lie so lackadaisical as though you have no care in the world.

“You marked me like some beast claiming territory,” he accuses, voice low and sharp, watching as you roll onto your stomach, smiling lightly as your gaze wanders openly over him, lingering on the bruises marring his neck, on the scratches you know are hidden beneath his tunic. He thinks you have some nerve, some—

“Yes, you do look thoroughly mine, don’t you?” you say, and Aerion’s vision nearly goes red, teeth grinding so badly that it almost hurts. “Does that bother you?”

“Bother me?” he hisses, stepping into the shallows until the water darkens the leather of his boots. “You presume ownership of a dragon.”

He knows he isn’t going to like what you have to say before you even say it. You smile sharply. “Well, most who ride a dragon would be considered to have claimed it, don’t you think?”

He balks at your words, furious, and then he forces his expression to smooth. “You bit me.”

“You bit me back. In fact, you bit first, if I recall correctly.”

“You made me bleed.”

You smile wider at that. “Again, I was only returning the favor.”

“You marked me,” he repeats, enraged because he still can’t get past the audacity of you leaving marks along his skin where everyone can see, as though he’s some courtesan fresh from a patron’s bed. 

The lingering looks have been unbearable—servants’ gazes dipping down to his neck with wide eyes, a magister’s daughter staring openly at the dark bloom along the curve of his neck and the length of his throat before lowering her lashes and making an excuse to leave. The only thing worse than the parasites of this city trying to pawn their daughters off to him is the way they’ve stopped trying because they think he belongs to you.

Your smile softens, just a little. You hum. “And you wear it well.”

The simplicity of it steals the next retort from his mouth, blinking once as he stares at you, thrown off by the lack of mockery in your tone. He doesn’t like the uncertain feeling that spreads through him, so he pushes it away, expression hardening, shutters slamming down behind violet eyes. He says coldly, “Do not speak as though I am yours. You mistake indulgence for possession.”

You don’t have a quick remark this time, studying him carefully, amusement fading and being replaced with something more attentive, as though realizing that he’s not as keen to indulge your whims today. He thinks he likes this less—the idea that you can, in fact, be serious, that you’re not all languid smiles and careless laughs. He feels far too seen right now—he’s too hot, he’s too fucking hot, too itchy, everything is wound too tight.

“I told you I tire of your games,” he continues, jaw set, “and you have exhausted my patience. I am done playing. You pushed too far with this—this mess. The way people look at this, at me—I am not claimed. Not by you or anyone in this wretched city. I belong to no one. You don’t get to behave as though you have some tether around my neck because you left bruises where others could see them. I am not yours, and I will not have Lys thinking otherwise.”

He is ranting. The words don’t come out as the sharp orders he wants them to be; the longer he speaks, the more his skin burns, and they end up coming out too fast and too hissed. For a long moment, you simply look at him. The soft sound of waves crashing against rock and sand, the warmth of water sinking into his leather boots. The last light of dusk is swallowed by the horizon, turning the water from gold to indigo. Something calculating flashes in your eyes briefly before your gaze finally flits away, dismissive—something about it makes him shift.

“I know,” you say at last, and the casualness of it catches him off guard. “I never said you were. You are not mine, and I am not yours. It was only some fun.”

The words don’t bring him the ease he expects, and he wants to snap that he’s not bothered, but he just stands there still as stone, staring at you, gaze trained on the side of your face as you look away from him. The sea breeze brushes your hair away from your neck, and his eyes land on the faint bruising he left beneath your ear, and he remembers the way your pulse fluttered when he pressed his mouth there, the feeling of your body against his, the soft moans and hitches of your breaths, your hands on his skin, gevie.

“Good,” he says, though the word feels strangely hollow in his mouth. “Then we understand each other.”

You hum lightly, looking out toward the sea again. “We do.”

He is unsettled. His fingers clench at his side, digging into his palms, and he has to force himself to unclench them before his nails break skin. He is unsettled, and he shouldn’t be unsettled—he got what he wanted. He drew the line, and you agreed; for once, not plaguing him with your disagreeable, disrespectful, impudent nature. He has won.

So, he’s not sure why he’s still standing, watching you from the shallows, the curve of your profile against the darkening horizon. You still look unbothered, as though nothing in this exchange cost you anything at all. He hadn’t realized he was waiting for resistance until it didn’t come.

He doesn’t like that realization, so he turns on his heel, stiff as he leaves the beach. He can’t help the part of himself that still waits for the teasing: ‘til next time, prince!

It does not come.

———————

Days pass. 

He attends suppers he does not wish to attend. He listens to magisters drone about trade routes and alliances. Their daughters sit near him again, because they’ve resumed trying to woo him on their father’s behalf once they’ve realized he is not yours. The bruises on his throat have faded, and the scratches on his abdomen have healed.

And Aerion is bored. 

He is so painfully, agonizingly bored that he writes up a vicious letter to send to his father, and then a more desperate one, wanting to come home. He sends neither, burns them in the fire in his room, and stares at the flames too long. He has been stuck on this perfumed prison for a moon, and no one has bothered to reach out to him, not to see if he’s been settled or to see how he’s doing. He won’t be the first to reach out if they can’t even bother to see if he’s alive.

He thinks about you incessantly. 

He finds himself scanning rooms without meaning to and finding them severely lacking when he does not spot your familiar lazy smile; his eyes glaze over mid-conversation with whichever magister or daughter is trying to make small talk with him, nervous, walking on eggshells in a way you never did. 

He goes to pillow houses to busy himself with at least keeping his cock warm, but he only leaves more incensed than he came. He lies back against velvet cushions while a girl with your hair color kisses along his throat, soft and reverent, and he feels nothing. She doesn’t even dare let her teeth graze his skin, afraid to leave a mark, afraid of him. He opens his eyes and stares at the ceiling instead, dismissing her with a flick of his fingers. 

He attends feasts and various other gatherings, hoping that you’ll be there, but you never show, and he’s forced to listen to a magister’s daughter recite poetry in High Valyrian that makes his teeth ache with how butchered it sounds. He corrects her pronunciation once, disdainfully, and she flushes scarlet and falls silent. He does not bother speaking again, and he leaves early.

He ends each day with a ride at dusk, alone, circling the island without admitting to himself where his path drifts—the northern edge, the sun-warmed rock you like to bask yourself on like a lizard, but it’s empty every single time. He tries not to acknowledge how disappointed he is—every single time. 

After a few days pass, Aerion realizes that he had expected you to push, to test the boundary he set, as you had been the past moon, no matter what venom he spat at you, but you have withdrawn completely. You don’t come to events, don’t wander the gardens, and when he idly asks the magisters about you, trying to feign indifference, nobody gives him a clear answer. He stops by the Perfumed Garden to see if you’re talking to your whores, but they deny even seeing you, and he can’t tell if it’s a practiced lie or the truth. It’s as though you’ve evaporated from Lys altogether. 

He has won, he has to insist to himself. The dragon always wins—especially against some upstart island girl who thinks herself untouchable. You have simply learned what the world knows as truth: House Targaryen always comes out on top, Aerion always comes out on top. 

So why in the seven hells does total victory feel like losing?

———————

You’re here.

Aerion knew it the moment he stepped into the room—before his eyes found you, before he had any proof beyond the way his hair was suddenly standing on end. 

He wasn’t sure if you would be—you only seem to attend events hosted by the First Magister, and Aerion supposes it’s because you’re his guest, just as Aerion is Vyrano’s, but this debauchery Vyrano calls a feast seems to be in celebration of a holy day for Lys’s cat god. It would be disrespectful for you not to show up at a magister’s manse on a holy day, and you seem well enough liked by the nobility for him to assume you wouldn’t be openly disrespectful to them, even if you are to him.

The hall is drenched in gold and smoke, braziers burn along marble walls, and Aerion can’t help the way his gaze clings to the flames, forcibly looking away to the silk banners hanging from the vaulted ceiling, embroidered with the sleek, watchful shape of their cat god. The scent of incense coils thick in his lungs, heavier than usual, not the usual rose; there’s something sweeter threaded through it that clings. It curls low in his stomach and lingers there, seeping into him in a way that makes his muscles lax.

The laughter in the hall is different too, he notes absently—looser and slower, as though something warm and indulgent has slipped between their skin and softened the edges of restraint. Sharp laughter becomes languid murmurs, and casual touches become lingering caresses. Fingers trail more boldly over silk. Heads tip back a little too far. Mouths linger too close to ears. Even the magisters seem at ease, their eyes glassy as they gesture through negotiations they will not remember in the morning.

Aerion feels distinctly uncomfortable, his tongue pressing to the back of his teeth as he ignores the incense burning in his lungs, forcibly loosening his inhibitions. He accepts a goblet from a passing servant without looking at her, using the cool weight of it to anchor his focus before anyone can see even a flicker of weakness. His gaze moves across the room, as though disinterested, and then—

And then he sees you.

You look the same as you always have, draped in silk chiffon, lounging on cushions, surrounded by beautiful women and pretty boys who smile and charm and trace your skin like they have some right to your body. The sight of it makes his blood hot, and he’s furious because he won, so he should be the one at ease, not you. He doesn’t even know why he’s so angry.

You’re reclined in the center of it all, one arm thrown lazily over the cushions, fingers idly tangled in the golden curls of a girl kneeling at your side while a boy with kohl-lined eyes pours wine into your goblet, his other hand resting lightly at your waist as though it belongs there. The magister’s son you’re talking to, a pretty thing with golden hair and violet eyes, sits close to you with his own courtesans pawing at him. He snorts at something you say, and you—

You look bored.

Your gaze drifts over the hall with faint disinterest, lips curved in something that is not quite a smile. You let them touch you, let them drape themselves across your lap and shoulders and thighs, but you don’t look as though you’re enjoying it. Don’t look the way you did that night on the balcony, eyes bright and glittering, smile sharp and taunting.  

Your attention lifts from the magister’s son and finds him across the room, as though drawn to him. Your expression doesn’t change, but you do tilt your head to the side, assessing him, and Aerion thinks he should look away, find something or someone else to distract himself with, but he can’t seem to draw his gaze from you, so he only lifts his chin, challenging. You raise your eyebrows at him, lips curved up in a small smile. 

Inexplicably, he almost moves to make his way over to you, but pauses when he watches the magister’s son reach up, fingers brushing beneath your chin, guiding your face toward him as though he has earned the right, stealing your attention back to him.

Aerion stills. 

The boy smiles lazily, wine-hazed and emboldened by incense and entitlement. He says something too low to carry, thumb stroking once along the lines of your jaw, where Aerion’s mouth traced greedily a few nights before, where your pulse had fluttered beneath his tongue, and something hot spreads through him—hot and green and very, very ugly. 

You don’t pull away, and you don’t lean in, but you let him lean in, you let him press his mouth to yours, and you let him move closer. 

And your eyes never leave Aerion’s.

The magister’s son deepens the kiss, encouraged by the fact that you don’t push him away, not noticing that you are barely meeting him either. Your mouth parts because his does, and your body shifts because his hand urges it. Your hands remain idle at your sides, lips moving just enough to feign interest.

And your eyes never leave Aerion’s. 

Aerion wants you fucking dead. 

What sort of fucking levels of disrespect is letting someone shove their tongue down your throat while holding eye contact with him?

He feels heat crawl up his spine, through his shoulders, into his throat—sheer disbelief, rage, he doesn’t even know what the ugly emotions spreading through him are. He can hear his own heartbeat, his own words, echoing through his head—I am not yours, I belong to no one, we understand each other. And he is not. He is not yours. Aerion belongs to no one. Aerion is a dragon, a prince—he is not shackled by a girl on an island of silk and perfume. 

So why is he so fucking angry?

It’s the disrespect, he tells himself. 

Your fucking impudence, the way you’re blatantly trying to goad a reaction out of him because he told you enough is enough. Aerion has never been so openly provoked before. Even that fucking hedge knight, he was trying to protect that puppet girl, not—he doesn’t even know what your goal is? Antagonizing him just for the love of the game? His face feels flushed, and his nails dig into his palms. 

This is what it looks like when I don’t play with you, dragon prince, you taunt him without saying anything at all. This is what it looks like when I’m free to do as I please. I told you I would stop, didn’t I?

He hates you. He hates you, and he hates this city. He hates that he got what he wanted, and he still feels like he’s losing. He hates that his knuckles are white around his goblet while you’re lying languid on velvet cushions, kissing another man. He hates this—hates his father, hates his brothers, hates that oaf of a hedge knight that caused all of this. He hates that he’s been suffering indignity after indignity since he arrived at Lys, and he hates that he still is now, even after supposedly fixing the issue. He hates you. 

The magister’s son pulls back slightly, murmuring something against your lips in that syrupy Lysene dialect that makes Aerion’s teeth grind. He brushes his nose along your cheek and says something that makes a few of the courtesans nearby laugh, but you only smile easily, gaze finally dragging away from Aerion to look at him.

He feels a courtesan at his side, fingers hovering above his arm, not daring to actually touch him. He hears a faint: “Might I please you, my prince?” in that soft and lilting Lysene dialect that grates Aerion’s ears now more than ever, because he can imagine whatever that boy is saying to you in the same form. All rounded vowels and syrupy consonants, High Valyrian dragged through silk and sugar until it lost its edge. Under any circumstances, Aerion would have despised the sound of it, but now it feels like blade scraping bone. 

He hates it. He hates Lys. He hates the Lysene dialect. Hates the way it sounds now against the roar building in his ears. Hates the way it sanded the edges off a language meant for dragons. Hates the way they’re trying to do the same to him with silk and incense and pillows and sweetness. Hates feeling like this. Hates—

He is moving before he even knows what he’s doing. 

The courtesan’s fingers never quite make contact; he steps forward, and they fall away, retreating instantly at the look on his face. The crowd parts for him, clearly sensing danger even in their incense-induced haze. His blood is roaring, something dangerous rearing in him that he cannot seem to control. He knows he’s making a mistake—he set the boundary, he was the one who shut you down, and if word gets back to his father that he’s acting like some unhinged beast on a Lysene holy day, he’ll only be stuck on this wretched prison island longer. 

And yet, his world narrows to the line of your throat, the angle of your mouth, the boy’s fingers resting where they should not, and Aerion just cannot think straight. 

The magister’s son looks up, mildly annoyed, as Aerion approaches the cushions, and Aerion thinks he has some nerve looking at a prince of the blood as though he’s a nuisance. This whole island is filled with impudent wretches, and you are the worst of them all. 

“My prince,” he says, attempting an easy smile.

You are pointedly not looking at him now, attention resting on the boy at your side. You say something softly in the Lysene’s liquid dialect, and Aerion thinks it's disgusting hearing you speak this bastardized version of High Valyrian. His jaw tightens, and the boy laughs at whatever you’ve said and reaches for your hand as though to pull you closer.

Aerion’s hand comes down on his wrist before his fingers can brush your skin, grip so tight that the boy immediately winces, teeth grinding together, pain flashing across his face. Aerion squeezes tighter, enjoying the way his expression twists more.

“My prince?” he repeats, tone strained now as he looks up at Aerion through long, gold lashes—more indignant than fearful. Aerion hates Lys. Back in Westeros, any lord’s son would have fumbled out apologies and fled. 

“You may leave,” Aerion says coldly. 

The boy stiffens, pride flickering to the surface, and Aerion’s eye nearly twitches. “We were merely—”

“I am aware of what you were doing,” Aerion cuts in, speaking through his teeth now. “You may leave.”

His gaze flicks over to you, and you’re watching him again, but he can’t read the expression on your face. The boy attempts to tug his wrist free, but Aerion does not release him, twisting the angle to make it more painful.

“You must misunderstand,” the boy says lightly, though the laughter has left his voice. “She did not object.”

“No,” Aerion agrees, well aware that many eyes are trained on the tense conversation taking place. A few nearby courtesans and nobles fall silent entirely now, and the music continues, but it falters, watching eyes multiplying in the corners of the room. He’s making a spectacle of himself, he knows it, and he cannot fucking stop himself. He hates you—he hates you. “She did not.”

I do. I fucking object. 

The boy’s jaw tightens. “Then I fail to see—”

“My patience wanes,” Aerion warns tightly, nails digging deep enough into his wrist to draw blood. “You do not want to see it exhausted.”

The magister’s son rips his hand back, and Aerion allows it this time, relishing in the way he cradles his wrist to his chest, desperately trying to smooth the pained expression into something dignified.

Your gaze is still trained on Aerion as you speak. “Go,” you say, leaving no room for argument. “It appears I have an ill-tempered dragon to tend to.”

The magister’s son inhales sharply, nostrils flaring, pride warring with prudence, but the blood welling at his wrist, and the way Aerion still looks as though he’s one wrong word away from worse violence, causes him to rise to his feet and leave without another word, desperately tending to his wounded pride. The courtesans flee with him, clearly with no desire to be near Aerion while he’s in such a foul mood.

“Well,” you say blithely after a moment when your area is mostly cleared. You look over him blandly. “You are in quite the state.”

Aerion’s tongue presses against the back of his teeth. He did not think so far ahead, and now that the magister’s son has left and the flames licking at his blood have started to subside, Aerion is hyperaware of the number of eyes not-so-subtly pinned on the two of you. He feels agitated, tongue darting out to wet his lips. 

Mad Aerion, people would whisper back in Westeros, he knows it, even if they were all careful to never say it while he was in earshot. Mad Aerion, quick to temper, quick to violence, quick to cruelty. 

Everyone here sees it now, too—you see it now, too—and it’s going to get back to his father, and he’s only going to be stuck here longer. The disgraced son, the unwanted prince. 

Mad Aerion, the Brightflame, the prince who got his own uncle killed over an imagined slight, the unhinged exile who cannot govern himself in a room of silk and wine.

You seem to recognize the stiffness in his shoulders, because you sigh, looking away briefly before holding your hand up to him, beckoning him to help you to your feet. He does after a moment, fingers wrapping around your wrist, feeling the warmth of your skin, the flutter of your pulse—it reignites the flames beneath his skin, except not with rage this time. He hates it. Hates even more that a part of him relaxes when your skin is against his. He doesn’t let go right away, not until you raise your eyebrows at him. 

“Walk me to the gardens,” you say, hand coming up to hold his bicep. Your gaze slides to the side to land on Vyrano, who watches Aerion warily. You tell him blandly, “The incense is quite strong tonight, magister. It’s making me feel agitated.”

Aerion’s eyes slide shut as soon as you say it—frustration and helplessness eating him alive, fury at himself, at Lys, at you. The incense isn’t bothering you at all, he thinks furiously. You’re handing him back a sliver of the dignity he destroyed. Giving him an excuse for his behavior, so his erraticness doesn’t get back to the wrong people. You understand the necessity of restraint better than most, he bets—birds of a feather, a fellow exile—any mistake can extend a sentence, a single lapse of temper and one year becomes ten.

You squeeze his bicep, beckoning him to play along. He inhales once, steadying himself and forcing his shoulders to lower by sheer will. 

“The room is stifling,” he says coolly, letting just enough irritation lace his voice to make it believable, but not volatile. “We will take some air.”

Vyrano nods quickly, apologizing, relief plain on his face that this spectacle will not escalate further. The music resumes its earlier cadence, conversation slowly returning in your wake, but the watching eyes remain, tracking the two of you as you make your way out to the hall in the direction of the gardens.

“Mm, you know, you are quite fickle, prince,” you say lazily as soon as there are no unwanted ears listening in. “You indulge me. You fuck me. You entertain my little games. Three days later, you decide you are above it all and declare yourself done. And now—” your fingers trace idly over the sleeve of his shirt, “—now you’re throwing a tantrum when I behave exactly as you demanded.”

He doesn’t answer because answering requires admitting you are right, and he would sooner bite his own tongue off.

“You wanted distance,” you continue, “so I gave it to you. You wanted to be unclaimed, so I behaved as though you were. And suddenly, that is as intolerable as my games supposedly were. What am I to think, prince?” 

He says, voice clipped, “I did not throw a tantrum.”

You hum, unconvinced. “You nearly snapped his wrist in half.”

“He was presumptuous.”

“I was allowing him to be presumptuous.”

“You were provoking me,” he hisses, grabbing your wrist and backing you into a marble pillar, angry again as he remembers how you held eye contact with him while you allowed that silk boy to touch you. His forearm presses against your chest to hold you in place, and you look as unbothered as ever—pleased, even. He hates Lys. He hates you. “Do not pretend as though it was anything else. It was just another game of yours.”

He almost expects you to deny it, but your lips curl up into an easy smile. “Everything is a game, zaldrītsos,” you murmur, looking up at him through your lashes. Little dragon. His throat bobs. “I was only curious as to how much you meant those words on the beach.”

His teeth grind together. “So you meant to what? Humiliate me to figure it out?”

“I did not humiliate you. You did that all on your own, prince,” you say, and Aerion has half a mind to force you to your knees and put that insolent mouth of yours to better use, stitch up the pride he just shredded before half of the Lysene court. “For all of your concern about being seen as… claimed, you were the only one in that room who behaved as though you were.”

Aerion’s jaw tightens. His forearm presses more firmly against your chest, not enough to hurt—enough to remind you he could.

“You think this is amusing,” he says. “You think you can prod and poke and taunt me like some beast in a pit.”

“I never thought you a beast,” you murmur. “Beasts are simple. You are woefully complicated.”

“You said you would stop,” he reminds you.

“I did no such thing, I only agreed that you were not mine—yet.”

Aerion inhales sharply through his nose,

“So what? You vanish, and then came back with more games even more impudent than you were originally? Is that how this works?”

“I did not vanish. I was giving you time to cool off. It was a strategic retreat,” you say with a lazy smile. “You didn’t really think I would give up so easily, did you? I was just deciding on a new plan of attack, since I seemed to have thoroughly upset you with my first. I was, ah, reevaluating, so to speak—you’re quite the ill-tempered dragon, prince, it’ll be a challenge to make you heel, but rest assured, I enjoy a challenge.”

Aerion thinks he should put his blade through your neck. Wrap his fingers around your throat and squeeze until your eyes bulge and your pulse dies beneath his fingers. He’s never met a woman so fucking disrespectful before.

He presses his tongue to the back of his teeth to clam himself and seethes, “And you thought this would be a better ‘plan of attack’?“

“Actually, this was not part of my plan at all,” you say with a laugh so easy that it makes him startle. “I only meant to goad you into a conversation. I did not anticipate that you would get so jealous just from a kiss, prince.”

Aerion’s vision swims red. His arm leaves your chest to close his hand around your neck, pulling you close to him, and he hates how hard his pulse thrums against his skin, how his breath hitches when he touches you.

“I am not jealous,” he hisses. “Jealousy is for weak men. I am a dragon. Dragons take. They do not beg or pine or stand idle while others lay hands where they should not.” He leans in, breath ghosting over your mouth. “They claim—with fire and blood.”

Your pulse flutters wildly beneath his thumb. He feels it. He likes that he feels it. Likes that your breath catches, but you don’t look afraid of him, that your pupils are blown wide, but not in terror. This is not silk or perfume or the syrupy indulgence that Lys tries to drown him in. 

This—this is sharp enough to cut, this is steel. 

For a long moment, the world narrows to the heat between your bodies and the blood rushing through his ears.

He has been drowning since he set foot on this cursed island. Drowning in sweetness, and watchful eyes, and magisters measuring him like livestock, offering daughters to him like whores in expensive silk. Drowning in the humiliation of exile, and the knowledge that every laugh in a hall might be about him, and the fact that his own father would see him cast across the Narrow Sea as an inconvenience to be managed. 

But this is not drowning. You are infuriating. You are impudent, and disrespectful, and whorish, and you bruise and scratch and treat him like an equal instead of a prince. He hates it, he hates you, and yet—it is fire, and steel, and blood. If he must suffer here—if he must endure silk and incense and fathers parading daughters before him and whores too afraid to properly touch him—then he needs something that will keep him sharp while Lys tries to sand down his edges and call it refinement. 

He will have you, he decides, and Aerion always gets what he wants. 

“And what,” you murmur, “exactly are you claiming?”

His grip shifts from your throat to the back of your neck, fingers threading into your hair to crane your neck back, baring your throat to him. He likes this too, itches to bend his head down and put his teeth into your neck, the same way you did to him. 

“You,” he says simply. He adds immediately, “Do not misunderstand. Claiming you does not mean I belong to you. You are mine, and that’s the end of it. It’s not a bargain or mutual surrender. It simply is.”

Neither of you speaks. He’s close enough to feel the warmth of your breath on his lips, close enough to almost taste the wine on your tongue, close enough to see that your lips are still swollen slightly from that magister’s son’s kisses. His grip tightens in your hair instinctively, twisting, and you let out a breathless noise.

“Gods, you are something else,” you laugh. Aerion almost finds offense to the fact that you’re laughing at him, fingers bruising your hip, but he hesitates when he sees the way you’re looking at him: pleased, almost adoringly. He realizes that you, too, must be drowning—have been for much longer than him, even. He knew from the moment he met you that you weren’t cut from the same silk cloth and pillowed touches as the rest of this island. “Aerion Brightflame, I will never tire of you.”

You don’t give him the chance to say anything else, leaning in despite the fingers twisting your hair to press your lips against his, and Aerion lets out a low groan into your mouth, lashes fluttering shut. His hand tightens reflexively in your hair, angling your head to deepen the kiss. 

It’s nothing like the way you let the magister’s son paw at you, lips barely moving against his, attention drawn elsewhere—you kiss him like you want to fight him, like you are fighting him, lips sliding messily and teeth threatening to break through skin when it seems like he might win. You slide your hands up his abdomen, slipping beneath his shirt, and Aerion fights a shudder, muscles tensing when you drag your nails against him, lips parting against yours as you roll his bottom lip between your teeth. 

“You mistake one thing, though, zaldrīzes dārilaros,” you murmur against his lips, smiling. Aerion inhales sharply at the sound of your smooth High Valyrian, cock already aching in the silk he wears. Bitch, he thinks bitterly, furious at himself, because he couldn’t even get his cock working when he had two whores draped across his lap in a pillow house, but the moment your lips are against his, and you’re whispering in the old tongue, he’s almost spilling himself untouched. You’ve used black magic on him—he’s sure of it—and yet, all he does is roughly hike one of your legs up around his waist and press you back against the pillar again, muffling a grunt against your skin as his lips slide down to your jaw. “You will be mine.”

He bites down hard, and your breath hitches, a low moan of his name spilling from your lips. His mouth drags down your neck, open and wet, trying to distract himself from the heat that rapidly spreads through his abdomen. He slips his hand between your bodies to slide his fingers against your cunt, letting out a smug huff when he feels how slick you are.

“Līve,” he breathes out, hand slipping into his own pants to pull out his cock, hissing, so painfully hard that his hips instinctively jerk into his fist when he wraps his fingers around himself. “Nyke yenka ezīmagon ao drāmmagon va ñuha orvorta isse bona tistālion syt mirre hen lī turgon naejot ūndegon.”

Whore. I should split you open on my cock in that hall for all of those parasites to see.

You let out another breathless laugh, one hand sliding up his body to thread through silver hair, pulling his face from your neck. His breath hitches when your nails scrape against his scalp, and his jaw falls half ajar when he feels you drag your tongue up his neck before pressing your lips to his again, sucking lightly at his bottom lip.

Fuck, he thinks, throat bobbing as he squeezes hard at the base of his cock to stop himself from finishing before he even sinks himself inside of you. You’re going to be the fucking death of him.

“Skoros keligon ao, ñuha dārilaros?” you say, dragging your lips to his ear and sucking hard at the spot beneath it. 

What’s stopping you, my prince?

My. 

My. 

Aerion’s grip on his cock tightens to the point it’s almost painful in a desperate effort to keep some semblance of pride, but there’s no hiding the choked noise that spills out of him. 

“Ah, gaomagon ao hae bona?” you say, tongue flicking out to trace his ear. His forehead drops against the marble next to your head, desperately trying to use the coolness of the stone to anchor himself before he makes a fool out of himself. “Skori nyke brōzagon ao ñuhon?”

Ah, do you like that? When I call you mine?

Aerion might actually kill you—he wants to sink his cock into your cunt and his blade into your throat with equal fervor. Maybe both at the same time, if you’re lucky.

Later. For now, he just needs to focus on not spilling himself untouched.

“Hoskagon zaldrītdos,” you continue, mouthing at his neck, bruising him again, despite the painful grip he has on your thigh. He pants against your neck, barely biting back a noise closer to a whine than a moan. “Skoro syt gaomagon ao daor ivestragī aōla sagon ñuhon? Mazeman syze gaomagon hen skoros iksis ñuhon. Aōha orvorta lōz, aōha ēdrugan bāne—

Prideful little dragon. Why won’t you let yourself be mine? I take good care of what’s mine. Your cock wet, your bed warm—

Aerion hisses, letting go of your thigh and relishing in the way you yelp when your leg hits the ground. You blink, confused, and he grinds his teeth together before he grabs your hips and flips you around so that your chest is flush to the pillar. He kicks out one of his feet to hit your ankle, forcibly spreading your legs, and hardly gives you the time to orient yourself before he’s pulling your hips to him, thrusting into you to bury his cock deep into your cunt.

“Hah,” you gasp. “Fuck—”

Aerion relishes the expression on your face now, lips parted and swollen, eyes wide. His nails dig deep into your hips to keep you still, teeth grinding together as his abdomen tenses and cock twitches inside of you. He brings one hand up to slide your silks down your body, revealing the bare skin of your back, before settling it back on your hip. He dips his head down to lick up your spine, feeling the way your body shudders beneath him. 

He likes this—you helpless on his cock, cunt spasming around him, wide-eyed and cockdrunk just from—

You let out another breathless laugh, halting his thoughts. “Mijessis ilinītsos zaldrītsos. Ozmijiō nyke. Nyke—”

Impatient little dragon. You’ve missed me. I—

One hand leaves your hip to slide up your body, grabbing your mouth roughly. You let out a surprised noise when he shoves two fingers in, pressing down hard on your tongue to silence you. 

“Ao ydragon tolī olvie,” he hisses before sinking his teeth into your shoulder to muffle a moan as he rocks his hips hard against your ass. 

You talk too much.

His hand slides around your body to press flush against your abdomen, holding you still as he fucks you hard. His eyes fall shut, tongue lapping at the blood he’s drawn at your shoulder, fighting moans as your walls spasm around his cock, sucking him in deeper with each thrust of his hips. You try to say something around his fingers, but he only presses down harder on your tongue, shoving his fingers deeper down, making you gag once before he lets up.

He drags his lips up to the crook of your neck, sucking and biting and marking you up the same way you had the nerve to do to him, drowning in the lewd sounds of his hips slapping against yours and the sloppiness of his cock plunging in and out of your cunt. He pulls you back so that your back is flush to his chest, your hands braced against the pillar, and he presses his lips to your ear.

“Ivestragon nyke aōha odre,” he pants. “Kesan addemmagon ziry. Skoros mirre issa.”

Tell me your price. I’ll pay it—whatever it is.

He means it. He thinks he has never meant anything so earnestly except for when he was a child and swore he would be the one to bring dragons back. He would drain the royal coffers, take Casterly Rock by force, and drain its mines—if that’s what it took to match your price. He would have you. You would be his. No matter what it takes. 

“Ivestragon nyke!”

Tell me!

The words tear out of him violently, desperately—he is not begging, he does not beg, but something drips from the words that makes him feel smaller, so he resorts to fucking you harder, fuck out any memory of him being weak, bury himself into your cunt, mold it around his cock so that you never even think of another man. 

Dragons do not beg or plead; they take what is theirs, so he will take you. Fuck your price, your price won’t matter when the only cock that can please you is his. He slides his fingers out of your mouth, but covers it with the palm of his hand to yank your head back more, tilting it to him.

Your eyes are glassy, half rolled back, and he can feel the spit dribbling from the corner of your mouth against his palm, the wetness against his thighs that spatters every time his cock plunges inside of you. His hand over your mouth tightens, squeezing your cheeks, holding the back of your head against his shoulder, and each muffled, broken you let out against his hand makes his cock ache.

He kisses up your neck messily, leaving a trail of blood and bruises, and he presses his lips into your temple as he rasps, “Gevie. Ñuhon.”

Beautiful. Mine.

He chokes over a moan as you writhe against him, hips rocking and eyes rolling back when you cum on his cock. His hand slides down your abdomen to your cunt, finger dipping between your folds to rub your clit. You strain against him, head tossed back against his shoulders, kicking your heels back into his shins to try to push him away, but he only presses you back against the marble pillar, keeping you pinned between him and it as he snaps his hips up faster, determined to make you break.

He laughs breathlessly, licking up the tears that spill over your cheeks and mocks, “Ōdres, iksis ziry daor? Gaomā daor hae ziry gaomagon ao?”

Sensitive, isn’t it? You don’t like it, do you?

You sob out something muffled that sounds like his name, and Aerion hisses, hips stuttering and breath leaving his lungs in a gasp of yours as he buries his cock deep and cums inside of you, forehead pressing against the back of your head as his heart races, desperately trying to catch his breath. His hand drops from your mouth to slink around your waist, eyes sliding shut.

You, naturally, break the brief moment of peace to speak as soon as your mouth is free, because you can’t help yourself. His eyes slide shut in exasperation—impudent.

“Gods, it’s been ages since someone’s fucked me like that,” you sigh, and Aerion is pleased that a good fucking seems to be all it takes for you to drop your disrespectful behavior and show some proper gratitude. Then you add, “Does the prospect of being mine really bother you so much? We are both exiles, both alone, both bored, and we please each other well enough, don’t we? Why must you throw a tantrum over it?”

Aerion clicks his tongue, fighting a hiss as he pulls his softening cock from your cunt and fixes his trousers. You turn around to face him, leaning back against the pillar as you fix your dress. Aerion finds his lips curling up into a smug smile when he sees how thoroughly wrecked you look—lips swollen, blood and spit smeared across your lower face, chest still heaving as you try to catch your breath. 

“I do not belong to anyone,” he repeats, ignoring how you roll your eyes. “I’m a dragon, not a common whore—and I did not throw a tantrum.” 

“Most dragons were claimed,” you remind him, and he sneers at that. You tip your head back against the marble, looking up at the night sky. “Unfortunately for you, I am not a common whore either. I suppose that means I can’t be yours.”

Aerion presses his lips together and says, “You might be, for all I know. A well-connected, well-versed common whore who taught herself High Valyrian to charm her way into a dragon’s bed and poison him once he’s let his guard down.”

You hum as though amused, and then you say, “I brought you something.” Aerion flicks a curious look at you, watching as you loll your head to the side to look at him. He raises his eyebrows. “From home. This was my actual plan of attack before your tantrum, if you were wondering. A gift—and a hint, if you’ll indulge my games.”

Aerion clicks his tongue disdainfully, because of course you never intended on abandoning your loathsome game, although he can’t help the curiosity that pricks at him. He spits, “I don’t want anything from Westeros—and I did not throw a tantrum.”

You raise your eyebrows. “My home, not yours,” you correct with a mysterious smile, and he furrows his brows at you, watching as you pull something from your sleeve, dangling it in front of him. 

At first glance, it only looks like jewelry, and Aerion is a split second from a snide comment about how you have some nerve gifting him a necklace as though he’s a common whore for you to woo with trinkets, but he pauses when he looks closer and sees the rubies embedded in the black metal and the ripple patterns that swirl around them. He takes half a step closer, lips parting, is that…

You dangle it out of reach when he tries to grab it, and he scowls at you, but his heart is beating rapidly, breath lodged in his throat. 

Is that Valyrian steel? 

His heart feels like it’s about to race out of his chest, blinking once at where you’re holding it—almost all of the Targaryen’s Valyrian steel heirlooms are gone. The bastard, Bittersteel, fled with the sword Blackfyre across the Narrow Sea, and Aegon’s crown rots in Dorne after King Daeron’s death, while the Dornish lie and claim ignorance. Aerion only recognizes the necklace for what it is because he’s seen Dark Sister in the Bloodraven’s hands in passing.

Bitterly, he thinks it’s typical. Everything of value in his house, everything that connects them to their ancestry—it all either ends up dead or in the hands of enemies or bastards. The dragons were killed off because of their idiotic ancestors, and the only thing left to connect them to the old blood was stolen or is in unworthy hands. 

Except… he could have something. Him. Not his father, not his brothers, not his cousins. Him. And he deserves it anyway, doesn’t he? He’s the only one who actually bothers to learn about their ancestry; he’s the one who has spent hours poring over crumbling accounts of the Freehold, over sorcery and dragonlords and a people who did not kneel to gods or kings, while his brothers and cousins focused on the Conqueror and their recent history. He stares at the necklace you hold greedily, tongue darting out to wet his lips. 

“How do you have that?” he rasps, throat bobbing, gaze snapping toward you, and then slipping back to the necklace. “Why would you give me this? If you are jesting—”

“I’m not jesting,” you say, and Aerion’s heart pounds, breath quickening. “Turn around.”

Aerion watches you for a moment, pride warring with hunger, and after a few long seconds, he turns his back to you, stiff, shoulders tense. He half expects you to leave while his back is turned, make him look like a fool by getting his hopes up and disappearing. But he hears you make your way over to him, feels the warmth of your body against his back, and then—his breath hitches when he feels the cool metal snug against his neck, when he feels your fingers brush his skin as you clip it on, and your lips press against the nape of his neck as you step away.

He clenches his fist once to stop his fingers from trembling as he lifts his hand to brush it against the metal, lashes fluttering shut. He swears he can feel the magic thrumming within it, hear the beat of wings in the air, and the warmth of flames against his skin. He turns to face you, throat tight and eyes sharp and accusatory.

“Why would you give me this?” he asks, voice low.

“Why not?” you counter, as lackadaisical as ever, as if you didn’t just place a piece of his ancestry—one that he never thought he’d have—against his throat. “It suits you.”

He hates that answer.

Hates how easily you say it. As though Valyrian steel were silk ribbon. As though dragonforged metal—older than kingdoms, folded in fire and blood and spells men no longer understand—were something to be chosen for aesthetic pleasure.

This is from your home, you said. Where in the world would have Valyrian steel in abundance that you would just casually give it away? Qohor? Maybe? But it doesn’t explain why the Lyseni treat you as though—

“Volantis,” he says, knowing it’s right as soon as the words leave his mouth. “You’re from Volantis.”

How had he not seen it sooner?

Volantis—the last city that still pretends the Doom was an interruption rather than the end of an empire, where the blood of Old Valyria runs thicker than anywhere else in the world. They say that within the Black Walls is the closest the world will ever come again to the Freehold—streets walked only by old blood, families who trace lineage back to dragonlords. There are even whispers that the Volantene old blood retain the secrets to Old Valyrian blood magick and pyromancy.

That’s where you come from—he knew it, not Lysene silk and softness. Fire and blood of your own right. No wonder he’s been so drawn to you; no wonder you are the way you are.

“Udrimmi dārilaros,” you murmur with an easy smile. Clever prince.

Who are you? He wants to demand again. Why were you exiled? Why would you give me this? Who are you?

Instead, he settles for: “Volantis does not give Valyrian steel away for free.”

What do you want in return?

“No,” you agree. “It hoards it. Sits on the relics of a dead empire and calls it heritage. You should see my family’s vault—you’d think it was common as copper.”

Something ugly and envious curls in his stomach, but he forces it away. At least everything is finally coming together—why you speak High Valyrian as though it’s your mother tongue, and why the Lysene tread so carefully around you, refusing to answer his questions. The Old Blood of Volantis are powerful, and the Targaryens no longer have dragons to keep themselves above the rest of the world. The only question left is why you were exiled from the Black Walls, but he has a feeling you won’t answer that.

“Why did you give me this?” he asks again, more subdued this time.

“Well, consider this a proper declaration,” you say easily. When he furrows his brows at you, you wink at him, lips curling up into a smug smile as you explain, “For courting, of course.”

Aerion’s face flushes red, balking at your words, but before he can say anything, you lean in close, lips brushing against his ear as you breathe out, “Also, it makes you look thoroughly mine.”

You nip at his ear playfully, before you skip back a few steps, and give him an easy smile. 

Flustered, he snaps, “You—”

You turn on your heel to leave, making your way back to the hall. You wave over your shoulder and sing, “‘Til next time, prince!” 

Aerion exhales, staring after you, lips parted, body wound tight, fingers still brushing the metal you laid against his neck. He can’t still the rapid pace his heart beats at, no matter how hard he tries. 

He hates Lys, he really, truly does, but maybe—

No, he definitely hates you, too. 

———————

reader: sure, we understand each other Also reader: plotting to disappear off the face of earth for a week to make him miss her and then return with a gift that she knew he wouldn’t be able to refuse so he would have to parade around Lys wearing a collar everyone knows damn well is hers 

Aerion: I do not belong to anyone Also aerion: wears someone’s collar just because it’s Valyrian steel  

If you guys couldn’t tell, I am so fascinated by Volantis and the Black Walls, so I’m excited to get the chance to use this little series of one-shots to expand on my image of it. I imagine that within the Black Walls is probably the closest the known world will ever come to knowing what Old Valyria was like. And I think it will be interesting to explore with Aerion as a love interest since he would be interested in knowing more about his heritage, also think he might be wildly jealous, which serves for interesting dynamics LOL