𝐩𝐮𝐫𝐠𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲.

“Get up,” Aerion hears, blinking blearily as his sheets are ripped off his body. “Aerion, get up! Now!” 

What the fuck—

Half awake, Aerion’s heart races as he pushes himself into a sitting position, trying to figure out what the fuck is happening. The only reason he doesn’t reach for his blade is that he recognizes your voice. He lets out a disgruntled noise when he feels fingers grab his cheeks hard, glaring when he sees your face inches from his.

Outraged, he sees movement from the corner of his eye and realizes that you did not come alone.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he demands, still trying to wake himself up. He tries to look to the side to see who the fuck you brought into his chambers, but your grip on his face tightens. He grimaces, giving you an annoyed look. “Answer me, you miserable wench. Why—”

“The Golden Company is in Lys,” you say, and Aerion doesn’t think that he hears you correctly at first, staring at you blankly. “Caelyx has clothes for you. Get up, and get dressed now.”

“What did you just s—”

Aerion’s head snaps to the left, a sharp pain spreading through his cheek as he stares at the open balcony looking over Magister Vyrano’s manse. 

Did you just strike him?

His tongue darts out to wet his lips, brows furrowing in disbelief. Before he can look back at you and demand to know what the fuck is the matter with you, he feels your hands cradling his face, forcing you to look at him again. 

“Aerion, wake the fuck up,” you say again, and he should be angry—he is angry, his chest is hot and bubbling, and his face stings, and indignity and pride flare terribly, and it all fizzles when he hears the fear plain in your voice. He’s never heard you sound this way before. He’s heard you furious, mocking, teasing, happy, but never scared. “Get up, and get dressed now. Stop asking questions. We do not have time.”

Aerion stares at you for a moment longer before he pushes himself out of bed, hardly given a chance to orient himself, before someone—your whore, Aerion realizes disdainfully, the silver-haired pillow boy who always attaches himself to you—is forcing silk chiffon over his shoulders. He looks at the white fabric that he’s being dressed in: revealing and clinging in a way that feels entirely inappropriate for the situation. Dress for a whore, not a prince. And then he looks at the fitted leathers you’re wearing, the red cape attached to your shoulder, the sword at your hip, and he shoves your whore away from him, sneering as he watches him stumble back into a table. 

“I am not fucking wearing this,” he spits furiously. “What the fuck is going on?”

“You’re going to wear whatever the fuck I tell you to wear,” you reply, undeterred by his fraying temper. You step closer again, and you grab his cheeks to force him to look at you. You don’t let him yank his face away when he tries. “We need to get you out of the manse and into one of the whorehouses so that your kin don’t come and slit your throat. I’ve arranged for the Second Sons to take you on a ship out of Lys to the Disputed Lands, but the ship doesn’t leave until tomorrow morning, and they cannot leave earlier without drawing suspicion. So for the next day, you’re going to be Ari of Lys, dragon prince, and Aerion Targaryen will have left Lys a moon ago because he grew bored with whores and wine. Do you understand?”

Aerion shakes his head, and when your whore tries to get the clothes on him again, he raises his hand furiously, threatening to put his fist into his face. You immediately raise your hand in response, threatening to strike him again. Aerion gapes at you, betrayed.

“If you strike him, dragon prince, I will parade you around as you are,” you hiss, pointedly looking down at his current state: bare-chested and hair sleep-mussed. “Caelyx was kind enough to let you borrow his silks so that you may not be entirely indecent when you step outside. Or would you prefer to be dragged through the streets half-naked for all of Lys to admire?”

“It is transparent,” Aerion says furiously. “I may as well be bare.”

“It is disguising,” you shoot back. “No one will look twice at another silver-haired whore on an island full of silver-haired whores.”

“I am not a fucking whore.”

“You will be whatever the fuck I tell you to be if it keeps you alive,” you shout. Then you exhale, rubbing your face. “Aerion, please—they are docking, they have probably already docked by now. We do not have time for this.”

Frustrated, Aerion glares at you, and then he glares at your whore, who has the audacity to give him a sweet smile. Aerion bares his teeth at the boy, a disgusted expression on his face as he returns to dressing him in the soft silks.

Aerion spits, “How many men have you let fuck you in this?” 

The whore raises his eyebrows, lips curled up. “They are my special silks, prince,” he purrs. He looks pointedly at you as he answers, “Only one person has fucked me in them.”

Aerion’s blood pressure skyrockets, pulse thudding dangerously in his ears as he turns to look at your whore. There’s no way that he’s being dressed in something that another man was wearing while you fucked him. The boy only gives him a smug smile, and Aerion’s gaze cuts toward you, questioning, and he blanches when he sees your eyes slide shut. 

Instead of denying it, you give your whore a long look—a warning. 

Aerion gapes again. “You cannot be serious,” he hisses at you, ripping his arm away when your whore tries to finish dressing him. “Will you—”

“We do not have the time for this,” you say through your teeth, turning a cold look on Aerion now, as though Aerion isn’t the victim in this situation. “Caelyx, stop antagonizing him. Aerion, get dressed.”

Aerion’s nostrils flare as he inhales deeply, tongue pressing against the back of his teeth as he wills himself to calm down. His gaze flicks back toward the open balcony as your whore—Caelyx—returns to wrapping him in the fine silks. He can’t see anything—Aerion’s balcony faces the west, and Lys’s ports are to the north, but he’s heard enough about the Golden Company in passing to imagine the fleet of ships with golden banners docking in the harbor. Recent reports have put their numbers at over twelve thousand—all of Essos has been whispering about them since the sacking of Qohor. 

“How many are here?” he asks you, jaw tight. 

“Enough,” you answer, arms folded over your chest as you stand in the doorframe of his chambers, one hand on the hilt of your sword, looking down the hall, as though you expect Aegor Rivers to come barreling down any moment. Aerion’s heart is pounding, he realizes, as the situation finally begins to hit him. “One of my harbor boys came running to me as soon as he saw the gold banners in the distance. I came here as soon as I got everything handled.”

Aerion lets out a sharp breath through his nose, dragging his hand through his hair as he paces once across the room, away from your whore, silk clinging to him in a way that makes his skin crawl.

“After you got everything handled,” he echoes, incredulous, turning on you, trying to turn the nasty panic that climbs his throat into something more manageable: anger. “Instead of waking me, you decided to—what—build a whole fucking scheme while I was asleep?”

“I did not have time to argue with you first,” you hiss. “By the time I reached the harbor to confirm the banners, the first ship was a mile out from docking. I—”

“You should have come to me first,” he interrupts, heat rising in his chest. “You should have—”

“Aerion.”

Aerion’s teeth grind, something uncertain spiking in his chest with his heart rate as he fists his hands at his side to hide the way his fingers tremble—he pretends it is fury and not fear. You look back over at him, gaze lingering on the way the sheer silks cling to his slim hips, hiding little more than necessary—barely what is necessary. He glares at you, but there is a lump in his throat, and he cannot swallow it away. 

Aerion could die today.

There is a really good chance that Aerion will die today. 

He exhales as he paces over to the balcony. When his back is to you and your whore, he lifts shaking fingers to his chest, over his rapidly beating heart. The last time it beat like this—wild and erratic, like it was trying to tear itself out of his chest—was during the Trial of Seven. In the mud, with blood in his mouth, in his eyes, iron on his tongue, vision blurring and head half in the clouds because he lost so much blood, staring up at a hedge knight who could have killed him if he wanted. 

He had been afraid. 

He’d been lying in the muck; he knew he had lost even before he yielded. He knew it the moment the oaf stood back up after Aerion had given it his all. He had no energy left, and he was bleeding out, and when he hit the ground that final time, he knew that he wasn’t going to get up. He remembers hearing his father yelling for him—my boy, Aerion! My boy!—and he remembers thinking that at least he would die in battle, at least he would die with his father’s voice in his ears, he would die knowing that his father cared enough to fight for him, to beg for him.

He is afraid now. 

And there is no oaf in front of him this time, no enemy wielding a blade that he can try to strike down, and no father to save him; just ships on the horizon, men he cannot see yet, and the suffocating feeling of knowing that they are coming from him. The Blackfyres are here, on this island, searching for him, and there’s nothing he will be able to do if they find him. There will be no yielding, no surrender. If they figure out he is here, they will cut his throat, and he will die cowering in silks instead of armor, in silence instead of with his father’s voice in his ears. 

He wonders, briefly and bitterly, if Maekar will even care. 

Probably not—no, there’s no probably about it. His father will not care. He did not care when Aerion was choking over his own blood, hardly able to speak, when he delivered the news that he would be sent across the Narrow Sea. He did not care to hear Aerion beg him not to do this, did not care when Aerion reopened the stitches on his thigh, trying to scramble after him when he turned his back on his own son. His father knew that the Blackfyres and their allies were across the Narrow Sea. Knew that this was a risk. And he sent Aerion here anyway. Aerion died to Maekar the moment Baelor’s heart stopped beating.

He will not care.

Maybe, even, he was hoping for this. 

A tragedy to befall the mad prince that he can work into a way to gather sympathy back home. Aerion was never useful to him alive, cost him far more than he was worth, but maybe in death—

Distantly, he hears you tell your whore to leave and then your boots clicking against the ground as you make your way over to him. He half wants to tell you to fuck off, to let him handle this himself, that he doesn’t need nor want your help, and he can face the Blackfyres himself, but then you slip your arms around his waist, rest your forehead against his shoulder blades, and the protests die on his lips. His throat bobs as your hand slides up his torso so that your palm is over his heart, feeling the rapid, fluttering pace of it. 

“Do you trust me?” you ask quietly, lips against his shoulder.

It terrifies him how easily the answer comes to him. “Yes.”

“Then trust me,” you say. “Go with Caelyx. He will bring you to the Perfumed Garden. The First Magister and I will be meeting the Golden Company in the central square. The Garden sits on the north end of the central square. You will be able to watch and listen to what we say to the Golden Company, and if things go south, Caelyx will make sure you get to the west side of the city and—”

“And what about you?” Aerion demands, whirling around to face you. “If things go south, you expect me to cower and hide while you—” While you die. He cannot even bring himself to say it. “I will not. You cannot expect that of me. You—”

“I’ll be fine,” you say dismissively. “I—”

“Do not take me for a fool,” he hisses. “There is a reason you are armed.”

You press your lips together, staring at him for a long while, and Aerion feels sick. They are here for him, they will kill him if they get their hands on him, and you are trying to send him away so they cannot, but if they realize what you’re doing, they will kill you. 

Aerion might die today, and Aerion might get you killed today, too.

He has never felt so useless before.

“They won’t kill me if things go south,” you finally say, shaking your head, and Aerion bristles, because you do take him for a fool and he should see your tongue removed for it, but all he can do is try to swallow his own as fear claws at his chest. “They won’t, Aerion. They will not risk making an enemy of Volantis. We have been over this before. If anything, they will take me hostage and—”

And what the hell do sellsword companies do with their hostages? he wants to scream at you. You are capable, he knows this. You are capable, and you are influential, and you are dangerous, but you are a woman. He wants to shake you to make you understand—if they take you hostage, then—

“They will do worse to you if they get their hands on you,” you say quietly. “They will make a spectacle of you. They will want something to show for it—something to carry back across the Narrow Sea and boast of. The Brightflame finally put out, the mad dragon tamed. They will keep you alive long enough for word to spread, long enough for your family to send men after you, and while they have you alive, they will do everything they can to break you—”

Aerion does not need to hear this from you. Doesn’t like the way it makes his skin crawl. 

“You are a fool if you think they would break me,” Aerion says through his teeth. “They—”

“They will,” you interrupt, voice so firm that it makes a chill run down his spine. “Aerion, they will break you. They will take their time, and they will make you into something that can be passed from hand to hand, something they can laugh over and parade about as a prize to mock your family. And once word has spread, and there is nothing left of you worth keeping, then they will kill you.”

“I would sooner kill myself,” Aerion hisses, but his stomach is turning, and the room feels too small, and the silk is too tight, and the air is too thin. “I would—”

You grab his face between your hands hard, pinching his cheeks, and Aerion loathes what you must see in your eyes to make the frustration and anger drain the way it does into something softer, grip on his face more gentle as your thumbs stroke his cheekbones.

“They would not let you, Aerion. Please stop fighting me. We do not have time for this.”

He glares at you, fury and indignation rising rapidly in his chest, because he knows that you are right. He knows it in the way his pulse will not slow, in the way his thoughts keep circling back to the same suffocating end, no matter how hard he tries to twist them into something else. He knows, and he hates it, hates that you have named it, hates that you are forcing him to look at it, to feel it.

Will his father even care? 

Will Maekar spare a second thought or go on his merry way?

“Do you trust me?” you ask again, firmer this time.

Aerion’s jaw tightens, and he nods.

“Then trust me,” you repeat, hands sliding from his cheeks to hold the back of his head, fingers threading through silver hair. “Trust me. Please. I need to meet with the First Magister before the Golden Company reaches the central square. Go with Caelyx and listen to him. He will relay everything else I don’t have the time to explain, okay?”

Aerion does not like it. He stares at you, and he is angry and helpless and so frustrated that he can feel his stomach churning, and he knows you know it from the way your eyes search his, begging him to just agree, not to make things more difficult.

He lets out a noise caught between a scoff and a sigh. “Fine. Fuck. Fine. But I do not like this at all, and if things go wrong—”

If things go wrong, then what? He’ll be dead, or worse. You’ll be dead, or worse. 

His throat bobs as he swallows.

Still, you say with a smile, “If things go wrong, you may hate me for it, and you may tell me I told you so when we meet in hell.”

Aerion snorts. “That is not funny, wench.”

You hum, lips still curved up. “It is kind of funny.”

“Not even slightly.”

You laugh, leaning in to press your forehead against his temple, and he sighs, eyes sliding shut. You ghost your lips against his cheekbone, and then turn his face slightly to the side so that you can brush your lips against his.

You say quietly, “Pāsagon nyke. Nyke gīmigon skoros iksan gaomagon.”

Trust me. I know what I’m doing.

“Gaoman pāsagon ao,” he murmurs. “Issa pōnta qilōni gaoman daor pāsagon.”

I do trust you. It is they whom I do not trust.

He feels you smile against his lips. The nerve.

“Eman ossēntan lēda qubykta vali,” you tell him, brushing your fingers through his hair. “Mirri kessa ivestragon iksan qubykta vali.”

I have dealt with worse men. Some would say I am worse men.

Aerion scoffs, but he finds himself smiling. “Iksā iā mittys, iksis skoros iksā,” he replies, voice weaker than he intends for it to be. “Māzigon arlī naejot nyke. Konir sagon iā udrāzma.”

You are a fool, is what you are. Return to me. That is an order.

Your lips curve up again, and you tilt your face to ghost your lips against his temple. “Kesan va moriot māzigon arlī naejot ao, zaldrīzes dārilaros.”

I will always return to you, dragon prince.

It should bring him some semblance of comfort, but the pit in his stomach only worsens.

———————

 “You should be paying attention to me, prince,” your whore drawls as he leans against the  doorframe to the room Aerion is waiting in. “I am trying to teach you how to behave properly as a courtesan.”

Aerion’s eye twitches, but he doesn’t look back at him, staring into the central square as you talk quietly to the First Magister, standing between him and his son, several of the Second Sons and the magister’s household guard lingering behind the three of you. 

This is the first time he’s seen the man look so serious—he’s always been quick to smile, friendly enough to be overlooked, though you are quick to tell Aerion that he is quite the cruel gossip behind closed doors. A vicious tongue and sharp mind to match, because one does not become First Magister in Lys without both at his disposal. 

Aerion has always dismissed it when you would tell him this; he’s never been able to reconcile the man you lauded as quick-witted and ruthless with the jovial man he portrays himself as, but now he can, with the way his eyes are cold and expression is stern as he stares in the direction of the ports, head tilted slightly toward you as he listens to whatever you’re saying. His son stands slightly behind the two of you, stiff, hand on the pommel of a decorative sword, gaze flicking nervously, visibly taking deep breaths to calm himself. 

“Did you know Marcellus asked her to marry him when she first arrived in Lys?” Caelyx says as he makes his way over to where Aerion is sitting, lounging on the cushions across from him. Aerion gives him a cool look, but the whore only raises his eyebrows, smiling easily, as though the Golden Company isn’t about to come down on Lys. 

“Who the fuck is Marcellus?” 

Caelyx lets out a huff of laughter and then nods out to where you’re standing. Aerion realizes he must be referring to the First Magister’s son—Aerion never even bothered to learn the idiot’s name. He scoffs and says, “Him? He is a fool. I once saw him trip over his own silks walking into a feast. Nearly took half the table with him. Then had a servant whipped to make it seem as though it was her fault.”

“He is an idiot,” Caelyx agrees, taking a sip of wine, unbothered, “but he is also pretty, and he is also cruel, so that makes him just her type.”

Aerion sneers, gaze flicking back out to where he’s standing just a smidge too close to you. He isn’t sure if he’d go so far as to say pretty—he’s sun-kissed, tall and thin, not toned, missing the lean muscle Aerion has, missing the silver-gold hair of Valyria, even if he does have the purple eyes. It’s a tawny brown instead, braided over his shoulder; he finds himself shaking his head, a scoff on his lips. 

No, Aerion thinks bitterly, not pretty at all. Not nearly your type.

“She liked him well enough for a few months,” Caelyx notes, smiling to himself as he watches the square. “Lasted longer than most, poor boy actually thought she might marry him. Eight whole moons, then he didn’t exist to her anymore. The two of you are coming up on that, aren’t you?”

Aerion stills, gaze sliding from the square to the whore sitting on the cushions next to him—too close to him, too smug. Aerion does not have time for this. Does not have time or patience. The Golden Company will arrive any moment, but—

—but he does not like the mockery in his tone. The implication. Aerion is not stupid, he knows what your whore is trying to say, and it settles very, very poorly. 

Caelyx leans in a little, so close that Aerion can smell the cherry wine on his tongue. “I could teach you to pleasure her,” he murmurs, leaning in closer to brush his lips against Aerion’s ear. “So that she does not become bored with you like she does everyone else.”

Aerion shoves him away hard, seething. “I should take your tongue, whore,” he spits. “Who do you think you are?”

Caelyx is unbothered, smiling still as he leans back against the cushions again. “I only mean to help, prince—”

“My prince.”

“Would that you were,” Caelyx drawls smugly. “Think on it. We both know she grows bored easily, and we both know that in the five years she’s been here, she’s never grown bored of me. I love nothing more than to be of use. We could have fun—the three of us.”

“Do not speak to me again,” Aerion says through his teeth. “If you speak to me again, I will have your tongue removed, and not even she will be able to save you.”

“Did you know that sometimes she enjoys taking the lead?” Caelyx continues, unperturbed, silver hair falling in his eyes as he tilts his head to the side. As Aerion’s about to spit out a yes, reminded of the countless times you forced him onto his back and climbed on top of him, Caelyx adds, “In ways most men are too proud to learn.”

Aerion pauses, brows furrowing as he casts a side eye toward the whore, unsure of what exactly he is implying. He fights a snarl when he’s met with another too smug smile. 

Caelyx only smiles wider. “It can feel good for men too, prince,” he purrs, leaning in again. “Taking it the way a woman does. She knows how to make it feel good.”

Aerion’s face burns hot as soon as Caelyx’s words register. He flounders, lips parting, attention drawing from the square fully now. Vile words threaten to burst from his lips, pride and indignity warring, insult for this whore to say something so crude, but they die in his throat, strangled by the heat that floods his chest and the unwelcome flicker of curiosity that follows. He hides it with a scoff, but—

His thoughts traitorously cling to the idea, envisioning what your whore dared to imply. He can see it too easily—your hands on Caelyx, pushing him back against the bed, holding him there, his head tipped back, mouth parted, gasping, moaning, violet eyes rolled back as you press deep inside him and take what you want.

Something green and ugly twists in Aerion’s chest, breath quickening, rage curdling, and then—

Then it turns. Then it is your hands on him instead, firm at his hips, nails digging into his skin as you force him down, as you hold him there, and all he can do is take everything you’re willing to give him. It would be a fight—everything is always a fight with the two of you, a war for dominance with blood drawn and bruises painted on smooth skin. He would not yield to you, not so willingly, not like your whore, but you would make him yield, and Aerion would—he would enjoy it. Aerion has never let anyone take control like that, has never given it, has never even considered it. The very idea should disgust him, should make him recoil the way he did just a moment ago, but it doesn’t.

He chokes, breath catching in his throat, heat flooding his face as he realizes how much his thoughts have drifted—that Caelyx has noticed it too, from the way satisfied expression on his face—and Aerion jerks his gaze away like he’s been struck.

“Shut up,” he snaps hoarsely, jaw clenched so tight it aches, because he cannot tell if he wants to rip Caelyx’s throat out for saying it or himself for imagining it.

Luckily, or unluckily, maybe, Caelyx does not have the opportunity to respond, because the Golden Company finally approaches the square. 

Disgust curdles in Aerion’s stomach when he recognizes Aegor Rivers standing at the head of the group, black hair loose at his shoulders and dressed in plain armor, the Valyrian sword Blackfyre sheathed at his hip. 

For a moment, he nearly rises. The impulse is sudden and violent—grab a blade, any blade, and cut his way through them until the bastard bleeds out in the dust and that stolen sword is returned to where it belongs. 

Behind the bastard are the false claimants. Aerion recognizes them without introductions, and it makes him sick. It makes him sick that they look like him. Sick that they have the same silver hair, the same violet eyes, the blood of Old Valyria running just as true through bastards and pretenders as it does through him—and they dare to stand beneath the banner of the black dragon. 

His body shifts, nails biting into his palm and teeth grinding together. 

He hates them. He hates the way they stand there like they have a right to be, like they have not stolen everything they are from his family and twisted it into something lesser. Hates the way the city seems to hold its breath for them, as though they’re something to be reckoned with instead of something to be stamped out. 

He starts to rise, and your whore tenses on his opposite side as though to stop him, and then—

—and then the First Magister steps forward, and Aerion loses the opportunity. 

He draws blood from how hard he bites his tongue, feels it dripping between his knuckles, too.

“I must say, if you have come to conquer our fine city with such… modest forces, then you will find us less accommodating than you might hope,” the First Magister says, eyes sharp as he stares down at the Golden Company from the top of the marble steps. “We do not take kindly to uninvited guests.”

Aegor Rivers does not rise to the bait. He paces a few steps forward, standing at the foot of the steps, gaze sweeping from the First Magister to you to the First Magister’s son, and finally to the men arrayed behind the three of you—a small regiment of the Second Sons, Lys’s gonfaloniere, and the household guard. The other magisters are nowhere to be seen. 

It is a statement of unity, Caelyx had explained when Aerion first made note of it—the Golden Company is not welcome in Lys. 

“We are not here to conquer, magister,” Aegor Rivers replies at last, inclining his head to the First Magister. “We hear you harbor a guest of particular interest to us, and we hope to come to an… understanding.”

“How unfortunate that you have come all this way for a rumor,” the First Magister replies with a thin smile, and he exchanges a quick look with you that Aerion isn’t able to read, “and without the decency to give notice before your arrival. One would almost think you meant to insult us. Did you mean to insult the magisters of our lovely Lys, my lord?” 

“He is no lord,” you interrupt blandly. “You are being far too generous, magister.”

Aerion’s lips curl up despite himself. But then you throw a wink back at the First Magister’s son, Marcellus, who snorts at your words, and his smile flattens, irritated again. He side-eyes the two whores who slip into the room with them—two girls, he’s seen them hanging around you before, but he doesn’t know either of their names.

“Caelyx,” the taller one says, glancing nervously out to the square. “How is it going?” 

“She’s only insulted them once,” Caelyx says as he smirks into his wine. “So I would say well.”

The shorter girl laughs, settling onto the cushions next to Aerion, resting her head on her arms as she looks out into the square. Aerion finds himself irritated again all of a sudden—the silk clings to him, too soft and too light and too wrong, and the scent of perfume and wine hangs thick in the air, cloying and suffocating. 

He should be down there—at your side, at the First Magister’s shoulder, steel in hand, not hidden in silk and pillows and painted smiles, not tucked away among whores. His fingers curl into the cushions, nails biting into the fabric as his eyes track you. This is fucking humiliating. He exhales hard through his nose, trying to calm his temper.

“Watch yourself, prince,” Caelyx drawls, watching him carefully from the corner of his eye. Aerion sneers at him. “I only mean to say that you know what is at stake. Do not let your pride get the best of you.”

“I do not need you reminding me, whore,” Aerion scoffs.

Still, his stomach flips as he remembers what you said earlier. He does not want to think about that, because if he thinks about that, he thinks about how he got here, and if he thinks about how he got here, he thinks about his father, and if he thinks about his father, he will wonder—will he even care? And Aerion will not like the answer he comes to, so he cannot think about what will happen if the Blackfyres see through the lies, so he does not.

“I had thought Lys better governed,” Aegor says after a moment, “than to allow its… wards such freedom with their tongue.”

You tilt your head, considering him. 

“And I had thought you more impressive,” you reply. “Given the stories.”

“Across the Narrow Sea, a ward who spoke so carelessly would find herself corrected. Firmly,” Aegor says after a moment, voice low and edged. “It is a failing of the Free Cities that they keep such a gentle hand in the face of such disobedience.” 

“If you are so fond of firm hands, I suggest you sail back to your Sunset Kingdom and find one willing to keep you,” you say, smiling, until you are not. “If you ever imply I need to be firmly corrected again, I will skin you alive and pour salt over every inch of your body.”

Aegor’s mouth curves, faint and humorless. “A bold threat,” he says. “Though I wonder—would your hosts thank you for starting a war in their square? It would be a shame to see Lys burn for your temper.”

“Lys would not be the city that burns, sellsword. It will be your ships and your men,” you drawl. “The sacking of Qohor has made you bold, but Lys is not Qohor—nor is Volantis, and you tread on making an enemy of both.”

“You are an exile, my lady,” Aegor says coolly, tilting his head. “You think your city will go to war at your whims.”

“Exile, maybe, but I am old blood, and you are the son of an Andal whore. They would never suffer the insult without consequence.”

Aerion barks out a laugh.

“It’s good to know you haven’t lost your teeth in the years you’ve spent amongst silk boys,” an unfamiliar voice says from the crowd of sellswords. Your expression shifts instantly, the irritation disappearing, eyes widening, and a pit inexplicably forms in Aerion’s stomach. He spares a glance at Caelyx, but Caelyx put down his wine, frowning as he straightens from where he was leaning back against the cushions. “I warned him that you would eat him alive if he tried to play this game. You should have listened, Rivers.”

Aerion watches as a man with silver hair, braided back from his face, makes his way across the marble toward you, all careless smiles and casual arrogance. He is tall, thin, but lean in the way of a man who knows weaponry, not the pillow play of the Lyseni silk boys—and he is very, very pretty. He dresses like you in black leather with a red cape over his shoulder, and he wears Valyrian steel like it’s fucking gold on his fingers, on his neck, on his ears, a sword at his hip and a dagger at his forearm. 

Aerion knows before either of you speaks. 

All of the tension bleeds from your body, disbelief spilling across your face, and Aerion feels sick to his stomach already. 

“Jaenys?” you gasp, a breathless smile spreading across your face as you make your way down the steps to meet him halfway. Aerion doesn’t realize he’s rising to his feet until he already has, jaw tight as he watches the way the man reaches for your waist, pulling your body close until it’s flush to his. Your hands rise to his face, gentle, your cradle his jaw, thumbs brushing his cheekbones like you need to make sure he’s real. Aerion’s stomach twists. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“That’s one of her friends,” one of the girls says, and Aerion’s teeth grind because that is not the way friends hold one another. “From back home. I recognize the name.”

That is the way—that is the way you’ve held his face in the cove, in bed, when it is only you and only him. He watches as you let out a bright laugh, genuine and pretty as a bell, more real than anything Aerion has ever heard from you before. And Aerion feels fucking sick—he feels sick, and he does not want to see this, but he cannot draw his gaze away, watching as the other man draws you in close, burying his face in your hair, pressing his lips to your temple, your neck, laughing into your skin. 

“Why is he with the Golden Company?” the other girl asks warily. “Caelyx, what should we do?”

Caelyx is no longer drinking. He has set his wine aside, watching the scene with calculating eyes, and he’s holding a small bowl in his right hand, and distantly, Aerion recognizes the fine powder that sits inside it from the corner of his eye, but he’s more focused on you, on the way your gaze traces Jaenys’s face, the way you’re holding him, the way he’s holding you. You’re talking to him, but your voice is too quiet now for him to overhear from the Perfumed Garden, as though you’d forgotten he was listening, forgotten you’d promised that you would talk loud enough so that he’d know what was happening, forgotten about him. 

Aerion’s fingers curl at his sides, nails biting into his palms as he watches the way Jaenys lifts your hand to his lips, kissing your knuckles, your wrist, your pulse, smiling into your skin—the two of you curling into one another like the Golden Company is not in the square, like there’s no danger and no one is watching. 

What the fuck?

You say something again, too quiet again, and then you nod toward the Perfumed Garden, and Aerion’s heart drops to his fucking feet. No—no, you wouldn’t. His mind scrambles to make sense of the motion you just made, to force it into something that doesn’t feel like a blade sliding between his ribs. You wouldn’t just—you wouldn’t just give him up so easily, not like that, not after everything you said, not just because, not just because—

He can’t even finish the thought, because he can’t even fucking convince himself of it. He knows well how much you long for home, more than he does; he knows the way you speak of the people you left behind, the future you lost, and he knows—

“It’s not what you think,” he hears Caelyx say, but it feels like there’s fucking cotton in his ears. Everything feels distant and far away, and he can only stare out at the square, at the way your head is bent together with Jaenys, at the way you motion again to the Garden, to Aerion. “It’s not—”

“I know,” he spits, and then he laughs once, sharp and humorless. “You do not need to—I do not need—”

He can’t even get a fucking sentence out, and his face flames red with humiliation, and his breath is too shallow. You wouldn’t, you wouldn’t—iksan aōhon, iksā ñuhon. You said it, he said it. You would not give him up so easily. 

“She told me to tell you that if the Golden Company pressed for negotiations, she would bring it to the Perfumed Garden so you could listen in on what’s being said in the chance it pertains to your house,” Caelyx says, and then shifts closer. Aerion shifts away, bumping into the whore on his other side, and he suddenly feels too closed in and too distracted, because he can’t drag his eyes from the square. “You need to take this.”

“I am not drugging myself when they are five feet from the fucking door,” Aerion snaps, rounding on him, voice low but vicious. His hands are shaking now—he curls them into fists to hide it, nails digging deeper into his palms. “When they will be in the same fucking room as me. Have you lost your damn mind?”

Caelyx doesn’t flinch. “You will give yourself away the moment they start talking about you or your family,” he says, lifting the bowl slightly, the fine powder shifting inside. It’s not the same one you took with him in the garden at the revel—this one is a shimmering blue. “Look at you.”

“I am fine,” Aerion spits.

“You are not,” Caelyx replies flatly. 

Aerion’s pulse won’t slow; his thoughts are spiraling, circling back to you, the Golden Company, Jaenys, that gesture, to the way it looked, to the way it felt, to the way it hurt. Aerion isn’t even sure if he’s breathing properly.

Will his father care?

Will he think twice when news reaches him?

Will you care?

Will you—

Caelyx’s gaze flicks behind Aerion, and Aerion catches it a split second too late. His gaze snaps behind him as the woman on his opposite side grabs his right wrist hard, pinning it to the cushions, while the other one grabs his left. Aerion thrashes, but they are stronger than they look, and Aerion is thoroughly distracted.

“What the fuck—” Aerion snarls, twisting hard, muscles straining as he tries to rip himself free. The cushions shift beneath him, silk sliding, his footing useless, and fury spikes hot and immediate, cutting clean through the panic. “Get your hands off me—”

He jerks again, violently this time, and one of them gasps as his shoulder clips her, but her grip doesn’t loosen. The other tightens, digging her fingers into his wrist hard enough to bruise, and Aerion cannot get his footing for leverage to pull away.

“Hurry up, Caelyx!” 

“You think you can lay hands on me? I am a prince of the blood,” Aerion spits, voice dropping into something more dangerous but riddled with panic that he cannot quite push down. His eyes flash, violet gone almost black in his rage. “I will have your hands for this—I will have your tongues, your lives—every last one of you—”

“Hold him,” Caelyx snaps, all softness gone.

Aerion bares his teeth, lunging forward despite the hold on him, trying to get at him, to hurt him, because this—this humiliation, this loss of control, this—

Caelyx moves faster. A hand fists in Aerion’s hair, yanking his head back hard enough to make his breath hitch, his throat exposed, jaw forced open on a startled inhale, and then fingers are shoved into his mouth, the powder coated on digits, and Aerion chokes, thrashing hard now, rage turning wild and frantic as he bucks against their hold. Your whores, to their credit, look guilty—the girls do at least, Caelyx is only watching with thinly pressed lips, holding his face and his nose so that he cannot breathe, forcing him to swallow the powder he pushed into his mouth.

“Sorry, prince,” Caelyx murmurs, though he doesn’t sound all too sorry. The powder is already dissolving on Aerion’s tongue, bitter and strange, and when he tries to gasp for air, he swallows. “She told us to use whatever force was necessary if it came to this.”

He shoves Caelyx away hard, scrambling off the cushions to the marble floor, on his hands and knees, vision blurred as he tries and fails to gag up whatever they forced him to take. One of the girls has the audacity to creep closer to him, worried, and he bares his teeth at her furiously, grabbing whatever is closest to him—a glass— and flinging it hard at her head. It misses, shattering against the wall, but it still has its desired effect, as the girl scrambles away.

“I’ll kill you,” Aerion gasps, eyes wild and furious as he stares up at Caelyx, who hasn’t budged from the cushions. “All three of you, her, I’ll kill you all, I’ll—”

Caelyx sighs, gaze drifting out to where you’re still laughing with your friend, limbs entwined, faces too close together, to where the Golden Company is waiting for the two of you to stop talking, and he says quietly, “Let’s make sure you live long enough to have the opportunity, yeah?” 

Will you care? Will you care? Will you care?

———————

Everything feels distant and faraway. 

After Aerion settles down, Caelyx explains that they give the younger ones this powder when they take their first clients. Men pay extra for whores who haven’t been passed around yet—cruel men, violent men, the kind that want to see the blood, that want to cause it, that want to hear the sound a girl makes when they hurt, but still want to convince themselves that they’re not doing anything wrong, because it’s only sex with a whore, after all. 

The powder makes it easier for them; it softens the worst parts, turning something unbearable into something survivable. Not painless, because it’s never painless, but it makes everything more distant and manageable. 

Aerion stares forward as you enter the room, laughing in the arms of your friend Jaenys, and there’s not even a tug in his chest or a twist in his stomach—as though everything happening around him belongs to someone else.

He knows what he should feel—the bitter, ugly flood of it, the heat and the humiliation, he knows it is there, but he just… cannot reach it. It sits somewhere behind his ribs, muffled and dulled down to a distant pressure that cannot claw its way to the surface.

Aerion watches you as you cross the threshold, Jaenys’s hand at your waist like it belongs there, like it has always belonged there, like Aerion is an imposter and never truly had a place in your life—the sight registers cleanly, but it does not cut the way he knows it should.

Your gaze slides over him like he’s not even there. 

He should not have stayed.

(“You don’t have to sit in the room for the conversation,” Caelyx says as he gets the main room ready for the meeting about to take place—only the Perfumed Garden’s best permitted in the area. “You can wait in the back or upstairs. You’ll still be able to hear it all, but—”

“No,” he says after a moment, voice slow to his own ears. He cannot even reach the anger he knows he should feel. It is infuriating. “No. I need to be here. They won’t recognize me. Not like this.”

Because this is humiliating. This is shameful. This is everything Aerion Brightflame is not. Even if they do see a ghost of the Targaryen dynasty in his face, the whole world knows him well enough to know that he’d never be caught dead dressed in silk posing as a whore. That’s exactly why you insisted on this, exactly why he fought it. 

He will put it to the test, he decides, and if it fails, and he is butchered in silk by the Blackfyres, then it will be your fault.

Will you even care? Will you even—)

He doesn’t like this. He doesn’t like this at all. He doesn’t like seeing you with your friend. He doesn’t like the way you don’t acknowledge him. Doesn’t like the way the First Magister’s son trails behind you, looking out of place and like he wants to cling to you. Doesn’t like the pit in his stomach that forms when he sees Aegor Rivers duck into the Perfumed Garden with a twisted expression, distant and unreachable as that pit may be. Doesn’t like the sight of the Blackfyre bastards that follow in after him—three of them, silver-haired and violet-eyed. 

“My lady,” Caelyx greets you with a demure smile, pressing his lips to your knuckles. You are leaning your body against Jaenys, as though you do not wish to stand on your own, as though the two of you are husband and wife, lovers who can’t bear to part. The sight of it makes Aerion sick—or, it should make Aerion sick. He cannot reach that either. He does not like this. “We’re here to serve as you please. Let us know how we may make your guests comfortable.”

“We’ll take the room,” you reply, and you shift to stand up straight. Aerion can breathe again. You finally look around the room, disinterest flicking across your face until your eyes settle on him resting against the cushions. He catches the irritation that flashes briefly in your eyes. “Get me Vaella and Rhalla. And a couple of the other girls. Boys too. And wine. Lots of it. Gods know I need it.”

You are a fucking idiot, you tell him without saying anything, fighting a frustrated sneer as your gaze lingers on him a moment too long. Why are you lounging about so carelessly? Why didn’t you go upstairs?

Aerion doesn’t raise his eyebrows mockingly, but he thinks you know he wants to, because your eye twitches before you mask it and turn back to your guests. 

“We do not need whores,” Aegor Rivers says roughly. “Let us—”

“Do not speak to me unless I address you first,” you cut in, casting an annoyed look back to the sellsword. 

Aerion knows it’s because you’re frustrated with him and taking it out on the first person who dared to speak to you, and it pleases him—or it should. He cannot feel anything beyond this muted numbness. 

The silence stretches, taut, as Aegor stills at your interruption, something dark flickering behind his eyes, his jaw tightening just a fraction before he reins it in. You turn your back on him, dismissing him, then make your way over to the cushions, exhaling as you drop back onto them, head rolled back as you stare up at the ceiling for a moment. He wants to know what you’re thinking, he wants to know what’s happening, he hates this. He hates all of this. 

The others begin to seat themselves—Aegor Rivers and the Blackfyre pretenders across from you, Marcellus on your left, Jaenys to your right. After what feels like an eternity, Caelyx returns to the room with the two girls from before, along with several others, boys and girls alike, all soft smiles and lowered gazes as they drift into the room, trying to figure out who to go to, where to stand, like they are nothing more than decoration.

Your head rolls to the side, gaze cutting across the room, straight to Aerion. 

“Ari,” you purr, lips tilted up into a lazy smile. Aerion doesn’t react only because he can’t. The muted panic sits low and unreachable in his stomach when he realizes that you’re purposely drawing attention to him. What the hell are you doing? “Come here. I’ve missed you.”

The instinct to refuse is there, buried beneath the haze, sharp and stubborn and his, in spite of the drugs dumbing him down. He wants to bare his teeth and stay exactly where he is, wants to force you to come to him instead. But it never makes it past that first flicker, because Aegor’s gaze shifts, the room tilts in his direction, and Aerion is suddenly very aware of every pair of eyes that might look at him with suspicion if he hesitates or lingers too long or does anything other than exactly what is expected of him.

Because he is a whore of the Perfumed Garden. Ari of Lys. 

Aerion fucking hates you. Aerion wants you dead. Not even this stupid drug can force away the resentment that bubbles in his chest as he forces himself to his feet, silk scraping uncomfortably against his skin as he makes his way across the room toward you. 

Are you purposely doing this to humiliate him? Why would you do this? Will you care? Will you—

“Do you know all of the whores on this island by name?” one of the Blackfyres drawls across from you, distracted as he glances up at a pretty golden-haired girl who smiles sweetly at him. 

Aerion realizes that no one is really looking at him anymore, not beyond the short glance when you first addressed him. By the time Aerion reaches you, the attention has already shifted away—he has been dismissed, just another pretty thing in silk. 

That was your play, he recognizes too late, lowering himself into your lap when you guide him down. You pulled him into the center of the room, forced their attention onto him for a heartbeat, just long enough to see him clearly, to register him, and then discard him. Better this than the edges of the room, where he would linger, where sharp eyes might wander back to him, and suspicion might build, where he might become something worth noticing.

Now, he is nothing—a prop, a distraction already spent. 

“Most of them,” you agree with an easy smile, one arm slinking around his waist possessively as you pull him close and he settles against you, shoulder pressed against your chest, hand sliding to rest loosely at the side of your neck, fingers grazing the edge of your jaw. “The ones worth remembering, at least.”

He hates this. 

He hates the silk clinging to his skin, too soft and too revealing, nothing like the leather everyone else of note in the room wears, nothing like anything a prince of House Targaryen should ever wear. He hates the way they look through him like he’s not even there. He hates that his body sinks into yours, and he cannot help the way his eyes half-lid when your fingers slip beneath his silks, thumb rubbing soothing circles over his hip, out of sight from everyone else. He hates that it comforts him. Hates that his head dips toward yours instinctively. Hates that he can feel the heat roaring through his veins, that he knows he should be ripping himself out of your hold, baring his teeth, reminding them all exactly who the fuck he is: a dragon and a prince, better than them, all of them, but he cannot fucking reach it. He cannot reach the fire he knows is there; it dies before he can hope to grasp at it, and he—

Someone is still looking at him. 

The hair on the back of his neck stands on end, and Aerion’s gaze shifts to the side, trying to figure out who is still looking at him, and he pauses when he sees that it’s your friend, Jaenys, watching him with sharp, calculating eyes, trained not on his face, but—

—Aerion forgot to take off the steel.

Aerion forgot to take off the fucking steel.

The Valyrian steel at his throat—the steel you gifted him, the steel you placed on his neck, the steel you found in the ruins of Valyria, likely with the boy sitting right next to you, weighs on his neck like a fucking shackle. How the fuck did he forget to take off the steel? He’s become so used to the weight of it that he doesn’t even notice it anymore. He didn’t even think anything of it until now, until someone who recognizes it stares at it like it’s the most fascinating thing in the room, because why the fuck would you gift the last relic you have of your home to some random Lyseni whore?

Aerion’s fingers twitch against your neck, a useless, delayed reaction, his mind scrambling sluggishly to catch up with what his body should have already done—hide it, move it out of sight, do something. But he doesn’t, because it’s too late, because moving now would draw attention and confirm exactly what he knows Jaenys must be suspecting.

Jaenys watches him for a moment longer, gaze lifting from the steel at last to his eyes, and Aerion hates the look in his eyes—amused and knowing and far too perceptive for Aerion’s liking. His lips curl, just slightly, but then he turns his attention back to you, lithe fingers reaching for your free hand. 

Jaenys holds eye contact with Aerion as he lifts your hand to his lips, kissing your knuckles again before he leans in to ghost them against your ear. He says something quiet, only for you to hear, and Aerion can only make out the word special, but whatever is said is enough to make you physically tense, grip on his hip tightening. 

“How is everyone back home ?” you ask, ignoring the Blackfyres and Aegor Rivers to focus on your friend. 

“Miserable without you,” Jaenys says with an easy grin and a wink in your direction. “You could not imagine how boring things have been. You’ve probably been having more fun on this whore island than we are in Volantis.”

Aerion feels you huff out a laugh, chest rising and falling against his back. “Do not be dramatic, Jaenys,” you reply. “There is little to do here beyond fucking and drinking, and we both know I can only handle so much of that without some blood in between.”

Jaenys hums, amused, lithe fingers sliding absently up and down your forearm. Aerion’s gaze follows them, watching how easy the movement is, how familiar—thoughtless in a way that makes Aerion’s chest tight even though that powder should have him dulled into oblivion. 

“You always did prefer a little chaos to keep things interesting,” Jaenys murmurs. “I’m surprised you haven’t burned this place to the ground yet.”

“If you are quite finished reminiscing,” Aegor cuts in, tone clipped, bold considering the way both you and your friend raise your eyebrows at one another, smiles easy, but not entertained. “We did not come here to hear tales of your boredom.”

You do not even look at him.

“Then perhaps you should not have come uninvited,” you reply smoothly, eyes still on Jaenys, as though Aegor is little more than background noise. You ask Jaenys quietly, “Why did you come, Jaenys? Why are you here with these Andal cunts?”

Jaenys exhales hard through his nose, averting his gaze for the first time since he entered that room, the easy amusement slipping into something more serious.

“I told you, it’s miserable without you,” he says with a sigh, fingers still against your arm, sliding down to entwine your fingers with his. Aerion can’t draw his gaze from it, can’t ignore the pressure rising in his chest, muted and distant but still somehow all-consuming. “The Tigers are restless, and the Elephants grow bolder by the day. Every assembly turns into the same argument and—” Jaenys exhales through his nose, and Aerion’s stomach twists. He doesn’t like where this is going before he even really knows where it’s going. “We are tired of waiting. Everyone is.”

Your thumb stills at Aerion’s hip.

“And you think I am the solution to that? Eight hundred miles away?” you ask, voice light and dry, but Aerion can feel the tension in your body now, the way your grip tightens at his hip. “Do not be ridiculous, Jae—”

“Not from eight hundred miles away, but yeah. You are.”

Aerion does not like this.

His fingers twitch at your neck, and he instinctively starts to shift in your lap, only to be stopped when the hand on his hip becomes painful, warning him not to move around and make a scene. Whores are meant to be pliant and obedient, seen but not heard, decorations not meant to react to anything being said around them.

But Aerion does not like this. 

His heart thuds in his chest. He does not know if the powder is wearing off on its own or if he’s just so bothered by the implications of what’s being said that it’s forcibly sobering him—or worse, this is the muted version of what he should be feeling. 

“What the fuck are you talking about, Jaenys?”

“You’re not meant to rot away on this island of fucking whores,”  Jaenys says, grip tightening on your hand to force you to look at him. “We were never going to let you, and now we’ve finally got a way to get you back.”

Aerion can feel your heart against his back, racing in a way that he’s never felt before. Aerion’s is too. His mind is too slow right now—if he wasn’t drugged up on this stupid powder, he would’ve been able to put together what’s happening by now, but instead, he’s stuck, lagging behind his own thoughts, watching everything happen in pieces instead of all at once. 

Aerion swallows hard, breath shallow, fingers tightening at your neck like he can ground himself there, like if he holds on tight enough, it will force everything to click into place like it already should be. 

“And the Andals have something to do with this plan to get me back to Volantis?” you ask, voice riddled with disbelief, nails biting into his skin the same way his are biting into yours, trying to ground yourself with him the same way he does with you. “Jaenys, you—”

“They offer a path,” Jaenys interrupts, glancing briefly toward Aegor Rivers before returning his attention to you. “Just hear it out, okay?”

They’re supposed to be here for him, Aerion thinks desperately. They’re supposed to be here for him, are they—are they here for you? They’re here to—to take you?

“The Golden Company has the men and the means,” Aegor Rivers says, finally pushing into the conversation. Aerion expects you to shut him down again. You do not. “We would be willing to lend our support to the Tiger Party in the event of conflict. To ensure that the outcome is favorable.”

“Conflict?” you echo. Your voice sounds far away. Underwater. Aerion does not like the word, what it means, what it implies. Sellsword companies do not do anything for free. So what do they want from— “You mean to throw Volantis into civil war, Jaenys? What the fuck? We don’t need the help of the Andals if we want to take Volantis by force, but we don’t want—”

Jaenys says your name. Aerion hates the sound of that too—the way he says it, soft and lilting, begging for you to listen, and he hates the way you actually do, halting in your venomous rant as soon as he speaks. Your fingers on his hip are bruising, and his on your neck twice as hard. His gaze drags over to Aegor Rivers from where he was staring over your shoulder; the man stares right past him—at you—and Aerion doesn’t know if he’s breathing properly. His head feels light, and each breath is shallow.

He could kill him right now. 

The thought cuts through the haze, and for a moment, Aerion almost feels like himself again. 

Aegor Rivers sits barely five feet away—this registers for the first time since everyone seated themselves. No armor, no helm, no guard between them but a room full of distracted men to expect a blade from a whore’s hand. The Blackfyre bastards, too—silver-haired, violet-eyed mockeries of his blood, close enough that Aerion can see the faint scars on their hands and faces, the way their chests rise and fall as they breathe. He could do it. He could lunge forward, rip free from you, seize the fruit knife on the table between the cushions, and drive it through Bittersteel’s throat before the man could react. He could carve through the rest of them after, one by one, leave them bleeding out on cushions and marble like they deserve.

He might die.

He probably would die.

But—but his father would hear of it. Aerion Brightflame, striking down Bittersteel in a way that neither he nor his uncle was able to during the rebellion, cutting through pretenders with his own hand before falling in battle. Not an embarrassment. Not something to be ashamed of. Not an inconvenience to be sent across the Narrow Sea and forgotten about. A Targaryen prince. A dragon in full, not silk and perfume and humiliation. 

You would probably die, too. 

That is what makes him falter. If he jumped forward now, if he cut Aegor River’s throat and then carved up each of the Blackfyre bastards, you would be caught in the middle. You’re armed, yes, and the moment the lingering Golden Company sellswords drew their blades to cut Aerion down, you would draw yours (right? you would, wouldn’t you? would you defend him? would you even care? would anyone care?). And you are skilled, he knows you are, but there are dozens, hundreds, thousands of Blackfyre loyalists on this island right now, and not even you—

“We could do it,” Jaenys says quietly. “A full coup, rout the Elephants—”

“That’s not how things fucking work in Volantis,” you hiss, interrupting Jaenys, whose lips tighten with irritation at your words. “We are not Andal cunts who chop each other up over inheritance—who destroy our houses and birthright for personal ambition. The Triarchy is not won by butchering half the city in the streets and hoping the rest fall in line.”

“I thought you would want to come home—”

“Of course, I want to come home,” you spit, voice rising in anger. Your grip on Aerion’s hip is painful, and it grounds him, pulling him away from the violence and blood that threatens to put him into a situation that will get both of you killed. “But gods, Jaenys, does my father even know about this? The rest of the Tigers? This could destroy everything, this could—what?”

Jaenys tosses his head back, beckoning someone to come forward from the edge of the room. Aerion’s gaze drags, following the motion as a man steps forward from the line of sellswords. He carries something wrapped in dark cloth, held carefully, and Jaenys reaches forward to take it from him, peeling back the cloth to reveal a sheathed sword—ruby-embedded hilt, dark, rippling steel, the patterns in it catching the sunlight. 

Aerion’s mouth dries, and you inhale behind him, leaning forward, lips ghosting his shoulder as you look over him at the sheathed blade. Jaenys gives you a pointed look before he places it between the two of you. 

“He gave this to me before I left,” Jaenys says softly, “to give to you.” Jaenys continues, voice lower now, only for you to overhear, “He wants you to come home. We all do.”

Oh. 

Aerion feels the change in you immediately. Your spine straightens, and your grip loosens on his hip. You don’t let go of Jaeny’s hand—you let go of Aerion as you reach out to brush your fingers against the hilt of the sword resting between the two of you. The aggression fizzles out of you, and you exhale in a way that is not frustrated or irritated; it’s contemplative. 

Aerion’s throat goes dry. His fingers twitch at your neck again, a delayed, useless motion, like he’s trying to remind you he’s still there—he’s still here—but it feels weak, inconsequential, swallowed by everything else that just shifted in the room.

“And what? The Golden Company wants to displace the Elephants and put us in power out of the goodness of their hearts? What do they want in return?” you ask. 

There is no derision in your tone. There is no bite or mockery, no easy dismissal waiting behind it. 

It is a real question.

Aerion feels it like a blow to the gut, wind knocked from his lungs. His fingers falter against your neck, the last weak attempt at grounding slipping away into nothing as a slow and suffocating reality settles in around him. You’re not shutting this down, and you’re not laughing it off anymore. You’re really fucking considering it.

You might actually accept it.

The thought lands heavier than anything else—heavier than the Golden Company arriving in Lys, heavier than the thought of war, than his father not caring about him, than dying here. His lashes flutter, and the next breath he lets out is shaky. 

This is what you’ve always wanted.

He knows that. Knows it in the way you talk about Volantis, about home, about what was taken from you. Knows it in the way you’ve never quite belonged here, no matter how easily you play at it, no matter how well you’ve carved a place for yourself in Lys. Knows it in the way you always look east. 

You never wanted to be here—you just never had a way back home.

And now you have a way back.

But you promised him. 

You promised him that you would come with him back to Westeros. You said it: iksan aōhon, iksā ñuhon, you told him you loved him, he asked you to come with him and you said I will. You promised, you promised—

“Well, we would like the Bright Prince, for one,” one of Daemon Blackfyre’s wretched sons says easily, gaze lingering for a moment on where Caelyx sits on the cushion next to Jaenys, before he focuses on you. “We heard he was here in Lys.”

Aerion’s pulse spikes hard and fast, blood rushing loud in his ears as his fingers lock at your neck—not gentle or grounding this time, clingy in a way that’s pathetic. 

Do not give me up, he says without saying anything at all, desperate and pleading, not half as commanding as he would like, do not betray me, do not leave me. 

He would not even be able to defend himself right now, he realizes, tense. He does not have the means—no armor, no sword, and if his body is half as sluggish as his mind is, he does not stand a chance. He is sitting right across from Aegor Rivers and the Blackfyre bastards, he is drugged with nothing to defend himself, and you might give him up to them now. 

His breath catches shallowly against your skin, the haze fracturing as fear edges out the last of the powder. You don’t react to his fingers at your neck, not for a long, long time, but then your hand smooths over his hip, squeezing it lightly before you lean back against the cushions with a sigh. 

“Even if the Bright Prince were here, I wouldn’t give him to you,” you say with a shrug, and Aerion doesn’t know if that was the right thing to say, but it puts him at ease, something terribly warm bubbling in his chest. “I’m fond of him. We got on well while he was here. He kept me—entertained.”

“Really?” another pretender drawls, mocking. “I hear he’s temperamental. Prone to mad fits. Not the sort one keeps for long.”

Aerion’s throat bobs at the words, remembering your whore’s comment from before: the two of you are coming up on that, aren’t you? So that she does not become bored with you like she does everyone else. Annoyance flares, teeth grinding; he shifts in your lap before he can stop himself, an instinctive movement like he’s trying to settle into you more firmly. Your grip tightens—a warning—you must realize that he’s coming down from the powder. 

“Which one are you?” you ask suddenly, gaze roving over the Blackfyre. “Wait. Let me guess. Another Aegon? You Westerosi seem fond of that name.” 

Jaenys snorts, turning his face toward you, a smile curving at his lips.

The silver-haired pretender flushes red, an irritated expression on his face. “Haegon, actually.”

You bark out a surprised laugh. “Wow, almost,” you drawl. “Well, Haegon, you’ll find I’m quite skilled at bringing temperamental little dragons to heel. I’m fond of it, even. You seem rather ill-tempered yourself. That, at least, is promising.”

Did you just flirt with that miserable fucking wretch?

A ripple of amusement moves through the room, and Haegon’s flush deepens, pale lashes fluttering as his gaze shifts to the side. Aerion wants to rip his eyes out. Aerion wants to rip your eyes out. Your tongue. His tongue. Aerion can’t deal with this anymore, Aerion—

“The Bright Prince is out of the question,” you say dismissively. “He’s not here, and I’m not wasting my time chasing ghosts. I assume you came with more demands than that, otherwise you make for poor bargainers, and I do not entertain poor bargains, be they in my favor or not.”

Aegor’s lips quirk into a smile, and Aerion feels unsettled. He knows what is coming before anything is said, but the words still make his stomach flip when Aegor Rivers finally speaks them:

“Once you are installed as Triarch, we would expect Volantene support during our campaign in Westeros and taking the Iron Throne from the Targaryens.”

———————

“Is this how it’s going to be, then? We’re not going to speak?” 

Aerion doesn’t reply. Can’t reply. Doesn’t. This is the third time you’ve tried to start a conversation with him since returning to your chambers, and Aerion remains seated on the cushions on the far side of your room, face turned away, fiddling with the dagger he should have taken to the whorehouse so he could plunge it into Bittersteel’s throat. Your throat, too, maybe. His fingers slide along the edge, and the pain helps ground him, brings him back to the present, away from the shame eating at his stomach and the rage threatening to consume him.

He never should have let any of that happen. He never should have agreed to let you dress him in silk, never should have hidden himself away in a whorehouse, never should have allowed those stupid whores to drug him stupid and pliant. He should have just died with his blade in hand, one final stand for his father to be proud of—maybe he could have even taken one of the Blackfyres or Bittersteel out with him. His face is hot with mortification; he can’t even look at himself in a fucking mirror.

He cuts through the pads of his fingers once, beads of blood welling up and dripping down his skin. He watches impassively, and then he slides the edge of the blade through them again, deeper this time. A third time, then a fourth, then—

“Aerion.”

Aerion doesn’t reply, and he doesn’t react when you snatch the dagger from his hands and put it to the side. He doesn’t look up at you when you spit out a curse at the sight of his bleeding hand, and he doesn’t let you bandage them when you reach out, pulling away and pressing the injured fingers to his lips, staring blankly at the wall as he sucks the blood from the cuts. You kneel in front of him, and Aerion hates the expression on your face more than he hates anything else—you’re pitying him, you’re pitying him. 

“Do you really want to?” Aerion asks, voice low and edged. “Because I do not think you are going to like what I have to say.”

You exhale hard through your nose, and Aerion can see the irritation thinly veiled. You have some nerve, he thinks. Some nerve to be irritated. Some nerve to question him. Some nerve to fucking pity him. He doesn’t need your pity, doesn’t want it. He doesn’t want anything, he doesn’t want you, he doesn’t—

Something wet tracks down his cheek, and his spiraling thoughts come to a halt. His brows knit, breath catching, and then—another, his opposite cheek now, more after that, one after another. His uninjured hand comes up quickly, swiping at his face, and he stares at the wetness smeared on his fingers like it’s something foreign. 

What the fuck?

Aerion clenches his jaw hard, teeth grinding, panic flashing hot through the anger still clawing at his chest. He’s not—he’s angry, he’s frustrated, ashamed. He’s not fucking—he’s not upset. He scrubs at his face again, harder this time, like he can force it to stop, like he can drag whatever this is back down where it belongs, bury it under the anger, turn it into something that makes sense. 

“Stop,” he hisses, and he doesn’t know if he’s talking to you or himself. 

His breath hitches, quick and loud and fucking mortifying, and that only makes everything worse. Fuck. He’s sick of this. He’s sick of being in exile, he’s sick of the constant humiliation—things had been different for a while, different because of you, different because you made it feel like it didn’t matter. The exile, the rumors, the looks, and the shame—you made him feel like it could all be ignored if he just stayed close to you because iksan aōhon, iksā ñuhon, because he is yours and you are his, because you said you would come with him, because you said you wouldn’t leave him behind, and now—

Now it is back to those first few weeks of humiliation, when he was chasing you around like a fool, losing his temper before magisters and merchants, making a spectacle of himself every day. He trusted you—you told him to trust you, and he did. He trusted you. 

And now you’re going to give everything up. 

You’re going to give him up. 

He knows it—he knows it’s the truth in his gut, in his heart. He knows it. You are going to give this up so that you can go home. 

“Get the fuck away from me,” he tells you when you try to reach for his bleeding hand again. He rises to his feet and paces away. His heart thuds painfully in his chest, and his fingers sting, and his vision is blurry, and he cannot stop the fucking tears. He’s not even upset—he’s angry, he’s frustrated, he’s—he’s fucking betrayed. “You humiliated me. You—”

“I kept you alive,” you counter, rising to your feet and turning toward him. Aerion hates that you’re not angry, and he hates that look in your eyes—you’re still fucking pitying, you’re still— “I—”

“You had me drugged,” Aerion interrupts, furious, voice rising. “You had me drugged, dressed up in silk like a whore, and sat me in your lap like a damn pet. You made me sit there while you conspired—”

“I did what I had to do,” you spit, pity finally shifting to anger, and Aerion can deal with this. He prefers this. He’ll take all of your anger if it means he won’t be on the receiving end of pity. “If you had walked into that room as yourself, you would be dead, and you know it.”

That’s not the point, Aerion wants to scream. He wants to tug at his hair and fight you for the dagger you stole from him, so he can put it through your throat. He wants to—

“I do not care,” Aerion says, and he shuts it all down, pushes it deep, deep down, just like when he was young, when his mother died and Daeron changed and Maekar refused to speak to any of them. He pushes it down, and he blinks once, twice, three times, and he pushes away the anger and the frustration and the tears. “I trusted you. You told me to trust you, and I did, and then you couldn't trust me. I would rather have died than sit there like that. I do not care if it was necessary, or if it kept me alive, or even if you were right. I do not care. You lied to me.”

“I didn’t lie to you,” you reply, and glee briefly bubbles in Aerion’s chest when he hears how your voice loses the heat, weaker. Aerion huffs out a laugh through his nose. “I didn’t, Aerion—”

“You did,” Aerion hisses. The heat bubbles again, and Aerion smothers it with another deep breath. He doesn’t look at you, raising his chin as he stares out over the balcony, over the gardens of the First Magister’s manse, where he has spent hours laid up in your arms, watching sunrises and sunsets, magisters’ sons make fools of themselves after too many glasses of wine, laughing and sharing breath, kisses, touches. His eyes slide shut. He pushes this away, too. “You did. You lied to me. You told me that I was yours, and you were mine. You told me that—” Breathe. “—that you loved me. That you would come with me. And you sat in there—you sat in there listening to them, conspiring with them—”

“Do not be a fool, I—”

“Do not call me a fool,” Aerion snaps, whirling on you again. It bubbles again, hotter and faster this time. Too much—you’re across the room, but he can feel your hands around his waist, running through his hair, your lips on his skin, and your breath against his ear. All of the promises, all of you. All of the fucking lies. “You were. I know you. The moment your friend showed up, when he gave you that sword—”

“Of course, I was, Aerion,” you shout at him. “They offered me an opportunity to go home. How could I—”

“Then go!” he shrieks right back, defensive, voice pitching higher than he intends. He needs to get ahead of it, needs to be the one to send you away so that you aren’t the one to choose to leave him. “Go back to Volantis. Take their deal, your city, your war. March against my family, march against me—fucking hand me right over to them while you’re at it, would you?”

“Wow. I knew you were hiding a secret, ñuha jorrāelagon, but I didn’t realize your special whore was the Targaryen prince everyone is looking for.”

My love.

Aerion goes stiff at the familiar voice coming from the entrance to your chambers. Your friend, Jaenys, leans against the doorframe like he owns the place, an easy smile curling at his lips, like he hasn’t just walked into something he was not meant to see. You’re as frozen as Aerion is, eyes widening as your gaze cuts to the side, anger draining into something far worse. 

Jaenys pushes himself off the marble, slinking forward in your direction. 

Aerion watches you, not him. Watches the way your mouth presses thin and the way your shoulders are tense. You never spoke much about your friends back home with him. Aerion hadn’t even recognized the name the way your whores had, he realizes bitterly. But he does know how you describe Volantis and its courts—cruel and vicious, people always looking for the next step up the ladder.

Will Jaenys give him up to the Blackfyres? 

Will you let him?

Will you care? Will you care? Will you—

Aerion’s gaze snaps over to you, trying to gauge where you’re at, but he can’t tell, and all of the frustration begins to bubble again, the heat in his chest and behind his eyes. His pulse climbs, and he cannot push it back down. He has to stop him—has to stop both of you if that’s what it takes. He’s never fought you for real; the two of you have sparred occasionally, but always while drunk. He’s never seen you fight at full force, but he knows you’re skilled—knows your friend must be too, from the way you talked about the upbringing of Tiger children. Can he take you both out? Aerion is confident in his swordplay, but he was confident at Ashford, too, and everyone knows how that went, and you two would be much more skilled than that oaf of a hedge knight. But he can’t allow himself to be caught, can’t give his father another reason to—

Fuck. 

“Is this how it’s going to be, then?” Jaenys asks you, raising his eyebrows mockingly, tilting his head to the side. “You’re going to choose some Andal cunt over a chance at coming home?” His gaze flicks over Aerion once, dismissively. “He’s not pretty enough for you to be so pussy-whipped, and we both know you’re not so sentimental.”

Aerion cannot stop the words from leaving his lips.

“What did you just call me?”

Everything is burning. 

He thinks he laughs as he whirls on your friend, but it’s not really a laugh; it’s too quick and too sharp, breaking halfway through. Your friend tosses an impassive look over his shoulder, violet eyes sweeping over Aerion once before he rolls them, as though decided Aerion isn’t even worth the effort to properly address.

His pulse roars. Something breaks loose in his chest, hot and violent, and it feels more like him than the haze he’s been stuck in all day. All of the muted emotions that he couldn’t sort through in the whorehouse come surging: the rage, the humiliation, the frustration. He exhales hard and takes a step toward Jaenys.

“What did you just call me?” Aerion repeats, slower this time, voice dropping as he makes another noise in the back of his throat—laugh, scoff, something in-between. 

“You heard me,” Jaenys replies, unbothered, barely looking at him. Aerion wants him dead. Aerion wants you dead. “Careful now. One word from me and every Blackfyre loyalist in this city will know exactly where to find you.”

Aerion’s lips pull back into something that might be passable as a smile if it weren’t so strained.

“Try it,” Aerion says, though he doesn’t even really register himself saying it. This whole day has been—fuck, wrong. It’s all been wrong. Wrong from the moment the Golden Company ships arrived in Lys. Wrong from the moment you looked at that sword. Wrong from the moment he sat in your lap, and you didn’t feel anything at all. Wrong, wrong, wrong—even he feels wrong now, like he’s not even in his own body, like he’s watching himself from somewhere just behind his eyes, feeling his mouth moving, hearing his voice as though it belongs to someone else. “Try it. See if you get the chance to finish the call out for them. I do not care who you are to her, I do not care where you’re from. If you say one word, I’ll have you skinned and hung from the—”

Jaenys laughs, loud and bright and mocking, genuine glee threaded through the sound. 

“You? Kill me?” Jaenys echoes, a condescending smile on his lips as he looks over Aerion once. “Little prince, I would eat you alive.” He looks back toward you, dismissing Aerion again. He winks at you and says, “You know, I shouldn’t be so surprised you went for this one, ñuha jorrāelagon. You always did like the fiery ones—Visedor, Naera, Aenys. Can you tire of him already? Let’s give him over to those Andals and go home already.”

Aerion’s jaw locks.

You say through your teeth. “It’s not like that, Jaenys—”

“You say that every time,” Jaenys scoffs, “and every time it is the same. I am not going to sit here and let you destroy your shot at going home for a boy you won’t think twice of in a few months.”

Why does everyone always speak around him? 

Why does everyone fucking talk about him as though he’s already half gone?

Aerion is a prince of the blood. A dragon. He is the one who takes and discards. He is not—

He is a prince nobody wants around. At best, a problem that cannot be fixed, and at worst, a mistake to be forgotten. To you, to his father, to the rest of his family, to everyone. 

It is infuriating. 

No one ever says it in those words, but they don’t fucking need to—they cast him out like he’s nothing, they do not say goodbye to him when he leaves, they do not send ravens unless someone has died, and even then, they still do not want him home. 

And you—everyone seems to be certain that you’re on the verge of tiring of him. Caelyx says it off-handedly when he has far more important things to be worried about. Jaenys stands there speaking as though Aerion were some passing amusement you would soon tire of. As though Aerion should be grateful for whatever scraps of loyalty anyone saw fit to throw him, and Aerion is fucking sick of it. He’s sick of hearing it, sick of believing it—he just wants—

He just wants you. He wants you to want him. He wants you to choose him. He thought you would, because you told him that you would. Iksan aōhon, iksā ñuhon—he is yours and you are his. 

And yet, he does not think you will anymore. Not now, and maybe you never planned to. 

He should have expected it. He should have known better than to take you at your word, than to believe that—

He cuts the thought off before it can finish. He’s not going to stand here and pick himself apart over it—not in front of Jaenys, not in front of you.

Still, the idea sits under his skin, festering. That you might leave him, you might choose them, you might hand him over. 

Fuck.

“… always told you, didn’t I?” Aerion hears Jaenys saying, drawn back into the conversation at hand when he notices him take a step back toward the open door. You don’t move to stop him. Aerion’s jaw tightens—he’s going to have to do this himself. Will you draw a blade against him if he attacks your friend? Did you ever actually care the way you claimed to? “I’m not going to sit back and let you make mistakes like this. I—”

Aerion does not flinch at the sudden crashing noise when you move forward and drive your foot into the open door, slamming it shut before Jaenys can leave, but his breath does hitch when he watches you shoulder Jaenys into the marble hard, putting the dagger you took from Aerion against his neck and pressing deep enough that blood dribbles down his pale skin.

The room is silent for a long, long time.

“I’m not letting you do that, Jaenys,” you say quietly. “You are my dearest friend. Do not put me in this position.”

Jaenys stares at you with an unreadable expression on his face. “You’d draw on me for him?” he breathes, voice riddled with disbelief. You do not respond, because the blade at his neck is answer enough. Oh. All of the tension that had spread through Aerion’s body, the heat beneath his skin and pressing behind his eyes, fizzles as he stares at you, throat working to swallow the lump that formed in it. “But the only person you’ve ever done that for is—”

Jaenys doesn’t finish the sentence, but understanding crosses his face instantly as he glances between you and Aerion one last time. Another few seconds pass with neither of you moving, staring at one another, and then Jaenys exhales, shoulders slumping as he shakes his head with a roll of his eyes. 

“You are impossible,” he mutters, and when you don’t immediately drop the knife from his neck, he raises his eyebrows tauntingly. “If you keep that there for much longer, you’ll make my cock hard, and if you do that, you will be taking care of it, ñuha jorrāelagon—favored prince or not.”

Aerion’s lip curls up in disgust. Jaenys notices. 

“He really doesn’t like sharing, does he?” Jaenys laughs, head rolling to the side to look over Aerion. He says lazily, “You’re lucky it was me who came, little prince. Naera or Visedor would have snapped your pretty head off if you wanted to keep her all to yourself. Lucky for you, I understand and will oblige you—for now, at least.”

Aerion gapes in fury, hand darting to grab the sword you’d rested against your wall so he can put it through the other man’s neck, but you give him such a cold look that he falters.

You’re choosing him. You’re choosing them. You’re choosing—

“Skoros iā qrīdronnor. Ao gīmigon skorkydoso naejot iderēbagon zirȳ, ñuha jorrāelagon,” Jaenys sighs, more serious now, silver hair falling in his face. “Skoros gaomagon gaomi sir?”

What a mess. You really know how to pick them, my love. What do we do now?

The tension bleeds from your shoulders at his words, and you drop the blade from his neck. Jaenys wanders over to your bed and sits at its edge like he belongs there, burying his face in his hands, and you lean against the wall you just had him pinned against, staring at the blood staining the blade. Aerion does not budge from the opposite side of the room—he doesn’t know what to say, if he should say anything. The way you stare down at Jaenys’s blood, and the way Jaenys is looking at you from the corner of his eye, it feels too personal. Aerion feels uncomfortable—he just, he wants to go back to how things were yesterday.

You’re choosing him. You’re going to choose Jaenys. You’re going to side with the Blackfyres. You’re going to march against his family—against him. You’re going to betray him. You’re going to—

You exhale, sliding down the wall until you’re seated on the ground, still staring down at the marble.“Eman iā kȳvanon naejot jiōragon zirȳla hen se tēgembōñ. Kessa henujagon lēda se Tȳni Trēsi hemtubis.”

I have a plan to get him off the island. He will leave with the Second Sons tomorrow.

“Gaomagon daor ȳdragon yno hae lo iksan daor kesīr,” Aerion hisses, still wound up, not sure what to do with himself anymore, but you let out such a heavy sigh that he physically falters, zeroing in on the exhausted expression on your face.

Do not speak of me as though I am not here.

Jaenys’s eyes flicker with interest at Aerion’s words, lips parting, but before he can say anything, you give him a cold look. He pouts and shakes his head, and then he says more seriously, “Pōnta jurnegon syt zirȳla sir. Issi jāre rȳ mirre hen lenton. Gaoman daor gīmigon lo kessi jurnegon bisy.”

They search for him now. They are going through all of the manses. I do not know if they will search this one.

You throw the dagger on the ground, frustrated, and the metal clatters against the marble loudly. You tilt your head back against the wall, and you hiss, “Nyke qogralbar ivestretan zirȳ īles daor kesīr!”

I fucking told them he was not here!

Jaenys shrugs helplessly and drawls, “Pōnta gōntan daor pāsagon ao.” Then he nods at Aerion, who sneers at him. “Nyke daor pāsagon skoro syt.”

They did not believe you. I cannot imagine why.

You knock your head back against the wall once, twice, a third time. Aerion makes his way over to you to stop you, but Jaenys is closer, and Aerion freezes dead in his tracks when he sees how Jaenys kneels in front of you, one hand slipping behind your head to stop you from smacking your head against the marble a fourth time. His throat is tight as he watches his free hand come up to cradle the side of your face, the way your eyes slide half open to peer down at him, the way you look so exhausted and still lean into his touch. Your eyes are soft, and vulnerable, and—

Have you ever looked at him this way? 

“Jurnegon rȳ nyke,” Jaenys says softly, and Aerion’s skin fucking crawls. How could he ever compete with this? He’s known all along that you yearn for home and the people you left behind—more than he ever has, ever will—but it’s different seeing it in front of his face like this. The way you look at him, the way he looks at you, the tone of voice the two of you take with one another and the implicit trust. Aerion has never had that with anyone. “Kesan ziry, ñuha jorrāelagon. Kesi mirre ziry mirre hen hēnkirī.”

Look at me. I will handle it, my love. We will figure everything out together.

“Jaenys,” you start to say, voice quiet. “I—”

Your eyes slide shut when Jaenys leans in to press his lips to your temple. “We can talk another time,” he tells you. “If you have a plan for the Bright Prince to get off this island tomorrow night, then we will see it done. Until then…” Jaenys’s gaze flicks over to Aerion briefly. “Spend time with your little dragon, ñuha jorrāelagon. It might be your last with him.”

Aerion’s stomach lurches at his words, and you only sigh, gaze lowering again. Jaenys rises to his feet, tilting his head back slightly, a smirk curling at his lips as he looks over Aerion blatantly. Aerion sneers at him, but can’t help the way his eyes widen in disbelief when Jaenys hums:

“Perhaps if things work out—if I am still here and you are still interested in him when he returns to Lys, we can share him. Like old times. It’ll be fun.”

Jaenys lets out a huff of laughter, brushing his braid over his shoulder as he leaves your chambers, shutting the door behind him, and the silence that follows his exit is suffocating, pressing in from all sides, thick and heavy and ringing with everything said and unsaid. 

Aerion does not move. For a long moment, he just stands there, staring at the door as if it might open again, and then at you, curled on the floor, gaze trained on the marble. You are not looking at him. You are not really looking at anything, he realizes. Your eyes are empty, expression just as vacant. Aerion has gotten good at reading you over the last eight moons, but now he cannot read a damn thing. 

And then you sigh again, heavier this time, shoulders curling inward, making yourself small in a way he’s never seen you do before.

“I am sorry,” you say after a moment, so quiet that Aerion almost doesn’t hear you. “I should not have had them drug you.”

Aerion stares at you for a long moment. There are insults on his tongue—cruel and defensive, because he does not forgive you, he cannot forgive you. He needs to brace himself for what is about to come.

Then, his feet move before he knows what he’s doing, dragging against the ground in your direction. His back hits the wall next to where you’re sitting, and then he slides down it to sit with you. Thighs pressing, shoulders knocking together, Aerion’s jaw tightens when he feels you lean against him, resting your head on his shoulder as you let out another shaky breath.

“I would be dead if you didn’t,” Aerion replies quietly, the admission tastes like poison on his tongue. He inhales deeply, eyes sliding shut, head hanging forward. “I would not have been able to sit there listening to them. To—”

To you.

“I should not have had them drug you,” you repeat again, something hollow in your voice that makes Aerion press his lips together tightly. “I do not know what to do.”

The admission comes out so small that Aerion almost doesn’t hear it. You exhale through your nose again, sharp and shaky, jaw tight. You look up at the ceiling briefly, and Aerion falters when he sees that your eyes are glassy with unshed tears. His lips part to say something, but he cannot find any words.

“I thought it would be easy—that if an opportunity came for me to go home, there would be no question about it, I would take it no matter the cost,” you continue. “But this? This is—”

You let out another breath, head hanging forward as you shake your head. You look at him again, gaze dropping to his cheek, and your face twists—he’s not sure why until you lift your hand, fisting the fabric of your sleeve as you bring it to his face and wipe off the makeup Caelyx put over his scars so that he would not be recognized by them. 

“If I return to Volantis this way, it will be the beginning of the end for our city,” you say, and something clenched terribly in Aerion’s chest when he realizes that this is the reason you’re wound up, not because of him, not because— “Volantis has existed as long as it has because of the Triarchy, because there are elections and we do not cut each other up over inheritance and right to rule. If I come back through a coup and am forcibly installed as Triarch, everything will change and not for the better.”

Aerion does not respond. 

He doesn’t have anything to say that is not bitter and angry and vile, that would be more humiliating to admit out loud than to just keep it in, because he spent months battling with the fact that you would not return with him to Westeros, weeks questioning you, trying to gauge whether or not you would come if he asked you. The relief he felt when you said yes—it was enough to be debilitating, enough that he did not even care how he looked, did not care that he should be ashamed, did not care about anything, just that he would not have to part from you when the day came. And yet—

And yet, he does not even cross your mind. 

You care about what it would mean for Volantis, you care about—

Shame floods him so quickly that it almost makes him sick. His next breath is quick, almost painful. Shame, humiliation, anger—he had always known in his gut that this was never as serious for you as it was for him. He tried to pretend the same, but it was intolerable. Aerion has never been good at handling his emotions; no matter how hard he tries to shove them down and pretend they don’t exist, they always bubble back to the surface at the worst possible times, unrelenting and all-consuming. And he could not bring himself to pretend that you did not matter to him—not when you were the first thing he thought of when he woke in the morning and the last that crossed his mind before sleep, not when the sound of your voice was sometimes the only thing to get him through bad days, not when he had begun to dread going home because he did not want to leave you behind. 

His throat works as he swallows, fighting the heat that rises to his face, that presses behind his eyes. He has known this even if he didn’t want to admit it to himself, but still, hearing it with his own ears, seeing it with his own eyes—it hurts. Hurts the same way it hurt when Maekar turned his back on him when Aerion begged him not to send him away. The same way it hurt when he waited weeks for ravens from him, or Daeron, or Valarr, and never received anything. 

And Aerion does not beg. 

He does not beg anyone—not even you, especially not you. So if you wish to throw everything away and act like this never mattered, and maybe it never did to you, then so be it. He will get on the ship tomorrow, sail to the Disputed Lands with the Second Sons, and he will never think of you again.

He knows as soon as the thought crosses his mind that it is untrue. 

There is no world where the two of you part ways and he will never think of you again. You will cross his mind every day, every hour, every minute—he will see you in the ocean and the sky and in every person that passes him by. He will spend the rest of his life chasing you, and you will be forever out of reach.

“I lied to you,” you suddenly say. Aerion’s thoughts come to a halt when your words register, brows furrowing. “I was never planning to go back to Westeros with you. I only said I would to get you to stop asking.”

A noise leaves Aerion’s throat before he can stop it—a scoff, maybe, a laugh, something in between. He stares at you, eyes wider than they should be, face hot and he’s sure red, because how dare you. Are you trying to rub it in? To make him feel worse about this? Are you trying to shove in his face just how little he meant to you? His stomach flips, and he—he feels embarrassed, again, because he had known this too. He knew it in his gut as soon as you agreed. He had known it was too easy, and nothing is ever easy with you, but he had let himself believe you anyway because—

Because he is a fool. He is a fool, and he loves you, and he wanted to believe you were telling the truth, wanted to believe that you would come home with him. Aerion hates you—he hates you. He hates that he cannot hate you. He hates that he wants to hate you, but cannot muster anything close. He wonders, briefly, if this is meant to be punishment—penance for getting his uncle killed—because he cannot imagine why else he would love someone who puts him through what you have. 

Lying to him in the same breath you tell him you love him, humiliating him in the same second you step between him and a blade—nothing can ever be simple. There’s always some form of whiplash, and Aerion just—

“Right,” he says after a moment, trying not to let his thoughts spiral, voice thin with something he cannot quite contain. “Of course you did.”

He laughs then—short and brittle and entirely without humor—turning his face from you so that you cannot see how his expression crumbles. You do not deserve to know how much your words have wounded him—you cannot know.

“That makes far more sense,” he goes on, words coming quicker now. Harsher. “Gods forbid anything between us be that simple. I must have been so insufferable asking you to come home with me for you to be forced to lie just to silence me. My apologies. I shall not make that mistake ever again.”

“Aerion—”

“If I am such a bother to you, then maybe you should just hand me over to the Blackfyres,” he hisses, face flushing with fury and mortification, the weight of what you said hitting him in full. He is a fool, and you are—you are fucking cruel. “I would—”

“Aerion,” you interrupt, louder this time, grabbing his wrist when he tries to rise to his feet and pull away, but you do not let him. 

Your grip tightens as you hold him in place, and he bares his teeth furiously, shoving you back when you won’t let go of him, but he cannot fucking get free. He cannot be free of you—he will never be free of you. His breath hitches traitorously, and his eyes feel hot again. Fuck—he is furious, and embarrassed, and he is—

Hurt. 

He is hurt. 

“Let go,” he spits. You do not. “Let go of me, you wretched fucking whore. I do not want to be here. I do not want to—”

Your hands find his face, cradling his cheeks, fingers soft and warm against his skin, and Aerion sucks in a breath that sounds like a whistle. He squeezes his eyes shut and turns his face away—distantly, he knows he can push you away. You’re off-balanced right now, half-leaning over him to force his face angled to you, so it would be easy to knock you away and storm off.

He does not.

“Listen to me,” you say. “Let me finish.”

No, he wants to say, because if he lets you finish, if he lets you try to explain your way out of this, he will listen, and if he listens, he will be weak. And Aerion is tired of being weak; he is tired of it—he has been weak all day. Longer than that, even—since the day he met you on that sun-warmed rock, and he let you mock him without consequence. He is sick and tired and he just wants—

“I thought it would be easy to disappear when the ship arrived to bring you west,” you tell him, and Aerion does not want to hear this. He does not need you to rub in his face how much of a fool he’s been. He tries to turn away again, but you do not let him, and he does not shove you away even though he could. “I convinced myself it would be—I would hide away in a cove and wait for the ship to leave port, would watch it leave with you on it, and go on with how life was before you showed up. But I have only been truly lying to myself, I think, because I do not know how I was ever going to disappear when the time came, when now I am handed an opportunity to go home on a silver platter, and I am hesitating because I know if I take this opportunity, I would lose you—for good.”

—you. 

He still only wants you.

Fuck. 

“It is… easier for me to focus on the logical flaws of Jaenys’s plan,” you continue, hands dropping from his face as you sit back on your heels and look away. “Easier for me to convince myself that I do not want to go along with this because it could spell the end of Volantis as we know it. The only thing I have ever loved more than my home is my brother, and it—it terrifies me that I find myself more upset over the thought of leaving you behind than I am at the idea of my city being on the brink of collapse. That I have a chance to see Viserys again, and—”

You do not finish that sentence, but you do not need to. 

“You do not make any sense,” Aerion tells you, voice hoarse. Are you being honest this time? You do not look him in the eye now, gaze averted off to the far side of your chambers, expression downcast in a way he’s rarely seen from you. “You—How am I supposed to take this? Eight moons, and you have only just realized I matter to you? After all of the times you’ve said—”

He can’t spit out the words he wants to say, thoughts jumbled and dangerous, and saying them out loud would only make him feel more pathetic than he already does.  

Avy jorrāelan, iksan aōhon, iksā ñuhon. All of the nights in the cove that is only yours and only his. All of the hunts through the streets that ended with you in his arms, legs entwined, tangled in sheets. All of the days laughing on balconies, drunk on wine and each other’s breath. And you are only just now realizing—

“That’s not what I meant—”

“It sure sounds like what you are saying—”

“Kessa ao ivestragī nyke tatagon ȳdragon?” you hiss, temper fraying. 

Will you let me finish speaking?

The sharpness of your voice cuts through his spiraling thoughts, right through the mess of everything he’s trying and failing to make sense of. His jaw tightens, but he doesn’t speak again, waiting for you to continue.

“I did not just realize you matter to me. Do not twist my words into something easier for you to be angry at,” you say, inhaling deeply as you shift to sit next to him again, gaze pinned on your lap. “This is not simple for me, Aerion. I—I’ve known for months, since you came down with fever. Before that, since the first time I brought you to the cove, I just—”

He remembers that day—the way you disappeared all day, how he spent hours looking for you, only for you to show up in the middle of the night, dragging him through the dark, over rooftops in a storm to the cove that you claimed was only yours, and now only his. He remembers a couple of days after that, too, when you disappeared again: boredom is survivable, you had scoffed, and I’m not? he asked, and you did not answer. 

You tilt your face to the side so that you can look at him, and his falls to the side, too. His gaze meets yours, and Aerion feels weak because he can feel the anger draining as the two of you share breath, as your eyes search his face. His throat bobs as he swallows thickly, and Aerion isn’t sure if he’s ever seen this expression on your face before. It is open—open and vulnerable in a way he’s only ever caught glimpses of when you tell him about home. 

“Avy jorrāelan,” you tell him, and Aerion’s jaw tightens as he fights the instinctive need to look away, face hot and eyes burning. “Nyke drējī jorrāelagon ao, Aerion, se iksan zūgagon kesrio syt eman mērī mirre dija sīr kostōba syt mēre tolie issaros isse ñuha ābrar, se nyke pryjatan ñuha giez ābrar syt zirȳla. Tubī, nyke shifang bona kesan gaomagon keskydoso syt ao, se gaoman daor gīmigon skorkydoso naejot mazōregon lēda bona.”

I love you. I really love you, Aerion, and I am scared because I have only ever felt so strongly for one other person, and I destroyed my whole life for him. Today, I realized that I would do the same for you, and I do not know how to cope with that.

Aerion inhales quickly, breath hitching in a way that should leave him mortified, but he cannot even bring himself to care. He admits, voice hoarse, “Nyke pendagon īlē jāre naejot tepagon nyke bē rȳ mēre jēda.”

I thought you were going to give me up at one point.

You shake your head, and he is only consoled by the fact that your eyes are as wet as his are. “Dōrī,” you say. “Kesan daor emagon tepagon ao naejot zirȳ. Daor syt mirros.”

Never. I would have never given you to them. Not for anything.

Aerion doesn’t know why he says what he says next, because he should be taking advantage of this. Drive the nail into the coffin and make you stay with him with just a few well-placed words. 

Aerion is not above it. He’s spent his whole life curating a softer, more palpable personality to put on for his father and grandfather and anyone of importance. He knows how to smile demurely, knows how to lower his lashes and give people exactly what they want to see. He knows what to say to make people give him what he wants, and he knows how to say it. Knows how to soften his voice just enough, how to let it catch on your name, how to make it sound like it costs him something to say it. Knows how to look at you like you are the only thing in the world that matters, like choosing you is not a question for him, was never a question for him. Knows how to reach for you slowly, carefully, like he is giving you time to pull away, even though he knows you won’t. 

He has done it before. Not like this—not with something that matters so much to him—but the mechanics are the same. And the worst part is that it would not even be a lie this time.

“I love you,” he could say, and mean it.

“I don’t want to leave you,” he could say, and mean that too.

“I won’t survive it if you go,”—that might be a stretch, because Aerion would survive, he would just be forever haunted by the memory of you, but it would sound right, and you would believe it, because you already want to.

It would be enough to make you stay. Enough to make you choose him. Enough to pull you away from Volantis, from your brother, from everything you have ever wanted, and bind you to him instead.

He should do it.

He knows he should.

You’re halfway there already. He can see it already—the way your guard has cracked and your eyes search his face desperately. It would not take much. He knows how he can finish this and get what he wants, and Aerion has never hesitated in that regard. He always takes what he wants, regardless of the consequences it may have for others. It is his right as a prince, after all.

Instead, he says, “You could go home.”

His voice comes out too weak. He knows how much you’ve wanted this, knows it better than anyone. You should not be hesitating. 

“I could go home,” you agree, voice just as weak as his. He finds comfort in that. “I might never get an opportunity like this again.”

He’s not sure which of you moves in first, but your lips are on his in the next breath—the kiss is chaste in comparison to the ones the two of you normally share, mouths sliding innocently against one another’s. It is slow and gentle in a way you both are so rarely.

It makes Aerion’s heart drop.

It feels like goodbye. 

“I could come with you,” Aerion says quietly, a desperate hitch to the words that he cannot quite mask, lips brushing as he rests his forehead against yours. He hears you sigh, and before you can reject him, he continues, “I have little back home. I am the second son of a fourth son. My own father sent me away as an embarrassment, my brother does not write me. I—”

“And you would be okay marching against your own family? Cutting down your own kin?” you reply doubtfully. “You heard what the offer was. I would be installed as Triarch in return for Volantene support in taking the Iron Throne. Would you back the Blackfyre claim, Aerion? Betray your own blood?”

Aerion presses his lips together, rocks settling in his stomach as he squeezes his eyes shut. “You could not go through with it. Use them, and then—”

“We cannot go back on our word like that, Aerion.”

Desperately, Aerion tries, “You might lose, then.”

“If Volantis marches against Westeros, we will not lose,” you interrupt.

Aerion is frustrated. Why won’t you let him latch onto anything, even if it isn’t true? Why must you be so— “You do not know that.”

“I do, because I would be leading the campaign, and I do not lose,” you tell him. “If you can look me in the eye and tell me that you would be okay with it. Returning home with me, knowing I will march against your family, wage a war that ends with your blood executed—father, uncles, brothers, sisters—and you will not regret it, then I will take you home.”

Aerion’s eyes slide open to meet yours. His lips part. And—and he sees his father teaching him how to hold a sword, hears his voice, my boy, my boy, remembers the way he used to smile at him and Daeron when Dyanna was still alive, before everything changed. And Daeron—he remembers Daeron teaching him to fish. Daeron, finding him on the ground, clawing at his throat, and holding him until the madness passed, teaching him breathing exercises to calm him. Daeron, who would be no better than a trembling fawn on a battlefield, because he never took to combat the way Aerion did.

His throat bobs, and Aerion does not respond. Your lips curve up into a smile that does not reach your eyes, and he knows you know his answer without him needing to say anything.

Is this goodbye?

Will you choose to go home?

Are you going to leave him?

You lean in so that you can kiss him again, more firmly this time, one hand coming up to cradle his face, and Aerion’s drops down to your waist, sliding against the leather of your pants before his grip tightens on your thigh so he can pull you closer to him, onto his lap so that your bodies are flush. Your arms snake around his shoulders, and Aerion sighs into your mouth as you tilt his head back to deepen the kiss. You taste like firewine and faintly of blood—Aerion wonders how hard you must have been biting your tongue when he kept interrupting you. 

“Gaomagon daor jikagon lēda zirȳ,” he murmurs against your lips, pulling back slightly so that he can meet your eyes as you slide his shirt off his shoulders. His breath hitches when you smooth your hands over his collarbones, nails scratching lightly at the hollow. He tilts his head back against the wall to look up at you, eyes half-lidded and lips slightly parted. His chest rises and falls beneath your palms, and his eyes slide shut when you lean in to kiss him again, slower this time. “​​Gaomagon daor henujagon nyke.”

Do not go with them. Do not leave me.

You do not answer him, and Aerion hates that it makes his heart sink. You are going to make him beg, and Aerion does not beg. He does not beg anyone, he does not beg you, but—but he will. And he hates that. He hates that he would bend, strip himself of every last shred of pride just to keep you here, that he would allow himself to become something smaller—not a dragon, not a prince of the blood, just… just a boy. Just a boy who will dig his nails in and won’t let go, ask you to stay, even if it costs him everything that makes him who he is. 

“Kostilus,” he breathes into your both, shuddering when you press your lips to the corner of his, to his jaw, kissing down his neck. You drag your tongue from the hollow of his throat to the underside of his chin, and he fights a whimper. His chest heaves as you hover above him, lips ghosting his, tongue darting out to swipe teasingly against his upper lip. “Hah—shit. Kostilus. Kostilus.”

Please. Please. Please.

You kiss him again, deeper this time. You still do not respond, and Aerion hates this even more. Is it because you know he will not like your response? Is it because you cannot bring yourself to say that you do choose him, when it means you are choosing him over a chance at going home, over a chance at seeing your brother again? Aerion does not know, but he knows one answer is far more likely than the other.

“Aerion,” you start to say, and he decides immediately that he does not like the tone of your voice. There’s something in it—careful, hesitant, guilty—and Aerion’s heart rate spikes, because it sounds like the beginning of an answer he does not want to hear. 

His hand comes up, fingers tangling in your hair, and he pulls you down into another kiss—harder, less hesitant, less asking. The words die on your tongue before you can get them out, and Aerion kisses you harder still, teeth biting into your bottom lip as his hands slide down to your thighs. He lets out a low grunt into your mouth as he shifts, lifting you with him off of the floor. Your legs instinctively wrap around his waist as he carries you a few steps over to your bed.

He drops you onto the mattress, following after immediately, hips slotted between your thighs, forearms braced on either side of your head, breath uneven as he searches your face for the answer he wants to hear.

But he does not find it. You press your lips together as you look up at him, and Aerion isn’t sure if he’s ever seen this look on your face before. His lashes flutter shut when you lift your hand to ghost the pads of your fingers against his cheekbone, tracing the lines of his face reverently. 

“Iksā sīr gevie,” you say softly, two fingers resting over his lips as he stares down at you, hair curtaining either side of his face. Aerion fights a shudder, throat bobbing at your words. “Kesan tepagon ñuha giez ābrar lēda ao lo kostan.”

You are so beautiful. I would spend the rest of my life with you if I could.

This is goodbye, Aerion realizes, breath wavering as he stares down at you helplessly. You’re going to choose them. You’re going to go home. You’re going to march against his family, and you’re going to leave him.

“Kostā,” he tells you, pretending his voice doesn’t break over the word.

You could.

You exhale through your nose, brows furrowing, expression twisting; you let out a sigh that tells him you are still uncertain, battling between two warring desires, and Aerion leans down to kiss you again, pouring everything he has into it. All of the mornings spent hunting you through the streets of Lys, all of the afternoons spent indulging in wine and each other’s arms, all of the evenings at the cove that is only yours and only his, all of the times you cradled his face and said iksan aōhan, iksā ñuhon. 

You kiss him back with the same intensity, legs wound around his waist, fingers tangled in his hair, back arching off the bed because even when your bodies are pressed together, it is never close enough. You whimper into his mouth when he rolls his hips, hands sliding from the back of his head to his cheeks, lips parting so that Aerion can swipe his tongue along the inside of your lip.

“Kostā,” he says again, dragging his lips from yours, to your cheek, your jaw, trailing open-mouthed kisses down your neck. “Kosti umbagon kesīr. Iā kosti jikagon naejot Vesteros. Kosti aerēbahon—naejot Qohor se Brāvos. Naejot Qarthi se Ashī. Skoriot mirre jaelā, kosti jikagon.”

You can. We can stay here. Or we can go back to Westeros. We can travel—to Qohor and Braavos. To Qarth and Asshai. Wherever you want, we can go. 

It is a nice dream, he thinks, eyes sliding shut as he slides off your tunic and kisses down your chest. It is a—he lets out a shaky breath, nails biting into your waist as he rests his forehead to your sternum, face buried between your breasts—it is a really nice dream. He feels your fingers thread through his hair, and he presses his lips to the swell of your breast, fingers trailing down your body to slide your pants over your hips, and then does the same to his own.

He can almost imagine it when he closes his eyes. With your hands in his hair and your breath rising and falling unevenly, the warmth of your skin and the way you breathe his name—he can almost pretend that the two of you are on a ship to another city, just you and him, together, because he is yours and you are his, and nothing matters more than that.

It is childish, he knows that in his heart. He has known it since the argument in Vyrano’s manse, when you shouted at him and told him that things aren’t so simple, that you are bound by politics and the weight of your station, your titles, and your blood. Aerion knows one day he will be called home, and as much as it’s nice to dream of a world where he burns his father’s letter in retaliation for months of exile and chooses you instead, it just—

It is not so simple.

It will never be so simple, and that is why Aerion cannot get rid of the pit in his stomach, because he knows it is not simple for him, and it is even less simple for you. You could very well choose to go home, and Aerion wouldn’t even be able to blame you—not really. He would be angry, he would be cruel and cold, and he would pretend that he didn’t care half as much as he truly did, but he would not be able to blame you for it, even if you did end up on the opposite side of the battlefield one day. Even if you did—

You cradle his cheeks and lift his face again, bringing your lips to his as he rolls his hips against yours, eyes sliding shut as you kiss him deeper this time, gasping into his mouth when you feel his cock slide between your folds, tip pressing heavy on your clit before he drags it to your hole. His lips part, jaw half-ajar as he slowly sinks inside of you.

“Avy jorrāelan,” you whisper into his open mouth instead of giving him a proper answer, dragging your fingers through his hair, nails scraping his scalp. “Sīr olvie.”

I love you. So much.

Aerion lets out a hitched noise into your mouth, a gasp, a moan, something in between, lashes fluttering as he buries his cock deep in your cunt. One hand drops to your waist to hold you in place when you try to roll your hips up, and he presses his face into the crook of your neck, savoring the feeling of being inside of you, of your thighs around his waist, your chest pressed to his. He mouths absently at your neck.

I love you, you say—you’re hardly the first to say it to him. Many whores crawl into his bed professing their love as they paw at his chest and kiss his neck, thinking it’ll coax him into giving them an extra coin. But it’s… different coming from you, because you mean it. You have seen the very worst of him—vicious and violent and half-mad—and you mean it still. He knows it in the way you say it, the way you look at him, the way you drew your blade against your own friend to protect him. He knows you mean it, and he doesn’t know if anyone has loved him—truly loved him, all of him, even the worst bits—since his mother died. 

And he is going to lose you, just like how he lost her, because you love him, but it is not enough to make you stay.

Fuck.

The next breath he lets out is shuddered, and his eyes burn, so he is glad he has his face pressed into the crook of your neck. His chest feels heavy all of a sudden, lust slipping away, and Aerion is frustrated—he’s so frustrated that he cannot even hold onto this. The feeling is there: your body wrapped around his, the heat, the closeness, the way you breathe his name and arch your back into him. His cock is buried in your cunt, warm and wet and tight, walls fluttering around him, but—

His hips still against yours, and for a moment, Aerion cannot move at all, pressed against you, breath uneven at your throat, grip at your waist tight, but not with desire. He does not want to lose this. You.

You card your fingers through his hair, a slow, soothing motion that makes him ache.

“We do not have to do this,” you say quietly, and he hates that you understand. You always understand. Nobody ever understands Aerion, but you always have; with little more than a glance or a look exchanged, you’ve always understood what he wants and needs. He does not want to lose this, he thinks again desperately. He does not want to lose you. “We can just lay together, if you want.”

Aerion’s jaw tightens at your words, frustrated with himself and the situation, because he let himself get too attached to you, because he loves you and now he is going to lose you, because he doesn’t want to just lay with you, he wants you, wants this, but he cannot pull himself out of his own head long enough to even fuck you properly.

“No,” Aerion says, voice strained. “No, I want this.” 

His grip tightens at your waist, almost bruising, trying to anchor himself to you. He forces his hips to move again, slow at first, then rougher, chasing something he cannot quite reach, and it feels wrong—disconnected, like his body is moving without him.

“Fuck,” he breathes, forehead still resting on your shoulder, so frustrated that his eyes burn with tears that he can feel on the verge of spilling over. Aerion has not cried in years, and today he has twice. It is mortifying. “I just—”

He does not even know what he’s trying to say. That he’s angry? That he’s scared? That he does not know how life will be after he loses you? That he wants you to tell him that you will still be here when he returns, even if it’s a lie? 

You lift his face from your shoulder and press your lips to his again, lips moving slowly against his, coaxing him out of his own head and back into the moment. 

“Tell me something,” you say against his lips, fingers carding absently through his hair.

“Like what?” he mutters, sighing as he presses his nose against your temple, basking in your warmth, trying to settle back into the now with you beneath him, your hands in his hair, voice soft in his ear, cock buried deep inside of you. 

“Anything,” you reply unhelpfully.

Aerion exhales through his nose, and then, he inhales deeply, drowning himself in the new lavender oil you bought at the market last week. 

After a few moments, he says without thinking, “Your whore said something earlier.”

You hum. “Caelyx says a lot,” you say, amused. Aerion almost rolls his eyes when he realizes you know which one he’s talking about without him having to say anything. “What did he say this time?”

Aerion’s face is hot as he registesr exactly what he just said, remembering what it was that threw him so off kilter earlier, unsure why he even brought it up. His mouth opens, then closes again, jaw tightening because he already regrets it. You give him a curious look and he scowls.

“Something stupid,” he mutters, trying to brush it off, but your fingers tug lightly at his hair, trying to coax the answer out of him.

“Tell me.”

“That you—” Aerion cuts himself off, eyes flicking to the side until you press your fingers to his cheek and force him to look at you again. Irritation and embarrassment war within him, begging him to shut the fuck up. “That you like to take control. In ways most men are too proud to learn.”

You are silent for a long moment, and then you laugh—it is bright and pretty, and Aerion pulls back slightly to look at the way your eyes shine, and your smile splits your face. Your fingers drag through his hair as you look up at him, an adoring expression on your face that leaves him breathless.

“Gaoman raqagon bona, zaldrīzes dārilaros,” you purr, leaning up to nip his lips. “Issi jaelā naejot sylugon mēre tubis? Ivestragī nyke gūrogon toliot? Mazverdagon ao dijāves sȳz.”

I do enjoy that, dragon prince. Are you wanting to try one day? Let me take over? Make you feel good?

Aerion’s face flushes hot, and he instinctively moves to press his face into your neck again, but you do not let him, forcing him to hold your gaze. There are a dozen things he wants to say, sharp and cutting, to salvage what little pride he has left. But none of them can make it past the heat crawling up his throat.

“That is not—” he starts, then falters, scowling when your expression only grows more amused. 

“Not what?” you murmur, thumb dragging slowly along his lower lip before pressing in slightly. His lips instinctively part for you, letting you trace the inside of his mouth. “Did you imagine it, prince? Taking it? Letting me set the pace, letting me decide how deep, how slow, how hard?”

Aerion’s cock twitches inside of you, breath shuddering, letting out something between a scoff and a strained breath, grip tightening. He stares down at you with wide eyes, and you watch him raptly.

“I think you’d like it,” you continue, thumb sliding further in his mouth to press down on his tongue. He thinks to bite down just to make a point, but he finds himself too consumed by what you’re saying to even try. “Being held down, stretched open, made to take it inch by inch, fucked hard until you forget how to fight me at all—forget to think, forget to breathe.” 

Aerion chokes on nothing at the lewd words, face flaming red, pupils blown wide, breath quick and chest heaving. Something close to a whimper spills from his lips.

“You’d curse me for it at first,” you say, lips curved up, almost thoughtful, like you’re envisioning it yourself—him beneath you, back arching, jaw slack, eyes rolled back as you hold his hips. He is envisioning it too. “Try to push me off, tell me to stop—” Your lips brush his jaw, lingering there. “—and then you wouldn’t want me to, start to realize how nice it feels.”

His nails dig crescents into your skin, so deep that he’s sure he’s drawing blood. His hips twitch, but you stop him this time, legs tightening around his narrow waist to hold him still. He fights a complaint, teeth grinding together as he tries to hold himself together with the sliver of pride he has left.

“It is easy to make someone loud, you know? But I could make you feel so good you’d go quiet,” you tell him. “Turn this pretty head of yours to mush, until all you can do is lay there and take it.”

“You—”

Aerion does not even know what he wants to say, breathing ragged and heavy, cock aching in your cunt. He tries to move again instinctively, only able to grind his cock a little deeper inside of you, and it is not enough, not nearly enough. Your thumb slips from his mouth and Aerion’s head hangs forward, eyes half-lidded, a low groan escaping his lips when you roll your hips up.

“Jaelan so naejot qogralbar nyke se ñuhoso kesā jaelagon nyke naejot qogralbar ao,” you breathe, tilting the lower half of your face up to ghost your lips against his. “Sīr bona skori ao māzigon arlī, kostan gūrogon ao isse manta lēda.” 

I want you to fuck me the way you would want me to fuck you. So that when you return, I can take you apart properly.

When you return—hope flares in his chest with a vengeance, and Aerion is rutting his hips into you before you even finish the sentence, choking over a breath, one hand flying to your hair to crane your head back so he can press his lips to yours. He moans into your mouth, eyes rolling back at the feeling of your walls tight around him, drowning in the lewd sound of skin on skin, the sloppiness of his cock pounding your wet cunt. 

“Aerion—” you gasp, and he loves the sound of his name on your lips, loves it even more when you sound like this—whiny and needy, fucked out in a way you only ever get with him. Aerion will never get enough of you. He could have you forever, and it’ll never be enough. “Hah—shit—”

He grabs your thigh with his free hand and hooks your leg higher to reach deeper inside of you, bracing his knees on the mattress so that he can fuck you properly, relishing in the way you cry his name, back arching into his chest and—

—and for a second, he cannot stop himself from imagining that it’s him instead. That it’s your weight pressing on his body, your fingers pressing bruises into his thigh as you push it up to his chest, his back arched off the bed as you press deep into him, so deep that he cannot breathe, that all he can feel, all he can think is you. And—and it is wrong. Aerion is a prince, a dragon, he does not give up control to anyone like that, much less a woman, much less you, and he is angry. Angry at you for putting the image in his head, angrier at himself for wanting it.

Aerion’s hand slips down to your throat before he can think twice, pretending that it’s yours on his instead, fingers squeezing just enough to cut the air to his lungs, watching the way his face reddens as he gasps for air he cannot breathe in; he imagines the burn in his lungs as your lashes flutter and lips part, the way his head would go light and fuzzy, vision darkening at the edges.

Your hand flies to his wrist, nails digging deep into his skin, eyes rolling back with each thrust of his hips, lips wet and swollen as you try to suck in the air he deprives you. Your eyes are hazy as you stare up at him, hardly able to hold his gaze, his fingers cutting off the pretty moans of his name that he knows would be falling from your lips. 

He cannot get enough of it—he cannot get enough of you. He will not let you leave him, cannot let you leave him. But—but he cannot stop you. He cannot stop you, and you love him, but it is not enough, and Aerion should not be surprised, because when has he ever—

—Aerion does not want to think about that. He does not want to think about it at all, so he leans down to press his lips messily against yours, groaning into your mouth as your walls flutter around his cock. You barely kiss him back, too focused on trying to stay conscious; he can feel the soft, breathless whines against his lips, the ones he cannot hear from his own doing, and he chokes over a moan when he feels you writhe beneath him, jaw falling slack when one particularly rough thrust has you cumming on his cock, hips jerking and body spasming beneath him.

He squeezes his eyes shut, willing himself not to finish with you, even as his cock aches, head hot and heavy, each drag against your tight walls making his whole body shudder violently. He only lets go of your throat when your fingers start to slacken on his wrist, when he notices the way your head starts lolling back against the pillows.

“Fuck,” he groans, watching as you inhale the air greedily, imagining the rush to your lungs, the way pleasure has started to shift to overstimulation as you squirm against him, hips still slapping against your ass as he fucks you hard, chasing his own high now, abdomen tense, body hot and prickly, mind half-way gone already.

“Aerion,” you gasp, nails digging into his shoulders as you seek something to hold to, head tossed back, throat bared to him, and Aerion bites down hard, relishing in the familiar taste of iron in his mouth, the way you cry out, hips jerking as you cum a second time already.

He cums with you this time, hips stuttering when he feels your walls tighten around him again, moaning into your neck as he spills his seed deep inside of you.

He collapses against you, chest heaving as he tries to regain his breath. His eyes slide shut when he feels your fingers on his back, tracing his skin lightly as he comes down from his high. He presses his nose into your neck, ghosting his lips against your skin.

After a long moment, he lifts his face from where he’s buried it in your skin so that he can look at you. There is an expression on your face that makes Aerion’s chest tighten—too sad, too close to goodbye, like you’re memorizing something that will soon be ripped away from you.

“You could come with me,” he says, grateful that it does not come out as a plea, because it certainly feels like one. “Tomorrow morning, on the ship. Join the Second Sons with me until the Golden Company leaves Lys. Come with me to the Disputed Lands.”

Aerion knows your answer before you say it. He sees it in your eyes, and his jaw goes tight, helplessness and frustration, pride and anger eating away at him. But before he can spit out a string of vile insults, accuse you of being a liar and a traitor and a whore and whatever else spills from his lips in a desperate attempt to salvage his mangled pride, you lift your hand to his face, fingers brushing beneath his eye before you hold his cheek in the palm of your hand.

“I do not want to fight tonight, Aerion,” you tell him quietly when you see the expression on his face. 

Aerion does not care. You do not get to want anything; you do not get to ask him anything. Frustration bubbles and bubbles and bubbles, and he stares at you accusingly, angrily, because how dare you tell him this when, for all he knows, as soon as he leaves tomorrow, you’ll be on a ship with the Golden Company returning to Volantis. 

And yet, it does not spill over. He does not know whether he is the one who does not allow it, or whether he is just tired and cannot muster it. 

Aerion lets out a breath as he lowers his head to your chest, eyes sliding shut when he feels your fingers thread through his hair again, carding through the long locks gently. He sinks into your warmth, the feeling of your arms around him, legs entangled, so wrapped together that he can no longer tell where he ends and where you begin—as it should be, as it won’t be soon.

Will you be here when I return? he wants to ask desperately. Is this the last time we will be together like this?

He cannot bring himself to ask, because he’s not sure if he really wants to know the answer. 

———————

Aerion wakes to the early morning light spilling through your curtains. He lets out a soft puff of air, pressing his face into your chest before he cracks his eyes open. 

The sun only seems to be just breaching the horizon, and Aerion’s eyes slide shut again briefly when he realizes what that means. He feels your fingers still in his hair, absently twirling the ends, and his jaw tightens. 

“How long have you been awake?” he rasps, not wanting to move from where he’s laid up in your arms, but he knows it’s only a matter of time.

“I did not sleep,” you say quietly after a moment, and Aerion pauses, staring absently out to the balcony looking over the First Magister’s manse, watching the sun rise over the sea. 

For a few seconds, he does not respond. He just listens—to your breathing, to the faint sounds of the city beyond the manse, to the rhythm of your heart beneath his cheek. His fingers smooth over your forearm, sliding down your wrist to entwine his fingers with yours, the movement so instinctive that he doesn’t even realize what he’s doing until he feels your fingers tighten around his. 

“Why?” he asks finally after a minute, feeling your fingers pause in his hair before you resume the slow strokes. 

“You’re prettier with your mouth shut. I was appreciating the view without all of the snark.”

Aerion clicks his tongue harshly, but his lips curl up into a small smile despite himself. He mutters, “Miserable wench. I should have your tongue.”

He feels you huff out a laugh, and he shuts his eyes again, letting himself rest in your arms, exhaling softly when he feels your hand drift from his hair to trace idle patterns along his shoulder and back. He does not want to move. Does not want to ruin this moment. Does not want to leave when he doesn’t know if you will be here when he returns. He just wants to stay like this.

He thinks you want to, too, because your arms tighten around him, and you make a noise in the back of your throat. He feels you tilt your head down to ghost your lips against the top of his head, sighing into his hair. 

“We need to get to the harbor before the rest of the island wakes,” you finally say, voice quiet. 

Aerion wants to pretend that he doesn’t hear you, that the world outside this room does not exist and the Blackfyres aren’t a breath away, seeking his head—that it is only you and only him, as it should be, as it is meant to be—but his pride is already in tatters and he refuses to shred what little is left of it, so he pushes himself up, out of your arms. 

He hesitates at the edge of the bed, sitting there, staring into the horizon, until he feels your arms slip around his bare waist, nails scratching lightly at his abdomen, your lips on the sun-warmed skin of his shoulder, and he lets his eyes flutter shut again.

Will you still be here when I return?

“I do not have proper clothes to wear,” he says instead. “I will not wear silks to—”

“You can wear something of mine,” you interrupt, and Aerion regrets brushing you off the moment you pull your arms back and shift off the bed, wandering over to one of your chests, pulling out black leathers for him to put on. “We’re going to have to move through the alleys—I’m sure the Golden Company still has men patrolling the streets looking for you. Once you get on the ship, you’ll be fine. They won’t risk starting a conflict with another mercenary company.” 

Aerion knows all of this, and if it were any other day, he would make a snide comment about how you should put your tongue to better use than telling him something he already knows. But it is not any other day, and Aerion can only grind his teeth together as he pulls on the clothes you handed off to him.

The two of you dress in silence after that, quickly so as not to waste too much time, but slowly all the same, casting looks toward one another when the other is distracted, savoring in a sight that you will both soon be deprived of.

On opposite sides of the room, the two of you stare at each other after getting dressed. Your jaw is tight, and he’s barely keeping his breath steady. This is goodbye, he knows that, but he does not know for how long. 

A few months, maybe. 

Forever, maybe. 

His lips part to speak, but no words leave them. You exhale through your nose and reach to your bedside, grabbing the steel you’ve carried the past eight moons. You stare down at it for a minute, fingers tracing the red gems embedded in the hilt—it’s not the Valyrian steel that your friend gave to you earlier, but it’s still one of the finest blades Aerion has ever seen. 

Your grip tightens on it briefly before you make your way over to him.

“This was a gift,” you say quietly. “From the First Magister on my arrival. My father took my sword, my armor, my jewelry, and put it all back in the family vault. He allowed me only the necklace I took for myself from the ruins, and a short dagger to defend myself with. The magisters do not typically allow people who aren’t household guards or hired sellswords to carry steel, but the First Magister gave me this in hopes of making me feel more comfortable as I was not… adjusting well—” Aerion snorts, and you scowl at him, but then hold out the hilt of the blade to him. He gives you a questioning look. “We will not have time to stop by Magister Vyrano’s manse so you can grab the rest of your belongings. Take it with you. A sellsword without a sword makes for only—”

“Do not finish that sentence,” he mutters, chest tightening as he takes the blade from you. It’s light in his hands, balanced, the morning sun glittering against the rubies in its hilt. He admits, “It is a nice blade.”

You give a wry smile that does not reach your eyes. “Do not lose it, dragon prince, or I will take offense.”

Aerion would never lose something of yours, he thinks to himself, but does not say out loud because he cannot bear to admit more than he already has. He thinks you know, though, because your smile fades at the edges, expression slipping the longer you watch him.

“In my chambers in Vyrano’s manse,” Aerion says after a moment, chest tight, exhaling as he looks away, “there is a chest. A black one. It is important to me, will you—”

Aerion cuts himself off, lookin away, unsure what he’s really asking. But you nod, because you know—you always know.

“I’ll make sure nothing happens to it while you’re gone,” you say softly. 

You turn your back on him without another word, making your way to the door, and Aerion’s lips part to call after you, panic spiking hard and fast, clawing up his throat. Once you leave this room, everything will end, and Aerion does not want this to end—not now, not ever. Your hand wraps around the handle of the door, and your name is on his lips, but—

—but he closes his mouth, eyes sliding shut as he follows after you instead, unable to rid himself of the heaviness weighing on his chest.

———————

It takes less than an hour to get to the harbor. There was only one brief scare at the market where one of the Blackfyres—Haegon, the one you flirted with—was lingering, talking to a Tyroshi merchant. Aerion had half a mind to put a blade through his throat before making his way to the Second Sons’ ship, but you stopped him before he could, much to his irritation. 

He stands at the edge of the harbor now, the smell of sea thick in the air, watching as the sellswords move about the deck, preparing to set off to the Disputed Lands. The ship looms ahead of him, its shadow dwarfing the pier, and the lump in Aerion’s throat feels terribly uncomfortable.

His thumb tightens reflexively around the hilt of the blade you gave him, thumb brushing over the embedded rubies. Behind him, the city is just beginning to stir, voices carrying faintly from the square as merchants open their stalls, and the harbor children chasing one another down the docks. Life goes on, as it always does whenever Aerion feels as though his life is falling apart.

He lets out a breath, then turns to you.

For a long moment, neither of you says anything.

Up close like this, with the morning light catching in your hair, you almost don’t look real. Like something he imagined into being during those long, empty months of exile. He almost wouldn’t be surprised—Aerion is the last person who deserves to have met his other half, like in the stories and poems that Daella used to have their mother read to them, and madness always has run in Targaryen blood. 

But you are real, you are here, and perhaps it does make sense that he has met you, only to lose you. That is a just punishment, he thinks, for who he is and what he has done. His gaze drifts over your face, lingering, memorizing—the curve of your mouth, the glint of your eyes under the morning sun, the way your lips part as you let out a soft sigh.

He swallows thickly, trying to find something to say, but before he can, you say, “Māzigon arlī naejot nyke, zaldrīzes dārilaros. Konir sagon iā udrāzma.”

Return to me, dragon prince. That is an order.

But will you even be here when I return? he wants to ask, the words lodged in his throat, because he is terrified of leaving you here with your friend and the Blackfyres, where they can whisper in your ear and convince you to go along with their plan to bring you home and he will be out of sight and out of reach, too far away to convince you not to forget about him. He is terrified of returning to find you long gone. 

“Gaomā daor udrāzma nyke, quba ābra,” he says instead, grateful that his voice comes out steadier than he feels.

You do not order me, wretched woman.

Your smile lightens at his words—the curve of your lips softer, and the look in your eyes gentler than he has ever seen it, a flash of longing crossing your expression before you hide it with another quiet sigh. 

A yell from the deck of the ship signals that it is almost time for it to disembark.

“Kesi rhaenagon arlī, mēre ñuhoso iā tȳne—bona iksan gīmigon hen,” you say easily, turning on your heel to leave without so much as another lingering look in his direction. Aerion almost calls after you, but he stops himself, watching you leave with his heart in his throat. “Ēva hembar jēda, dārilaros”

We will meet again, one way or another—that, I am sure of. ‘Til next time, prince.

———————

A twig cracks in the distance, the forest swallows it before it reaches the ears of the nine men walking. Or at least partially. A blond man with a tall and lithe figure stops in his tracks to listen to it for half a second, before continuing his journey. His senses sharpen naturally, attuning to the smaller noises the woods always make. He knows them by heart, to the point where he knows when a rock on the ground is out of its place or a track freshly taken. 

The sound of the branch cracking behind them seems odd, but he does not mention it to the others. A flaw of his kin: elves believe everybody has their acute hearing and perception. If nobody picked it up, it must have been his own mind made too wary by the dread of the adventure awaiting them. After all, who would not be on their guard when undertaking such a perilous journey? The hobbits, apparently. All except Samwise, as always the cautious one — much to his credit —, who keeps on frantically looking around and motioning to Pippin and Merry to cease their trifling and be quiet. 

None of them can imagine something is following them in the shadows of the trees, not ten feet away. Someone, in reality. You hide behind a trunk and stop all movements with a grimace that says you’re cursing yourself the moment the twig cracks under the heel of your boot. You had done better discretion work. Weirdly enough, nobody turns your way and the hobbits continue to giggle merrily. You wouldn’t have thought you’d be able to follow them so long considering there was in their group an elf, a Ranger, and a wise magician. Yet, none of them seem to have spotted you. You think all the praise on elven hearing is largely undeserved if this one cannot even spot someone is following them for days now. 

You let the group walk away a bit more, putting extra caution in being as light as a feather when you walk to guarantee discretion. You had to thank your life as a Ranger for that. It had taught you to breathe steadily in all circumstances, to walk without a sound, to climb trees with ease, to survive on harsh conditions. Harsh conditions such as spying on a group of nine men, five of them being excellent fighters, without being caught. Arwen owed you for that, she really did. 

You hadn’t been able to refuse her when she fell down to her knees with a look so desperate in her eyes you wouldn’t have thought it possible for an elf to worry so much. Timeless beings did not worry over the rest of the mortal world as you did, so it had to be important. And it was. Your journey had taken you to Rivendell to seek the hospitality of Elrond on the night of the Fellowship’s departure. You were a friend of Aragorn, and because of that Arwen believed you were the only one capable to carry on with the task she had for you; and the only one she could trust with it. Moreover, you were a Ranger. She could send you off without worrying about your safety too much; you knew how to take care of yourself. 

She told you of the formation of the Fellowship, of the evil that loomed over the world with great malice; however prompting you not to voice its existence to anybody else. Nobody could know you knew, not even Elrond, not even the members of said Fellowship if you could avoid it —for your safety, she had said. You were supposed to follow them until they reached the first hills of the Misty Mountains, where it was not safe for you to go anymore. You could not possibly follow them in secret in the white peaks of the mountains. Arwen wanted you to make sure they were safe until then; to make sure Aragorn was safe. 

You had tried to reassure her at first, telling her he was accompanied by mighty warriors and risked little with his own fighting abilities. The elven princess heard only what she wanted to hear, and now you were starting to believe she had been right to an extent. If they had not spotted you yet, many more discreet evils could have been ambushing them. 

Of course, you didn’t know the elf of the party had noticed an additional presence days ago —without being able to catch it. If he really did want to catch you, he would have, but again, Legolas thought everybody knew you were here. Aragorn knew; a little bit. He knew something was odd in the forest, but was unable to name it clearly. It manifested in crunching of leaves that echoed, making it impossible to track the noise, or sometimes it was just the eerie feeling that something else was enjoying the warmth of their fire in the shadows. 

It made you laugh undercover: he should have seen you from the first day on. After all, it was Aragorn who had taught you everything you knew. You were a teenager when the Ranger found you begging for scraps of food to the mean innkeeper of a small tavern in a poor human village. The town was nastier than Esgaroth back in the days of the Battle of the Five Armies; Aragorn had visited it once a few months before the dragon Smaug burnt it to ashes. It was one of those humans slums whose inhabitants were either drunkards or bandits.

Aragorn figured it was not a place for you to dwell in, women were not fairly treated in those parts. He offered you a dirty hand, which you took with your equally dirty one, and his company until you could both reach a friendlier town and the Ranger could buy you a proper meal. How long had it been since your last meal? Weeks, it seemed. You had gotten used to eating the mud-covered stale bread you found on the street, and drinking off of animal troughs in the back of old crumbling farms here and there. Sometimes the cows and goats gave you curious company as you drank from their water and fed off their food, but they never utter a word, never betrayed your presence to their owners. 

Most of the time, animal were more compassionate than men. 

After a little while, without knowing why or how or when it happened, Aragorn could not bring himself to let you go your own way anymore. He had discovered you were nice, and funny, and curious. Above all, you were full of undeveloped potential because you had to focus on survival. He could see himself wave you goodbye and then stumbling on your corpse in the forest some weeks later. No. You were still worth something. He could make a feisty woman out of you, he knew you had it in you. At first, it had been hard being seen as a Ranger by other Rangers. Not that you crossed path much, but sometimes they would reunite and then Aragorn had to bring you there to introduce you; you needed to recognise your people if you were in need of help. They had been hesitant, but if Aragorn had taken you under his wing it couldn’t be for nothing. You didn’t hold it against them: Rangers were wild men, not orphan girls. Yet you had in you something of a wild woman, you had to for having survived in the street so long. 

Right now, it seemed Aragorn had trained you so well he was unable to catch your own presence. You had grown to be as discreet as him, though he handled you with a sword like a youngling still. You felt great looking after him in secret, like repaying him for what he had done for you. You made sure he was okay, to prove he could count on you. 

Night had set on the Fellowship’s camp for a while now, you had climbed up a tree in silence in the early hours of the night and now took a well deserved rest. The fire of the camp allowed you to not be in complete darkness, even when you had made sure you were far away enough not to be seen. You could use the sleep, the journey was restless and it impressed you the four little hobbits could keep up with it —though Aragorn and another man often carried them up the trail. You didn’t need to fear your environment, for the men you followed took turn in watching the camp at night. Always in pair of two, the elf being the only one to never switch with anybody since he didn’t need sleep. 

Legolas didn’t mind maintaining a vigil all night, he was used to it and his body was not even weary of the journey yet. He still felt all the youthful vigour of his muscles like he did the first day, and the small ration of lambas he was entitled to sufficed to keep his belly full. 

He didn’t talk much, except with Aragorn. Boromir always seemed grumpy when roused out of bed for watch, Gimli already grumbled too much about having to ‘team up with an elf‘, and Gandalf preferred the wiseness of the quiet, something Legolas had in common with the old man. Only with Aragorn could the young prince exchange words and smiles. They had known each other for years now, and the Ranger was probably one of the most resilient people he knew. 

Legolas was waiting for him to come out of his bedroll by the fire when a loud noise suddenly broke the calm of the forest. He shot up to his feet and fell into a defensive stance like second nature; one hand hovering over the arrows in his quiver and the other over the long knife strapped to his thigh. The sound echoed for a second: a loud thump, branches cracking, leaves crushing, birds flighting. Groaning, too? Yes, someone was groaning in pain not twenty feet away. 

It seemed the sound had not reached the camp as loudly as it did where Legolas stood, on the border, because he heard no sound of people coming to see what it was or bedrolls rustling. 

Right. He was going to have to deal with it on his own. It did not matter, as an elf he could approach the danger without making a single sound; unlike said danger. 

Legolas made his way towards the noise cautiously. His boots touched the floor like he was walking on cotton, his breath steadied and his heart rate slowed to something imperceptible. All his composure frayed in a curious frown when he stepped past a tree and fell face to face with a form lying rigid on the ground, at the root of a bigger trunk.

Here, splayed on her back, eyes shot wide and chest heaving up and down in a struggle, laid a woman who had visibly fell from the tree she was perched upon. Legolas’s combat stance loosened a bit at the sight, before he took the long knife out of its sheath and pointed it right her way when she made the slightest move to scramble to her feet. 

You couldn’t believe it: you fell in your sleep. You had forgotten the one important thing when sleeping in a tree, which was securing yourself to the bough with a rope. Now your whole body hurt and for a few seconds the force of the impact had kicked the breath out of you. Frankly, you could have passed out here until morning with how much your back and legs pulled with hot blinding pain; if it wasn’t for the man now threatening you with a weapon when you were in no shape for fighting. The pain worsened when you pulled yourself up with your hands to at least sit, but you bit it down and wobbled to your feet, aided with a grip on the treacherous trunk behind you. 

Your lungs felt on fire and you wondered if you had not any broken bones that would reveal themselves once the adrenaline wore off, but for now a more important matter was at hand. You were discovered, and the blond elf in front of you seemed ready to end your miserable life if you even breathed wrong. Here, in the dead of night, he seemed menacing: blue eyes glowing in the dark and fair hair floating like eerie gossamer in a halo around him. If you didn’t know better, he could have been a ghost. 

From Legolas’s point of view though, you looked nothing like the strong Ranger you really were. He had caught you in a dire position, and he was the one holding you had the end of his knife. From all that he could see, you were nothing but a lost woman. But if you were, why were you following them for days now? It didn’t make any sense, and Legolas knew better than to draw hurried conclusions. You had to be some kind of spy to be able to track them so long without being caught in plain day.

“Who are you? And what is your purpose here?“ his voice is stern and accusing. You cannot tell if it suits him in the darkness, but you imagine it does; elves are perfect by nature. 

“I do not mean any harm, I swear it!“ 

“I have rarely seen someone follow a group of humble travellers without ill intents.“ 

Of course he lies about the real nature of the Fellowship. Clever, but you can be clever too. 

“Only you are not just humble travellers, sir,“ Legolas’s grip on his knife tightens, he takes a menacing step towards you and you shoot your hands up in the air. “I am a friend of Aragorn.“

Closer, he looks even more ethereal, less of a ghost. You can make out the features of his face, the perfect pale ivory of his skin, the smoothness of his hair. There is not one strand that falls out of place, not a single wrinkle in his clothes. You know elves are this way, Arwen is the most beautiful girl you have ever laid eyes upon; yet this one feels different. The underlying storm in his eyes tells you he is less clam than his peers, more prone to the temper of wood-elves  —for his blondness tells you he is not a child of Elrond. Of course, this is something you’ve spotted days ago, but now that he is here before you, your mind runs with curiosity.

Upon hearing the name of his companion, Legolas’s demeanour shifts. Instead of becoming more friendly like you would have thought, it gets more defensive. 

“What business do you have with him?“ 

“None but peace. I am not a spy of the Dark Lord, I come from the inquiring of a dearly beloved.“

Legolas frowns. Arwen. But he has to make sure you are not lying, though he feels no ill intent coming out of you. “If you are a friend, you should be able to tell be who is Aragorn.“

Now it’s your turn to frown through the pain still stinging in your back. Is he friend enough with the man to know that? 

“A Ranger…?“ you try. 

Wrong answer. The elf takes another step to you, the blade of his long knife now inches away from your face. Not very patient for an elf, you note. 

He looks like he is about to end you without further ado, and in your panic you cave in. He better know it already. “Son of Arathorn!“ 

As the name bounces against the trees around you, his knife lowers visibly and something passes over his face. Relief. His expression shifts the tiniest bit, he points at you with his chin. 

“Hands behind your back. I am bringing you to camp.“

Okay. Not dying first, trust second. 

The camp was oddly unfamiliar as you walked in front of Legolas to its centre by the fire, even though you watched it being set up. You had not stoped for a second than already someone in the distance was walking your way. Legolas stayed behind you without a word, posture straight and perhaps closer than required. Extra caution in case you tried to escape. You would not, but Legolas didn’t know that; it was good that he was careful. 

You stared at the woods right in front of you, footsteps growing closer by the second before someone erupted out of the shadows. Not just anyone. Aragorn. 

“Legolas, where have you been? I searched for you everywhere, and-“ 

The Ranger cut himself abruptly when his eyes landed on you. A beat passed before he called out your name: half-surprised, half-pleased, but mainly unhappy. You shouldn’t be here. It was dangerous, even for you. Aragorn’s mind went through all the horrible things that could have happened to you, before settling when it hit him that you were the oddity tugging in the atmosphere lately. This was silly. You were so good he himself had not been able to place you as other than just some strange feeling in the air he couldn’t quite put his finger on, and now he was worrying about you getting endangered when they would have been the endangered ones had you been unfriendly. 

You tried a small smile, unsure. The quiet rummaging you three made dealing with an improvised reunion sufficed to stir Gandalf out of his sleep, which subsequently woke Boromir, Gimli and Sam —the hobbit had not slept on both ears since they departed from Rivendell. 

Now, you were sat on a log near the warmth of the fire, ditto for Aragorn on the other side. Gandalf stood a bit crooked at his side; the redheaded dwarf mimicked him, leaning on a walking staff he had found for himself; and the other, younger one — Boromir, you thought he had been called —, sat next to him on the log, mirrored by the single hobbit almost like his shadow, only shorter. On your side stood only the blond elf, mute. He had not said a word since Aragorn’s appearance, and when you glanced back at him from time to time, he was already looking at you, a barely-there crease between his brows that said he was turning something in that head of his.  

You whisper your name awkwardly to the four men who do not know it, hands flat in your laps to keep yourself from fidgeting. This was not how this should’ve gone. 

“She’s a friend of mine,“ Aragorn says to summarise. You were more like family, but saying it would have resulted in questions you did not want to deal with tonight. 

“Aye, what is she doin’ here without ya knowing, then?“ the dwarf asks. He has a point. 

“This, I do not know, Master Gimli.“

The answer questions you back. You sigh. 

“I have been following you on the account of Lady Arwen,“ you begin. “She…asked me to make sure you were doing okay until the first slopes of the Misty Mountains.“

Aragorn cannot help the smile that blooms on his lips. He gently shakes his head and sends you a look that says he trusts you. 

“She tells the truth,“ he says. With that, the atmosphere seems to shift to something less tense, more welcoming for you. 

In a way, it makes you proud that five grown men could have been on their guard in front of a single woman like you; it often only happened when you knocked one of them down on the ground. 

“You can stay the night,“ he continues. “By the first light of day we will resume our journey, and you will turn back to Rivendell.“

You swallow thickly. “I am not, Aragorn. I’ve put great thought into it: I want to join you on your journey.“ 

The words land right in the fire and it strengthens a little bit with a small blow of the wind. You are allowed one quick breath before the answer is imposed upon you. 

“Absolutely not.“ 

Aragorn’s mouth doesn’t move, and the voice doesn’t belong to him. Behind you, the especially quiet elf spoke up for the first time in what feels like an hour. Every gaze in the camp turns to him. Legolas suddenly feels very self conscious. He doesn’t even know why he refused so categorically, why the idea of your presence around him everyday felt… dangerous. Not threatening but dangerous. He could see the unguarded affection Aragorn had for you in his eyes, and decipher the smirk forming on Boromir’s lips at your feistiness. The prince couldn’t name the weight in his chest, but he could feel it and it was enough. 

You were not coming. For his sake, you had to. 

“Legolas, I think she made up her mind already,“ Gandalf gently says. Legolas could hear the wiseness in his words; how could he ever reasonably argue with a wise one? “The Fellowship doesn’t have to be restricted to nine people only; we could use with another addition. She has proven to be very discreet, I think you would not even notice her presence among us.“

Everybody agrees with the old man; Aragorn nods solemnly; Gimli makes an approving sound from the back of his throat; Sam seems more wary but agrees anyway; and Boromir looks right at you like he trusts you already. Gandalf had never been more wrong: it would be impossible for Legolas not to notice you. You lingered already and he only met you an hour ago. 

Now it was worse, because you were officially a member of the Fellowship and had proposed to take the last night watch round with Legolas to make up for your trouble. He had to spend the hours before morning with you in the dark, just after having threatened you perhaps more than necessary and blatantly refused your presence. He had to make up for it. You were not responsible of the foolish way his mind acted around you. Boromir could look at you all he wanted, why did he care? 

Legolas joined you on a log by the fire after everyone returned to sleep the last hours of the night away. He figured the rest of the night would be calm, he could let his careful scouting of the surroundings down for a bit. You were looking in front of you past the fire when he sat down, watching out for the darkness beyond the borders of your small camp. 

There were more important things to look at, but the glow the fire casted on your face distracted Legolas from them far too easily. Shadows curled daintily under the angles of your face, emphasising them. You felt him stare, yet said nothing. 

Curious for an elf, to be so unguarded. Was he an oddity amongst his peers or were you discovering the blunt pride of some of them could bleed into their other emotions? He doesn’t let you think this through long enough. 

“I apologise for having threatened you. And for not seeing right away the trust Aragorn has in you must be fair.“

The sound of his voice is more gentle now, basked in the warmth of the flames as if they serve to loosen the strain in his throat. It takes you off guard at first. You do not rush a reply as you turn your head towards him, inspecting his features as he does you. You had not had the chance to see him this close, with his presence almost seeping into yours because your knees graze. None of you move away, you pretend not to notice it. 

In your quiet observation, he seems even more ethereal than back in the forest, emerging from the darkness. He looks different, more like the being of light he was supposed to be: sharp jaw and aquiline nose cast like bronze in a perfect lost-wax mould. You had seen the process once in a forge the blacksmith had been kind enough to let you stay the night in; he was about your age, but a clever apprentice who already knew his master would be far too drunk to realise he had let anyone in without authorisation. 

“Legolas, yes?“ you test the sound of his name on your lips. It ripples just the right way in his stomach. He nods. “Do not apologise for being on your guards. I would rather you’d react like this than the other way around, I can hardly blame you.“

It tears a smile out of him. You do not hold any grudge towards him and it’s a relief. Legolas has the strange wish of doing right by you, of showing you he can keep the group safe. He thinks of all the times he had not been attentive enough when you were following them and about how you must have laughed at him. 

“I must tell you, I feel I am bound to trust you fully by the end of the night.“

His tone has a playful edge to it, you remember he must be your age in elven years. “You flatter me!“ you laugh softly. 

“I wish it was the case.“

Deep in the marrow of his bones, the elf-prince feels the insatiable feeling of you settling. Your presence, your laugh, your good graces; he wants all of it. One thing about Legolas is that he never quits. 

It takes weeks before you finally reach the Misty Mountains. Your journey finds itself delayed by several events, much of which are a pain to deal with. The bright side of things is that it allows you plenty of time to get to know your new companions. 

The hobbits quickly take a liking to you: Merry and Pippin make it their lives mission to make you laugh and Sam to grouch after them under the amused eye of Frodo. Gimli, as always, doesn’t bother having you around as long as you are not an elf; and Gandalf often offers you wise words you keep in mind for later. Those are your companions. The others, however, are your friends in the Fellowship. 

It is great sharing a path with Aragorn again. Nostalgia hurts less around him. It reminds you of a time in your life where everything seemed bright because he made things better. You talk for hours without an end during night watches, entertain yourselves with each other’s company in the day. When battle comes your way — much more than you want it to because you had hoped for a journey under the spell of discretion —, old habits die hard. You find yourself looking out for him again, just like you did back then. In the aftermath, you silently check up on him, scolding on the account of Arwen when he gets a little too reckless. 

With Boromir, it feels like you have known each other for years. It is so easy laughing with him, talking about things as small as the weather, teasing the hobbits together. Liking him feels like second nature, like a friend you were always supposed to have. Boromir is the cheer in your mood, the soft man by the fire who sometimes tells you about his brother. He tells you you would like Faramir better than him, and you tease saying you already do, though it is not true. 

However, there is one last man in the Fellowship and you do not know where you stand with him. Legolas is everything all at once and nothing all the same. He gravitates around you like a magnet, yet you can count the times you talk on the fingers of your hands. With him, things are different in the most obvious way. They are different because he observes you all the time; you can feel your skin prickling under his gaze, and when you turn around he is already looking at you. 

Legolas hovers near you after every battle, silently hoping you would come to him. Each time you deflect and turn to Aragorn, he feels his blood boil uncontrollably. And yet he tries. He picks up every mushroom and berry on the side of the road to offer them to you; often without a word, sometimes explaining how to recognise them in nature. He feeds you to your heart’s content, so much that you can never complain of an empty belly. Legolas makes sure you are always sat close to the fire, he smiles at you when your eyes cross and lets you sleep even when you should scout with him. 

The elf-prince doesn’t know why he acts this way, he looks out for you like instinct. He covets like instinct too. His heart squeezes of its own will when he sees you so close to the others. You laugh with Boromir, scold Aragorn, but shy away with him.

He fears you dislike him.

After all, why would you be so agreeable with Boromir and not with him? Has Boromir done half the things Legolas does for you in silence? Does he know your eyes glint in the moonlight? or the scrunch of your nose when Sam cooks somethings that smells delicious? or that you need to cling to something when you sleep? 

Why is it that you worry constantly for Aragorn but never for him? Legolas hates that it messes with his mind so much, that you threaten his composure. He hates that you like everyone but him, that you talk freely but become mute once the prince approaches you. It’s sheer torture to the dejected elf; he who asks nothing more than to know the tune of your laughter, the memories of your past. 

Legolas refuses to name it because he fears to make it true, but everyone else has noticed the way he acts with you. All of his friends can pinpoint the exact moment he boils with wicked feelings that belie his elven nature. Gimli even makes a great sport of counting the times he can catch him staring at you from afar, eyes soft until they land on either Boromir or Aragorn. Then they turn into a glare that the dwarf cannot qualify as anything else than jealousy. The princeling is jealous. And he lets him know. 

“Not tired of ragin’ in ya corner, princeling?“ his booming voice does little to keep their conversation discreet. Legolas grimaces at how obvious his friend is being, but also because he has been discovered. “I do not know what is it you talk of.“

“Sure ye do! Can’t stop giving the lassie heart-eyes for a minute, can you?“

“I am not-“ he goes to reply before deciding against it. There is no use denying the obvious. Legolas sighs. “Do you think she dislikes me?“

At the question, Gimli laughs so hard you end up glancing at Legolas quizzically from where you stand. He dismisses it with an embarrassed wave of the hand before frowning at his companion who lands a harsh slap on his back. The strength of it makes Legolas stumble forward a little. Now the annoyance is visible on his perfect features. 

“You’re still young, lass!“ are Gimli’s final wise words to his friend. They only serve to leave Legolas as confused as ever. 

What does he mean ‘still young‘? He’s two thousand years old! 

That night, after having assured Legolas you didn’t need more sleep and could keep watch with him without problem, things unfolded just as every other night. Until you heard featherlight footsteps behind you and a body sitting down next to you second later. You watched Legolas’s elegant frame fold down to your height, his back lean against the tree. If you closed your eyes hard enough, maybe you would be able to imagine the muscles under here rolling with every move he made. 

Bad thoughts. You needed to get a grip. 

“Endless night, uh?“ his voice drawls in the intimacy of the late hours. 

Thing is, you could never get a grip with Legolas. His very presence triggered your alarms, sent goosebumps along your arms. He stepped close enough and your stomach twisted in the same way it did amidst battle. You wanted to befriend him, you really did, but every time he talked to you your words got lost in your throat; you wanted him to like you so much it got you mute. What if you looked silly? You could never rival with all the high society he was accustomed to, you were no elf, just a mere Ranger. 

It didn’t help that he was as breathtaking as only an immortal man could hope to be. You hum in reply, fearing you’ll make a fool out of yourself if you draw a single syllable. Instead, it’s Legolas who feels a fool for talking to you. Perhaps you really do not want to talk to him… It’s not the first time you lock back into your shell at the sight of him; it makes the elven prince slightly depressed. 

“I uh… am I bothering you?“ he asks without looking at you this time. 

The thought makes you feel remorseful immediately. 

“No, not at all! It’s just… Well, you’ll find it silly, really.“

“What if I promise I won’t?“

You breathe in. “I don’t know how to talk to you,“ it almost comes out as a whisper. There is naught for a moment but your hammering heart, and then the quiet is broken by the sound of Legolas’s laughter. “See, you think it is dumb.“

“I don’t, I don’t! I’m sorry it’s just– I thought I was the one who did not know how to talk to you.“

You hadn’t even thought about it. For him to be in the same anguish as you! Now you both look like fools as you observe each other in the dark, and the smile you crack widens his. 

“How about we both try, then?“

After this, things between you are ten times more obvious for the members of the Fellowship. Legolas lives not five feet away from you at all times, his gifts of food multiply, and now you even talk endlessly on the road. Along with it, the wicked feeling in his chest when you let Boromir make you laugh or when you check on Aragorn increases. You are not just a woman he roots for now, you are the one he desperately searches to please and impress. 

Whatever Boromir tells you, Legolas swears he could have thought about it way before him; and all the scratches Aragorn brings, the prince avoids. He can be greater in battle, funnier, more interesting. He can learn the answer to every single one of your questions just so you won’t ask anyone else. He knows he has no right over you, but it’s stronger than him. 

Legolas cannot control the glare he sends, almost murderous, whenever he sees Boromir monopolising your attention, nor the cold shoulder he shows Aragorn when he is the one you run to after battle. Legolas can show off his skills and tricks all he wants, it’s like you are blind to them and never look at him amidst battle. If only you would just look at him. Except you do look at him — all the time — you are just more subtle than he is.  

Legolas sees nothing and all companions alike have to deal with his newfound temper, with his jealousy. Boromir most of all, is the target of almost every killing glare. He is young and he is handsome, and the prince fears you like him better. From the other side of the camp, Legolas sends dirty, half-concealed looks to the son of the steward of Gondor; which makes him utterly self-conscious. 

“Aragorn, why is Legolas looking at me like that?“ he finally asks his friend one day, trying to escape the death glares he gets. Legolas is being unreasonable, he knows it himself. 

“I think it’s because you said her braids were lovely,“ Aragorn points at you with his chin. In the distance, you talk with Gandalf, carefully woven hairstyle adorning your head.

“What? because of this?“

“Yes, he did the same to me yesterday when she taught me how to make a flower crown for Arwen.“

The steward’s son snorts and shakes his head in disbelief. “I do not mind jealousy, but this is not justified.“

“At this length, even Pippin will soon notice something is up with him.“ 

“Of course he will, the kid has eyes everywhere…“ it tears a smile from Aragorn. Boromir continues. “The princeling wants to play jealous elven boyfriend with a woman he cannot even look at without blushing? I will give him something to be jealous of.“

It doesn’t fail.

Legolas feels even more blind resentment towards Boromir as days pass. It’s like the man means to make him jealous, to build up the envy coiling in his stomach. It’s purposeful, the prince knows it perfectly by the way the steward’s son looks right at him every time he talks with you. But he does not only talk with you: he gets more physical. A hand on your shoulder, a feet grazing yours when you sit, a reach for a wild strand of hair falling across your face: everything is good to make Legolas fume. Boromir knows it and he takes great delight in seeing his usually composed companion struggle to hide away the feelings he has for you. Honestly, it’s as fun as a game of cards for him. Legolas says nothings, he seethes in his corner and glares like a madman until he gets the chance to have you back at his side. 

Boromir wonders how long the prince will let this unfold. How much more flirting can he take before he bursts? After all, elves are not known for their nonchalance in matters of the heart, far from it. Everyone knows their friend’s behaviour is far from usual, except you. Of course, you have not known Legolas different than this: from the moment he met you he felt the irrepressible yearning of a man who has his heart’s other half at arms’ length, but cannot reach for it. 

The more Boromir taunts him, the more he fails to keep his temper a secret. Up the snowy trail of the Misty Mountains, he has you as close as he can while still being correct. Down in front of the hidden door of the Moria, while waiting for Gandalf to solve the entrance’s riddle, Legolas still hovers close to you. 

You see him pacing awkwardly a few feet from where you stand, and for once no one else pays as much attention to you. Aragorn and Boromir are busy with the hobbits, Gimli looks at them from afar, and you are alone at last. 

You give Legolas a side glance, inviting him to your space once your eyes cross. He doesn’t waste a second in stepping towards you. Soon enough, his back leans against the same cold stone as you. The ground beneath you crunches under the sole of his boots, the air feels humid and rancid, it bullies your lungs at every breath you take. The heat of the elf’s body next to you smudges onto yours —the only heat that remains behind the frost of the Caradhras. 

It seems the chilly wind has frozen your bones and the blood inside your system; even moving a finger is great torture. In your shoes, your toes are so numb it would be painless to chop them off. Your nostrils hurt like breathing underwater each time you inhale. You wonder if the pain will ever pass. They say you can stay with your limbs frozen by the cold for days before it settles; never had you known such harsh conditions. You were a Ranger of plains and forests, of hilltops at best, not one of summits and caves. 

Next to you, Legolas looks as vigorous as always. It’s like the weather is of no importance to him, like the cold avoids him on purpose because timeless beings do not deserve to suffer from climate as mortals do. His cheeks are only coated by a light haze of red, and in his hair you can still make out clinging snowflakes ornamenting his locks. 

Proof from his undisturbed state is the warmth of his body. He is not even touching you and yet you can feel him burning like his own sun. Or at least it seems like it against your frozen cold frame. The duality makes you huff a laugh you regret as soon as it scratches your throat painfully. The smile on your face contorts in a wince, and Legolas is quick to lean forward, bracing his weight on his bended knees to better look at you. 

“Is everything alright?“ he asks while you lose your voice in a dry cough.

“Yes, it’s–“ another cough. “The air,“ you gesture vaguely around yourself to prove your point. 

“Is it the cold?“ 

You nod, unwilling to speak again. 

“Here,“ Legolas unclasps the fibula at his neck, and in a second his heavy cape drapes around you like a shield. 

The cloak keeps out every blowing of the wind. It basks you in a heat you have come to forget with time: the warmth of another body. The cape still holds Legolas’s, and his scent. The smell creeps up your nose steadily, soothes the burning when you snuffle. 

You look at the elf-prince, incredulous, and open your mouth to begin a thanks. “No need, I will do just as good without it,“ he cuts. 

For a moment, you just look at each other with smiles that can be described as none other than dumb. Legolas reaches behind you for the hood of the cloak, which he pulls to your head, and it just becomes worse. The cold is the least of your worries, you feel you could snuggle at his side wrapped like a moth in its papery cocoon. Instead, you just shift your foot to touch his and it nearly equals burning up in flames. 

In Legolas’s mind, it’s a war not to take a look at Boromir and hope to see his crestfallen expressions while his own swells with swaggering pride. Childish, but the prince feels like a teenage boy hitting puberty with all that unreserved spite. 

He looks at the spot your bodies connect for a few seconds, before delicate fingers wrap around your ankle and lifts it up to lay it down on his leg. Unable to do anything else than let him angle you as he pleases, you just stare at the elf in disbelief, watching the way his brows crease in concentration when he unties your boot and eases it off your foot. Through your woollen socks, you can feel the weight of Legolas’s fingers as he presses them right on every painful spot. It’s like the palm of his hands that grazes the slope of your foot can pinpoint them, like he knows exactly which way your body hurts and how to make it better. 

The pressure is both delicious and soothing. It alleviates the soreness of your muscles, the stiffness in your tendons. Without thinking about it, your head lolls back against the stone and your whole body relaxes. You feel yourself sink in the ground: your leg stretch in his lap, your lips half-open to let out a shaky breath. 

Through content, lidded eyes, you see him smile softly and chuckle; you mimic the pull of his lips by instinct and push your foot in his hand to coax him into the massage. It’s like his fingers lace a magic thread around your toes, for you feel them move again. 

“Funny feeling?“ Legolas asks with a quick glance. 

“You are a wizard with your hands, it can’t be any other wa–!“ the rest of the sentence goes lost in a deep groan, almost a moan that cracks towards the end, as he pops an especially tight knot in the flat of your foot. 

Legolas’s stomach twists at the sound, worse when you shot a hand to his shoulder to stabilise yourself. Your fingers dig in the fabric of his tunic until your knuckles turn white, he can see yours toes curl despite the thickness of your sock. 

Now that’s a bad thought to have. How else can he make you go all stiff and breathy, how much whiter can your knuckles turn, how much harder can you grip at his shoulders? Would your legs fit upon them? 

He casts the idea away and rolls his thumbs where he pressed seconds before to soften the remaining pain. 

“Better?“ now there is a slight edge to his voice, a danger you itch to plunge into. 

Your fingers loosen their hold on his vest, they extend to reach his gossamer hair until you can easily slip them in between each digit. Slowly, you wrap some around your index before releasing your prey and repeating the process. Legolas observes as you play with his hair, inches away from the vibrating pulse in his neck. If you so much as graze it, you would feel how ready it is to come out of his chest. 

“Infinitely.“

You both go quiet as he eases the last bits of tender flesh he finds, eyes sometimes boring into yours when your breath so much as hitches. His elven magic must play a part in this, though you do not know how. It is of no importance as long as you can wiggle your toes again and feel Legolas’s deft fingers creep as high as your shin, as if he were slick. 

You tighten the cloak around your neck and it stays yours all throughout the Moria. It is safely wrapped around you when you step in and escape the aquatic monster, when you defeat the cave troll, and even when you cross the bridge away from the Balrog: a hair’s breadth from meeting Gandalf’s fate as you fight against a strong pair of arms which ultimately leads you out of the mine.  

Out in the sun again, you do not collapse on the ground like the others. You do not cry, you do not look back. You only stand here paralysed, death replaying again and again in your mind. Death so quick it feels fake, leaving you so unprepared. Death like a rattlesnake, following you around as its noise gets louder the closer you think you are to safety. Death beautiful for the fear it casts upon you mortals, for the pain it achieves to give those like the elves. 

The walk to Lothlorien is long, yet quiet. Nobody speaks much, only Boromir lightens up your mood with small talk. It doesn’t matter if you talk of things as trivial as the weather, as long as you talk the darkness away. You talk to make sure you don’t have time to find a missing piece to the Fellowship, to never stop and ask yourselves where do you go now. 

But in the back of the group, there is a pair of eyes that never leave you. When you turn to them, it’s not you they look at but your companion, and Legolas seems so far away in his thoughts he might be unreachable. His steps are less concealed, his focus less sharp, like he sees only a tunnel bordered by darkness and leading to the scene playing before him. 

It quickly becomes awkward, and it stays that way until Lothlorien. There, the elves sing obituaries you do not understand. They invite you in for a while, to eat and rest as much as you should. But to you and the rest of the Fellowship, separating after having spent so much time together feels weird. You find yourselves always in the same room as another, never alone with yourselves. 

As a matter of fact, it is Boromir you stay with in one of the communal areas, though deserted by everyone else. You carefully tend to a wound of his he got while escaping the Moria. With as much precision as you can, your fingers assess the extent of the problem. You begin motion to stand up and search for a basin of clean water when movement catches the corner of your eye. By the doorway, standing at the threshold and looking at you with something in his eyes far from composure, is Legolas. 

The elf-prince’s gaze switches from you to Boromir, from Boromir to you, and then to his wound and how awfully close it is from your fingers. He feels his blood loop in his veins at the idea, and takes a step forwards without thinking this through. Then another. And another. Until he stands in front of you both, sitting on the edge of a carved in bench. 

You try to give him a reassuring smile, but Legolas ignores you altogether. Or rather he does not see you. His gaze is fixated on the steward’s son, frown evident on his usually perfect face. You frown too: there is something obviously strange in his attitude, a tension in his shoulders. 

“I think she needs rest, Boromir,“ he eventually speaks. “You can seek for Lothlorien’s healers, they are the best in all the elven realms.“ 

“Thank you Legolas, but I will stick with this one.“

The twinkle in Boromir’s eyes and the sharp wit of his cunning smile pushes all of the prince’s buttons. The wrong ones. They drag out his impatience, his pride, his jealousy.  

“She is quite skilled, you know?“ 

Legolas clenches his jaw so hard it shows. “I know. And skills come with rest. The healers are waiting for you, I called for them on your behalf.“ 

He lies. It is so evident he lies Boromir does not know what to do of it for a second. His reply hangs without falling for a while too much, so does the glare the two men send each other. But on Boromir’s side of the coin, he only rejoices in seeing Legolas so unabashed —so human. Jealous and yearning: those are traits unfit for an elf, yet they are the prince of the Woodland realm’s. 

“Sorry, Miss,“ Boromir bows lightly as he stands to his feet. “It seems the princeling here really hates to see me taken care of.“

He steps away from you and past Legolas, so close their shoulders bump and the prince’s elven ears catch something in the breeze following the Gondorian.

“Thief,“ Boromir whispers with a smirk. 

It makes Legolas burn and his inside knot in shame and anger. The feeling quiets when he closes his eyes, breathes in and opens them to you. Still here and still free to be his. Though this time he knows if he keeps on cowering, someone will take actions before him. 

Legolas steps to you, but you raise to your feet the moment he does so. For a second, he thinks you will leave. You look like you will. Instead, you voice your obvious annoyance. It is not the first time you catch the prince drive away whoever is talking to you. In other circumstances, it would be sweet that he seeks for you so much, but not here. Not when you face death everyday and find your only comfort in your friends. You do not need to suffer the emotions he cannot keep in check. 

“That’s enough, Legolas. I am growing tired of whatever this is.“

His breath catches in his throat. Legolas feels his heart stop once and his eyes slowly widen in surprise. “Excuse me?“

“Don’t pretend you don’t know. I am not a servant in your Halls appointed to your side.“

“Far from me is the idea of thinking of you as one,“ the calmness in his tone infuriates you. He who seemed so distressed a mere minute ago.

“The idea may be far, but the actions are not,“ the rest of your sentence comes after a moment of silence, as if you weight it in your mind. “Maybe we shouldn’t talk anymore, if you cannot see me befriend others.“

A punch in the guts. 

It makes Legolas dizzy, turns his thoughts into a blurred mess, but he lets nothing be known of it. His mask of composure slips on again, just as it does whenever you make him nervous. Elven court had taught him that the greatest defence of his soul was clam, wiseness. Even if the situation did not call for it; even if his heart throbbed with conflictual emotions. 

“We are in a fellowship together, it would be unreasonable,“ the flat tone of his voice emphasises your building anger. He talks like you are the one to blame, like you’re acting hysterical. 

“Me, unreasonable? You are the one who is acting irrational here, Legolas!“

“I know, and I wish I could help it.“

“I thought elven self-control was remarkable,“ you scorn, not having it in you to be the sensible one. 

“It is,“ he replies. “Usually.“

“What makes you so different?“ 

“You.“

Another punch in the guts. Aimed at you, this time. 

He looks at you like someone whose thousand of years on earth have taught him words can be fruitless in the face of a devout pair of eyes. Words are meaningless and empty when rivalled with the way he looks at you: deep, sapphire blue. He says ‘you‘ with his eyes in all the languages of the world, with the force of a man who has been ripped from his common sense the moment he met you. 

“Wh-what does that mean?“ 

He wishes his intensity could scare you away; he deserves only this for the way he has been acting. But Legolas swears you lean forwards. An instinct of your body rather than your mind. It snaps his restrain, cracks his perfectly carved out facade.

“It means I wish I knew how to stop but I cannot stand here unwavering when Boromir courts you so blatantly. Or watch you make sure Aragorn is alright after battle without being envious.“

There. He said it. You have the right to know. You should know. 

In your eyes, the tempest softens. The frown you wear is no longer accusing. Perhaps you should condemn his jealousy, perhaps you should tell him it is no problem of yours, but it is impossible. Your hand lifts in the space between you without thinking about it, you stare at his cheek for a second before deciding against it. Somehow, it freezes the elf before you even more when your palm goes to rest on his chest, right above his heart. 

Beneath the fabric of his clothes and the tender flesh and muscles of his body, you feel the steady hammering of it. Too fast to be casual. Matching yours without knowing.   

“Legolas…“ you murmur as your eyes lift to his. “I do not look out for you as much because you never get hurt. Your elven abilities are so sharp it would be looking down at them to doubt you can protect yourself better than others. I am not doing it out of spite, I am doing it because I trust you,“ you do not let him the time to speak back. “You are the only one I can lean onto. It’s a relief having someone I do not need to look out for, but it does not mean I don’t care for you. Far from it.“

There is a shift at your waist. A steady warmth settles here, it pulls you a step closer to him. Dangerous. Innocent. 

“What about Boromir?“ his voice is as low as a whisper, sheepish like he knows he shouldn’t push the subject. It’s stronger than him. 

“What about him?“

“He courts you,“ Legolas states, like it is flagrant.  

“I do not think he does, he acts just as you do.“

“That is the problem,“ your mouth opens but no sound comes out of it. “Would you let him court you?“

Legolas hates that you seem to think about it. He hates that your response is not immediate and in the negative. He resents that he even has to ask, that he is not confident enough to just know you won’t. 

“I do not know. Why would it be a concern of yours?“

The answer comes out hurried. You could vanish if he waits too long. You could end up in another’s arms, and Legolas would have had the chance to tell you nothing. He would sail to Valinor or die with unrequited feelings that know only one way out. And it’s you. “Because I am afraid you would. And if you do it means you cannot be mine after all of this is over.“

Time stills. None of you speak. The shift of your hand from his chest to his cheek is slow, agonisingly so. With half a mind to the external world, Legolas leans into your touch. Your pinky strokes the underside of his jaw, you see the prominent slope of his throat bob as he swallows. 

“You are willing to wait until our mission is over?“ 

“I am.“

At that point, it’s a whisper to the wind. The space between you closes, slowly, unhurried. You lean until your noses brush, and every time he breathes it’s into your mouth.

“But human patience is not as great as yours, my prince,“ your lips graze when you speak. It’s already a kiss but you know you both need more. Legolas’s pulse jolts under your fingertips in his neck, and it’s not for the mere ghost of your mouth: it’s for you whole. He is not satisfied until your jaws hang slack to welcome the other against your mouth. He wraps his lips around yours in barely concealed hunger, nibbles at them softly when he feels you melt in his hold. 

His hands slip from your waist to the small of your back to bring you closer. You let your chests collide. Legolas pushes you impossibly close, like he wants to absorb you, to watch you dissolve in him like a body his same size.

Your fingers crawl up his nape, twist the golden hair here and massage his scalp until he gets breathier into your mouth. 

In the distance, the elves have stopped their singing. You fist at Legolas’s tunic with your other hand, still clinging when you pull away to catch your breath, pulling his bottom lip between your teeth in the process. Your ragged breath calms after a little while where you stare only in his eyes, the blue of them swallowed almost whole by the width of his pupil. 

You can see your distorted reflection in them: flushed and out of breath, bordering the little orphan you once were. You came a long way from here, and the road before you still has no end.

Legolas cups your cheek lovingly, leans to rest his forehead against yours. You watch his lids close in awe, marvel at the disheveled state of his hair now that you ruffled them. It is such a rare sight to see: an elven prince made wild by a woman.

His breath hits against your face when he speaks, barely above a sigh. 

“You were not made for mortal hands,“ he says, referring to your Gondorian friend. Indeed, you have yet to address his jealousy. It seems you take joy in toying with him; he deserves it a little. 

“Neither were you,“ you point out.

“You are mistaken. I was carved to the exact pattern of your palm, and my lips to fit the hollow space between your knuckles.“

To prove his point, he lifts your hand up to his level and places soft, lingering kisses to your scraped knuckles: fighting does not spare them. It is so odd that you should be the one an immortal prince chooses to bestow his affection upon; you, a mortal. You, an orphan made Ranger. You, wild against his calm, roughed where he is smooth. 

“Then stops doubting the Valar made me to fit you back.“

It is a promise that needs not to be said as one. You seal it with your lips melting back against his, this time with a newfound strength as you pull him down to you by the collar. 

In Legolas’s stomach, the rot turns to spring and he feels no longer consumed by ugliness. Flowers bloom in his chest where you rest your palms, all the other men of the world are forgotten, and you taste like the path to righteousness. Caring is not keeping you for himself selfishly, the elf-prince knows it now, but by rights if he will not marry you when all this is over.

This is dumb. It really is, you don’t even know why you worry about this. You’re not a teenager anymore, an adult woman shouldn’t care about such trifling things. It was just a joke your friends had uttered, something innocent, said on the cusp of drunkenness. Elvish wine frayed the usual composed attitude of its drinkers, allowed them to be less wise, more frivolous. It was something quite common amongst younger elves such as you were; customs did not prevent you from having fun from times to times. 

It was just a joke, yet it lingered in your mind still by morning-come. You groaned in your bed, annoyed, and shut yours lids as tightly as you could, until coloured dots clouded your vision. It was supposed to be a fun night —a girls’ night, as you had learnt it was called in human kingdoms, instead it had left you confused over something you never thought of. 

You liked drinking wine with your friends because it allowed you less reserve on intimate matters, you could laugh more easily, talk about taboo things without it being embarrassing. You hated wine because it twisted words together without link while still managing for your mind to give them a sense. A made up sense, needless to say. 

Tayrn’s room was dimly lit, candles burned in the corners, the wax beginning to reach its end given how long you had spent here. There was an easy atmosphere about the room, filled with laughers and knowing smiles, though the bottles of wine sitting on the bedside table were mainly responsible of it. Their content still burned your throat slightly, a delicious taste of berries and fruits you were growing too fond of tonight. The colour draped the seam of yours lips, a bruising purple that also coated the flat of your tongue. 

On the large bed in the centre of the room, sat down or sprawled across the green silk covers, were a group of five girls; all idly murmuring secrets in the dead of night. 

Lying on your side, your fingers deftly braided in your friend’s hair, although not as efficiently as you normally would. A comfortable haze dizzied your mind a little, made your vision swim each time you turned your head too swiftly. The hem of your gown had raked up until the high of your knees, and the plunge of your cleavage revealed more skin than average. None of you cared about the state you were all in, for all that mattered, you could have been naked in front of each other and it wouldn’t have made a lot of difference. 

Upon looking at you, one would have spotted the pleased twinkle in your eyes in an instant. This distinct glimmer characteristic of the effects of liquor. Now, you had came down from the fit of laughter one of the girls had thrown you in earlier, and you were listening to Neve and Tihala whisper about things you did not quite catch, too busy weaving Alwyn’s hair. However, the subject of their discussion seemed quite entertaining, for they kept on stifling chuckles and swatting each other’s arm. 

A flicker of affection passed in your eyes. Perhaps there was something going on between these two…  

“What are you whispering about? It seems fun,“ Tayrn’s voice rises, an underline of confidence about it and a smirk on her lips. 

Her gaze crosses yours and you smile too, a bit delirious. Neve and Tihala look at each other, it seems the latter bats pleading eyes for her friend not to reveal too much. It is fruitless, Neve had always been one for a little gossip, and even more if it was harmless to divulge it. 

“Tihala was just telling me how her first kiss had been Leigh,“ she says with a devilish smirk. She knows Tihala is such a good sport she won’t hold her too accountable for embarrassing her; it’s just a memory of her youth, after all. 

“This brute of a guard?“ it seems the conversation roused Alwyn from her beauty sleep. 

“We were only three hundred years old!“ the culprit tries to defend herself. In vain, for soon enough you all end up laughing hysterically and she cannot help but join too. 

“Was he as insufferable as a child?“ you manage to ask through deep breaths to calm yourself down. 

Tihala is now as red as the volcano on top of Mount Doom, and she shakes her head frantically as an answer. When she looks away to feign vexation, Neve drapes her arm around her shoulders to bring her into her chest, amused smile on her lips. The two of them jest, but Tayrn keeps sending you knowing looks to which you can only agree. Had it been only the two of them, the two elves would have kissed. 

Alwyn speaks again through the dying laughing fit, lazy grin adorning her face and eyes still closed. You keep on braiding her hair meticulously with patterns of friendship. 

“You are one to laugh Neve, I do remember your first kiss being Olweiin. The elf was so stressed he threw up all his liquor right after.“ 

Another fit of laughter rings against the walls of the room; it is possible you can be heard laughing all the way to the men’s quarters. You have to pause and catch your breath multiple times, given how hilarious the information is to you. The corners of your eyes wrinkle with joy, the alcohol spins in your head and makes everything more merry than it should be. It is good to be here, with this fuzzy warmth that spreads from your chest to your belly. 

Neve’s pale carnation has turned a deep shade of dusty red and she averts her gaze from the four of you as best as she can, arms crossed against her chest like it’s a shield against embarrassment. 

“My first kiss was a girl, but I don’t remember her much, we were only younglings and she went for the Grey Havens when orcs multiplied across the country,“ Alwyn continues. It serves to tame the giggling. 

“Mine was Gwingon, and we are still partners to this day, so I don’t have a lot of fun stories to share, I’m afraid,“ now it’s Tayrn’s turn to share her experience. 

Neve rolls her eyes playfully at the mention of the elf —everybody knows she does not like him much. “A late bloomer you are,“ she teases. 

“Not really, we have been together for centuries now.“ 

The information lands easily about the room and a quiet settles. It’s comfortable at first, while you still busy yourself with your friend’s hair, but then you soon feel it is becoming overwhelming. Someone coughs from the back of her throat, another stifles a giggle, one whistles to fill the quiet. It all makes it worse. The impromptu noises emphasise the silence and the gaps in the atmosphere. The wind outside hitting against the window is more chilling than it should be in the warmth of the interior. 

In the back of your neck, your skin starts to prickle and burn as if little needles pointed at it. You feel your stomach twitch and twist at the feeling, it tries to warn you of something you are still unaware of. Gingerly, you lift your gaze from the head of hair they are fixed upon, only to be met by four pair of eyes staring at you. The smile on the lips of your friends tells you nothing you like. The four girls watch you attentively, sending knowing glances to each other as you feel yourself grow red. Oh. They are waiting for you to add your share to the stories. The pressing looks try to coax you into talking, but the amused grins they share say they have already made up their minds on your love life. They think you won’t talk because you try to keep it a secret, yet it is evident to them. 

“It’s alright, you don’t have to talk,“ Neve says. “We can guess who was your first kiss.“ 

You frown. How can you tell them they would be wrong no matter the name they utter as their guess? How can you confess you’ve never had your first kiss? It had never crossed your mind, but now you feel the weight of the fact settles unwelcome in your stomach. Everyone had their first kiss but you. Boy or girl, there was someone they could reminisce on in candid moments like this; you had no one. No first kiss to share, no first love, no name to blush about but cast as irrelevant because it had been years. And it had never been a problem to you before. You had never thought about it in this light: that maybe there was a problem with you. After all, who doesn’t know what a kiss feels like after thousands of years on earth? Nobody. You were the only one, the anomaly. A black sheep unworthy of it. 

An elf’s judgment is usually never so harsh and fast, but you cannot help yourself. The composure of your kin frays at the edges under the influence of elvish wine, your mind swims like it hides a tempest as your thoughts rush. You cannot tell them the truth, it would be too embarrassing. Made wary of their judgment by alcohol, you try to think about a safe name to put in your lie. None comes to your mind. If you say someone they know, they will ask questions and probably tease him about it and the truth will be revealed; if you say a name they do not know, they will also ask questions and your drunken mind will lose itself in confusion trying to make up a story. 

Tihala’s soft voice cuts your train of thoughts. She speaks with her usual softness, as if she tries to reassure you of your predicament but only achieve to bury you further in it. 

“Don’t listen to her. I would be careful too if the prince was my first kiss.“

The prince. 

Legolas. 

They think Legolas was your first kiss. The thought claws like a beast at your guts and weights against your ribs life fire catching. You look around you to perhaps find that you heard it wrong, but it’s not the case: your friends nod. 

You try to push the image away, but it proves to be futile. You don’t have to close your eyes for your mind to impose upon you images of your best friend, of all the situations in which he could have kissed you but chose not to. During your endless walks in the forest, or when he helped you study for the guard’s contest for hours without end in your room. You had known each other all your life, so much that he was an inherent part of it. You couldn’t remember a time without the prince by your side, when his smiles didn’t make you dizzy and dumb. For as far as your memory went, he had been here. 

He was your best friend, he had always been, why were you suddenly wondering about how warm could his lips be, or which shade of pink could they turn into once bitten? You shake your head and blame it upon the alcohol, though your heart beats something different. Saying you had never imagined the prince kissing you would be a lie, but it was years ago; you had grown past it. 

“Legolas was not… He is not…“ you trip upon your own words; pathetic. “We never kissed.“

Suddenly, the girls look at you like you are either the best or worse liar they have ever met. But upon seeing the distressed look in your eyes, Alwyn is the first to realise you’re far from lying. 

“But are you two not courting? He follows you everywhere,“ she says. 

“I wouldn’t have guessed the prince was such a prude. He seems like the opposite, being this handsome,“ Neve adds with the delicacy she always has —which is none. 

“If a boy was giving me the eyes he gives you, I would assume he is far too smitten for plain courting!“ Tihala reckons, and the opinions of the girls do not stop flowing until Tayrn saves you. She had always been the most sensible of you all. 

“It does not matter. They are only best friends, that is great too.“

“Who was your first kiss then?“ 

Neve’s question turns the subject away from Legolas, but not from the idea of kissing. You cannot grow redder than you already are, but if you could you would. Not having kissed anybody is not a shame… is it? Patience and soul-consuming love was not frowned upon in your culture, on the contrary, it was expected. Younger elves had their experiences, but was it so bad if you pretended you were only waiting for the right one? Waiting for the right one when you were almost two thousand years old… what an obvious lie. 

“I never had my first kiss…“ you manage to murmur, so low that your friends have to stop their giggling and moving to catch what you are saying. 

The answer hangs in the air for some time. Did Legolas have his first kiss? You imagine he had; Neve was right, he was handsome, and lots of girls had been hovering around him when you were still teenagers. Somehow, you do not recall him courting any of them. Some would say he had eyes for only you, you would simply say his duties as a prince took most of his time and he had no mind to pay to a partner. 

The same awkward quiet as before drags on, punctuated by the disbelieved blinking of your friends. Even Alwyn has opened her eyes from her spot in your laps. Perhaps they heard wrong, is what they all try to convince themselves with before Neve blesses you with her ever-so-gentle remarks. 

“You never kissed? But your two thousandth birthday is in a week?!“ 

You try not to crack up a nervous laugh at her indignation. As if a kiss before being two thousand was a rite of passage. It is not… is it? The way in which Neve reacts sure is funny at first, but it quickly puts you in a far more embarrassing place. So you were weird. 

Neve was not one to hold her tongue, everyone knew it, but she was not one to lie either. She was genuinely surprised by your lack of experience. You twist the fact in your mind, try to find something that would make it make sense. There must be a reason for you never kissing anybody, right? Your own reserve, an unaware purity of your mind, a lack of interest for love. Nothing sounds right, nothing feels right. You thought it was common occurrence for people not to have any experience in the field of love at your age, you were still young, but it seemed tonight you had been mistaken and were the only oddity in these Halls. 

Tayrn notices you’ve turned silent, and you have that far away veil in your eyes that dulls them, the one cast upon you when you are deep in thoughts or overthinking. Clearly, you’re overthinking this; and Neve doesn’t help. 

“Neve, I don’t think kissing Olweiin drunk counts as a first kiss, you should not swagger so much,“ she gently scolds to try and help you out of the situation. Oddly enough, it is not Tayrn who gets you out of it but Tihala. While the two girls bicker over Neve’s own kissing experience, the blonde lets herself fall on her back on the bed after having drowned her umpteenth glass of the night. Her lithe frame bounces on the mattress once; it’s enough to cut the small argument.

“How do you think the prince kisses?“ she asks, twirling a lock of hair around her finger dreamingly. 

The smile that adorns her face while thinking of Legolas clearly does not please Neve, who wrinkles in a dubious frown. 

“What do you mean?“ 

“Do you think him a good kisser?“ 

“I think he kisses like a prince… It would be a royal kiss, probably; perfect like every princely thing he undertakes,“ Alwyn replies before her grumpy friend can send a snarky remark. Her eyes are closed again, you can see her orbs move under the translucent skin of her lids. 

She is right, you know Legolas best and if you reflect upon it —not that it takes much reflection because you had already pictured the event in your head countless times you are too unwilling to confess to, you think his kiss would in fact be the one of a prince. You imagine Legolas kisses like the embodiment of elven nature: calm, reverent, composed, and sure of himself. He would kiss like he knows his way around you already, like he had your every trigger figured in a glance. It would be slow, consuming, and oh-so warm. But you know something some don’t: that Legolas can also be proud and hungry. Hungry for battle, hungry for victory, hungry for recognition. 

You think Legolas can bite too. He can teeth at what he wants and grab flesh until it bruises yet still be asked for more. The prince can be hurried, teasing, but you wonder if he can snap. 

Your eyes fly open to stop the thought from going further. Above you, the roof is still the same and you are still lying down on the same bed, in the same night. It was just a joke. You had all drank too much, the girls had probably already forgotten about all this. But not you. Obviously not you, since it kept you awake at night and tossing in your bed. You kick the sheets off of your body, as if the cold air of your room could do anything against intrusive thoughts, and set on closing your eyes again. 

You were not going to let a matter so trifle as kissing ruin your second millennium’s birthday. Especially since it was already partially ruined by the fact that Legolas couldn’t be here. Princely duties had called him West some weeks ago, and he was not to return until maybe another week or so. You definitely were not going to have your first kiss that day. 

Feasts like this one are not often thrown in the Elvenking’s Halls, but Thranduil likes you especially and it is not everyday you turn two thousand. Earning the good graces of the king is something very few have the privilege of, you owe it to your everlasting friendship with his son. Had he not known you since your tender infancy and had Legolas not always preached in your favour, perhaps the king would have kept his aloof attitude with you. Except he has not, and feels exceptionally tender towards you today. Thranduil still remembers the day Legolas turned two thousand, and how the boy had been glad you were here to share his joy and hang at his arm all night. Today Legolas is not here, and despite your best efforts, your disappointment shows on your face. 

Now that everyone had greeted you and wished you many more happy and healthy years to live, they had all turned to their own party. The centre of the feast was now left to the side like scarps at the market. Your friends were already caught up in a fit of laughter with other guards from the realm, but you had no mind for wine or jokes. The buzzing of voices around you felt dull, meaningless; the lights decorating the Hall without warmth; and the excellent food tasteless. Everyone was gathered for you and still you found the way to be sorrowful. Growing a year older didn’t mean much for elves, but millennia were a landmark. It felt like the world was closing around you, like despite your longevity time was running short. Had you passed the quarter of your life? or maybe half this mark? Were the fields beyond the sea going to call you soon? 

Doubtful, but still enough to lurk in the back of your head. You never brooded with Legolas, you wished he could have been there to cheer you up. His sole presence was relief enough, sometimes you did not need more than sitting beside him in the quiet to feel better. His calm could spread onto you like magic, his beating heart show yours what rhythm was best when he made you feel his pulse on the inside of his wrist. But if wishes were horses, beggars would ride; as far as you know, it is not the case yet.  

An unmistakable presence steps beside you while you observe the Halls. The king’s stature is like no other, you don’t even have to look at him to know he is here and he is royal. You shift your gaze towards him and nod in reverence, though he does not look at you. Thranduil reads the room with a watchful eye, until it lands on you to take you in. He smiles something amused to himself knowingly; you mistake it for his regal aura glowing further. Though it is a dimmed glow the wood-king carries, it holds the strengths of his power and the iron nerves he rules with. Thranduil does not bend, he never has. 

“I see my son influences you even in your choices regarding fashion,“ he notes with the hint of a smirk. Legolas does something quite similar when he means to tease you. Over the years, you have found many resemblance between father and son. 

“He cannot influence me if he is not here, your liege.“

 “You’re a bright girl, you will find he can.” 

Once again, the king is right as you look down at your gown. The dress is not as extravagant as you imagine Thranduil would have given his wife back when she was still here, and it emphasises the differences between the king and his son. If the ellon has pointed it out to you, it’s because it is Legolas’s favourite. He knows it because a father cannot not notice the fondness of his son for something so simple as a garment when he gives you eyes that say he could marry you each time you wear it. Frankly, everyone has noticed. Everyone but you. 

Legolas could defend himself by saying it is the blue velvet of the gown that pleases him, or the silver patterns embroidered along the collar and sleeves which were particularly fine and delicate, but everyone would have known it was a lie. You could have worn a hessian dress and it would have been the same to him. Deep down, in a part of him that was not so hidden as it was in you, he knew perfectly well he liked the dress to a reasonable amount at first, and then worshiped it like it was the most precious of fabrics in all Arda as soon as you wore it. He liked the dress, but he liked you best, so when the two were reunited his instincts screamed only to follow you around, to make you laugh, to admire you, and to comply to everything you would have him do. You did not know it, but you had the prince wrapped so tight around your little finger he could have been the laughing stock of the guard had he not been their superior. 

“How do you like your evening?“ Thranduil asked, though he did not seem genuinely curious but rather inclined to receive praises. 

The king was of such a nature: he liked having his skills praised in laudatory encomiums. He liked it even more when his generosity was bestowed upon a grateful subject such as you were; his son was not an imbecile, he would not have chosen a foolish girl. 

You bow your gratitude once; custom of the elven court. “I am eternally grateful.“

The king dismisses it with a wave of the hand like it’s nothing. “No need child. It is a mere gathering, nothing extravagant.“ 

You hold back a chuckle at his assertion. It is an obvious lie in front of the opulence of the Halls, but you overlook it to please him. There is nothing cheap in the mouldings of the ceiling and stones, in the lavishness of the buffet, or the overall decorum of the room: every guest is wearing their best attire. Such a high assembly of elves would have blinded the human eye, for the glow it radiated of was mystical, almost divine. Were they not used to the legends of the early days of their world, which were full of elves of the fairest kind, they would have mistaken it for halos, for holiness. The atmosphere is easy, coated by songs made slick by the wine. It is said that elves know how to sing and write melodies by their first year. 

When the king pivots to face you, his eyes do not land on your features but behind you, past your shoulder. Whatever he sees there manages to pull the corner of his lips upward, and he smoothly takes his leave from you. You stand staring at his back that draws away in the crowd like his sole aura splits it in half to let him pass, thinking the king had been of good company. 

You are about to further despair in the loss of good society when a hand falls on your shoulder, assured like it belongs here. You turn you head towards it, expecting to find Tayrn or Alwyn, but the moment your gaze lands on the person standing beside you, you have to do a double-take to make sure you’re not dreaming. It’s golden hair that catches your eye first, then the pale complexion of skin and a chiseled jaw. You spin so fast it makes your head reel and you almost trip on your own feet, which makes the boy in front of you huff a laugh. You’re afraid he’d vanish with a single wrong beat of your heart. 

“Legolas!“ 

Here he is in all his glory, with that smile you suspect he reserves you and eyes that shimmer like you bewitch him. Because you do. Legolas takes you in and a spell is cast on him; a spell you are the sole cause and cure of. It’s been weeks he has not seen you and now you show up in that dress he would get on his knees for. The prince would kiss and worship the ground you walk on only to feel the velvet of it between his fingers. It suits you like a dream awakened, like a curse. It’s like there’s too much of you he would like to ingrain in his mind but too little time to do so, and already you smile at him and it tears his attention away from the gown. Have you ever been so beautiful? 

There’s a pinkish hue on your cheeks, testimony of the shock you feel seeing him here, and your eyes are wide open. You want to reach out for him, to fall in his arm because this might be the greatest surprise of the evening, to laugh uncontrollably because you do not feel down anymore. Of course, you do none of it; propriety forbids it. If you want to act friendlier with the prince, you will have to wait for you to be alone. 

“I thought you were not to return before weeks!“ you exclaim, the force of your smile hurting your cheeks.

Legolas smirks something soft, yet teasing. “I could not miss the most important day of the millennium, could I?“ 

“I thought you would. Royals duties matter more than a silly birthday of mine.“ 

“I care not for royal duties,“ when it comes to you, he holds back from saying. “You know it.“ 

You nod once, knowing it would be no use arguing with Legolas once he is set on something. He seems set on the fact that your birthday —that you, are of the utmost importance. 

“Would you like to escape for a bit?“ the prince suggests.

There’s instant relief in your eyes and it makes him chuckle. 

“Please.“

It’s like the wind carries you away, and in an instant you are far from the noise of the party and disappearing deep in the dimly lit corridors. The music reaches your ears muffled, the sole of your shoes on the floor echos gently against the stone walls and you glide your fingertips along the surface of one; it’s cold to the touch and serves to ground you. Following you, you can hear the faint swooshing of your dress sliding on the ground. Legolas guides you through the maze that is his home, his hand has slipped to yours in the process. It’s bigger than your own, his palm covers yours easily and his thumb rests soundly on the back of your hand, radiating a warmth that seems to spread right to your belly. It makes you giddy, sends you heart beat in your temples. Or maybe it’s his scent that does; it wraps around the two of you like the evening’s dew, fresh yet obviously warm with pine-trees and musk. 

The prince lets go of your hand to sneak in the cellar a moment, then comes back with a bottle of wine you should not have hold of. But he is the prince, what can his father do if he discovers his son has stolen a single bottle to share with the star of the evening? Probably not much besides scolding him.

He does not take your hand again and there’s a coldness that remains with the loss. In minutes, you’re slipping inside his room like a secret and already taking your usual seat on the floor of his balcony. This kind of thing is not unusual for you, but this time it feels different. Because he sits down next to you and offers you the first sip of the stolen liquor; because he came back for you; because you snuck away from a party like teenagers. But most likely because his intense blue eyes stare when your lips glisten with the red robe of the wine, and you catch none of it though it hangs in the atmosphere because you are too deep in your mirth to pay such close attention to details. 

Every ounce of sadness you had once felt is gone, now you only laugh and talk without meaning for it to end while the prince listens diligently. The wall dents uncomfortably in your back, you shift to relieve the dull discomfort and it takes you closer to him. As the night unfolds, wine flows and soon clouds your judgment. Everything seems more easy, less important. Your laughter rings sharper, his eyes half-lid and his smile softens. Above you, a starry sky is lit but Legolas pays no mind to it, you shine brighter in his eyes. 

It takes not half the bottle for both of you to feel a little too warmth; as if the air has closed in on you under a hot afternoon sun in the summertime. Legolas’s shirt ends up unbuttoned down his neck, the strap of your dress slips down your shoulder carelessly; you both notice it but say nothing. Legolas’s gaze drifts down the length of your shoulder, yours takes the slope of his neck while you continue to tell a story you have probably told twice at this rate. 

One way or another, the wall feels too hard against your back, and your sense of manners is not so distinguished anymore as to prevent you from choosing the comfortable shoulder of your best friend as a better rest place. Your head falls on it softly as you pass him back the bottle, and his fingers that carelessly brush yours make your heart jolt. Sure, alcohol sets a daze upon you, but those unnecessary touches were definitely intended. 

Slowly, the conversation hushes until it dies in the back of a throat; yours or his, none of you can say. The silence washes over you, comfortable, different. Legolas feels warm under you, your knees brush, the tip of his ears is red. The bottle is set aside, almost finished, and you find that dwelling here is the best birthday party you could have asked for. Everything is so easy around the prince, like the world favours him so it refuses to put any hardship on his path. You know it is false, but it feels like it. And you feel favoured too to be the one sharing moments like this with him. 

But then, breaking the magic like a curse, something that had settled in the back of your mind crawls back upfront. You’re two thousand, the night will soon end, and you still have not had your first kiss. 

You feel your stomach lurch at the thought. Helped by the wine, it’s like you will have wasted your life if you do not kiss someone by morning-come. Your heart starts to spiral out of control, you feel like you are doomed to an eternity without love, but then the breeze rises and brings back to you that specific scent. Him. Pinewood and musk, lilies of the valley and clean sheets, crisp smell of water in the shade on an afternoon in the spring. 

If he kissed you, how would it feel? How does he kiss? Is it reverent, is it hurried, is it shy? Is he a fast learner? 

“Legolas?“ you ask. He hums and glances at you. 

You straighten from his shoulder, where the subtle weight of you still lingers in the wrinkles of his clothes. 

“Do you know humans have a custom where they offer gifts during birthdays?“ Legolas hums again in reply. “Have you ever kissed someone?“ 

Now the correlation between the two sentences is null. The prince frowns, a small wrinkle between his brows. He turns to look at you fully, takes his time to analyse the blush on your cheeks, the pout on your lips and how crimson they look after all this wine. His own mind swims a little, with you and with the alcohol. 

“Yes, I have,“ he replies, voice low because he does not feel like bringing it to an upper tone. 

Of course he has. You bet she was as pretty as him and kissing like a goddess. You bet he thinks about her sometimes. 

“Would you be my first kiss?“ 

Astonished silence. 

It wasn’t supposed to come out that way. You had prepared it in your mind, it was supposed to be more subtle, maybe even alluring. Now he knows you never kissed someone and you look desperate. Heat rushes in the back of your neck, your skin prickles and you want to slap yourself. Stupid elf. Stupid self-control that doesn’t work with him. Stupid handsome prince. 

Legolas looks at you with eyes wide open, it’s like the blue in them means to swallow you whole. His lips part, they close again as he thinks, a hundred thoughts a second crossing his mind. You’re here, dashing in that dress, flushed and growing shy, and you ask him to kiss you. The only problem is you’re drunk. He is too, but much less than you are. Legolas still has some sense, which you seem to have lost altogether. Damn all propriety, he would smash his lips to yours right this moment and show you how good he can be for you if only you were sober. If only it would not ruin your friendship. You do not know what you’re asking, he thinks you will regret it by dawn. 

It takes a few seconds for you to start panicking when he doesn’t answer. Clearly, the dumbfounded look on his face says it all, and you’re afraid soon enough it will turn into disgust. You can already picture him excusing himself to leave, and then avoiding your path until you’re eventually nothing more than strangers to each other. Strangers with an old, crooked from of affection, but strangers nonetheless. So you take the matter into your own hands and raise to your feet first. 

The motion makes your head spin and your legs wobble dangerously; Legolas reaches a hand to your waist in case you would fall. 

“I’m so sorry. I don’t know what has taken me, it’s just- it’s the wine… Forget about it,“ the words come out in a confused blurb, but if Legolas understands something as clear as day, it’s your next sentence. “I’ll just ask someone else, I’m sorry.“ 

I’ll just ask someone else. 

His blood loops in his veins, the words rush in his mind like they are the only ones he knows, and it’s only his body reacting by instinct when he shoots a hand to wrap around your wrist the second you move away. You turn to him, gaze lowering to where your bodies connect, and he tugs gently at your arm to invite you down to his level again. Wind blows around you, dried leaves on the balcony’s ground from the canopy above swirl at your feet.

“I’ll be your first kiss,“ he says. “You should not kiss someone you do not know.“

You should not kiss someone who’s not me. 

You follow his tugs and sit back on your knees in front of him, heart hammering in your chest. You grow even redder if possible, and you feel your heart everywhere in your body, like it has swelled to take up all the space and never give you a second of break. 

But as soon as you lock eyes with the prince, his blue gaze sucks you in like a tunnel, and it’s like the world around vanishes in pitch black so you only see him. You bite your lips frantically, look at every inch of his face because you do not know where to set your eyes, and he reaches a hand to your cheek to pull your lips from between your teeth with his thumb. The movement freezes you, you try to calm yourself, in vain. Your fists bunch the fabric of your dress in your laps. This is happening. This is actually happening to you. There’s a fire in your stomach that builds with anticipation. 

“How- what should I do? How is it supposed to go? Do I close my eyes?“ you ask a ton of questions to ease your stress, but it does the opposite and Legolas holds back a chuckle. You see it in the way his cheeks hollow when he bites them and his smile widens. 

“Don’t think about it too much. Just let me take care of it,“ he charms. 

He is already taking care of it. You see him lean in slowly, until you can feel his breath crash over your lips, and he scrutinises you attentively as he does so in case you wish to back down. Next to his ear, there is a wild strand of hair that sticks out from his flawless look. It makes him look the tiniest bit disheveled; you tuck it back in place to give yourself courage. Your fingers linger on the shell of his ear, it makes Legolas hold back a shiver.

Next thing you know, there is two different kind of warmth upon you: his hands that cover your own in your laps, and his lips delicately pressed to yours. The former grounds you, the latter drive you insane in the softest of ways. It’s like there’s fireworks in your belly, or dozens of butterflies emerging from their cocoon. You see him close his eyes in the kiss so you mimic it and plunge yourself in darkness too. You can feel his eyelashes brush your cheeks, his hair tingle in your neck. 

It’s the softest thing you’ve ever felt, like you’re in another dimension. Part of you thinks that’s what a kiss feels like, the other knows it’s what a kiss with Legolas feels like. He doesn’t move and neither do you, you just stay pressed to each other like that for a while, both trying to calm the twisting of your guts. 

Legolas is the first to part. He does it gently, slowly moving back though his lips still graze yours so you know it’s ending. You keep your eyes closed all the way until his warmth properly leaves, and then you allow yourself to open your eyes. When you do, he is the first thing you see, and it doesn’t help you stay composed. His cheeks are dusted with pink, his lips pout with the remnant of the kiss —even if it was more of a lingering peck. It’s like his pupil tries to swallow the iris, and the small edge of his eye that is still blue has turned a significantly darker colour. 

Blessed with elven hearing, you can hear the way his breathing frays just like yours, or the loud thumping of his heart. Such a loud noise could even be spotted by dwarves, you think. In front of you, Legolas observes you like a relic, searches for any frown on your face, a single trace of regret, of disgust. None comes, you feel all but disgusted. In fact, it’s the opposite. You feel delirious with joy, with the feeling of him and the need to have it again like a drug, like a praise of the Dark Lord. 

“Can you do it again?“ you murmur before you can double-think what you’re asking. But you don’t have time to take it back or apologise, already Legolas is leaning back your way and sliding a hand to your cheek to keep you in place. He hovers over your lips and stares at them so blatantly it’s almost amusing how much he yearns for it. Legolas covets so visibly it makes you less timid about your own bluntness. 

“I’ll give you a proper kiss, this time,“ he breathes against you. 

You don’t know what is a ‘proper kiss‘ before he captures your mouth and the gentle force of it makes you part your lips just a little. Your jaw relaxes of its own will, your hand reaches for his sleeve to hold on to and he tastes so clearly of berries and the sweet remnant of wine coating his tongue. It’s less hesitant now, more open-mouthed and eager to consume. You don’t even brood about what to do, the right gaps to turn your lips into just come naturally, without any effort. You think it cannot get better. Except it does when he wraps his arm around you to bring you closer and you stumble over him in the mess. It tears a chuckles out of you in the kiss, which gives the prince liberty enough to hook your lower lip in between his teeth.

When you part, he is leaned back with his hand supporting behind him, and your own hand supports your weight with a grip on his leg, while you hold on to his shoulder with the other. It’s a glorious disarray of limbs and of laughters as you chuckle when you chase back for his lips, earning yourself a dodge from the elf-prince who buries his nose in your hair.  

“Don’t be greedy,“ he lightly scolds, callused fingers grazing up and down your back in a tender motion. 

You groan. “Can I not be greedy on my birthday?“

“I think it’s already midnight past that day.“

You smile at his stubbornness. You were right, Legolas could be as eager as he could make you beg. You were both a king’s jester for each other, sport to your hearts’ content. 

“At least I had my first kiss before fully turning two thousand.“

“I would have given it to you sooner, had you told me,“ his voice rasps, while he presses his fingertips on your thigh to feel the velvet fabric of your dress. It’s like he maps it, creates a mental pattern of its cut to remember it at night when he’ll bury his face in his pillow, plagued by images of you. 

“It was uh… a recent concern of mine.“ 

Your eyes avert when he straightens up and tries to catch them, and it’s like he reads your mind. 

“I believe I have some girls to thank for this…“ Legolas teases and your roll your eyes, pushing yourself further into his chest. 

“Focus on me first,“ you plead, fingers grazing his jaw to hold it delicately. 

The touch rewires him, the tone of your voice makes him lose his mind way more than he ought to. There’s a grasp on him you don’t know, yet have in your bare hands. 

 “Anything you want…“