Your classroom in Grover Cleveland Elementary was quiet. With the scribbling of crayons and the kid’s chatter gone, your only company in the empty room was silence. All of your fellow teachers left an hour ago, and your third graders had scrambled to leave long before. 

The sun was beginning to dip below the horizon, bathing the room in warm, golden rays. Yet, you couldn’t tear your eyes away from the wall of papers.

Not when the man you loved, albeit poorly drawn, stared back at you from thirty different papers. In every single drawing, he had a huge smile on his face. You frowned looking at it.

Earlier today, you’d assigned this classic project to your students. The instructions were clear: “Who is your hero?” 

In past years, most kids did their parents. Moms, dads, and the occasional superman or spiderman would fill the exact wall you stood in front of now.

But this year was different. The Hail Mary launch was only a few weeks prior, so you’d expected one, maybe two pictures of Ryland. 

Yet, you greatly underestimated how enthusiastic your kids would be about space, and how a science teacher, who was formerly a part of Grover Cleveland’s staff, was on the mission.

You scanned the papers, wishing he were here next to you to admire the work. Normally, he would be, and you struggled to avoid thinking about the gaping hole in your life with him gone— No more pop in’s during your lunch breaks. No more texts in the middle of the day, asking if you guys should get takeout or cook at home for the night. No more returning home to a warm house full of life. Full of him.

You felt fresh tears springing up in your eyes, so instead, you thought about your class from today.

Excited gossip filled the room as your kids dutifully colored. You sat at your desk, grading last week’s vocab quizzes, trying hard not to think too hard about Ryland. Unfortunately for you, it was nearly impossible to ignore the rapid fire commentary happening around you.

“Mr. Grace is so cool! I want to go to space like him!”

“I wish I had him as my teacher!”

“He’s so brave, he’s definitely my hero.”

“I bet he was excited to help save the world!”

That last comment made you pause. You looked at the sweet little girl that said it, and how earnest her smile was.

She had already moved on, only meant it as a passing comment, but her words echoed in your head. Because you knew, deep in your soul, it was a lie.

Ryland had been acting strangely over the past few months. He would return home at unpredictable hours, the dark circles under his eyes progressively getting worse. All you knew was that he had been recruited as a scientist to help figure out the Petrova line problem. He couldn’t tell you much else, not just because of the NDA’s, but also because of how little he was home.

Most nights, you would try to wait up for him, but sometimes he wouldn’t even return. And when you’d wake up in the morning, bleary eyes meeting his vacant spot, your heart would twist with the bitter realization that he was barely there anymore.

You’d give anything for his side of the bed to be warm again.

When you eventually saw him a few days later, you knew something was wrong. He brushed it off as last minute experiments and late night meetings, and blindly, you’d accepted his words. You thought, surely, there must be hundreds of other scientists working on this sun dimming problem.

Ryland was just doing his part, rejoining the scientific community, and using his knowledge to help the world. And at the end of the day, he’d return to you like he always did. But never in your worst nightmares did you imagine him getting ripped away from you so suddenly and violently. 

And that was the worst part. You had no notice. No time to prepare. Only immense, immediate loss and the soul crushing news that he was gone for good.

And without a doubt, you knew that your student's innocent words were false. You knew Ryland wasn’t excited to save the world, and that he didn’t sacrifice himself, because he would have come back to you. Just to hold you one last time and sear a final kiss into your skin so you’d never forget the feel of him. Hell, knowing him, he wouldn't have left in the first place.

Whatever it was, if it were truly up to him, he would have come back. That, you were sure of.

A knock on the door startled you out of your thoughts. You glanced up and saw a woman walking in, wearing all black and a grim expression to match. She had sympathetic eyes, but the weary lines of her face had clearly been an accumulation of stress over the years, hardening her exterior.

None of that mattered though. What immediately caught your attention wasn’t her looks, but what she carried— an all too familiar yellow raincoat. 

You sucked in a sharp breath, eyes widening when you saw it. “Where did you get that.”

She dipped her head solemnly, wasting no time in answering despite your accusatory tone, as if she was already prepared for your harsh greeting. “Eva Stratt with the Petrova task force. This was Dr. Grace’s. He would have wanted you to have it.” Her voice was punctual, like she wanted to get straight to the point. She held the jacket out, but your body refused to move.

You eyed her, the tension in the air thickening by the second. The Petrova task force. What Ryland had been working on before he abruptly got on that cursed, one way ship. 

A moment of silence filled the room. Finally, you slowly met her eyes, your voice barely coming out in a whisper. “It was you. You forced him to go, didn’t you?”

She closed her eyes, a quiet sigh escaping her, and it told you all you needed to know. 

You shook your head, almost disbelieving. “You murdered him.”

Eva spoke softly, like she was trying to justify her actions. “You were the greatest factor in the decision. We— I tried to come up with another solution, but there was no alternative. Dr. Grace was our only hope.” A beat of silence. “I’m sorry.”

You scoffed. “You’re not,” you laughed bitterly.

She accepted your words, not even trying to fight back. It only made you angrier. Wordlessly, she held out the jacket again, gesturing for you to take it. 

You snatched the fabric from her hands, desperate to preserve any remnants of Ryland you could. It still smelled faintly of him, and the jacket wrinkled from your vise-like grip.

“The pocket.”

You glanced up at Eva, who now had her arms crossed. As she said the words, her brows scrunched up ever so slightly, like she was fighting back from showing too much emotion.

Slowly, you reached into the right coat pocket, a feeling of dread suddenly coming over you. At the very bottom, your hands wrapped around a smooth, velvet box. Your stomach dropped.

With trembling fingers, you brought the small box out, delicately setting the coat down on your desk. You knew what it was, and yet you’ve never wanted to be wrong more in your life.

You popped it open. At the sight of the small object inside, you couldn’t contain the sob that escaped you. 

A simple diamond ring twinkled up at you from its snug spot. It was one clearly bought off of a teacher’s salary. Not too flashy. Made with your favorite metal. Exactly how you’d like it.

Undoubtedly from Ryland, to you.

You weren’t sure when you crumpled to the ground, or when the tears started flowing freely, or when your ragged breathing turned into choked sobs. All you could think to do was clutch the precious band in your fingers, wishing with your entire being that none of this was real.

But all you felt was a gaping hole in your chest. He had been so close. So close to tying the knot and allowing you to take his last name, ensuring your lives would be intertwined.

But no. Your future, the one that included Ryland, had been irrevocably altered. By fate, the universe, Eva Stratt. It didn't matter who did it, just that it had been done.

Eva couldn’t watch anymore. She knew as soon as she found the ring that she would deliver it to you— it was meant to be yours, after all. Only the person meant to give it to you would be different. She'd decided the sooner the better, and now, the deed was done.

“Goodbye, Mrs. Grace.”

Eva dipped her head and left. She didn’t say anything more, and she wasn’t even sure if you heard her. She simply closed the door with a soft click, muffling your sobs from the rest of the world.

You’re not sure how long you sat there, grieving the man that got torn away from you before he could even propose. Really, it didn't matter how many hours you'd spend on the cold floor of your dark classroom, or how many times you could exhaust your eye sockets of tears.

All the time in the world would never be able to heal what you'd lost.

a/n ! It's been a year and three months since I last published the first part, I know I said I was gonna post the second part but all I did was get your hopes up. A lot happened to me, I suffered traumatic events such as being SA'd in a house I called home, and it affected me greatly that even my academics were disrupted that I ended up having to attend an extended year in college. And because of that trauma, I lost passion in all things, even my love for doing digital art and writing, but I'm safe where I am now, and I'm slowly returning to doing things I have always love. Here is the 2nd part! I hope you'll love it. I don't know if the people wanting to be tagged for this still want to read this after the betrayal T__T. Don't worry at the end because there will be a part 3! and there, you and Gwayne will finally spend more time together so it means fluff YAYY!! (Also it would help me a lot if you guys have any idea i can add for the third part!) I love love love Gwayne so much, I wish there were more men like him irl. anyways, enjoy!

In certain ways, you remind Rhaenyra of her mother. The daughter her father never asked for, it was as if you came to haunt him. Glimpses in time wherein she was close to forgetting the face of her mother, and then you would stand in front of her, every being —an exact replica of the late Queen. 

Aemma, once Rhaenyra was old enough to understand, had told her firstborn daughter of the very first she wailed, having just climbed out of her womb at the age of two and ten. Memory so vivid, there was a smile plastered on Aemma’s lips as she told the story, her eyes fixated on her new embroidery, but Rhaenyra could only imagine her mother was a little girl when she had a.. little girl. She hadn’t told her mother, but what she had heard was more tragic than it just is. And Rhaenyra —fear constructed in her mind because of that, swore an oath to herself that if it ever comes that her father marries her off at such a young age, that she would run away with Syrax. 

“I will try to make reason.. with father.” Rhaenyra says as she follows you pacing in distress in front of the fireplace. 

“He will not hear it.” You replied, the throbbing in your head was worsening every time you thought of the betrothal. Wishing somehow when you were on your way here that you had fallen from dragonback. Of all the lords of westeros, it had to be a Hightower. An offense you do not take kindly. Let alone a son of a second son. What does he even have to offer? This insinuates that your father only marries you off to him in a discreet scheme to send you away without having to bear the accountabilities that lie with you being a spinster. Perhaps there is a rumor speculating about you unmarried around the realm and they all blame the King, it was no secret that you’ve been kept in the Vale.

Rhaenyra senses the trembling in your voice, she strides closer to you in an attempt to catch your full attention. It had been years since the last time she had seen you, you were nothing but a little girl back then. Always at the side of your stepmother and at times the ladies in waiting, your hand gripped tightly on to their skirts as if you’d be lost if you let go. Then as you grew it became less, but your silence remains the same. You were one to blend in the crowds, the unwavering attention was not to your liking. Avoiding the society as is, but you were unaware that your Targaryen features stood amongst, all eyes were on you as yours cast down. Even there were brave enough that confronted the Realm’s delight in a favor of wanting to take your hand, but Rhaenyra always denies whoever. Stating it should be you who gets to choose your lord husband, something that she was not granted years ago.

And now, that burden has fallen into you. She cannot help but see herself in you.

When Rhaenyra was overwhelmed with duties, especially that of motherly ones. She finds herself in a situation that drives her off from you. The distance so far off that rekindling lost time with you was in no more of her interests, overshadowed then with her growing conflict with Alicent. They were once childhood friends that have grown to strangers as they aged. And then suffocated by these instances, she flew on dragonback to make home in Dragonstone. A feeling of guilt consumes her even more at the thought of leaving you, the only sibling she shared a mother with. 

“I will visit his chambers and he will hear me, I’ll make sure of it. For you.” Confidence laces her tone. Rhaenyra now stood near you. Though you mistook it as arrogance and how she  —your sister, could just simply voice out that your father would hear her but not you and this notion awakens an impending emotion you had suppressed since you’ve been forsaken. But Rhaenyra only meant no harm at the moment, wanting no more than repaying you for what’s lost between the two of you. Still no matter, she wouldn’t understand. Perhaps the approach is so sudden and desperate that it doesn’t come off as that. 

Your pacing halts, jaw tightened and your eyes hardened, the attention Rhaenyra wanted was now all on hers. “Yes. Because you’re the favorite, he will listen to you while I, the forgotten will be sent away but this time in Oldtown.” Your sister, taken aback, stumbles a bit, her hand caresses her growing womb instinctively as if you would harm an unborn child. “Why are you here, Rhaenyra?” You added. A frown now evident on your sister’s face. 

“I-“ She tries to find words, but lost her thought in the process. “Y/n.” There was now a thick tension in your chambers. A pause that seemed to make the burning wood more prominent. 

“I just want to help you.” Rhaenyra states in a small voice, your eyes too harsh to handle and diverts her gaze down on the ring on her fingers. 

The chambers grow too hot every second passing, breathing made a little harder and there was an unfamiliar sting in the back of your eye as if a thousand needles were poking all at the same time.. “You cannot help me, Rhaenyra.” You said, coldly. And hopelessness hinting at your words —something you find hard to accept. Of all times that you’ve only had yourself to turn into, this situation was one that you cannot escape. “‘tis the word of the King.” 

Since the first you had entered your old chamber, you finally seated on a chair facing the fireplace. It is consuming what it is fed, and you thought that perhaps death by dragonfire would be a better much fate than to be sent back home only to be cast away from it to another place by none other than your own father. You wonder if your mother awaits you on the other side. Does she know you? Did she watch you grow? Was she even there at your side at all times? Was there a time that she heard you talking to her as if she were alive? If death feels like a warm embrace from Aemma, you would’ve gladly taken your life right then even with Rhaenyra inside your chamber. 

“Unless you dare bear the title of a kinslayer and send me to my doom, then you are welcome. I am sure you won’t be held accountable by the blood on your hands, you are the King’s only daughter after all.” She recoils visibly at the last. Feeling uneased and humiliated by her endeavors and seeking you to a time of relief, she finds herself wanting to retreat. She heads for the door of your chamber. Her hand at the handle and tears run down from your eye in a blink.

For seconds, you contemplated the instances of your life wherein you longed the comfortness of an arm around you and here you are, offered one at the moment but you did nothing but send it away, the walls you have built up for yourself in a sense of protection but what you were unconscious to was that the very same wall isolated not solely the misery of certain circumstances but the hand reaching you down on the hole you’ve fallen. Now you’re filled with guilt by lashing out on your sister.

“Rhaenyra.” The heir halts, she looks back at her younger sister with pity. She sees herself too much in her, she wonders why she could not save her from the same fate she had years ago. The way she had called out to her felt as if she was begging. For what, she didn’t know.

“I don’t understand why I’m crying.” Your face remains stoic, but your eyes say otherwise. Was it the child in You? still awaiting the childhood you never had? The little girls in court grew up with toys and share them with other little ladies. Even a friend —one thing you never had. Was this all some form of punishment? a payment for sucking the life out of both your mother and twin brother?

Rhaenyra remains in her place, she too could feel tears gathering at bay. You look back at your older sister, and you are reminded that there was a part of your mother in her too. Does Rhaenyra wear the same face as your mother? that you didn’t know but if there were any way you would honor her memory, it would be through rekindling what was supposed to be with your sister. A shame it took ages, the past was surging with conflict amongst kin, one of the reasons she had drifted apart from you. 

Rhaenyra with words empty, could only walk back to where you’re seated and for the first time, you felt the warmth of her embrace. It felt foreign but a strong sense of security was enough to assure you for that moment.

“This will end badly.” Gwayne tells his father, who has not yet calmed down from your outburst earlier in the throne room. To be insulted as such in front of the King almost freed him from the chains of his temper, but as always, the Hand remained at ease. A feature that seemed to have grown even hardest in the passing of his wife. 

“No matter how it ends, the betrothal will still remain as it has been granted by the King. Your duty now is to be in the Princess’ favor if you are so worried about how it’ll end.” Otto bites back. He was no fool and he knows how his son is no more than satisfied with the arrangement. It had taken him hundreds of convincing and years for it to be deemed reasonable by the King, though when he brought it up whilst Viserys was deep in the milk of the poppy, the King who was not mentally present in the council meeting had abruptly agreed to the request. And no one had taken a hold of the triumph on the Hand’s face. 

“It seems your mind was elsewhere, father. Or had you mistaken the princess’ outburst earlier as a means to express her interests in our betrothal?” Gwayne spits in sarcasm to his father, the frustration evident in the tension of the room. The princess was not what he expected, he had assumed you were weak and small according to how certain ladies at court had circulated amongst. You standing up for yourself earlier in the throne room completely filled Gwayne with humiliation and he wanted nothing more than to sink into a puddle, it was even a surprise to himself that he remained composed. It somehow bought him a bit of relief that you were on the same page as him.

You, a Targaryen princess, was much more worthy than him. He did not think he is deserving of you, a second son. Gwayne had nothing to offer, this betrothal may not be to his favor but still to be granted the hand of a Targaryen was a blessing he did not ask. If the Gods may yet favor him, the marriage may still go forward. The fate he is willing to accept, but if there are circumstances that may uphold such, then he will gladly return to Oldtown empty-handed. 

There was also the approval he had long seeked from his father. Something that hid behind his conquests and masks it as merely what a man from his house should be serving. He wields swords and shields in hopes that whatever light it may reflect might get ahold of Otto’s recognition. A son that he’d proudly boast about. But that ambition might have started to die the very day his father brought his sister to court instead. And he is left alone in their home, and he sometimes wished his mother never left them. The only woman who loved him and saw his potential. He doesn’t even remember what she looked like, just glimpses of it in his sister’s features but even then, that wasn’t enough and Alicent’s features were not close to his mother. Wherein his mother wore a mask of contentment, his sister has permanent misery instead. Her being even influenced by his father.

“Princess Y/n is young and still has much to learn. In the meantime, her stay is permanent. Get her in your favor.” With one final hardened gaze, Otto leaves Gwayne pondering to himself. He wonders what is to be done now that his fate has been sealed. A surge of insecurity flows through him at the thought of marrying a princess. He was just a man, Hightowers may be of highborn but he doesn’t own lands and had no titles. He only wielded swords and shields in which was even a little offer to you —his soon to be wife. You, a Targaryen princess, didn't need his protection, you had a dragon. The events earlier had even proved your distaste to him. How will he even start to form a bond with you when the second you laid eyes on him, you had told everyone in the throne room that you’d sooner accept death than to be wedded? Your arrogance and the lack of holding accountable by your disrespect to the King earlier has him despise your arrogance. After all you are the princess, why should you.

The prospect of your marriage would undoubtedly be filled with you seeking dominance over him simply because you are the King’s daughter. And it even pales him further. 

Alicent remembers the halls on the way to her chambers. She may yet to give her step-daughter a warm welcome she did not receive and it ended with a terrible dispute in the throne room. The whispers now have circulated of your uncontrollable temper. The princess who has grown mad from being isolated on the Vale —some say, even as far as perhaps Ser Gwayne Hightower might do the realm a favor and tame the princess as the woman she supposedly is. 

A small voice of come in answers to her knock. Alicent pushes the door, greeted with a smile from you. Though your eye gives away the sadness deep within. The same one she wears the past remaining years. While you were away, the happiness the Queen received was merely Helaena and her children. She often asks herself if you too missed her, and if you felt the identical loneliness and longing brewing inside of her. 

“Y/n. I have missed you.” She says, returning the gesture. The words you’ve always read but never heard. Alicent could remember the very day she so desperately missed her time with you even as far as voicing it out to her Husband if it was even the right decision to send you away. She was later on rebuked by Otto, deeming her request at the council as a sign of weakness and her attachments to you should not be prevailed upon the verity that you are not her daughter. Still the Queen herself loves you as the same she does to her true children.

“Alicent.” You pull her into an embrace in which she accepts. Alicent could see the progress of your growth, now as taller as her, the fullness of your cheek is nowhere. The years she spent without you had her come into an emotional state. She hugs you tightly, not wanting to let go, though you are the first to pull away.

“You have grown.” She tells you, looking you up and down. As if she could not truly accept she missed you turning into a woman and now you are subjected to such obligations that neither she even wanted. She loves you, but she cannot help you with calling off the betrothal even with your evident disdain. 

Alicent was offered the same fate, she too did not want it but she sooner and later accepted that even the despondents of situations, you’ll find contentment at the end. The children that she was given. Her brother Gwayne was a good man, and even that should be pleasurable enough for you. Had you been offered to a man without morals, you would’ve ended up with a bitter taste in your tongue now and then, the same as Alicent. 

“Well I cannot remain a child forever, even if I wanted to.” You chuckled. You examine the woman in front of you, Alicent remains the same. The years may have spared her. The fullness of the curls in her hair was as if untouched and she is still fond of the green in her gowns. You admit it goes well with the color of her hair. Still you have not fully grown accustomed and there may be sides of her that are nothing but a stranger to you. 

“How was your travels?” She asks, guiding you to sit with her on the couch.

“Silverwing was fast, I bet she too misses the company of her own kind. The wind might have yet to pull my hair out of my roots, but all is fair.” You laughed, remembering the tangles in your hair that you just have finished mending to, the bath after have released the tension in your muscles and cooled down the fire in your veins. 

“It may be a moon till your carriages arrive here. I have spare dresses in which I have grown into, I will have them sent here.” Alicent offers, she brushes the strand of hair on your face and tucks it behind your ear. You notice the slight sad look in her eye.

“Is something bothering you?” She looks away. Alicent, even if she was fond of you, found herself a bit offended by your comments about betrothal directed to her brother. As a sister and mainly the Queen, she obliges to persuade you with your newly given duty. Yet she cannot help with how to form words in a way that would not change the atmosphere.

“I just-“ She takes a deep breath and lets out a heavy sigh. “I am sorry.” Feeling guilty of the preposition.

“For what?” You notice her fidgeting with the skin around her nails. 

“For the betrothal,” she starts. “My brother, Gwayne, is an honorable man. I trust he will not do anything that will harm you.” A sour taste on your tongue appeared, having heard of the name mentioned. Alicent starts to compose herself and you thought of hearing her out even with your tensed state, just now that you started to forget about the situation, she so briefly reminded you. Seemingly annoyed now but you cannot hate her now. “Y/n.. I understand that this is all sudden to you and I hope you find yourself.. f-forgiving me for not sending you any letters regarding all this but-“ her voice starts to quake with apprehension. “Believe me that this will all turn out in favor at the end.” She finishes, her hands now taking yours in hers in an attempt to give consolation. You let her. Alicent  is not sure if she chose the right words. 

“I-“ You stutter, careful with the words coming out from your mouth, seeing Alicent avoiding your gaze. Not wanting to hurt her in return or spit insults at her father and brother. “Alicent.. I don’t know what to say. Or do. I don’t even want to be reminded of the matter now, I am angry at my father for not even asking me about whom to marry if me being a spinster bothers him so.” There was another words waiting at the tip of your tongue, a sharp jab you are sure that’ll make Alicent uneasy. There was a slight hesitation, a moment of deciding against it but the truth always had this nature —a facade of a slander. “I’d say he’s desperate, a son of a second son. What benefit is there in marrying your brother? Other than saving him from the humiliation from the court?”

As expected, Alicent recoils and an unmoving unreadable expression paints her face. The reflection of the fire dances in her glistening eyes. A wave of emotion she dares not release. Lingering quietness overshadowed by the tension between the two of you. “I know nothing of the matters in court, but I trust your father the King has his reasons.” She says a moment later, quickly composing herself. Posture straight and blinking rapidly. The gears tumble inside of her head, Alicent cannot save you from your fate now, she was merely just a woman. All she could do was pray for the sweet fruit to bloom in your forthcoming future. Even when the Gods did not heed to her. Perchance that they would favor you instead, Targaryens are above others after all. 

“Y/n.. I am not here to argue.” She says. “My brother. Gwayne is a good man. He is different from the men in court. He's an honorable, respectful man. I’m sure you both will find more in common if you’ll both let it.” 

“I don’t need you convincing me, Alicent.” You warn. A slight tremor from the thought of spending the rest of your life far from King’s Landing, your family. Alone in a castle in Oldtown, married to a man your heart does not beat for. Birthing his offspring, as if it’s the only thing you serve purpose.

“This settlement needs little to no convincing, Princess.” Alicent rebutes. “Only I can do for you now is to ease tensions and worries you might have. Most women in our standards are shipped off as broodmares to a man that does not see their worth as such. A marriage to my brother is a mercy in the conditions of arrangements.” The noticeable bitterness in her tone caught up on you, though you did nothing to address it. She too was subjected to a path she did not want, only those around her see the benefits of it. Alicent was a ploy to others’ schemes. Every woman is. 

The chatter resonating at the banquet adds little to no distractions from your impending doom. Bitterness swirls within every laughter you hear, as if it’s directed to you. How dare people enjoy the feast and stuff their throat with wine and roasted pigs and turkeys while yours closed with a painful lump, even swallowing nothing stings and reminds you of him. A permanent scowl directed at him, if only a hole opens up and devours him whole, only then you’ll be able to enjoy the half full goblet of wine that trembles in your tightening grip. Was it because of anger? disdain at your beloved betrothed or the jester that seems to be enjoying your misery and making an entertainment out of it? Whatever he said that has the small group of drunkards that gathered around him, you didn’t hear. Choosing to dissociate and hope that time will pass by quickly so you may resume your wallowing in your chambers.

“It does not fit for a future bride to look so despondent.” A voice pipes on your side, Prince Jacaerys sits on the empty chair previously occupied by his mother. You scoff in return, taking a huge gulp from the goblet. “It’s bad luck.” he smirks teasingly. 

“As if marrying a Hightower isn’t already bad luck itself.“ you said, unconsciously diverting your eyes back to the Redhead, in which happens to feel your burning gaze on him, turned to look at you. Gwayne gives a small nod out of respect, you roll your eyes in response, focusing on the patterns carved on the feast table instead. 

“I’m sure it isn’t so bad.” Jacaerys attempts, studying your face if for a moment it falters to something that shows uncomfortness that might be directed at him. He knows he’s testing the waters, but his mother told him so to console you and mainly because it had been too long since he last saw you, his aunt. There was a silence that followed, one he was sure that you won’t answer, and so he prepared to compose himself and thought that giving you space might be the only consolidation that you need. 

“I know what you’re doing.” You sigh, turning to him with a frown and only then you realized that this wasn’t the nephew you knew ages ago. His features were the evident of that, his features grew sharper and he no longer has unkempt locks that you used to brush for him. A slight wave of sadness washed over you, having reminded you of all the missed years you spent away from Rhaenyra and her family. 

“I- I don’t know what you mean.” He chuckles awkwardly from having been caught from his poor attempt of indulging you. 

“I’ve had enough of everyone pitying me all day then pitching and convincing me of this stupid arrangement as if it would change my mind when I couldn’t even decline it in the first place.” You took a huge gulp of wine. “No one will understand what I feel, that this is not all just merely the thought of marrying.” Jacaerys listens to you intently, he shifts his body to fully face you.

“Is it because he’s a Hightower?” 

“No.” 

“Because he’s much older than you?” He tries.

“No.” You contemplate, and he sees this. For a moment there was an undeniable tension, Jacaerys seeing the gloss of your eye as you stared into nothing. And he pities you, and he also feels guilty because you just told him that you’ve had enough of it.

“And to think I cannot wait to go back home. Then the moment I stepped foot in here, it felt as if I’m a stranger. I no longer recognize the faces that welcomed me. I searched for that warmth this place used to give me and never have I felt it again. This place is different. Everything and everyone is not the same. I don’t remember how Aegon, Helaena and Aemond used to look when they were children. Nor do I fully remember you and Luke. I’ve missed so much in the years that it felt like I don’t deserve to belong here. Could it be that this marriage is a heaven sent, a faith bestowed upon me by the Gods? A way of saying that I belong somewhere but here?” 

Jacaerys now stares at you with a dumbfounded look, not expecting you to spill out words. But he understands you fully, he feels some sort of pride that you trusted him enough to tell him all this, despite not seeing each other for years, despite him being so much younger than you. Or could it be just the wine talking? It made him feel that he’s no longer a child, that you no longer saw him as a child. For the first time in a while, he felt seen somehow. But this isn’t about him, this was about you.

“To serve your family is a sacrifice that balances the scale. To maintain order to the realm that is,” Jacaerys starts. “But I am no woman. I do not know the suffering that bares you, the fear that you feel of the thought of being tied to a man you’ve just met. But I do know that whatever cage you find yourself in, you will always manage to crawl your way out.” He puts his hands on both your shoulders, daring you to face him and he sees the dark circles under your eyes, the tension of your lips pressed in a thin line, the furrow of your eyebrows and his reflection staring right back at him. “You are not just a woman. You are a Targaryen. I will not console you because it further debases your capabilities, which is more than you’re deserving. But do know that if anything goes south, I will always be there at arms ready.” 

Jacaerys is immediately flung to your embrace as you pull him in, he realizes a few milliseconds then pats your back in a soothing manner. “Thank you, Jace.” 

You both pull away a moment after, followed by a comfortable silence. Pairs gather at the center of the room as the band plays a familiar tune. Jace looks at you, contemplating asking you for a dance but before he could, a figure hovering behind you clears his throat garnering both your attention. As soon as you raised your eyes to meet the man, you visibly tensed.

“May I have the honor, Princess?” Ser Gwayne with all his confidence gathered did not hesitate, stating his intentions. Having heard of both your betrothal, he decides to just prove the arrangement might not be as bad as it seems, especially now that half the nobles all throughout the country gathered here today in celebration for your return and as well as the betrothal. 

The room fades into an endless resonance as you stared petrified on his outreached hand, you looked around you having noticed the attention gathering from the simple gesture, but it wasn’t as simply an invitation to dance. It signified the acceptance of the union. 

As every second passed, Ser Gwayne’s hope slowly fades, the pressuring stare bare witness to his suffering and the humiliation that is to come to him, he decides that if that were the case then he can’t do nothing but to accept the rejection and pray to the seven Gods to swallow him where he stood. Jacaery’s grows amused with the tension brewing before him, and without any contemplation, he decides to leave the rest up to you, silently hoping that all goes well not just for the two of you but for the events in the throne room to not be repeated. 

It may have been the wine in your veins or perhaps Jacarey's encouraging words that fueled the fire in your heart, or maybe that look in your betrothed's eye —that reminded you of your dragon’s when taking away its unburnt sheep— that made you move without a second, and just for a moment, that split second where you are sure Ser Gwayne has abandoned all hope and was about to retract his hand in defeat did you place your hands in his. All light returned in his eyes, widened in disbelief because neither of you expected that it would be too soon for a connection. As for the incident imposed by you, —visibly cringing at the thought, you are yet to apologize for such childish antics.

His hands were rough, from sword fighting for sure, and the difference in the size of your hands did not go unnoticed, though for a reason you did not know, your heart leaped at the foreign action — and so did Ser Gwayne’s. 

The warmth of your hand reminded him of a raging hearth on a stormy night.

When you caught him cheating, he didn't apologize. He blamed you.

"You're never here. You're always working. What am I supposed to do? You left me in this disgusting house. This is your fault."

"But I'm working for us—for the baby—"

"I gave up everything for you!" He screamed it so close to your face you felt the spit. "My family. My future. I threw it all away for you, and you can't even be here when I need you. You're selfish. You're a worthless, selfish bitch."

You were the one who cried. You were the one who apologized. For working too much. For being pregnant. For being tired. For being ugly. For being a bad girlfriend. You begged him not to leave you. You promised you'd do better.

He let you cry for a while. Then he pulled you into a hug and kissed your forehead.

"Shh. I forgive you. I love you so much it makes me insane. You're my everything. You know that, right?"

"I know. I'm sorry. I'll be better."

"You're my good girl. Now get off the floor. You look disgusting."

The physical abuse escalated slowly.

A shove during an argument. A grip on your arm that left a mark. A slap when you talked back. And each time, it was your fault. You made him do it. You knew how he got when he was stressed. Why did you push him?

Giving birth was a nightmare.

You tore during delivery. Badly. You were in so much pain you couldn't walk. You couldn't sit without screaming. You were bleeding through pads every hour, feverish, your milk coming in so hard your chest felt like hot stones.

He sat in the corner of the hospital room, bored.

"Can you stop? You're embarrassing me. The nurses think I did something to you."

"Baby, I'm sorry, I can't—I can't walk—"

"You're being childish. Women give birth every day. Get up."

"B-But I can't."

Five minutes later, he grabbed your arm—the same arm where the IV had just been removed, still bruised—and yanked you out of the bed. You hit the floor. Your stitches ripped. The pain was so white hot you didn't even make a sound. You just opened your mouth and nothing came out.

He dragged you to the car by your hair while you bled through your hospital gown.

At home, things got worse.

The baby cried. Babies do that. But Aerion couldn't stand it.

If the baby woke him up, it was your fault.

If the baby needed feeding while he was trying to talk to you you, it was your fault.

If the baby was colicky and screamed for hours while you walked circles in the dark, Aerion would come out of the bedroom, grab you by the throat, and slam you against the wall.

"Shut that thing up or I will."

If you were too exhausted to have sex with him six weeks postpartum, it was your fault.

"After everything I gave up for you," he'd say, fist clenched. "You can't even spread your legs? You're useless. Disgusting fucking pig."

The beatings became routine.

Not slaps. Closed fists. Steel toed boots. A cast iron skillet once, right across your lower back. You still can't stand for more than an hour without pain.

He broke your fingers one by one over the course of a year.

Your pinky first, because you burned his toast.

Your ring finger, because you forgot to buy his cigarettes.

Your middle finger, because you looked at him wrong.

Your index finger, because you asked him to please get a job.

Your thumb, because you flinched when he raised his hand, and flinching meant you thought he was a monster, and thinking he was a monster meant you didn't love him.

He dislocated your shoulder twice.

The second time, he refused to take you to the hospital.

"You'll tell them. You'll lie and tell them I did this and they'll take you away from me."

So you sat on the bathroom floor for four hours, arm hanging wrong, while he stood over you saying, "See how much I love you? I can't even let you go to the doctor because I can't lose you."

He shoved your head through the drywall in the hallway. The hole stayed there for months, and every time you passed it, you'd feel your skull pulse with the memory.

He once pressed a lit cigarette into your inner thigh while you were sleeping. You woke up screaming and he clamped a hand over your mouth and whispered, "Shh, you'll wake the baby."

One time you talked back.

Just once.

You said "please stop" during a beating and he interpreted that as defiance. He duct taped your mouth shut, zip tied your wrists to the radiator, and left you there for fourteen hours. You pissed yourself.

You cried until you couldn't breathe through your nose. When he finally cut you loose, he held you like a baby and cried and said he was so sorry, he just loved you so much, you made him so crazy, why did you make him do these things.

And you comforted him.

You, with the broken fingers and the bruised ribs and the piss soaked jeans, you held him and told him it was okay. That you forgave him. That you knew he didn't mean it.

The isolation deepened.

He took your phone most days. He disabled the internet. He told the neighbors you were mentally ill, unstable, that they shouldn't talk to you if you came knocking. He convinced the landlady you were a drug addict so she'd ignore any complaints.

You were trapped. Completely, utterly trapped in that house with him, and no one was coming.

He has "needs."

He didn't wait the six weeks the doctor told you. He didn't even wait two. You were still bleeding, still stitched, still leaking milk through your shirt, and he pushed you onto the mattress.

"I have needs. You're my girlfriend. This is your job."

When you cried, he said you were being dramatic.

When you bled through the sheets, he said it was disgusting and you should clean it up.

When you went numb and silent and stared at the ceiling until it was over, he kissed your forehead and said,

"See? That wasn't so bad. You're so good for me."

He'd wake you up in the middle of the night by climbing on top of you. Sometimes you didn't even fully wake up—your body just learned to disassociate. You'd float somewhere near the ceiling while he did what he wanted.

He'd choke you during sex.

Not the playful kind. The kind where your vision went spotty and your hands clawed at his wrists and he'd whisper "shh, shh, almost there" while you fought for air.

Once, he held a pillow over your face the entire time. You clawed at his arms, your lungs screaming, and when you finally went limp, he pulled it off and kissed you and said,

"See? You can take it. My good girl."

He filmed it sometimes. On his phone.

He said it was for him, for when you were at work. He said it was proof that you loved him. You found out later he'd shown some of the videos to the girls he was cheating with. A little entertainment. A little "look at what my bitch lets me do."

He cheated constantly.

Openly. In your bed. On your couch.

He'd bring girls home while you were cleaning, hand them a drink, gesture at you like you were furniture.

"That's just my girlfriend. Don't mind her."

And you'd keep scrubbing. Keep your head down. Because if you said anything, you'd pay for it later in bruises.

One girl felt sorry for you.

"are you okay?" She asked when he went to the bathroom.

You didn't answer. You couldn't.

The next week, you saw her at the corner store with a split lip. He'd found out she'd talked to you. He'd gone back to "set her straight."

He told you about it later, proud. "No one disrespects my girl."

The mind games were worse than the beatings, in some ways. Because bruises fade. Broken bones heal. But the way he messed with your mind—that never really went away.

"You're so fucking ugly when you cry. Look at yourself. Who would ever want this?"

"You're lucky I stay. No one else would touch you. Disgusting pig."

"I'm the only one who loves you. Your own mother doesn't call anymore. Your friends forgot you exist. You have nothing without me. You are nothing."

"If you ever left, I'd find you. And I'd kill you. And then I'd kill myself. And our son would be an orphan. Is that what you want? You want our son to be alone because you're too selfish?"

"I hit you because I love you. If I didn't care, I wouldn't bother. You make me feel so much it drives me insane. No one else has ever made me feel this way. You're special. You should be grateful."

"You drove me to this," he'd hiss, hands around your throat, thumbs pressing into your windpipe. "You made me like this. Before you, I was fine. I was happy. I was going to be someone. Now look at me. Living in this shithole with a pathetic cunt who can't even keep me satisfied. You ruined my life. You fucking ruined my life."

And you stayed quiet. You stayed small.

You covered the bruises with drugstore concealer and long sleeves in summer.

You smiled at the neighbors. You let him cheat. You let him mock your body in front of his friends.

You let him call you a whore, a pig, a worthless piece of shit who should be grateful he even let you breathe the same air.

Because you believed him.

God, you believed him with your whole heart.

You'd ruined him. You'd destroyed this beautiful, brilliant boy. He gave up his inheritance, his family, his entire world, and you couldn't even keep him happy.

So you kiss his fists after he hit you. You'd apologize for making him angry. You'd promise to be better. You'd promise to be good. You'd promise you'd never, ever leave.

"You love me?" he'd ask, voice suddenly soft, childlike, after the storm passed. "You really love me?"

"More than anything. More than my own life."

"Even after what I did?"

"You were upset. You didn't mean it. I know you love me."

"I do. I love you so much. You're the only one who understands me. You're my soulmate. We're going to be together forever, right? Promise me. Promise me you'll never leave."

"I promise. I swear on the baby. I'll never leave you."

Until one day he just... left.

You came home from the grocery store and his clothes were gone. His car was gone. The little bit of cash you'd hidden in the cereal box was gone. He left a note on the kitchen counter, written on the back of a takeout menu:

"You can keep the brat. I'm done."

It was after he left that you found out about the debt.

He had opened credit cards in your name. Seven of them. He'd maxed them all out and never paid a cent. Loans. Payday advances. A car loan for a car you never saw. He'd forged your signature on everything.

Your credit was destroyed. Your name was dirt. Collection agencies called you every hour, screaming, threatening. You couldn't rent an apartment. You couldn't get a loan. You couldn't even open a bank account.

He destroyed your life.

But your son kept you alive. Your beautiful boy with his silver hair and his serious little frown. He had Aerion's face but your heart. You knew it. You saw it every time he smiled at you, every time he patted your cheek with his sticky little hand and said "I love you, Mama."

You worked three jobs. You lived on ramen and tap water. You did everything you could. You never let him see you cry.

And now Aerion wanted to take him.

You'll never forget that courtroom. The wood paneling. The flag. The seal of the state. Aerion on the stand, lying through his perfect teeth.

"Yes, your honor, she kept my son from me for years."

"Yes, your honor, she has mental health problems."

"Yes, your honor, I just want what's best for my son. "

You sat in that courtroom and listened to them describe you as neglectful. Unhinged. A danger to your own child.

They brought up the eviction. The food stamps. The time you had a panic attack at parent teacher meeting and had to leave early. They twisted every scar he'd given you into proof that you were insane.

And Aerion sat there with his hands folded, looking sad. Looking disappointed. Looking like he genuinely love your son.

You started screaming.

You don't remember what you said. You just remember the bailiff's hands on your arms.

You remember your son's face in the back of the courtroom, crying.

You remember Aerion's smile — quick, flickering, gone before anyone else could catch it.

You lost.

The day they came to take him, your son held onto your legs and screamed so hard he lost his voice.

"Mama, please, please don't let them take me, I'll be good, I promise I'll be good, please mama please—"

You couldn't save him.

You watched them buckle him into Aerion's car.

You watched his little hands pressed against the window.

You watched him mouth I love you through the glass.

And then they were gone.

And you were alone.

And the silence was louder than anything you'd ever heard.

Two days later, they send you an email.

Official. Signed by his lawyer.

"Pursuant to the custody agreement, you are hereby ordered to pay child support in the amount of $1,200 per month, effective immediately."

Ha.

Look at that.

Aerion fucking Targaryen — trust fund baby, the man who's family had more wealth than you'd see in ten lifetimes —

Wanted you to pay child support.

At least he lets you see your son.

Two hours a week. Every Thursday. Supervised visitation in a cold, gray room at a county facility. No contact outside of that. No phone calls. No letters. No nothing.

With him sitting right there.

Watching.

He's always there. He doesn't have to be—he has money now, Daddy's money, he could pay someone, he could trust the system—but he comes anyway. Every single week. He sits in the corner with his legs crossed and his hands folded and he watches you like a hawk watches a mouse.

Your son is across the room today, building something with blocks. You're trying to focus on him, trying to memorize every detail of his face in case this is the last time you see it. But you can feel Aerion's eyes on you. You can always feel them.

"Your father took you back, I see."

You don't look at him. Your voice is flat, dead.

He chuckles. It's a soft, musical sound. He used to laugh like that when he'd buy you things after a bad night.

Here, baby, I got you these earrings. Don't they make up for it? Don't they?

"Of course. He's my father, after all."

After eight years. After everything. The prodigal son returns. All is forgiven. The poor can rot.

"You look tired," he says, tilting his head. His voice is light. Conversational. Almost pleasant. "Still working those dead end jobs, I assume?"

"Bills don't pay themselves."

"No. I suppose they don't. Especially not with your... situation."

He waves a hand vaguely, as if your entire existence is a minor inconvenience.

"I do hope the child support payments won't be too much of a burden. I made sure the court was reasonable."

You let out a short, hollow laugh. "Reasonable. Right."

"I could have asked for more. I didn't. You're welcome."

You just stare at him. The audacity.

"I bet the Lannisters aren't happy about it," you laugh. "I mean you almost killed their precious girl."

His smile shifted. Widened. Turned almost fond.

"Oh, you're jealous, I see."

Jealous?

He thought you were jealous. Of the fiance he'd put in the hospital before he ever touched you, the actual reason he was kicked out.

You open your mouth but nothing comes out.

What can you even say to a narcissist like him?

His gaze drifts over you. Lingering. Dissecting. You can feel it crawling over your skin, invasive and foul.

“So...” he murmurs, tilting his head.

Hmm?

“You got a boyfriend or something?”

If you want to be in my "shitty baby daddy" taglist let me know :)

The box sat on Aerion's nightstand for weeks, collecting dust just as the thought did in his mind. A stupid prank from his drunken brother, one he wouldn't entertain. Busying himself with work, running the length of his street for an hour each morning and evening, driving until his gas ran on empty. Trying not to let you consume his every waking moment.

But you insisted on it anyway.

You had been friends since you interned at his father's company, only for a summer just to get some experience and a glowing recommendation. Aerion, to his core, was naturally standoffish, so he hadn't warmed to you until you were forcibly locked in his office with him to help stay up to date on reports. One of the boring tasks that Aerion fought defiantly.

It was that afternoon, he finally warmed to you. Though it was more akin to ice melting. He remained silent, gone were the scoffing and pompous commentary. Then, he began to laugh at your jokes. And that afternoon had been the catalyst to a strange friendship.

A friendship of unspoken words, lingering glances when the other was unaware, living life in show for each other. You played the part of friend well; hiding every ounce of yearning in your chest behind your poker face. He was none the wiser to your ache for him; the way he brought you a coffee every morning on his way toward his office, the way he praised you for everything you did to help him, the silent car rides he would give you home.

You would confide in Valarr, another intern you met, who you had found out was Aerion's cousin. Great. No escaping this man. But Valarr didn't much care for his cousin, wouldn't piss on him if he were on fire. So your secrets were undeniably safe with him.

It had been months of yearning of Aerion, veiled with friendly teasing comments and an appropriate distance. Telling Valarr how you wished Aerion would just reject you, so you could move on. But he continued as if your friendship was completely pure, as if he were naive to the way your hands would be less than an inch from each other when you would share his desk for a task. Even when you had left the company after an extended internship, hoping to latch onto someone else at your new job. But your mind refused to unlatch from the pale haired brat you found a friend in.

"I bought you a gift." Valarr had his hands tucked behind his back when he met you at the cafe. You kept touch with him, meeting him for lunch whenever you could. And even today, to celebrate his promotion.

"For me?" You cheered, standing from your seat to embrace him. "You're the man of honor today!"

"Humor me for just a moment. Close your eyes." He took his hands from behind his back, placing the box into your outstretched hands. Your eyes peeled open to see a triangular box, a ONE WISH WILLOW.

"What the fuck is this?" You frowned.

"I was looking for a gift for my dad's birthday and saw that in a crystal shop." He explained, taking a sip of the piping hot beverage you had ordered for him minutes before he arrived.

"You were looking for a gift for your dad in a crystal shop?" Your face scrunched more intensely at your strange friend, the small box still sat in your hands.

"Besides the point." Valarr deadpanned. "It's a One Wish Willow."

"And what does this Willow do?"

"You wish for something and snap it. And your wish comes true." Valarr spoke so casually, as if this were as common knowledge as brushing your teeth or tying your shoes.

"You're hilarious." You gave him a wooden stare, dismissing the small box into your purse. "`What do I wish for? A new best friend?"

"I was thinking you could finally wish for my wretched cousin to cease his existence." Valarr suggested. "Or for him to love you as intensely as you do him."

"Hey!" You exclaimed.

"What? Your love makes me sick." A half-truth. He loved seeing you happy, but not where Aerion was involved. He would snap a Willow of his own to wish you would forget your puppy love for his cousin.

"The only wish I'll be making it for you to be quiet."

Perhaps your neutrality with Aerion didn't just sink into his stomach, or fade into nothingness. Perhaps it mutated in his mind, sending him into a vastness of insanity. The constant, unusual fear of saying something stupid, cheering himself up with watching your social media intently, unwilling to let go of the hold he had on you. He had been driven to insanity over you. That very feeling had him sat in the corner of the backyard, in his designated smoking spot that his father had ordered him to use, because the smoke "keeps lingering in the house".

He held the triangular box in his hand, observing the dated red-and-white design, vexed at himself for even considering resorting to this foolishness.

He studied the box between drags, letting the cigarette sit between his lips as he read the words.

Need help? Call today! 1-323-747-7118

He could wish for his infatuation for you to cease, then he could live his life more peacefully, more for himself and less in show for you. He could wish for you to move out of town, forcing himself to get over you and live your lives separately. But Aerion was a selfish man, he knew it. He wouldn't do anything that didn't serve him.

REMOVE FROM THE BOX AND JUST MAKE A WISH!

SPARK THE MIDDLE AND BREAK IT IN HALF.

WHAT ARE YOU WISHING FOR?

"I wish," he sighed deeply, tapping his foot to find the wording.

It were as if something in his mind had snapped, the sound of a twig snapping echoed in his mind. His emotion felt dialled, it had never burned so violently in his stomach, it had never sounded like a deafening ring as much as it did in this moment.

This was where insanity had taken him, wishing for you to love him as he did you, wishing the one girl who was so passive with him to truly, deeply love him. And so, he spoke his wish aloud. For you to love him, to match his desire. Before snapping the willow, a clean break in the middle as it sat in each hand.

"So stupid." He scoffed, discarding the trinket onto the lawn beside him, stubbing the butt of his cigarette out between the fragments. He hoped to wake in the morning and have this useless feeling in the pit of his stomach to be gone, for you to be gone—

His phone chimed, the screen like a stun grenade in the darkness of the garden.

You: Hey, you.

Aerion's mouth dried. This was stupid coincidence, right?

Aerion: Hey.

Was that too blunt? Did he look uninterested? Had he ruined his wish already?

Aerion: What are you doing up so late?

You: Can't sleep.

Aerion: Me neither.

He watched the typing bubble appear and disappear over and over, impatiently waiting for your reply. He lit another cigarette through pure stress, inhaling it as his phone balanced on his knee.

You: Want to go for a drive?

"How have we not done this sooner?" You sighed, settling comfortably into his fully reclined passenger seat, your view of the city below and all its little gleaming lights.

"Busy, I guess." He shrugged. "We live different lives now."

The words felt like a lie as he spoke them. If you wanted to make the time, the two of you would have. But you had become professional and skirting around your feelings, pretending the blossoming in your chest was simply not there.

"That makes me sad." You sighed, looking over at him as his head was already turned to face yours. "I missed you."

Aerion could feel his mind buzz with anxiety, the hankering for another cigarette had his hands balled tightly at his side. "I missed you."

The world looked darker around you. Each different hue now warmer, redder, than it should be. As if a vessel had burst in your eye, the blood coating your vision until all you could see was Aerion. The man who looked no different than when you worked with him a year ago. Hair still unnaturally white, eyes still sunken and jaw still tense. A cigarette dangling from his lip at any given chance.

You had always admired the small details of his face, but only tonight had you truly seen them. It felt like the wires in your brain had been tangled, heightening any sort of feelings you already harboured. His eyes looked darker, smile wider, you could hear the blood passing through his veins, you could hear his heart pumping rapidly.

Your Willow had worked.

Aerion watched you intently; he noticed your tinged cheeks as you smiled at him, he noticed the way you were intensely staring into him, he noticed how you fiddled with the rings on your finger sheepishly. He wouldn't even admit it inside the privacy of his own mind, he would not give Daeron the satisfaction of saying this stupid Willow had worked.

"Want me to drive you home?" Aerion offered. "You look tired."

"No." You answered quickly, reaching a hand out to settle on his chest. "I like it here. With you."

Aerion placed his hand over yours, where his heart was buried beneath, calling out to your flesh above it. "Then you can come home with me."

You nodded. Your mind wasn't your own tonight, you knew better than to go home with a guy you hadn't seen in a year. But it was Aerion, your heart was encased in tattoos of his name, memories of words he'd spoken to you. He felt like home.

Laying beside him in his bed felt feverish. His sheets felt coarse against your bare legs, his hands were weighted as they rest on your hip. You were looking straight at him and all you could make out were the glints in his eyes. His features kissed by shadow and darkness, just white holes where his pupils were.

"You're freezing." He noted. "Do you want some more blankets?"

"No," you whispered, unable to take your eyes from his, "I'm okay."

"I can make you warm. Come a little closer."

You shuffled your legs into his, feeling that hue of warmth return. Aerion's features had brightened, no longer the scary monster in the closet, but the man you loved. The man you pined for day after day, now beside you in a bubble of quiet, intimate vulnerability.

"This might be crazy to admit," he breathed, no longer did he feel a rush of anxiety when you listened to him, no longer did he fear he would mess up the words he spoke, "but I love you. I have loved you, for a while."

Your heart had ceased its rhythm for a moment, Aerion's words the sole focus in those few seconds. "And I, you."

Your days were taken by Aerion, as his were taken by you. You would wake and sleep together, kiss the other goodbye on your way to work, meet for lunch and stay just a few minutes over. He consumed your thoughts, your autonomy, your heart, body, and soul. You were the object of Aerion's desires, there hadn't been a thought that didn't involve you. His mind was held captive by your memory, work on the back burner as he remembered your laughter at his stupid joke.

His father would click in his face, send him reminder emails, all to remind him there was in fact a world outside of you. But it didn't exist to him; he lived in a world without you for years, spent his days and nights in agony wishing for you to be his. And now he had you, he found purpose, he got as he wanted, he would not let his gratitude falter.

Valarr would watch you in concern over coffee, talking as if from another planet entirely. As if you had met the perfect man, and not the parasite his cousin had become.

"Do you not think this is all a bit... sudden?" Valarr frowned, tapping at the sides of his ceramic mug. The sound rang in your ears, taking you from the story you were just telling him of.

"What?"

"You guys seem very in love." Valarr stated.

"We are."

"It's nearly been a month."

You scoffed. "Love doesn't know time, Valarr."

He cared deeply for you, watched you sing and cry and lose your breath with laughter. But he hadn't seen you so in love before. Not to this extent, where you felt antsy without him. Where each moment spent apart felt like a waste of time.

"Just be careful, please." Valarr intoned. "You know my thoughts on Aerion, and I don't think this is healthy."

"And who are you to decide that?" You laughed, gathering your things from the booth beside you. "Call me when you've learnt my love life isn't your business."

And of course, you ran straight to Aerion. Told him all of Valarr's comments, how he felt about your love, how he stuck his nose where it didn't belong. You sat on his lap as he soothed your tearful words, hand dragging up and down your back to calm you.

"He doesn't understand." Aerion whispered. "The poor boy hasn't felt a love like this, he won't understand until he does."

"I just want to be with you, I feel safe with you." You wept onto his shoulder, your salty tears dampening his shirt. "Don't want to leave."

"Then don't. Stay here, leave that wretched job of yours. I earn enough to make you happy, to keep you here with me." His words carried such weight, despite being unaware of the poison laced within them. He was whispering incantations into your ears, to burrow into the folds of your brain, to darken that hue of warmth you saw.

You felt most like yourself with Aerion. Going on walks, watching movies, baking, grocery shopping, visiting him on his lunch break at his office building. You felt both hands leave the wheel when he kissed you goodbye, but the car maintained its speed. It hadn't slowed down when your hands left the wheel, if anything it gathered speed. Your vision blurred, your heart threatened the break the ribcage that guarded it. You felt on the verge of collapse until Aerion would return home, his hands would settle on your cheeks, and all would be right in the world.

Those feelings of derangement would only flare when Aerion was gone, or an obstacle presented itself. And the newest obstacle had been the secretary, disturbing your private lunch break with Aerion.

"Sorry," she peered through the door with a wide grin, a stack of folders in her arm, "your father told me to give you these."

"Just leave them on that shelf." Aerion instructed, his eyes tearing from you for a moment to gesture to the shelf. "Thanks."

Gratitude. For her. Thanking her for the disruption to your conversation. The world paled until the door clicked shut again, and Aerion's hand sat on your knee.

"As you were saying, sweetheart?"

Locking her in her office felt the most reasonable response, hearing her fists slam against the windows as you walked with Aerion to his car once the office building had shut. It felt good, you moved the obstacle. It was necessary.

But it had failed.

Aerion had been called to release her, as he lived the closest. And your blood bubbled beneath your skin.

"No." You spoke. "I haven't seen you all day."

"I know, sweetheart." Aerion always jumped to comfort you, to soothe your every worry as you did him. "But you locked her in, it's been long enough. I'm sure she's learnt her lesson."

Tears burned at your waterline. Aerion was siding with her, choosing her.

"She disturbed us, she can't get away with that. Who knows what else she'll try next?" You fretted, advancing towards him. Your hands rested on his chest, his hands atop yours. A position you assumed when obstructions appeared.

"Feel that?" He whispered. His heart slammed against your palms, a living, breathing reminder of your wishes. Merged into one, spurring him on. "That's for you."

Your heart was clawing its way out of your body, searching blindly for his own. His hands felt safe, secure, as they pulled you closer to him. There was nothing except him in this moment, just the charge of your skin against his.

"I need you." His teeth nipped at the skin of your jaw, grunts falling from his lips. "I want to crawl inside you."

You whimpered, letting him paw at your shirt. The material was nothing short of an inconvenience, he would tear it from you if it wasn't your favourite shirt. But he felt controlled, he saw himself outside of his own body. Biting at your neck, drawing blood and letting it stray down your skin.

"Aerion," you cried, compressed between him and the living room rug.

"What do you want, sweetheart?" He cooed, bunching your skirt up to your hips.

"I need you... please." You breathed into his mouth, your blood marred his lips so deliciously. His smirk shaped his teeth as fangs, you willed him to drink you in more, to consume you.

He burrowed into you, cradling your back as you arched off the floor. You squeezed around him, pulling him into you further, to keep the connection between you both. He set a firm pace into you, breathing his desire into you, as if being inside you simply wasn't enough.

You had not been born cold.

That was the thing no one at court ever understood, though courts were forever mistaking silence for pride and reserve for disdain. You had been raised amongst lions, and lions were loud creatures even when finely dressed. Casterly Rock had rung with bright laughter through gilded halls, with splendid tempers, sharp tongues, and easy boasts, with uncles and cousins who embraced noisily, quarrelled noisily, and made peace just as noisily over wine. The Lannisters were beautiful in the way songs preferred—fair and golden, bright as hammered coin in sunlight, with green eyes clear as sea glass and crimson cloaks spilling from their shoulders in rich folds. Their guards were red cloaks, their banners red and gold, and their pride was as old as the Rock itself.

You were all of those things too. You had the pale gold hair, the emerald eyes, the fine bones, and the lion’s pride.

You simply had not inherited your kin’s ease with noise.

As a girl, you had often stood just behind the others, smiling softly while the room filled around you. You felt things too deeply and spoke too little. In the west, that had been understood for what it was: shyness, reserve, gentleness turned inward. Your mother would smooth your hair and call you tender-hearted. Your cousins would talk enough for three people and pull you laughing into their games regardless. At Casterly Rock, no one mistook your quiet for frost.

At King’s Landing, they did.

By the time you came east, the match had already been measured in ledgers and whispered over at council tables. Prince Valarr had thought, in the vague, careless way young men often thought of futures not yet nailed down by older hands, that he might one day marry Keira of Tyrosh. Not for love, perhaps not at first, but because she had been there, and because she had been easy in his company in a way few women were. Keira was clever and handsome, and quick enough to laugh at him without making him feel small for it. He knew the tilt of her chin when annoyed, the cadence of her voice in gardens and hawking fields, and the little courtesies that had begun, over time, to feel like the first stones laid in the road of something more.

Then Prince Daeron was offered Keira instead.

It was called a finer match. A wiser one. A more useful one. Men with rings on every finger said so in grave tones, and women in jeweled sleeves nodded as though marriages were bolts of silk to be weighed and priced. For Valarr, as though some god in a bitter mood had chosen to salt the wound, there came a bride from the westerlands with Casterly Rock at her back and Lannister gold in her veins.

“Lannister coin will strengthen the crown,” Prince Baelor had said.

What Valarr heard was simpler and crueler: Keira is gone, and you are to be paid for in gold.

He said nothing, because princes were not reared to complain prettily when duty was laid upon them. He bowed his head, accepted the terms, and stood in the hall like something carved while men older than he was decided the shape of the rest of his life.

You arrived a moon’s turn later beneath banners stirring in a dry black wind off Blackwater Bay. The day was bright and pitiless, all hard light on pale stone and brazen helms. You descended from your litter in crimson velvet lined with lion fur, gold thread at the hems, your hair partly hidden beneath a jeweled net. You came with a small train of handmaidens chosen by the royal household to ease your settling into court—though in time they would become far more than attendants.

You curtsied before the royal family with perfect grace.

Your hands did not tremble.

Your face was composed so beautifully that one might have mistaken calm for indifference.

Valarr looked at you as one might look upon a polished shield: fine enough, but cold to the touch.

You saw the look and hated him a little for it. You were already frightened, already trying not to show it, and the thought that the man you were to wed believed you proud and unyielding felt like one more weight laid on your shoulders before the marriage had even begun.

Their wedding, your wedding, was a splendid misery.

The sept was full. Candles burned in long pale ranks beneath crystal stars. Silk rustled. Swords whispered against scabbards. Lords in dark velvets and ladies crusted in gems watched with the bright, hungry stillness courts reserved for unions that mattered. The singers sang. The bells rang. The court smiled as though it had not just watched one bride exchanged for another like a treaty clause amended after midnight. Valarr did all that was expected. He cloaked you. He kissed you when the septon bade it. He danced. He drank. He smiled until his jaw ached.

Across the hall, Keira sat beside Prince Daeron in Tyroshi silk and pearls, graceful as enamel on ivory. Daeron leaned to murmur something in her ear. She laughed softly. Valarr saw it. He hated that he saw it. He hated even more that the sight of her followed him into the bedding chamber that night.

You sat on the edge of the bed in crimson silk, your back very straight, your hair half-unbound and spilling over one shoulder in pale waves that caught the candlelight. The chamber smelled of wax and spiced wine and crushed rose petals underfoot, with smoke from the brazier lingering faintly in the rafters. Outside, the distant noise of revelry rolled through the stone like surf.

“You may look at me as though I am a sentence passed upon you,” you said at last, “but it will not make the door open again.”

Valarr, half-undressed, turned toward you.

There was no tremor in your voice. No plea. No tears.

He ought to have admired that. Instead he said, sharper than he meant, “Did they teach you to say that in the west?”

“No,” you answered. “In the west they taught me not to beg where I am not wanted.”

For one ugly moment, he almost laughed.

That should have warned him. That should have told him there was wit in you, and hurt pride, and some slender hidden softness held upright by sheer will. That should have been the beginning of something honest between you.

Instead, it became the shape of what followed.

And yet it was Valarr, strangely, who first saw the truth of you. Not in any song-worthy fashion, not by moonlight in a garden or with vows half-spoken into a kiss, but in the common, unbeautiful places where the heart sometimes showed itself despite all effort.

At your first feast in the capital, the great hall had been a roar of voices. Targaryens at one end, mighty lords at the other, silver dishes flashing beneath torchlight, musicians sawing at strings, courtiers pressing too near with curiosity dressed as courtesy. You bore it beautifully, because Lannisters did not tremble where anyone could see. You answered what was asked. You smiled when proper. You lowered your head when expected. But beneath the table your hands were clenched so tightly your nails bit crescents into your palms.

Valarr, seated beside you, went still after some time.

Then, without announcement and without looking at you, he said quietly, “You need not stay until the final course. I can say you are tired from the journey.”

You turned, startled.

He only reached for his cup as if nothing of consequence had passed between you.

But when the roasted swan came out and every eye in that end of the hall was drawn toward some drunk Reach lord making too much of himself, Valarr rose and offered you his arm with princely ease.

“My lady wife has had a long day,” he said to those nearest. “I’ll see her to her chambers.”

There was no mockery in it. No impatience. Only simple understanding.

It should have meant nothing.

It meant everything.

Later, in the corridor beyond the hall, where the noise fell away behind thick stone and a pair of servants hurried past carrying trenchers slick with grease, you let out one long breath you had not known you were holding. Torches hissed in their brackets. A draft from some stairwell touched your cheeks coolly through the heat left by the feast.

Valarr glanced at you. “You looked as though you were about to bolt like a frightened doe.”

To his surprise, you laughed.

Not the little polished court laugh women learned young, the one meant to smooth over a man’s vanity. This laugh was warmer, younger, unguarded. It eased something in his face in answer.

“I may yet,” you said.

“That would be difficult in those skirts.”

You looked down at the heavy fall of crimson silk and, for the first time since coming to court, smiled with your whole mouth.

That was how it began.

Not with passion. Not even with hope at first. Only with the dangerous tenderness of being seen.

He did other things too, all of them small enough that another woman might have called them nothing at all. You, being made as you were, made a home of them. He noticed you ate little at feasts and had simpler food sent up afterward—warm bread, honeyed apples, broth with herbs—saying only that royal cooks ruined everything by over-seasoning it. In crowded corridors, he shifted so careless young knights and swaggering men-at-arms had to go around you rather than brush too close. Once, when you woke from a bad dream in the Red Keep—strange stone, stranger bed, no sound of the sea, only the vast uneasy silence of a place full of watchers—you found a lamp had been left burning low. He had noticed, on the second night of your marriage, that you slept poorly in darkness. He never mentioned it.

You loved him for that most of all.

You were not a woman who fell quickly, but you fell completely.

Quiet women often did. They loved in hidden, stubborn ways. They built whole cathedrals inside themselves and let no one hear the labour of the stone. By the time you were carrying your first son, you were already his in every way that mattered, not merely by law, nor by bed, nor by duty, but in that soft and terrible place where a wife begins to turn toward her husband before anyone else in the room, where she saves thoughts for him, where evening feels unfinished until his step sounds in the corridor.

The handmaidens chosen for you by the royal household saw it before anyone. Ellyn saw how you brightened when Valarr came unexpectedly to break his fast with you. Myria saw how you kept the books he favored nearest the chair by the window. Ysilla saw how you wore more black and red than crimson and gold after marriage, not because anyone asked it of you, but because you wanted to please him. They saw, too, how frightened you were of wanting too much.

And perhaps you had reason.

Because you were everything a prince ought to have wanted. Beautiful, dutiful, gentle, highborn, fertile. The court said so often enough. They praised your grace, your modesty, the calm way you carried yourself through the dragon-haunted strangeness of King’s Landing. They said you were a good wife to the second heir to the Iron Throne. They said you would be a good mother to princes. In time, they would say you might even be a good queen.

You were lovely enough to be admired. Soft enough to be praised. Obedient enough to make old men nod in approval.

And still, in your husband’s eyes, you lived beneath another woman’s shadow.

Keira.

Not because he was dishonorable. That was the misery of it. Valarr was married to you now. Keira was wed to Daeron. He did not touch her. He did not shame you with open disloyalty. He was too decent, and too proud, for that. He respected the life that had been laid before him. He came to your bed. He gave you sons. He stood where a husband ought to stand.

But sometimes respect was not the same thing as surrender.

Because Keira had not been some passing fancy. She had not been a pretty stranger glimpsed across a feast hall. She and Valarr had spoken first. Walked first. Laughed first. They had become close in the quiet, unguarded way two young people sometimes did before anyone named it aloud. There had been gardens, and hawking fields, and those long, easy conversations that taught one person the shape of another. By the time the court began speaking of them as a likely match, the ground had already been laid.

Then the plans changed.

Daeron was offered Keira.

Valarr was promised you.

No vows were broken, because none had been spoken. No betrayal had happened, because the world had cut them off before either could claim such a word. That only made it worse. Their story had not ended in scandal or sin. It had ended in silence, in duty, in a future folded away before it had fully begun.

And so it lingered.

Not in any way the realm could condemn. Only in the small, unbearable ways a wife noticed and no one else did.

In the way his face would still alter, faintly, when Keira laughed from across a room. In the way he never overstepped, never lingered too openly, and yet seemed to go still for half a breath whenever she entered his notice. In the way older courtiers still smiled sometimes when their names rose together in talk, as though remembering some gentler version of the future before politics had done what politics always did and laid human hearts out like pieces on a board.

And Keira herself was not innocent in it.

Not cruel, perhaps. Never openly. Never enough to disgrace herself. But darker than simple kindness allowed.

She moved through the Red Keep as though she belonged there, and that belonging itself felt like a quiet triumph. She spoke to Prince Baelor without seeming foolish. She laughed with Daeron’s kin and was laughed with in return. At feasts, no one mistook her pauses for uncertainty. At hunts, she rode with the men, speaking over hoofbeats as though she had been born to it.

And when she looked at Valarr, sometimes there was still something there.

Not enough for anyone to name.

Only enough for you to feel.

Enough to make your stomach turn cold.

Enough to make you understand that though she had married Daeron, some corner of her still kept the memory of what might have been. Not because she wanted to take him from you now. Not because she meant to start some vulgar little war between women. But because certain feelings, once grown properly, did not die only because wiser people arranged otherwise.

That was the cruelty of all of it.

He did not cheat on you.

She did not tempt him.

No one crossed the line.

And still you knew, with the miserable certainty of a wife who loved too deeply, that you did not have him whole.

Once, after a feast where Keira had moved through the room with her usual easy grace, you found yourself alone with her by a bank of candles guttering low beneath painted saints.

“You are well loved here,” you said before you meant to.

Keira looked at you then, really looked, and some brightness went out of her face.

“No,” she said softly. “Only well worn-in.”

You blinked, startled.

She traced one finger along the stem of her wine cup. “Do not mistake fitting into a room for belonging to it.”

Then, after the smallest pause, she said, “Men are not the only ones who learn to live with what they were given.”

That was when you understood.

Keira had wanted him too.

Not foolishly. Not all at once. But slowly, in the dangerous way friendship became fondness and fondness became something neither of them had been allowed to finish.

You had married him.

She had not.

And still, some part of her looked at you and saw the woman who had been given the life she once thought might be hers.

That was the first time you hated her a little.

Not because she was cruel.

Because she was honest.

Because in that one quiet sentence, she told you she knew exactly what sat between the three of you, and had chosen to carry it so gracefully that no one would ever dare call it grief.

Then someone called her name, and she turned away before you could answer.

You thought of that moment more often than you wanted.

Because in the end, it seemed true of all three of you.

Keira had lost the life she might once have had.

Valarr was trying.

That was the worst part.

If he had been cruel, perhaps you could have hated him. But he was only blind, and there was no easy way to stop loving a man who kept reaching for the life before him and still failed to see it.

At first, you told yourself it did not matter.

Valarr had married you. He had come to your bed. He had touched your belly when your first son moved and smiled in wonder. He had stood over you after the birth, smelling of leather and wind and cold air from the yard, and bent to the babe with a softness you had never seen him turn on anyone.

“A son,” he said.

You, white with exhaustion, damp-haired, aching from two days’ labor, looked up at him with something terribly hopeful still alive in your eyes. “Yes,” you whispered. “A son.”

He touched the child’s cheek. His face changed then, softened by wonder in a way that made you love him a little more, poor thing. You thought perhaps this was how doors opened. Through children. Through patience. Through quiet trying.

“What shall we name him?” you asked.

Valarr did not answer at once. His fingers were still on the babe’s face. “Aelor,” he said finally.

It was a prince’s name. A good name.

You smiled, tired and radiant. “Aelor, then.”

Valarr kissed the child’s brow. He kissed your forehead too, but only briefly, and perhaps only because the midwife stood watching.

You told yourself it was enough.

Women had made whole lives from less.

You learned his habits with the devotion of someone trying to solve a riddle no one else believed existed. You learned how he liked what wine he preferred during evening meals in the winter, what books he reached for when angered, how he hated too much noise at supper after council, and how he softened at the sound of a child laughing nearby. You kept his household well. You bore yourself with dignity among dragonlords and vipers. You learned High Valyrian lullabies, though the words felt awkward in your lion’s mouth.

You wrote letters home and waited for letters back. At first, you wrote carefully bright things: the weather, the beauty of the royal gardens in spring, the little kindnesses of court, the way Prince Valarr had once noticed when you were overwhelmed at a feast and brought you away without embarrassing you, the way he warmed your side of the bed in winter, the way he smiled, once, when the babe first closed a hand around his finger.

The replies came late, smelling of cedar and sealing wax and distance.

Your mother wrote of her health, of which cousins were soon to wed, of a septon newly come to the Rock.

Your father wrote less.

When Aelor was born, the letter from the west was rich parchment and fine words. You have done your house honour. A son strengthens your place. The realm sees your worth now.

You read it twice.

Then a third time, more slowly, searching for something else between the lines. Are you well? Are you happy? Does he cherish you? Are you lonely?

There was none of that.

After Baelon, the message was colder still in its own polished way. A second son brings further pride to your name and secures your position admirably. You have done all that was asked of you.

All that was asked of you.

You folded the letter carefully, set it aside, and cried so quietly that Myria, seated only a few feet away with embroidery in her lap, did not at first understand what she was hearing.

There were moments, too, when you tried very hard to belong not only to Valarr, but to his world. You tried to sit with him when his kin were present, but Targaryen talk moved strangely around you—old names, old grievances, dragon memories you had no part in, glances that carried the weight of shared blood. You would add a word here or there, smile where you ought, ask a question politely, and feel at once the slight pause that came after, the subtle shifting of a conversation that had not truly expected your shape within it.

No one was unkind.

That was the misery of it.

Prince Baelor, your father-in-law, grave and measured in all things, would always speak to you with perfect princely respect. He was never unkind. That was part of the hurt. But when you tried, once, to ask his thoughts on some hawk from the Reach that Valarr had mentioned admiring, Baelor answered kindly enough and then turned almost at once to one of his brothers over some question of levies and patrol roads. You stood there smiling with your hands folded while their voices moved on around you like water over stone.

It was not that he disliked you.

It was worse.

You were dutiful. Quiet. Manageable. In a household crowded with louder tempers and more difficult kin, you were never thought likely to cause scandal, discord, or trouble. Others drew the eye because they were troublesome, glittering, or politically useful.

You were simply the one no one worried about.

And in a court like that, a woman who brought no trouble was too easily mistaken for a woman who needed nothing at all.

You felt foolish afterward for minding.

Foolish for wanting more than courtesy.

Foolish for thinking that becoming a wife ought to have made you less of an outcast in your own husband’s family than you had been on the day you arrived.

At first, Valarr noticed some of these things.

He simply did not understand what noticing required of him.

Then your second son was born.

By then, the court called yours a strong marriage. Fruitful. Fortunate. A prince with two healthy heirs and a lady wife who comported herself flawlessly—what more could a man ask? Men toasted him for his good fortune. Women praised your grace, your gowns, your modesty, your sons. Singers called you the Golden Princess. Only those who watched closely saw that you smiled less.

Valarr still came to your chambers, though less often after the second child. At first, you thought it was weariness. Court had grown heavier around him. His father pressed more upon him. The realm always wanted something from men born too near crowns. Then one evening, while he fastened the clasp of his mantle before the fire and the nursery beyond the inner door murmured with soft child-sounds, you asked very gently, “Will you come to me later?”

He did not even turn.

“I have heirs enough,” he said.

The silence after was so complete that you could hear a torch sputtering in the corridor beyond and the faint scrape of a maid’s slipper over the rushes outside the door.

You sat at your dressing table with your hair half-braided, staring at his reflection in the polished silver mirror. He had not meant, perhaps, for the words to sound as they did. Valarr had a rare gift for the wound he did not intend.

Still, he had said them.

Not, I am tired. Not forgive me. Only that.

As if you had been something to pass through, and now pass beyond.

He must have felt something of the change afterward, because he began bringing you gifts: a hawking glove from Myr, a comb of worked ivory, a length of sea-green silk, a carved cradle-piece for little Baelon, a silver mirror backed with lions and dragons twined together.

They were all costly. They were all beautifully made.

Not one of them was right.

The glove was stitched in the Tyroshi style Keira had once worn. The silk was a shade you despised against your skin. The comb was too delicate for the braids you favored. The mirror was a princely apology offered by a man too cowardly to speak plain words.

You thanked him for each one with perfect courtesy.

Then came the morning that killed something in you.

It was early, scarcely light. The room still held that bluish hush before dawn when everything seemed suspended between worlds. Your younger son had cried in the night and been carried off again by his nurse only a little while before. You had not gone back to sleep properly after. You lay awake beside Valarr, one hand resting over the ache in your side, watching the first pale seam of day beneath the curtains and listening to his breathing in the dark.

He stirred beside you then, not fully waking, his face still turned into the pillow. For one small foolish moment, you thought he was troubled. His brow had drawn faintly, and there was something strained in the way he breathed, as though some dream had hold of him. Without thinking, with the softness that had always been your ruin, you reached for him. Your hand came to rest on his bare shoulder, gentle, instinctive, almost tender enough to be a prayer.

And then, rough with sleep, still half-lost to whatever place he had wandered in dreams, he murmured one name.

“Keira.”

The world did not shatter loudly.

That would have been kinder.

It only went very still.

Your fingers slipped from his shoulder as though you had touched iron in a flame. At first you thought you must have imagined it. You had to have imagined it. But the cold came at once, thin and sharp and absolute, running through you from the inside out like sea-wind in winter. Valarr breathed once more, deeper now, and opened his eyes a little. He saw you sitting upright. He saw your face.

And in that instant, he knew.

“[Y/N]—”

You had already risen.

He pushed himself up, all sleep gone, horror rushing in where drowsiness had been. “[Y/N], wait.”

You crossed the chamber barefoot, one hand hard against your mouth as if to hold something inside yourself—not anger, not words, but some smaller, uglier, more humiliating sound. That was the cruelty of it. You had reached for him to soothe him, thinking he was uneasy, thinking perhaps he needed comfort, and instead he had opened his sleep-ravaged mouth and given you another woman’s name as though it lived somewhere truer in him than you ever had.

“Listen to me,” Valarr said, rising after you. “I did not mean—”

You turned then.

He had seen you grave, shy, dutiful, pale with childbirth, smiling with your sons, overwhelmed in crowded halls, but never like that. Never stripped so bare of composure. You looked as though he had struck you.

Not only hurt. Shamed.

Keira. Another woman’s name, from your own husband’s mouth, spoken in your bed while dawn still lay over the marriage like a blessing not yet spent.

Your lips trembled once. “I know,” you whispered.

That was what undid him. Not accusation. Not fury. Only that soft, awful answer.

I know. I know you did not mean it, which means it was true enough to live beneath thought. I know there is still a place in you where I am not the woman you wake beside. I know I reached for you in kindness, and you answered me with the shape of someone else.

Tears rose despite your pride. They came too quickly, too hot, too helpless. You turned away sharply, but not before he saw them. And once he saw them, you hated it all the more, because now even this grief—which felt private, humiliating, too raw to survive daylight—had become something witnessed.

Valarr took a step toward you and stopped, because he did not know how to cross the distance he had made with one word.

“[Y/N]—please.”

You laughed then, and it was a dreadful little sound, broken straight through. “Do not,” you said, your voice shaking so badly you scarcely knew it for your own. “Do not beg me not to feel it. You have already said it.”

He reached for you then, not boldly and not even with certainty, but like a man who had finally understood that you had not been made of stone, only taught to stand still while he hurt you.

You flinched from him.

That seemed to wound him too, but not enough. Never enough.

Your breath broke on the next inhale. You covered your mouth harder with your hand, but it was no use. The sound came anyway, small and torn and mortifyingly real. Not graceful tears. Not silent suffering. A wounded sound, the sound of a woman who had held herself together for too long and discovered too late that the thing splitting her open would not even have the decency to do it in private.

Then you fled into your dressing room and shut the door between you.

He heard you crying.

That was the worst memory of his life afterward. Not the name itself, though that would have been wound enough. It was the sound of you weeping on the other side of a door, where you thought he could not reach you, and his own uselessness before it. Prince of the realm, husband in name, and still unable to mend what he had broken because he had never learned how to kneel before grief he himself had caused.

Inside, Ellyn found you first. You had sunk onto the stool before the mirror, one hand pressed to your chest as though you might still your own heart by force. Your hair had fallen loose over one shoulder. Tears slid down your face helplessly, no longer quiet, no longer controlled. You had cried silently before. This was worse. This was breath catching and shoulders shaking and the miserable humiliation of being unable to stop.

Ellyn dropped to her knees at once. “Oh, my sweet lady,” she murmured.

That broke what little composure remained.

You bent forward and covered your face, and then you were sobbing in earnest, your whole body shaking with it. Myria came running at the sound. Ysilla shut the outer door and drew the curtains before any passing servant or curious groom in the corridor could glimpse you undone. No one asked you anything at first. They simply gathered around you. Myria held your hands. Ysilla fetched cool water no one drank. Ellyn pressed your head against her breast as if you were no princess at all, only a girl far from home who had loved unwisely and been made to know it.

When you finally managed to speak, it came out raw and small and ruined.

“I thought—” You had to stop. Your breath caught again. “I thought he was having a nightmare.”

Ellyn made a sound then, one of those quiet wounded noises women make for one another when words are not enough.

“I touched him because I thought—” Your voice broke completely. “I thought he was troubled.”

That was somehow worse than the name itself. Worse because it laid your tenderness bare. Worse because it meant you had gone to comfort him and been answered with another woman’s ghost.

Then came the truth that had been choking you from the moment it happened, and once it was out you could not stop it.

“I tried so hard,” you whispered. “I tried so hard to be enough.”

Ellyn’s eyes filled. “You were never meant to earn what should have been given freely.”

After that, you changed.

Not at once. Not sharply enough that a man like Valarr—emotionally armored, proud, slow in all matters of the heart—could point to the very day and say, there, there is where I lost her. But the change came all the same.

You remained perfectly dutiful.

That was part of the tragedy. Had you screamed, or raged, or publicly shamed him, the court would have named it a quarrel and expected its end. You did none of that. If anything, you became more flawless.

You dressed with exquisite care. You stood beside him in public without misstep. You managed the household superbly. You gave him no scandal. You continued to be gentle with your sons, and soon the court began to praise you not merely as a great lady, but as the very model of what a prince’s wife should be. Shy, they called you now. Reserved. Pious. A little sad, perhaps, but sweet with your children. And oh, how devoted you were as a mother.

That part was true.

People saw you in the gardens with Aelor and Baelon, your golden head bent while they chattered over pebbles and petals and insects caught in childish hands. They saw you kneel without complaint to tie a little shoe, to wipe a mouth, to kiss a scraped palm. They saw how your face softened for your sons in a way it never did for anyone else. Women at court began speaking of you tenderly. Poor shy Lady [Y/N]. So pretty. So well-mannered. Such a good wife. Such a good mother.

And because the world was cruel in ordinary ways, they praised you most just as you became loneliest.

After the second boy was born,

Valarr did not become cruel in any way that court singers would have understood. He did not raise his hand to you. He did not shame you before the realm. He did not bring whores beneath your roof or make a spectacle of betrayal. In some ways, that made it worse. He became, instead, the sort of man whose neglect could be mistaken for virtue.

He loved his sons.

Gods, how he loved them.

He would return from the yard smelling of horse and leather and cold air, and the moment he crossed the threshold of your chambers, his face would change for the boys in a way it no longer changed for you. Aelor would cry out and Baelon would reach with both arms, and Valarr would go to them at once, smiling with that unguarded tenderness you had once thought, in the first sweetness of marriage, might one day be yours too. He would lift one child high and settle the other against his hip, laughing when little hands caught in his hair or tugged at the chain about his throat.

You would rise when he entered, because wives did, because princesses did, because some part of you still did it in hope rather than habit.

Often, he would not even see that you had risen until after the boys had been kissed, admired, and praised.

“Look at you,” he would say to them, warm as summer. “Have you tormented your lady mother all day? Have you eaten well? Has Baelon’s cough eased? Has Aelor been brave?”

Only then, sometimes, would his eyes flick to you.

“You ought not keep them up too late.”

“They should have thicker cloaks in this wind.”

Always through the children.

Always around you, rather than to you.

You learned there were griefs so small and daily that no one named them. To stand in your own chamber, hands folded in silk, and watch your husband smile as though the room had become blessed simply because his sons were in it, while the woman who had borne them stood only a few feet away and might as well have been another carved chair. To know he was not a bad man, not truly, only a man who had somehow placed all his softness in one part of his life and left the rest to starve. To be unable even to resent him properly, because the sight of him loving your children was beautiful, and you had prayed for that beauty before either boy had drawn breath.

That was the shameful part.

You were glad he loved them.

You only wished he did not seem to love them in place of you.

Once, in early autumn, you gathered your courage and asked if you might all go hawking together—only the four of you. Your voice was careful when you said it, as if softness itself might save the request from being damaged.

“The weather is fair,” you told him. “Aelor has been begging to see the birds flown, and Baelon loves the horses. Might we go, just us?”

Valarr looked almost surprised, then agreeable enough. “If you like.”

For a day and a half, you were absurdly happy.

You chose warm wool for the boys yourself. You had little gloves lined in fur brought out for Aelor. You made certain Baelon’s hood was mended where the stitch had loosened. You packed honey cakes and apples sliced small, a flask of watered wine for Valarr, and sweet milk for the children. You dressed not as a princess at court, but as a wife hoping to be a wife, in a dark green riding gown that would not startle the hawks. Even Ellyn smiled to see the color in your face.

When the morning came, the yard was crisp with cold and the sky pale as hammered steel. The horses were saddled. The boys were bundled and shining with excitement. You had Baelon in your arms and Aelor tugging at your sleeve when Valarr came down the steps.

He was not alone.

Prince Baelor was with him. So were two uncles, three cousins, and a knot of sworn men behind them. One of the hawk-masters came too, along with a pair of young pages, and by the time the little party moved out through the gate, it had become not a family day at all but something half progress, half princely outing, full of male voices and easy familiarity and the old blood-kinship from which you always stood a little apart.

Valarr seemed not to notice.

Or worse, perhaps he did notice and thought nothing was amiss.

“Aelor, ride with your grandsire” Baelor said, and Aelor went delightedly, because he was a child and proud of such things.

One cousin took up a conversation with Valarr about hounds and a boar seen three days earlier in the kingswood. An uncle laughed over some old hunting memory. The hawks shifted and rustled. Leather creaked. Hooves struck the frosted ground.

You rode at the edge with Baelon before you and your little basket strapped behind the saddle.

Every now and then, Aelor would twist around in his seat to look for you, waving when he found you and shouting, “Mother, look!” each time a hawk lifted, or a dog barked, or a horse stamped. Baelon kept patting your gloved hand and leaning back against your breast as if, by childish instinct, he knew you needed the closeness more than he did. When the company halted near a thin stand of leaf-bare trees, you dismounted and laid out the food you had packed for the four of you.

The pages and grooms ate it too.

Valarr praised the cakes without realizing what he was saying. “These were well thought of.”

When you finally went to your chamber, Ellyn helped unpin your hair and found dried salt at your temples where the wind had touched tears you had never wiped away.

There was another time.

Months later, when you asked again—not for hawking this time, but for something simpler.

The market.

Nothing grand. Nothing intimate enough to frighten him, you thought. The city was lively that morning, the weather fair, and the boys were old enough now to be delighted by cluttered stalls and sugared almonds and toy sellers and little carved beasts. You thought perhaps that was safe enough. A family thing. A public thing. A modest thing. By then, you had learned not to ask for too much.

So you waited until Valarr had broken his fast and the boys were still talking eagerly over some little painted cart Aelor had seen from a window the day before.

“There is a market near the Street of Flour,” you said, keeping your tone light. “The children would enjoy it, I think. We might all go together. Just for an hour.”

Valarr was reading some note from council. He looked up only after a moment.

“The market?”

“Yes.” You smiled, because smiling made requests sound smaller. Safer. “Aelor would like the toy stalls. Baelon loves anything with wheels. And there is a woman who sells sugared apples in the autumn. I thought—”

“It is a good idea, wife,” he said.

Your heart rose too quickly.

Then he added, in the same practical tone one might use when discussing cloaks or horses, “But I think I should take only the boys.”

You went still.

Valarr folded the note once. “The streets will be crowded. It would slow things if all of us went.”

The room remained warm. Somewhere behind you, Baelon was humming to himself over a crust of bread. Aelor had started talking about apples without understanding any of it.

You heard your own voice come out very small. “Slow things.”

“I only mean,” Valarr said, not quite looking at you fully, “with guards and nursemaids and the children and you besides, it becomes more of an event than an outing. They will enjoy it better if it is simple.”

If you are not there, the words seemed to finish.

You stood very still. “I see.”

He must have heard something in your voice then, because he frowned faintly. “It was not meant unkindly.”

That almost made it worse.

“Of course not,” you said.

Aelor looked up from the table. “Mother, are you coming?”

You smiled at him. You had become so very good at smiling. “No, sweetling. Today you shall have your father to yourself.”

Baelon, hearing only the uncertainty in your tone, stretched his arms toward you at once, and you took him up because otherwise you might have begun to cry before everyone.

Valarr rose. “Have them dressed warmly.”

You nearly laughed again at that. Warmly. As if you had not already thought of their cloaks, their mittens, the scarf Aelor complained of but always needed. As if mothers did not live inside such details by reflex.

When he had gone, taking with him the sound and certainty of the outing, you stood in the middle of the chamber with Baelon on your hip and felt, for one humiliating instant, as though someone had slapped you.

Ellyn found you a little later in the dressing room, not yet changed, still with Baelon’s little shoe in your hand because you had been the one lacing it when Valarr told you that you would not be coming.

“My lady?” she said carefully.

You did not turn. “He said it would be slowed down if all of us went.”

Ellyn closed her eyes.

You gave a thin, breathless laugh. “All of us. I am all of us.”

Then, because the boys were already laughing in the courtyard below and you could hear Aelor calling excitedly about horses and sweets and carts, you pressed the shoe to your mouth and cried without making a sound.

When they returned, Aelor came bursting in with stories about ribbons and nuts and a painted spinning top. Baelon had sugar on one cheek and a little wooden cart tucked in both hands. They were delighted. They loved you. They climbed into your lap at once and tried to tell you everything all at once, as if by saying it to you they could somehow include you after the fact.

You kissed them and listened and smiled in all the right places.

Then later, after they slept, you broke over the sight of the little market basket still sitting unused by the door.

These were the griefs no one wrote songs for.

The market basket untouched.

The riding cakes eaten by pages.

The waiting lamp gone dark.

The seat beside him filled by sons and cousins and fathers and not by you.

The way he would say good idea, wife and make you feel, for one heartbeat, chosen, only to brush you aside with perfect reasonableness the next.

You stopped trying to fill every silence after that.

At supper, you no longer told little stories from the west that no one in King’s Landing understood. You no longer placed the choicest pieces on Valarr’s plate before he could reach for them. You no longer reminded Aelor to tell his father what he had learned that morning. You ate what was before you and let the clicking of utensils fill the long spaces where a wife’s warmth had once been.

The boys noticed, though children never knew how to name what they noticed.

Once, Aelor climbed onto the bench beside you and asked, puzzled, “Mother, why do you not give Father the honey anymore?”

You nearly dropped your spoon.

“I think,” you said after a long pause, “your father can reach it himself.”

The child considered that with solemn seriousness and then pushed the honey dish toward Valarr anyway, because children hated imbalance instinctively.

Valarr thanked him.

He did not understand why you looked away.

So the days went on.

The court went on mistaking your ruin for grace.

And still, you loved him.

That was the true humiliation of it.

That night, after the boys had finally been coaxed to sleep, you remained in the nursery long after there was any need for it.

Aelor had one hand curled into his blanket. Baelon had turned onto his side, cheek soft against the pillow, breathing in the deep, even rhythm of the truly sleeping. The brazier had burned low. Candlelight trembled against the walls and turned the carved beasts upon the bedposts into long, wavering shadows. You sat upon the floor between them, your back resting against the settle, one hand still lying loose upon Baelon’s coverlet as though, if either child stirred, you meant to soothe him before he woke.

You did not hear Valarr come in at first.

It was only when he spoke that you looked up.

“You will wake stiff there,” he said quietly.

His voice was low enough not to wake the children.

You looked at him, then back at your sons. “I had not meant to stay.”

But that was not true, and both of you knew it.

For a moment he said nothing. He stood in the doorway with one hand braced lightly against the frame, still in his shirt and half-undone doublet, as though he had come looking for you and had not expected to find you here like this, hidden amongst the little quiet breaths of your children.

Then he stepped inside.

The floor gave a faint creak beneath his weight. He stopped first at Baelon’s bedside and drew the blanket a little higher over the child’s shoulder. It was such a small gesture that it ought not to have mattered. But you watched his hands do it, careful and gentle, and felt that old ache move through you again.

When he turned back to you, he did not speak at once.

Instead, to your surprise, he lowered himself down before you.

Not onto the settle. Not into one of the carved chairs.

Down.

Kneeling.

That alone was enough to make your breath catch.

He did not reach for you. Perhaps he knew you might pull away. Perhaps he feared you would.

The nursery was very still. Beyond the shuttered window, somewhere in the yard below, a guard’s step passed and faded. Aelor sighed once in his sleep and settled again.

Valarr looked at the rushes, then at his own hands, and only after that at you.

“I do not know how to mend this,” he said.

You went so still it almost hurt.

His mouth tightened, as though even that much truth sat badly on his pride.

“But I know,” he said, more roughly now, “that I have done you wrong in ways I was too blind to see while they were still small.”

You stared at him.

He let out one slow breath. “I thought being dutiful to you was enough.”

The words seemed to fall between you and stay there.

You looked away first.

The candle near Baelon’s bed had bent low enough that wax had begun to spill crookedly down one side. You fixed your gaze on that instead, because looking at Valarr while he said such things felt more dangerous than you knew how to bear.

He spoke again, quieter now.

“I think perhaps I have hidden inside duty,” he said, “because it was easier than admitting I did not know how to be better than dutiful.”

Something in your chest tightened so sharply you had to press your hand against your skirt.

“You do not need to say this now,” you whispered.

“Yes,” he said. “I do.”

That silenced you.

He swallowed once. In the low light, he looked younger somehow. Not softer, not quite, but less armoured. Less princely. Only a man at last standing before the hurt he had made and finding no clean way around it.

“You have given me more grace than I earned,” he said. “You have given me sons. You have kept my house. You have borne…” He stopped, and for the first time his voice faltered. “You have borne me at my worst, and I let you do it alone.”

Your eyes burned at once.

You hated that they did.

You hated more that some part of you, bruised and foolish and still too full of love, wanted so badly to believe him that it felt like another humiliation all its own.

Valarr looked at you then in a way he had not in a very long time. Not glancing. Not passing over. Looking.

“You deserved more than courtesy from me,” he said. “You deserved to be cherished.”

Your breath shook on the way out.

That was the word, then.

Not duty. Not kindness. Not patience.

Cherished.

You had not known until that moment how badly you needed to hear it spoken aloud, or how cruel it was that it should come now, when you were already too wounded to receive it cleanly.

For a moment neither of you moved.

Then, very carefully, as though approaching a frightened creature that might still startle and run, he lifted one hand and laid it over yours where it rested clenched in your lap.

His palm was warm.

You did not pull away.

That was the mercy you gave him.

Only that.

His thumb moved once, a small, unthinking stroke across your knuckles, and you nearly broke at the tenderness of it because it came so late, so simply, and from the same man who had taught you to live on so little.

“I cannot unsay what I said,” he murmured.

No. He could not.

The wound of it still lived between you.

But he was here now, kneeling on the nursery floor while your sons slept only feet away, speaking as though duty had finally failed him and left him no shield but honesty.

You looked at your joined hands and said nothing.

After a long while, Valarr bowed his head over them.

Not a prince’s bow. Not something formal. Only a tired, aching lowering of himself, as though shame had at last found the proper posture for his body.

When he spoke again, his voice was barely above a whisper.

“But if you will let me,” he said, “I would learn.”

That was all.

Not a vow.

Not a promise grand enough to heal you.

Only a beginning so small it might have been mistaken for nothing.

And perhaps that was why it hurt so much.

Because even then, with his hand over yours and your children sleeping near enough to hear if either of you wept, hope still came like pain in another dress.

So when the red-cloak guard came,

it felt less like temptation than like grief taking on another shape.

His name was Ser Lucan Hill, though once, long ago in the warm sunlit yards beneath Casterly Rock, he had only been Lucan. A boy with wind-burnt cheeks and scraped knees and a wooden sword forever tucked beneath one arm. His mother had served a lesser household branch tied to the Rock, and Lucan had grown beneath lion banners all his life. As children, he had played with you in those half-wild, half-guarded ways children of unequal station sometimes did before adults remembered themselves. Once, when you were very small, you had given him one of your toys to share—an old carved lion with one ear slightly blunted where you had dropped it on stone. He had treasured it absurdly. Beneath a stair-arch one hot summer afternoon, you had both made a childish promise over it, solemn as septons, that one day you would be husband and wife, because children thought love meant only I like you best, so you shall stay.

Then you had grown.

And he had not stayed.

He rose instead. Not high enough to dream madly, never that, but high enough for a crimson cloak and a sword at his hip and the grave reserve of a man who had learned the line between wanting and speaking.

You spoke to Lucan only once alone.

Not truly alone, of course. Nothing in King’s Landing is ever truly alone. There are always footsteps somewhere beyond the turn of a passage, always servants with lowered eyes, always guards at a distance pretending not to listen. But for a little while, there are only the two of you beneath a narrow stone gallery where the late light slants red through the arrow-slits and paints bars across the floor.

He stands in his crimson cloak with his hands clasped behind his back, as if he is afraid to let them hang loose lest they betray him. He is broader now than the boy you once knew, quieter too, but some things have not changed. He still tips his head a little when he is nervous. He still looks at you as though your silences mean something and are not merely empty spaces for other people to fill.

“My lady,” he says.

You almost laugh at that, though there is nothing funny in it. Once, he called you [Y/N] with scraped knees and dirt on his cheek and a wooden lion clutched in his fist. Once you had both been small and foolish enough to think that liking someone best was the same thing as being allowed to keep them.

Now he calls you my lady.

Now you are a prince’s wife.

Now he stands with the care of a man who knows exactly how dangerous tenderness can be when spoken aloud.

“You need not be so formal with me,” you say, though your voice comes out softer than you meant it to.

“Yes,” he says after a pause. “I do.”

That hurts more than it ought.

For a little while neither of you speaks. Somewhere below in the yard a horse stamps. Farther off, a child laughs—one of yours, perhaps, though you cannot tell which. The sound rises bright and then is gone.

Lucan’s eyes flick to you and then away again. “You look tired.”

It is such a small sentence.

No prince has asked you that in earnest in a very long time.

You lower your gaze to your hands. “I am well.”

He does not insult either of you by pretending to believe it.

The light has shifted enough now to catch on the red of his cloak. It reminds you absurdly of summer at the Rock, of banners snapping over stone, of childish games in the yard. The memory comes so swiftly it almost steals your breath. You remember pressing the little carved lion into his hands because he had no toys of his own. You remember him looking at it as though you had given him the crown itself. You remember the two of you swearing beneath the stair-arch, with all the solemn stupidity of children, that one day he would be your husband and you would be his wife and the lion would sit between you so neither of you forgot.

You should not think of such things now.

You think of them anyway.

“Lucan,” you say, and the name feels dangerous in your mouth after all these years.

He goes very still.

You do not know why you ask it. Perhaps because you are lonelier than pride can survive. Perhaps because he is the only person in this place who ever looks at you and sees the girl you were before you became useful. Perhaps because some part of you wants to know whether you imagined that old childish tenderness, or whether it had lived somewhere real once.

“If things had been different,” you say quietly, “if we had found one another again when we were older—”

Your throat tightens.

You almost stop.

But you have already come this far, and pain has made you reckless in small quiet ways.

“If that had happened,” you finish, looking not at him but at the bars of red light on the floor, “do you think you might have been happy with me?”

The silence after is terrible.

Not empty. Full.

When you finally force yourself to look up, Lucan’s face has changed. There is grief in it now, plain and unhidden, the sort of grief only a man of low enough station and old enough love would ever dare carry before you without dressing it up as politeness.

He swallows once.

Then he says, very softly, “I liked you then more than I had any right to.”

Your breath catches.

He gives a short breath that is almost a laugh and not a laugh at all. “Gods, I was a fool for you.”

You stare at him.

No one has ever said anything so simple to you in a way that felt so devastating.

Lucan’s voice drops lower. “If the fates had been kinder in this life, I think I would have loved you a very long time.” He looks away then, jaw tightening once before he masters it. “And I think I would have spent that life trying to make you happy.”

You shut your eyes.

For one hideous, suspended moment, it feels as though your heart is being torn cleanly in two—the life you have, and the life no one ever meant you to have, laid side by side at last.

When you open your eyes again, he is still standing where he was, but there is distance in him now. Restraint. The old hard wall of understanding built back up brick by brick.

“But the fates were not so kind in this one,” he says.

Then he bowed, and when he straightened, he was a red-cloak guard again, and nothing more.

Later, much later, after your family has gone and the castle has swallowed the day whole, Ysilla comes to your chamber with a little parcel in her hands.

You know at once it must be from him.

Your heart begins to pound.

“Does Valarr know?” you ask, too quickly.

“No, my lady,” Ysilla says.

Ellyn is already crying. Myria will not meet your eyes.

You tell them you ought not take it. You say it because it is what ought to be said. Because you are a prince’s wife. Because you are a mother. Because somewhere beneath your ribs there is a small new heaviness you have not yet named aloud, though your body has already begun to know it in the queasy mornings, the strange weariness, and the way your gowns have started to sit differently across your middle.

Perhaps it is nothing.

Perhaps it is not.

You do not say a word of that either.

Myria kneels before you and whispers, “My lady, please.”

So you take the parcel.

Your fingers are trembling badly by the time you peel the wrapping back.

Inside is a small carved lion.

Plain wood. Smooth with age and handling. One ear blunted.

For a moment, the chamber disappears.

You are seven again in the Rock’s summer heat, pressing your favorite toy into a boy’s hands because he has none, because you like him best, because children think love means here, take what I treasure; I trust you with it. You hear your own little voice swearing that one day you will be husband and wife. You hear his answering promise, so earnest it had made you laugh.

He kept it.

All this time, he kept it.

Your hand closes around the lion, and the other goes, without thinking, to the slight tender secret low in your belly.

Then you begin to cry.

Not prettily. Not quietly, at first. It comes up through you like something breaking at last, and you bend over the little lion with your shoulders shaking while Ellyn catches you, Myria presses one hand to your back, and Ysilla turns toward the door to guard what little remains of your dignity.

Because he remembered.

Because he remembered the child you were.

Because somewhere beyond these walls there might have been a life in which that remembrance became a home instead of a wound.

And because, even now, with another child perhaps beginning its silent life beneath your heart, you know exactly where you will sleep tonight.

In the prince’s chambers.

In the great cold marriage.

In the life the fates chose.

You cry until there is no breath left in you, the little wooden lion clutched so tightly in your hand that the carved ear bites into your palm. Ellyn says your name once, very softly, as if she fears you might shatter completely if spoken to any louder. Myria is crying too. Ysilla has turned her face toward the door, guarding your grief the way other women guard jewels.

But none of them can help you.

Because the worst part is not the lion.

Not the memory.

Not even Lucan’s quiet voice in that red-lit passage, telling you that in a kinder life he thought he might have loved you a very long time.

The worst part is the hand that drifts, helpless and unthinking, to your belly.

The worst part is knowing that by this time next year, they will call you blessed again.

They would praise your beauty, your sweetness, your grace, your fertility.

No one would know that on the night you first held your third child beneath your heart, you were on the floor weeping over a little wooden lion and mourning the life you had never been allowed to live.

And that, perhaps, was the cruellest thing of all:

The realm would call her blessed for the very life she was mourning.

The sea crashed against the base of Dragonstone with a rhythm as old as the island itself, sending plumes of salt spray into the grey morning air. From the village nestled in the shadow of the great castle, the sound was a constant companion, a lullaby, a warning, a heartbeat.

You had lived beside that sound for all of your sixteen years.

You pulled your worn woolen cloak tighter around your shoulders as you made your way along the familiar path that wound up the rocky hillside. It was early—the sun barely beginning to paint the eastern sky in pale pinks and golds—but sleep had abandoned you hours ago, chased away by dreams you could never quite remember upon waking.

The villagers called you the "Silver/Purple Lark" sometimes, when they were feeling poetic. Others simply called you "that pretty bastard who helps old Marta with her goats." You didn't mind either. You had known your place in the world since you could understand words: you were a dragonseed, a child of Targaryen blood left to grow among the common folk. Which Targaryen had planted that seed, no one would say. You had been found abandoned by the woman who raised you, kind Marta with her gnarled hands and endless patience.

The silver hair and/or violet eyes that marked your heritage were both gift and burden. Gift, because they made you striking in a way that turned heads in the village marketplace. Burden, because they marked you as something other, someone who didn't quite belong among the fishermen's daughters and the farmers' wives.

But you had learned to belong anyway. You smiled often, helped wherever help was needed, and asked for nothing. You tried to be good. You wanted to be good. Marta had raised you to be kind, and kindness was the one thing you had to offer a world that had never offered you much in return.

It had been an ordinary morning, or what passed for ordinary on Dragonstone, which meant grey skies, salt wind, and the distant crash of waves against the Dragon's Tail. You had woken early, before the fishing boats went out, and slipped away from the cottage while Marta was still muttering over her morning tea. You had a basket on your arm and a purpose in mind: the eastern tunnels, where the ghost-flowers grew thickest, their pale petals closing at midday if you didn't reach them in time.

You knew the path by heart. Past the Dragon's Tooth—that great outcropping of rock that the villagers said was the fossilized fang of some ancient beast—down through the gully where the wild onions grew, and into the low arch that marked the entrance to the lesser caverns. These were not the great halls beneath the castle, the ones the Targaryens had used as dragonpits in the old days. These were smaller, humbler, the kind of tunnels that shepherds used for shelter during storms and children used for games of hide-and-seek.

You had been walking for perhaps half an hour, your torch casting flickering shadows on the walls, when you noticed the warmth.

It was subtle at first a gentle heat rising from the stone beneath your feet, as if you were walking over ground that had been baking in the sun. But there was no sun here, and the deeper you went, the warmer it became, until you could feel sweat beginning to prickle at your hairline. Strange, you thought. The caves were always cool, always damp. That was why the ghost-flowers grew here, in the chill dark where no other plants could survive.

But these were not cool. These were warm, and growing warmer, and there was something else too a smell, faint but unmistakable, rising from the darkness ahead.

Sulfur. And beneath it, something coppery, something that made your stomach clench. Blood.

You should have turned back. Any sensible person would have turned back, would have retraced their steps and gone home to Marta and forgotten they had ever noticed anything strange about the eastern tunnels. But you had always been too curious for your own good, and besides, there might be someone hurt. Someone who needed help. You couldn't just walk away from that.

You kept walking.

The tunnel opened into a chamber you had never seen before, a vast space that must have been carved by water or fire or both, its walls streaked with veins of obsidian that glittered in the torchlight. And in the center of that chamber, curled against the far wall like a cat seeking shelter from the rain, was a dragon.

Your torch slipped from your fingers.

You didn't scream. You couldn't. Your throat had closed up, your lungs had stopped working, your entire body had become a single pulse of pure, primal terror that drowned out everything else, your thoughts, your name, the memory of your own face. You were nothing but eyes, and those eyes were fixed on the creature before you.

It was smaller than the dragons of stories, the ones that filled the songs about the Dance. Only about the size of two horses, you guessed, but what it lacked in size it made up in menace. Its scales were pale, white, but with a hint of purple in certain lights, like sea foam at dusk. Its wings were folded tight against its body, but you could see that one of them was wrong, bent at an angle that made you wince.

Its lips peeled back from teeth the length of your forearm, and a sound came from its throat that was pure warning.

Your heart hammered so hard you could feel it in your throat. Every story you had ever heard about dragons flashed through your mind, the terrible beasts of the Dance, the conquerors who had burned armies, the wild ones that ate children who wandered too close to their lairs. And this one looked ready to live up to every one of those stories.

But it didn't attack. It couldn't.

You saw it now, the way its body was pressed against the stone, as if it could barely hold itself upright. The way its flank heaved with each ragged breath. The wounded wing was not just twisted but festering, the scales around it discolored and cracked. It was in agony.

"You're hurt," you whispered before you could stop yourself.

The dragon's response was immediate and violent. It snapped its jaws toward you, a warning shot that fell several feet short, but the force of it sent you stumbling backward. Its golden eyes blazed with such pure loathing that you nearly fled then and there.

You took a slow step back instead, your hands raised. "I'm sorry," you said quickly. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—I'll go. I'll leave you alone."

The dragon hissed, a sound like water on hot stone, and you took the hint. You retreated to the entrance, your heart still pounding. At the threshold, you paused and looked back.

The dragon had not moved from its defensive coil, but its head had lowered slightly, the effort of its outburst draining what little strength it had left. It watched you go with those hateful golden eyes, and beneath the hatred, you thought you saw something else: exhaustion. And fear.

You left without looking back.

The next day, you returned with a rabbit.

It was probably a stupid thing to do. Marta would have said it was stupid, anyway. But you had lain awake all night thinking about that dragon. About the wound on its wing, the way the flesh around it had looked black and wrong. About the way it could barely lift its head after that one burst of aggression. If no one helped it, the dragon would die in that cave, alone and in pain.

You couldn't let that happen. You just couldn't. It wasn't in you to walk away from something that was hurting, even something that had tried to bite your head off.

You found it in the same spot, exactly as you had left it. When you entered the chamber, its head came up immediately, and that same snarl rumbled through the darkness.

"I brought you something," you said, stopping well outside what you guessed was striking distance. You held up the rabbit. "I'm leaving it here. Then I'll go."

The dragon watched you with unblinking suspicion as you placed the rabbit on the stone floor twenty feet from its head. Its lips were still pulled back from its teeth, a continuous low growl emanating from its chest.

"I know you're scared," you said softly. "I'd be scared too. But you need to eat."

You backed away slowly, keeping your hands visible. At the entrance, you sat down just around the corner, out of sight but close enough to hear. You didn't know why you stayed. Maybe to make sure it ate. Maybe just because you couldn't bear to leave it completely alone.

Silence stretched for a long time. Then, a rustle of scales against stone. A soft thump. And finally, the crunch of bones.

You smiled in the darkness and went home.

The pattern continued for a fortnight. Every day, you brought something rabbit, fish, once a mutton chop you had traded three days of goat-milking to obtain. Every day, you entered the chamber, set the food down, and retreated while the dragon snarled and snapped at you from its place against the wall.

It never got better. It never got friendlier. But it ate, and that was what mattered.

On the fifteenth day, you brought something else: a poultice.

You had watched Marta make them a hundred times for sheep with infected wounds. Comfrey and yarrow, honey from the village apiary, all mashed together into a stinking green paste that Marta swore could draw poison from any wound. You had no idea if it would work on a dragon, but you had to try. The infection was getting worse. You had seen it yesterday, how the scales around the break were cracking, how the smell of rot was stronger than before.

The dragon's snarl when you entered was weaker now. That worried you more than the hostility.

"I brought food," you said, setting down a fish. Your hands were trembling slightly, but you tried to keep your voice calm. "And... something else."

You held up the poultice, wrapped in a clean cloth. The dragon's nostrils flared, tasting the air. Its golden eyes narrowed.

"It's for your wing," you said. "Please. The infection will kill you if we don't—"

The dragon lunged.

It was a pathetic thing compared to what it might have done healthy, a lurch forward, jaws snapping, that carried it barely halfway to where you stood. But the intent was clear, and the fury in its eyes was absolute. You stumbled back, your heart in your throat, and your foot caught on a loose stone.

You fell.

The impact drove the breath from your lungs. For a moment, you just lay there, stunned, staring up at the dark ceiling of the cave. Your hands were scraped, your knee throbbing where it had hit the stone. When you finally pushed yourself up, the poultice was gonelo, lost somewhere in the darkness behind you.

The dragon had collapsed back against the wall, chest heaving, but its gaze never left your face. It looked exhausted. It looked miserable. It looked, you thought with a sudden ache in your chest, like it hated being seen like this even more than it hated you.

"Okay," you said quietly, brushing dirt from your palms. "Okay. I understand."

You got to your feet slowly, wincing at the sting in your knee. The poultice was ruined, smashed somewhere in the dark. You would have to make another. You would come back tomorrow, and you would try again.

You turned to go, then stopped. The dragon was still watching you, its sides heaving, its golden eyes bright with pain and fear and something that might have been confusion.

"I'm coming back," you said. "I know you don't want me to. But I'm coming back anyway."

You left before it could snarl at you again.

The next day, you brought another poultice. And the day after that, you brought another. Each time, the dragon snarled. Each time, it snapped. Each time, you retreated, waited, came back the next day with fresh food and fresh hope.

You never got close enough to apply it. Not once.bBut you kept trying.

On the twenty-third day, you arrived to find the dragon had moved.

It was a small thing, it had shifted perhaps six feet from its original position, dragging itself closer to the entrance of the chamber. But the effort must have been enormous, and when you entered, it didn't snarl.

It just looked at you. Its golden eyes were dull now, clouded with fever. The wound on its wing had worsened despite everything you'd tried. The smell of rot hung thick in the air, and you could see the infection spreading, black lines creeping up toward the dragon's shoulder.

"Oh," you breathed. "Oh, no."

You crossed the chamber without thinking. You didn't stop to consider distance, didn't calculate striking range, didn't do any of the careful, cautious things you had been doing for weeks. You just walked straight up to the dragon and knelt beside its wing.

The dragon's head came up, slow and heavy. Its jaws opened, and you saw the flicker of fire deep in its throat, a dying ember trying to catch.

"Please," you whispered. "Please, I'm trying to help."

You don't know if it understood your words. But something in your voice must have reached it, because the fire died. The dragon's jaws closed. Its head sank back to the stone, and it watched you with those clouded, feverish eyes, and for the first time since you had found it, it did not try to drive you away.

Your hands were shaking as you unwrapped the poultice. The wound was worse than you had realized the flesh was black and weeping, the bone beneath visible in places. You wanted to be sick. Instead, you pressed the poultice against the wound as gently as you could.

The dragon made a sound. Not a snarl, not a scream. Something smaller. Something that might have been a whimper.

"I know," you said, your voice wobbling. "I know it hurts. I'm sorry."

You sat there for a long time, your hands pressed against the dragon's wounded wing, not knowing if the poultice would do any good, not knowing if you were just making things worse. The dragon's breathing was labored, its chest rising and falling in great, shuddering waves.

After a while, you became aware of something warm against your side. You looked down. The dragon's snout had moved while you weren't paying attention, coming to rest against your hip. Its eyes were closed now, its breathing still ragged but slower, steadier.

You didn't move. You didn't dare.

"I'll come back tomorrow," you whispered. "I'll keep coming back. I promise."

The dragon did not snarl. It did not snap. It simply lay there, its head against you, and let you stay.

Slowly, carefully, you reached out with your other hand and laid it on the dragon's neck.

The scales were smoother than you had expected, warm, like stone that had been baking in the sun, but with a faint pulse of heat beneath. The dragon tensed for a moment, and you held your breath. Then, slowly, it relaxed, and a sound rumbled from its chest that was nothing like a growl.

It was almost a purr.

You laughed, the sound surprising you. You stroked the warm scales, and the dragon's eyes half-closed. Its head tilted ever so slightly into your touch, and your heart swelled so full you thought it might burst.

"You're beautiful," you whispered. "Do you know that? So beautiful."

The dragon's eyes opened, fixing on you with an intensity that made your cheeks warm. There was something in that gaze, something that made you feel seen in a way you never had before. Not as the bastarg get. Not as Marta's helper. Just... you.

"You must be a girl," you said suddenly, and the certainty of it surprised you. "You're too pretty to be a boy."

The dragon huffed, a puff of warm air that stirred your hair, and you laughed again.

"I mean it. Look at you. All pale and shimmering like... like moonlight on the water."

You ran your hand along her jaw, marveling at the way her scales caught the dim light of the cave, that faint purple sheen beneath the white. She was exquisite. Delicate, almost, despite the teeth and the claws and the fire you had seen flickering at the back of her throat.

"You need a name," you said.

You thought of the stories Marta used to tell you when you were small, tucked up in your cot while the wind howled outside. Stories of dragons and riders, of the Targaryen princesses who had flown above Westeros on wings of fire and scale. Your favorite had always been Baela the Brave.

Baela Targaryen, who had ridden the dragon Moondancer. Who had fought against usurpers and survived fire and war and loss, who had never stopped fighting even when the whole world seemed against her. You had loved her story as a child, loved the way she refused to be broken, the way she burned bright even in the darkest times.

Moondancer.

You looked at your dragon, at her pale scales that seemed to glow in the darkness, at the grace in her long neck and the quiet strength in her coiled body.

"Moonfyre," you breathed. The dragon's head lifted. Her golden eyes met yours, and for a moment, the world went very still.

"Moonfyre," you said again, firmer this time. "Like Moondancer, from the stories. Baela's dragon. But you're not quite the same, are you? You're a bit bigger. Paler. Prettier,i think." You smiled, stroking her snout.

Moonfyre made a sound, a low, rumbling thing that vibrated through your bones and settled somewhere deep in your chest. It was not quite a purr and not quite a growl, you chose to take it as approval.

"Moonfyre," you said one more time, testing the shape of it on your tongue. It felt right. It felt like hers.

The dragon—Moonfyre, you thought, and the name sang in your mind—pressed her snout against your shoulder, hard enough to nearly knock you over. You caught yourself with a laugh, your arms coming up around her neck without thinking.

"Alright, alright," you said, your face pressed against her warm scales. "You like it, I'm glad."

She made that sound again, and you could feel it humming through her entire body, through your own. You held on, and she let you, and for a long while neither of you moved.

When you finally pulled back, your cheeks ached from smiling. Moonfyre's eyes were half-lidded, her posture loose and comfortable in a way you had never seen before. The wound on her wing was healing—slowly, but healing—and the fever that had clouded her eyes had faded to nothing.

She was going to live.

You had done that. You, the village bastard who had never been anything more than a helping hand, had saved a dragon.

"Moonfyre," you said again, just to say it.

She blinked at you slowly, and you could have sworn there was affection in those golden depths.

You sat beside her for a long time that day, your back against her warm side, your hand resting on her scales. She let you. She even seemed to like it, if the gentle rumble in her chest was any indication.

And you thought about Baela the Brave, who had flown into battle with her dragon and never given up. Who had been blood of the dragon, even when the world tried to tell her she wasn't enough.

You weren't Baela. You weren't anything, really, just a dragonseed with silver hair and/or violet eyes that marked you as something you had never been allowed to claim.

But sitting beside Moonfyre, feeling the warmth of her through your worn woolen cloak, you thought that maybe you could be something. Maybe you already were.

You smiled and closed your eyes, and let the dragon's steady breathing lull you toward sleep.

"You and me," you murmured, already half-dreaming. "We'll be brave together."

Moonfyre's tail curled around you, and you knew, with the certainty of something that had always been true, that she had understood every word.

----

The news reached the village on a grey morning when the sea was calm and the gulls were quiet.

"Prince Baelor is coming," old Tom the fisherman announced in the common room of the inn, where everyone had gathered to escape the damp. "Riding to Dragonstone with his household. Something about petitions."

The inn erupted in excited chatter. Prince Baelor, Baelor Breakspear, the heir to the Iron Throne, the most beloved prince in the Seven Kingdoms. He was famous for his honor, his skill at arms, his fairness. And he was coming to Dragonstone.

You listened with half an ear, your mind elsewhere. Moonfyre's wing was almost healed now, though you still brought food every day. She had grown used to your presence, even affectionate in her way, she would curl her neck around you when you arrived, and sometimes she would let you lean against her warm side while you talked.

You had not told anyone. It was your secret, yours alone, and you guarded it fiercely.

But the news of Prince Baelor's visit stirred something in you. For years, you had wondered about your father, about the Targaryen blood that ran in your veins. You had never asked, never sought answers—it seemed pointless, like asking the sea to give back a drowned sailor.

But the news of Prince Baelor's visit stirred something in you, despite yourself. For years, you had wondered about your father or mother, about the Targaryen who had left a dragonseed child on Marta's doorstep and never looked back. You had trained yourself not to wonder. It was a waste of hope, like asking the tide to bring back a message you had whispered to the waves.

Now, with a dragon in the caves and a prince in the castle, the wondering crept back.

You pushed it down. Foolishness. The guards would never let you near the prince, and even if they did, what would you say? My prince, I found a dragon. Also, I think I might be your cousin? Or your half-sister? Or your something? They would laugh. Or worse, they would investigate. And then Moonfyre would be taken away, chained in some pit beneath the castle, studied like a curiosity.

No. Some things were worth more than answers.

---

Three days later, Prince Baelor arrived.

The whole village turned out. You had tried to stay home, you truly had, but Marta had shooed you out with a broom and told you that a girl your age should have some joy in her life, even if she had to be forced into it at broom-point.

So you stood with the others along the causeway, craning for a glimpse, and when the prince rode past on his magnificent grey destrier, you found yourself surprised.

He was not what you expected. The Targaryens in the old tapestries were silver gold-haired and otherworldly, their beauty as sharp as Valyrian steel. This man had dark hair cropped short, a strong jaw with a beard, and a face that looked like it had been shaped for smiling. He rode easily, nodding to the crowd, and when his eyes swept over you for a brief moment, he did not look away.

He smiled. A small thing, just a flicker, but it was there.

Your heart did something complicated in your chest. You looked down at your worn boots and told yourself it meant nothing.

The petitions were held in the castle, you hadn't planned to go. It was foolishness, you told yourself. But Marta had needed herbs from the castle's healer, and the healer's apprentice was a boy you had grown up with who might give you a better price if you asked nicely, and the petitions were happening, and...

And so you found yourself standing at the edge of the crowd, watching as common folk and minor lords alike approached where Prince Baelor sat, listening to their grievances and dispensing justice.

He was patient, you observed. He listened to everyone, the farmer whose sheep had been stolen, the woman whose husband had abandoned her and wanted their son back, the merchant whose goods had been seized by an overzealous customs officer. He asked questions, considered answers, and gave judgments that seemed fair.

You watched for longer than you meant to, until the crowd began to thin and the afternoon shadows grew long. The healer's apprentice had given you the herbs at a good price, and you should be heading back to the village before dark.

But your feet wouldn't move. And then, somehow, you were walking forward. Toward the prince. The guards noticed you when you were still twenty feet away. One of them stepped forward, hand on his sword.

"Halt. Petitions are closed for the day. Come back tomorrow."

You stopped, your heart suddenly pounding. What were you doing? This was madness. But you had come this far.

"I... I'm not here for a petition, exactly," you said, and your voice came out steadier than you felt. "I have... information. About something on the island. Something important."

The guard frowned. "What kind of information?"

"A dragon."

The word hung in the air between you. The guard's frown deepened, and behind him, you saw a few other people turn to look.

"A dragon," the guard repeated flatly.

"In the caves. It's wounded, but it's real. I've been... I've been feeding it."

There was a moment of silence. Then someone in the crowd laughed—a short, sharp sound. Another person snickered. The guard's expression shifted from confusion to something like pity.

"Girl, all the dragons died sixty years ago. Everyone knows that."

"I know what I saw." You lifted your chin, meeting his eyes. "I've been seeing it for moons now. It's white, with purple in its scales. About the size of two horses. Its wing was hurt, but it's healing."

The guard opened his mouth to respond, but a voice from behind him cut him off.

"What's this about a dragon?"

The crowd parted, and Prince Baelor himself stepped forward. Up close, he was even more striking than you had expected, not handsome in the conventional way, but with a presence that made you want to pay attention when he spoke. His dark eyes studied you with curiosity.

Your throat went dry. You dipped into a clumsy curtsey, the kind the village women used when the septon came to visit.

"Your Grace. I'm sorry to bother you. I just... I thought someone should know."

"Know what?" His voice was kind, patient. "Tell me your name, child."

"Y/N, Your Grace. I live in the village."

"Well, Y/N of the village. Tell me about this dragon."

You told him, the first discovery, the wounded wing, the moons of bringing food and water. The crowd had gone quiet. Some were still smiling, the way adults smile at children's fanciful tales. Others were watching the prince, waiting to see how he would respond.

When you finished, Prince Baelor was silent for a long moment. Then he asked, very quietly, "You say it lets you touch it?"

"Yes, Your Grace. It... I think it trusts me. I was the first person who didn't try to hurt it."

"And you've told no one else?"

"No, Your Grace. I was afraid they wouldn't believe me. Or that they would... try to take it."

The prince nodded slowly, and something flickered in his eyes, not disbelief, but consideration. He glanced at one of his knights, a big man with a scarred face, and something passed between them that you couldn't read.

Then he turned back to you, and a small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

"Y/N of the village, you've brought me an interesting tale. I confess, I'm curious to see if it's true. But if there is a dragon in those caves—a wild dragon, wounded and alone—it could be dangerous. To you, to the villagers, to anyone who stumbles upon it."

"It's not dangerous!" you said quickly. "It's never tried to hurt me. Not once." You lied, a white lie you thought.

"You've been lucky, then. Or perhaps you're right, and it knows you mean it no harm." He paused, studying your face. "What would you have me do with this information? Did you come seeking a reward?"

You shook your head. "No, Your Grace. I just... I thought someone should know. And I was worried that if I didn't tell anyone, and something happened..."

"You felt it was your duty." The prince's smile widened slightly. "That's commendable."

He was quiet for another moment, and you became acutely aware of all the eyes on you, the guards, the courtiers, the villagers who had lingered to watch. Your face burned.

Then the prince spoke again, and his voice carried to everyone in the yard.

"Well, children are often more imaginative than we give them credit for. But I see no harm in humoring them." He looked directly at you. "If there is a dragon in those caves, and if it has chosen to accept your company... then I suppose it's yours. Finders keepers, as they say."

A ripple of laughter ran through the crowd. Someone called out, "Better them than me!" and more laughter followed.

You stared at him, hardly daring to believe what you were hearing. "You... you mean it? I can keep it?"

Prince Baelor's eyes sparkled with amusement. "If it exists, and if it allows you to keep it, then yes. Consider it a gift from the crown. Though I should warn you, dragons have a way of belonging to no one but themselves. Ask my ancestors."

"Thank you, Your Grace!" The words tumbled out of you, overflowing with relief and joy. "Thank you, thank you—"

"Go on, then." He waved a hand, still smiling. "Go tend to your dragon. And if you ever need anything for it—within reason, mind you—you may come to the castle and ask. Consider that my promise."

You curtseyed again, nearly tripping over your own feet in your haste, and fled the yard before anyone could change their mind.

Behind you, you heard the laughter and chatter resume, and someone saying, "Well, that was a kind thing to do. That one's clearly touched in the head, but no harm in letting them have their fantasy."

Let them laugh. Let them think you mad. You knew what you had found.

And now, officially, it was yours.

----

In the evening, over supper, Valarr brought it up.

"I've been thinking about that girl," he said, pushing eggs around his plate with the focused attention of someone who was thinking about anything but his breakfast. "The one with the dragon."

Matarys looked up, interested. "The mad girl?"

"She wasn't mad." Valarr frowned at his brother. "She was... mistaken, perhaps. But not mad."

"Mad, mistaken—she thinks there's a dragon in the caves." Matarys shrugged. "That's not normal."

"Lots of people believe things that aren't normal. That doesn't make them mad."

Baelor hid a smile behind his cup of watered wine. This was a familiar dynamic, Valarr the serious, always striving to be fair and just; Matarys the impulsive, speaking before he thought. They balanced each other well, these two.

"What about her, Valarr?" he asked.

"I was wondering if someone should check. The caves, I mean. Just to be sure." Valarr met his father's eyes steadily. "If there is something there—even just a wounded animal she's mistaken for a dragon—it might need help. Real help. And if there's nothing..." He trailed off.

"Then at least we'll know," Baelor finished. "And we can stop wondering."

"Exactly."

It was a sensible suggestion. Practical. The kind of thing Valarr would think of, with his methodical mind and his desire to set things right.

Baelor considered it. A search party would take time and men, but it wasn't an unreasonable request. And it would set his son's mind at ease, which was worth something.

But something held him back. A memory of the girl's face when he'd told her she could keep her dragon, that radiant, disbelieving joy. A search party would find nothing, most likely. And then that joy would be replaced by something else. Embarrassment, perhaps. Shame. The crushing weight of having been wrong about something that mattered deeply.

Was it worth that, just to satisfy curiosity?

"I think," Baelor said slowly, "that we should let it be. For now. The girl isn't hurting anyone, and she's not asking for anything except to be left alone with her... companion. If there's a wounded animal in those caves, she's already tending it better than we could. If there's nothing, then she'll figure that out eventually on her own." He met Valarr's eyes. "Sometimes the kindest thing is to let people keep their illusions."

Valarr considered this, his young face serious. Then he nodded slowly. "You're probably right, Father."

"I usually am." Baelor smiled. "Don't tell your mother I said that."

Matarys snorted. "Mother already knows. She says your wisdom is exceeded only by your modesty, and both are greatly exaggerated."

"Your mother," Baelor informed him, "is a very funny woman."

----

If you're in the taglist please comment and like or you'll be removed, it took me an hour to tag y'all

The morning light filtered through the gauze curtains of your chambers, painting the room in shades of gold and rose. You stretched languidly beneath the silk sheets, a smile already forming on your lips before you even opened your eyes. The other side of the bed was empty, but the indent in the pillow beside you was still warm, and you could hear the soft sounds of someone moving about the adjoining sitting room.

"Valarr?" you called out, your voice still thick with sleep.

A moment later, your husband appeared in the doorway, already dressed in a loose tunic and riding leathers. His brown hair, with that bright streak of silver-gold running through it was slightly disheveled, as though he'd been running his hands through it repeatedly. His mismatched eyes lit up the moment they found you, and the smile that spread across his face made your heart flutter in a way that three moons of marriage had done nothing to diminish.

"You're awake," he said, crossing the room in three long strides and sitting on the edge of the bed. He leaned down to press a kiss to your forehead, then your nose, then your lips. "I was trying to let you sleep."

"Mmm." You looped your arms around his neck, keeping him close. "And where were you going, all dressed up like that?"

The slight shift in his expression told you everything you needed to know. You'd been married long enough now to recognize that particular look, the one that meant he wanted something, something he suspected you wouldn't like, and was trying to figure out the best way to ask for it.

"Aerrix needs exercise," he said carefully. "I thought I'd take her out for a flight before breakfast."

You stiffened almost imperceptibly, but Valarr caught it. Of course he caught it. He caught everything where you were concerned, had done since the very beginning.

You remembered those stolen nights before your marriage with perfect clarity, the way he'd find you in dark corridors during feasts, pulling you into alcoves and empty chambers just to have a moment alone with you. The way he'd climb down from his dragon and run to you the moment he landed, unable to bear even the few minutes it took to stable the beast properly. The way he'd whisper promises of forever against your skin in the moonlight.

Valarr Targaryen, the Young Prince, and absolutely, completely, hopelessly in love with you. And you with him.

But there was one part of him you couldn't quite love, no matter how hard you tried.

Aerrix.

You'd never met the dragon, thank the Seven. You'd seen her from a distance, of course a massive creature of black and white, scales seeming to shift between the two colors depending on how the light hit her. She was larger than most of the other dragons, and louder, and from what you'd heard, meaner. The dragon keepers gave her a wide berth. The other dragon riders kept their own mounts carefully separated from her during flights. And everyone, everyone, knew that Aerrix tolerated exactly one person in the entire world, Valarr.

"Don't make that face," Valarr said now, his thumb gently stroking your cheek. "It's too early for that face."

"I don't know what face you're talking about."

"You're making your 'my husband is going to suggest something dreadful' face." He grinned, that boyish grin that had probably convinced you to do approximately seventeen thousand things you never would have done otherwise. "I haven't even suggested anything yet."

"You were about to."

"I was considering suggesting something." He kissed your nose again. "There's a difference."

You sighed, but you were still smiling despite yourself. "What is it, Valarr?"

He was quiet for a moment, his fingers tracing lazy patterns on your shoulder. When he spoke, his voice was softer than before. "I want you to meet her."

Your heart stopped. Actually stopped, right there in your chest, for what felt like several very long seconds.

"Valarr—"

"I know." He held up a hand, cutting off the protest he could see building in your expression. "I know you're frightened of her. I know you've avoided the dragonpit entirely since we married. I know you flinch every time someone mentions her name." His eyes were earnest, pleading. "But she's part of me, my love. The largest part of me, some would say. And I want—" He paused, searching for the right words. "I want you to see that part of me. I want to share it with you. I want..." He trailed off, looking almost shy for a moment. "I want to take you flying someday. Both of you. My two favorite beings in all the world."

You stared at him.

"Flying," you repeated flatly.

"On Aerrix."

"On your volatile, aggressive, people-eating dragon."

"She doesn't eat people."

"She ate a whole sheep in one bite last night . I heard the keepers talking about it."

"She's a dragon. Dragons eat sheep. That's not the same as eating people."

You sat up in bed, pulling the sheets with you, and fixed him with your most formidable look. "Valarr Targaryen. I love you. I have loved you since before I knew what love was. I climbed out of windows to meet you in the dark. I lied to my own mother for you. I married you knowing that being your wife would mean a lifetime of people staring at me and whispering." You took a breath. "But I will not go anywhere near your dragon."

Valarr's face fell, and something in your chest twisted painfully. He looked so disappointed—not angry, never angry with you, just sad in that quiet way that made you want to give him absolutely anything he asked for.

"I understand," he said quietly, and he meant it. That was the worst part. He always understood. "I won't push you."

He kissed your forehead again and stood, and you watched him walk toward the door with his shoulders just slightly slumped, and you felt like the worst wife in the entire Seven Kingdoms.

"Valarr."

He turned.

You took a deep breath. "I'll... think about it."

The thinking about it lasted approximately three days, during which Valarr was so pathetically hopeful and so carefully restrained in his hopefulness that you wanted to both kiss him and strangle him in equal measure.

He didn't bring it up again, not once. But he'd look at you across the dinner table with those eyes, and you could see the question hovering there, unasked. He'd come back from flying Aerrix and describe the clouds to you, the way the world looked from above, the feeling of freedom, and you could hear the longing in his voice, not for you to share the experience, necessarily, but for you to understand it. To understand him.

On the fourth day, you gave in.

"Take me to her," you said, the words tumbling out before you could lose your nerve.

Valarr had been in the middle of drinking his morning tea. He choked.

"Take you—now? You mean it?"

"I mean it. Before I change my mind."

He was on his feet in an instant, pulling you up with him, his excitement so palpable it was almost contagious. "You won't regret this. I promise you won't regret this. She's going to love you. I know she will."

"That's what I'm afraid of," you muttered, but you let him lead you out of the chambers and toward the dragonpit.

The dragonpit loomed before you, a massive structure of stone and iron that seemed to swallow the light. You could hear them before you could see them, the rumbling, the occasional shriek, the heavy sounds of massive bodies shifting against stone. Your steps slowed.

Valarr's hand tightened around yours. "I'm right here. Nothing is going to hurt you."

"You can't promise that."

"I can. Aerrix won't hurt you. I won't let her." He stopped walking, turning to face you fully. "Do you trust me?"

You looked at him, at this man who had married you in front of the Seven and all the realm, who looked at you like you were the most precious thing in his world.

"Yes," you said. "I trust you."

He kissed you once, quick and fierce, and then he was leading you forward again, into the dragonpit.

The interior was dim and hot, lit by torches and the faint glow of dragon fire from deeper within. Valarr led you past several dens, each containing a dragon of varying size and color. They watched you pass with those unblinking eyes, and you pressed closer to your husband, your heart pounding.

And then you reached Aerrix's den.

She was magnificent.

That was the first thought that crossed your mind as you stood at the entrance, staring at the massive creature sprawled across the rocky ground. She was easily three times the size of the other dragons you'd passed, her black and white scales gleaming in the torchlight like polished gems. Her horns curved back from her head in elegant spirals, and even in sleep, her sides rose and fell with a rhythm that seemed to shake the very ground beneath your feet.

She was also absolutely terrifying.

"Seven help me," you whispered.

Valarr squeezed your hand. "Stay here. Let me approach her first."

He walked forward, his footsteps echoing in the cavern, and you watched as Aerrix stirred. Her head lifted, those massive golden eyes opening and fixing on her rider with unmistakable affection. She made a sound, a rumbling, crooning noise, and Valarr laughed, pressing his forehead against her snout.

"Good morning to you too," he said softly. "I've brought someone to meet you. Someone very important to me."

He glanced back at you, gesturing you forward.

Your feet wouldn't move.

"It's all right," he called. "Come slowly. Let her see you."

You forced yourself to take a step. Then another. Aerrix's head swung toward you, those golden eyes fixing on your small figure with an intensity that made your blood run cold. You could feel her breath now, warm and smelling faintly of smoke, ruffling your hair and your skirts.

This is it, you thought hysterically. This is how I die. Eaten by my husband's dragon. Mother will be so disappointed.

You were close enough now to see the texture of her scales, the way they overlapped like armor. Her nostrils flared, and you felt her inhale a great rush of air that pulled at your clothes and hair. She was smelling you. Learning you.

And then, impossibly, she made a sound.

It was low and rumbling, like thunder in the distance, but softer somehow. Warmer. It vibrated through the stone beneath your feet and up through your body, settling somewhere in your chest.

"What..." you breathed.

Valarr's jaw had dropped. "She's... purring. She's actually purring." His voice was full of wonder. "She's never—no one—she doesn't even let the keepers near her. And she's purring."

Aerrix's massive head shifted closer, her golden eyes soft now, warm. She made the sound again, louder this time, and then she did something that made Valarr choke on air.

She nudged your hand with her snout.

Very slowly, hardly daring to breathe, you lifted your hand and placed it on her warm scales. The purring grew louder, vibrating through your palm and up your arm, and Aerrix's eyes half-closed in what could only be described as contentment.

"She likes me," you said, stunned. "Your terrifying, volatile, people eating dragon likes me."

"She loves you," Valarr corrected, his voice thick with emotion. "Look at her. She's absolutely besotted."

And indeed, Aerrix was now trying to maneuver her massive head into your space, clearly seeking more attention. You laughed and scratched behind her horn, and she made a sound of pure dragon bliss.

"Well," you said, looking at your husband's dumbfounded expression. "I suppose I have to fly with you now."

Valarr's face split into a grin so wide it was almost silly. "Tomorrow? First thing in the morning?"

"First thing," you agreed.

The next morning dawned clear and bright, and you made your way to the dragonpit with Valarr's hand firmly clasped in yours.

Aerrix was waiting.

She lifted her head the moment you appeared, that familiar purring sound rumbling through the air. Her golden eyes fixed on you, and she made a noise that was almost like a greeting.

"See?" Valarr said, squeezing your hand. "She's happy to see you."

"She's happy to see me because she wants me to pet her."

"That too." Valarr grinned and led you forward, toward the dragon's side. "Now, the trick is to mount quickly and smoothly. I'll go first, then help you up behind me. Just hold onto my waist and don't look down."

You nodded, your heart pounding. Aerrix watched you with those golden eyes, and for a moment you could have sworn she looked... pleased.

Valarr climbed up onto the dragon's wing with practiced ease and reaching down for you. "Come on, love. Up you go."

You took his hand, put your foot in the stirrup he indicated, and—

Aerrix moved.

It was a small movement, barely a shift of her weight, but it was enough to make you lose your balance and stumble back. Valarr caught you before you could fall, but when you tried again, the same thing happened. Aerrix shifted just enough to make mounting impossible.

"What in the seven hells?" Valarr muttered, leaning down to look at his dragon. "Aerrix. Stop that."

The dragon looked up at him with an expression that was almost apologetic, but when you reached for the saddle again, she moved once more, not aggressively, not dangerously, but with clear intent to prevent you from getting on her back.

"I don't understand," Valarr said, genuinely confused now. "She loves you. She purrs for you. Why won't she let you mount?"

You tried again. And again. And again. Each time, Aerrix would shift or sway or simply lower herself to the ground, making it impossible for you to climb into the saddle. She wasn't angry about it—she kept purring that same rumbling purr, kept looking at you with those warm golden eyes—but she was absolutely, completely, and totally refusing to let you ride her.

"This has never happened," Valarr said, running his hands through his hair in frustration. "Dragons don't—they don't do this. They don't disobey their riders, even less refuse to take flight."

"Maybe she's changed her mind," you suggested, trying not to feel hurt.

"No." Valarr shook his head firmly. "That's not it. Look at her—she's still purring. She's still happy. She just... doesn't want you on her back."

Aerrix rumbled in what sounded like agreement, and you could have sworn there was something knowing in her golden gaze.

Days passed. Then weeks.

Every attempt to mount Aerrix ended the same way, gentle but firm refusal. The dragon would purr and nuzzle and follow you everywhere, but the moment you tried to get on her back, she would shift away. It was baffling. It was unprecedented. Dragon keepers were consulted. Other riders offered theories. Nothing explained it.

Valarr grew increasingly frustrated. You grew increasingly tired.

Because you were tired. Constantly tired. You'd fall asleep in the middle of conversations, nod off during meals, barely have the energy to get out of bed in the mornings. You were also vaguely nauseous at odd times of day, and certain smells that had never bothered you before now made your stomach turn.

You didn't think much of it, at first. But when you nearly fell asleep standing up during a formal dinner with Valarr's parents, your husband took one look at you and carried you bodily to the maester's chambers.

"Something's wrong," he said firmly. "I want the maester to look at you."

The maester asked you questions—about your appetite, your sleep, your monthly cycles—and you answered them, increasingly confused by the direction of his inquiries. He felt your belly, checked your pulse, and asked a few more questions.

Then he smiled.

"Well, my lady," he said, his eyes crinkling at the corners, "I believe I have an explanation for your symptoms."

"What is it?" Valarr asked, his arm tightening protectively around your shoulders.

The maester's smile widened. "Congratulations, my prince. You're going to be a father."

The room went absolutely silent.

You felt the words wash over you, not quite making sense at first. Father. Going to be a father. That meant—

You looked down at your belly, still flat beneath your gown, and felt something shift inside you.

"A baby," you whispered.

"A baby." Valarr's voice was strange, thick with emotion. You looked up at him and found his eyes bright, his face working through about seventeen different expressions before settling on one. He was smiling. He was absolutely, radiantly, incandescently smiling. "We're having a baby."

And then he was kissing you, laughing against your mouth, lifting you off the ground and spinning you in a circle while the maester watched with tolerant amusement.

The explanation for Aerrix's behavior came later that evening, when you and Valarr went to the dragonpit to share your news.

Aerrix was waiting, as she always was, her massive head lifting the moment you appeared. She made her usual purring sound, rumbling and warm, and you walked toward her without fear. You placed your hand on her snout, feeling the warmth of her scales.

"She knew," you said, looking at her golden eyes. "Didn't you? You knew before any of us."

Aerrix blinked slowly. Then, very deliberately, she lifted her head and looked directly at Valarr with an expression that could only be described as smug. If dragons could smirk, she would be smirking. She let out a little rumble that sounded suspiciously like dragon laughter.

Valarr gaped. "Are you laughing at me?"

Aerrix made the sound again, louder this time, and you could have sworn she was absolutely delighted with herself.

"She's been laughing at me for weeks," Valarr realized, his mouth hanging open. "Every time I tried to figure out why she wouldn't let you mount, every time I asked the keepers, every time I pulled out those books, she was sitting there, knowing exactly why, and just watching me struggle."

You burst out laughing. "Oh, that's perfect."

"I've been losing my mind for weeks!" Valarr threw his hands up. "I consulted the dragonkeepers! I read three books on dragon behavior! I asked my father! I asked my grandfather!"

Aerrix made a sound like a dragon snort, and you could have sworn she rolled her eyes.

"She's been protecting the baby," you said, still giggling. "That's all. She felt the new life and decided we needed guarding."

Valarr crossed his arms, staring at his dragon. "You could have told me."

Aerrix blinked at him.

"Somehow," you said, "I don't think she feels bad about it."

"She doesn't." Valarr sighed, but he was fighting a smile. "She absolutely does not. Look at her. She's preening."

Aerrix was indeed preening, her head held high, her scales practically gleaming with self-satisfaction. She nudged your belly gently with her snout and made a soft cooing sound.

"She's talking to the baby now," Valarr said flatly.

"She's bonding."

"She's showing off."

You scratched behind Aerrix's horn, and she purred loudly. "You have to admit, she was pretty clever about it."

Valarr came to stand beside you, wrapping an arm around your waist. "Oh, she's clever. She's also never going to let me forget that she knew before I did."

"Probably not," you agreed.

"Never," Aerrix seemed to rumble.

Valarr looked at his dragon, then at you, then at your belly. A smile finally broke through. "So. After the baby comes. Flying together?"

You looked at Aerrix, who was now gently resting her massive head against your side, still purring like a contented cat.

Rounding the corner, his long legs making no accommodations for your shorter ones, he says, “No. If you wanted better results, you should have put in a better performance. Surely you’re smart enough to work out that that’s how life works.”

Hands grab his arm, yanking back with all your strength only to be dragged along with him and his burly body. Your heels scrape along the floor. People stare. You don’t care. “Don’t be an asshole. You know my essay was good. It was really good. Just give it a read. A proper one, and not the rushed job you do because you’re overworked and underpaid.”

He stops.

Your face bumps into this back, forehead nearly bruised by the hardness. 

His brows rise above his glasses as he fixes you a look. “Kid, your essay was good — decent introduction, clear structure, sufficient evidence — but it’s not good enough for the extra marks to push you into the top band. Your closing argument fell flat ‘cause of your wishy-washy writing style, you didn’t adequately humour the counter arguments and undermine them to strengthen your thesis, and, worst of all, you misspelt ‘complement.’”

A frown graces your features. 

“No, I didn’t. C. O. M. P. L. I. M—”

“No. With an I, it’s to flatter someone. With an E, it’s to enhance, pair well, or complete another thing.” Toji explains rather robotically, eyes still dead and voice monotone. “For example, if I said you’re a pretty girl, that’s a compliment. And if I said, your essay goes well with the trashcan over there, that’s a statement that suggests the two complement each other. See the difference?”

He’s already stalking off again, hands in his pockets, huge stature unwilling to accommodate the people walking down the hallway. 

You break into a jog, panting embarrassingly by the time you reach him. “Dude, we’ve known each other for three years. We’ve gone through a lot together. We’re basically friends. Can’t you do your best pal a solid?”

Toji glances down at you. He pushes a door open, holding it a second longer than he needed to. You follow behind him. Somewhat amused, he replies, “We know each other because we’re on the same course, not by choice. And I don’t know what you mean by the whole ‘we’ve gone through a lot together’ thing — the most dramatic thing we’ve faced is when the projector didn’t work and we had to go into a different hall. And we’re definitely not friends.”

Well, fuck, you’re running out of rope. 

“Then, let’s officially be friends,” you offer, elbowing him gently. “If you ever need help, buddy, I’ll always have your back.” Then, in an act of complete desperation, you begin shakily singing, “You’ve got a friend in me. You’ve got a friend in me. When the road looks tough ahead—”

A heavy hand shoves you away by your head. You stumble into a bulletin board.

“Enough,” he gruffs. “My day’s already fucked because the prof lost his papers and wants to blame me. I don’t need to lose my hearing on top of that.”

Your head flits around. “Did you guys see that?” People give you weird looks. “He just shoved me. The TA just shoved me. We need to protest his violent behaviour by demanding he remarks our papers. Who’s with me?”

Everyone walks past without another look at you.

Toji, on the other hand, lifts his glasses and runs a hand down his face. Muttering something under his breath, he pushes a door open and holds out a hand before you can mindlessly follow. “It’s the men’s bathroom. Tell me you’re not shameless and stupid enough to come in here.”

“I’ll wait outside.”

His eye twitches. 

As though an idea comes to him, he straightens ever so slightly. “I’m gonna take a dump; you’ll be waiting a while.”

“That’s okay — I have no more classes so take your time but make sure you don’t stay sitting down longer than you need to,” you tell him, smiling innocently and standing aside to let a guy walk out, ignoring the freaked out face he makes at you. “You can get hemorrhoids."

He groans. “Jesus fucking Christ, woman.” 

That seems to be as much of you he can tolerate because he walks in without another word to you. Opposite the door, you lean against the wall, whistling and coming up with alternative lines you can pull on him. 

God, he’s so stubborn. 

It’s not like giving you the marks docks his pay or lowers the professor’s opinion of him. He’s clearly just being an ass. 

If he wasn’t such a good TA, a genuinely intelligent man, you would have gone above his head and asked for the prof’s personal assessment. But no, he has to be knowledgeable, a helpful source of information when you’re lost, someone who seems to know everything about any topic, who knows the exact pages of a textbook you should read to further your understanding, and who’s never declined a meeting for clarification on something you wrote. 

For years now, you two have had a friendship-like relationship, often sharing snacks and exchanging brief words before or after lectures and classes, despite what he says.

Everyone gets along with him, though you’ve never actually seen him hang out with friends or go to parties. Maybe he doesn’t have any. Word on the street is he works part time in a couple different places. Some say so he can afford drugs, some for tuition. 

The rumours never interested you, apart from any that mused about his love life, which seems to be nonexistent except for the many girls who hit on him. Not that you’re especially interested.

It’s just fun to be in the know.

Who knows how long has passed since he went in there. Your phone says fifteen minutes. Is that a normal amount of time for someone to be taking a dump?

Hesitantly, you push the door open and yell out, “Fushiguro? You doing okay? Is it stuck? For a couple extra marks, I’ll give you a hand.”

No one replies. 

Brows furrowing, you bend down, looking through the stalls. No feet. What the hell?

Ahead, a window is ajar. Big enough for a man to squeeze through. Well isn’t that convenient? The kind of convenient that exists only in fiction.

Aggrieved and feeling bamboozled, you stomp back to your dorm room, slamming the door, jumping face down on the bed and screaming into the pillows. You’d feel better if you knew he had a grudge on you, if you bumped into him the first day and spilled his coffee all over himself and he’d never forgotten it. Instead, he’s just like that: does things by the book, does his job well, and achieves the best grades with ease. 

Naturally, he’d become the professor’s assistant, a coveted position that seemed like it was made for him from the very beginning, and made your life a living hell because he won’t ever make concessions for you.

Sure, you shouldn’t ask him to, but it’s not like you’re asking for much. You’re generally a high performing student — punctual, hard working, ambitious — but you had one bad day which resulted in one bad essay and it lowered your average and now the internship you’d been eyeing could be snatched from your hands in a blink of an eye. 

“It’s just not fair,” you cry out to your teddy bear. “It’s three marks. Three! Would it kill him to reread my essay and find those three marks?”

Mr. Teddy stares back at you and says, “He’s a grumpy man. Don’t take it personally.”

You sit up, blinking and processing his reply.

“Teddy…you’re right. He is a grumpy man, a TA with broad shoulders, yummy arms, and thick thighs with a bubble butt, but a man nonetheless. If he won’t pull favours for me, student to student, maybe he’ll pull favours for me man to woman.”

The plushie falls to the bed as you stand, staring at yourself in the mirror and formulating a plan. 

With that you decide to seek him out the next day, sporting a new outfit and a different attitude.

.

.

.

“Hi.”

“Fuck off.”

The cafeteria’s busy. It always is. It’s loud enough that most people wouldn’t even hear the exchange — chairs banging on tile, trays clattering, someone laughing too loudly at a table nearby. 

Toji’s hunched slightly over a bowl of udon noodles, chopsticks moving lazily as he slurps them down. Some sports clip plays on his phone, propped against his dented metal water bottle. Commentators yell about something you don’t understand. His sleeves are pushed up over his forearms, revealing ropey muscle and the faint silvery line of an old scar running across his wrist.

An old hoodie hangs off his shoulders over a plain white T-shirt. Distressed jeans, worn sneakers. He’s too big for the plastic chair, long legs spread under the table. When he saw you approach, his feet had hooked onto the chair legs, forcing you to fight to remove it from his clutches so you could take a seat.

So damn rude.

His glasses have fogged slightly from the steam of the noodles.

He doesn’t look up. But he knows it’s you. You can tell by the way his mouth tightens for half a second before he goes back to eating.

You snatch his phone away. His green eyes flick up, annoyed. You smile, arms pushing your breasts together so they spill over your tight top. Toji’s gaze doesn’t waver. He continues to stare at you like you’re a pest. 

“You can’t take no for an answer?” he asks though it’s not a question at all. “Might want to retake the consent course.”

Manicured fingers walk up his bare forearm before scratching down from his elbow. His skin is warm. Light dusting of hair tickling your fingertips. “Oh, Toj, have I ever told you how handsome you are? Because you really are. You’re so damn hot I can hardly focus on the lectures.”

He snorts, still eating his noodles and still refusing to look at your cleavage. “That’ll explain why you’re missing marks.”

Jaw dropping, you force yourself to recover quickly. A heeled foot brushes against his calf, sliding his jeans up. You bat your lashes, sultrily saying, “The only thing I’m missing is your cock in me, big boy.”

Toji meets your eyes again. His scarred lips twitch. “I don’t need to tell you that was bad, do I?”

You cringe, foot dropping and whole body slumping back into the chair. “Yeah, I heard it as soon as I said it.” Then you sit up, handing him his phone, and asks, “Are the noodles good? I’ve never had them.”

Phone pocketed, he shrugs. “They’re just the cheapest deal on the menu. Growing girl like you should get something more filling.”

The menu’s extensive, and the only thing sticking out to you is the chicken burger and chicken tenders meal deal. It seems to be especially popular today but you’re not sure you can finish the whole thing. 

“Hey, if I get the Meal Super Cluck Blaster, will you share it with me? I’ve got dinner plans later so I don’t want to fill up.”

That finally gets a reaction. Toji leans back a little and gives you a slow once-over. Tight top. Lacy bra peeking up. Glossy lips. More jewellery than usual. His eyebrow lifts. “That why you’re dressed like a hooker?” he asks lazily. “Hot date?”

“Nah,” you reply, waving him off. “Wore this for yo— Wait.” You lean forward, staring at him wide eyed. “Are you jealous? Are you in love with me already? Because for extra marks, I’ll cancel my dinner plans and promise myself to you for all eternity.”

Toji rolls his eyes. “Go get something to eat; you sound insane.”

You hop up. “Okay, but stay there, alright? Take my burger because I only want the tenders. Oh, and will you share a pot of cheesecake with me? I’m lactose-intolerant but I really want cheesecake right now.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

He’s still here when you come back. 

As soon as you hand him the wrapped up burger, he scarfs it down the way big men do, like they haven’t eaten in days. You push him the tenders too. You’d actually gotten a double serving of everything so you have your own portion of tenders and he gets to eat another burger. There’s no way a man his size could survive on udon noodles.

“Also, let’s not act like you didn’t leave me hanging outside the men’s bathroom yesterday,” you bring up after sipping your juice. “Can’t believe you left through the bathroom window just so you could get away from me.”

“I didn’t,” he says, mouth full and adjusting his glasses. 

You frown, dipping a piece of chicken in hot honey. “No, you definitely did. I peeked and there were no feet in any of the stalls. Unless you’re telling me you can grow invisible.”

“Just lifted my legs when I heard you come in, which I knew your crazy ass would do, so I could finally leave in peace. Didn’t think it’d take you fifteen minutes though.”

A laugh escapes you. “You were waiting me out? Does that sound like the mature thing to do? Jeez, you need to act your age.”

Toji’s eyes meet yours. Your smile falters for the briefest second. “I’m not that much older than you,” he reminds you. “Only by two years.”

“And yet you call me kid or kiddo,” you retort, clearing your throat. Have his eyes always been that green and deep? And is his voice usually that husky and masculine? Because you could have sworn guys your age don’t sound like that.

He shrugs again, second burger finished in a blink of an eye. “Never hurts to remind yourself.”

“Remind yourself what?”

The legs of his chair screech as he pushes it back. He stands, picking up his tray, and answers, “Forget about it. Enjoy your dinner plans. And I’m taking the cheesecake — no one wants a gassy date.”

“Wait,” you call out before he can turn away. “My marks?”

A pat on the head ruffles your hair. 

“Still a no, kid.”

.

.

.

“What if I suck your dick?”

Toji lifts his glasses to rub at his eyes. “I’ve got a ton of papers to grade for another class; I don’t have time for you.”

The door shuts behind you. His office is bare, not a single decoration littering the place, not a plant nor a picture. 

His office is exactly how you remember it — disappointingly, aggressively empty. The walls are a dull institutional beige that makes the overhead fluorescent light feel even harsher. No posters. No photos. Not even a sad little plant struggling for life in the corner.

Just a desk. A filing cabinet. Two chairs that look like they were stolen from a waiting room. It’s the kind of office someone occupies temporarily, like he expects to leave at any moment and doesn’t see the point in settling in.

Leaning against the desk anyway, your fingers drum lazily along the edge.

You’ve been here before: once to argue about a paper he’d shredded with red ink, once because you’d missed an exam and needed him to sign a form, and once because you’d sworn you heard him swearing loud enough to be heard halfway down the hallway.

You grip his shoulder, squeezing as you scan the fat stack of papers on his desk — the prof’s particular about handwritten essays. There’s so much to read through; you do not want to be him. 

“God,” you mutter, flipping through a few pages of the stack. “There’s like fifty here.”

“Seventy-two,” Toji corrects without looking up. His handwriting is sharp and aggressive, red ink slashing through entire paragraphs like he’s committing academic murder. You wince in sympathy for whoever wrote the paper currently being dismantled.

“Good thing you can multitask, can’t you? I’ll suck your dick under the desk, you grade papers, and you bump me up a grade. Easy.”

He shrugs you off, hulking body hunched over and pen scratching on the papers, leaving harsh circles and comments like, ‘what the hell does this mean?’ and ‘you can’t just say perchance.’ 

Toji gruffs, “I’m serious. Take your jokes elsewhere.”

Nah, you think to yourself. 

With a massive struggle against his weight, you yank his chair back, wheeling him a distance from the desk and clambering under before he can fill the space again. He makes some noise above you but you pay him no mind. Your hands rest on his meaty thighs through his sweatpants, marvelling at the density, at the strength you find in them. 

“You’re fucking ridiculous.” His foot nudges your knee. “Get the fuck out. I’ll cropdust you if I have to.”

You call his bluff by clutching his clothed cock. He jolts, grunting. Laughing softly, you muse, “You say all that but you have a semi already — did my proposition get you hard, Toji?”

You’re rubbing his hard on, trying not to get flustered by how big he feels, and how fat the girth is. Of course he’s big. In hindsight, you really shouldn’t have been so surprised; he’s a big man so naturally the proportions will match up. 

“Suck my dick, don’t suck my dick, it doesn’t matter,” he says, sighing and probably pinching the bridge of his nose. “You’re not getting those marks.”

He thinks that’ll stave you off because he knows you’re whoring yourself out for a grade. What he doesn’t know is that your stupid little brain’s already forgotten about all of that the moment you felt his cock. Now all you can think about is how you’ll have to stretch your lips nice and wide to take him in, and even then, even when your throat is lax and loose, you won’t be able to take him to the base. 

Toji grunts again, peering down at you. “You mouthing at my dick? Did’ya not hear what I said?”

Like you’ve been possessed, you press kisses to where his tip is, humming around it. “I heard, but your dick’s saying other things to me, and I know which I prefer to listen to.”

“My dick’s not marking your paper, so get the fuck up,” he growls.

“Don’t wanna.”

“You’re fucking killing me here.”

A heavy hand bundles your hair up, pulling but you fight against it, hooking your fingers under the waistband and releasing him from the constraints. His boxers have a hole, and yet you only find it endearing. Freeing his cock so it bounces up and smacks your cheek, it leaves a wet mark on your skin. 

Tutting, he wipes away the wetness from your skin. 

Oh fuck, he really is big. 

With nothing between you and his dick, you can see him in all his glory in the partial shadow of under his desk — long, thick, flushed red, already shiny at the slit, veiny as hell, hairs at the base wild and unruly, with weighty balls to match. You’ve never seen anything better. 

Tongue out, you lick him from base to tip, prodding at his frenulum.

“Quit it,” he commands through gritted teeth. 

You moan wantonly, already addicted to the salt on his kin, to the texture of his veins, to the softness of his cockhead. “Toji, you’re so big. I don’t think this’ll fit inside me.”

The thing throbs, bobbing. A droplet oozes out and you quickly lick it up. The hand that was pulling your hair has grown slack, simply resting on the back of your head, keeping you from bumping the wood. 

Voice hoarse, he mutters, “If anyone can make it fit, it’ll be your stubborn ass.”

Your eyes meet his from under the desk, mischief sparkling in them you’re sure. His cock throbs again. “I thought you had papers to mark, Fushiguro. Maybe you should get on that, no?”

A calloused thumb presses down on your lips, shushing you. It slides down, bringing your bottom lip down with it, before releasing it so it’ll bounce back in place. That same thumb holds your jaw open, hand guiding your mouth to his tip. You know what he wants. You also know that he knows that you both know that you won this time. 

Wide as you can, you take as much of his length as possible. You don’t get much further than a third of the way, full beyond belief and overwhelmed by just how much of him there still is. Your nails dig into his thighs.

“If this is supposed to convince me to give you extra marks, then you’re failing real hard, doll,” he notes, gripping the base. “Can barely fit the head, can you?”

He’s acting like it’s your fault he’s so big. 

Challenged, you loosen your throat to take him an inch deeper. You gag around the length. Toji curses under his breath. “Careful,” he mutters. “You’ll hurt yourself.”

You ignore him in favour of shallowly bobbing, sucking and licking what you can, as though he’s a lollipop. It’s actually kinda fun.

The familiar sound of pen scratching on paper and paper rubbing on paper echoes in the relatively quiet office. Only the wet sounds of your mouth sucking his cockhead pierces the silence. 

Growing more and more used to his size, you flick your tongue around the head, letting your hands wrap around the rest of him, squeezing and tugging in time with your mouth. Occasionally, he makes a couple breathy noises — low grunts when your tongue laps up his tip, gravelly groans when you hollow your cheek to suck, and rough exhales through his nose when you grip his balls, massaging them, thumb rubbing the seam. 

It becomes easier to forget why you were here in the first place; you’re just blowing him for your own entertainment now, wanting something to occupy your throat. 

Then, he asks, as though he’s making casual conversation, “How was the date?”

“Hmm?”

Toji rolls his eyes. “The date,” he repeats. “How was it? He pay for the meal? Open doors, see you to your door, kiss you goodnight and shit?”

Your lips stretch into a smile. You release him with a pop! “I didn’t go on a date,” you tell him. “My friends hosted a housewarming party because they moved in together. I had a great time, thanks for asking.”

Is he pleased? Unaffected? Genuinely just making conversation? Hard to tell, except for the pushing of his hand, urging you back to his dick, and taking him further inside your throat, till his tip bumps the back of the gummy walls. 

“Good,” he exhales out, thighs flexing around your body. “That’s real good.”

“My blowjob skills or that I had a great time?” you ask, words muffled and barely understandable.

“Both,” he answers. “Both, doll.”

A knock on the door has you both stiffening. Toji glares down at you and whispers, “It’s the prof. Do not make a sound.”

He didn’t need to tell you that — you’re well aware that if you get caught, you’ll both face disciplinary action, and will likely be kicked out of the university. That’s worse than not getting the internship. 

The office falls quiet so suddenly you can hear the ticking of the wall clock. Toji’s hand tightens briefly against the desk as the knock comes again. “Come in,” he calls, voice steady.

The door opens before he even finishes the word.

“Ah, Fushiguro, there you are,” the professor says, stepping inside with a stack of papers tucked under one arm. “I wasn’t sure if you’d left already.”

From your position under the desk, you can only see shoes. Polished leather. Slow steps across the floor. You don’t slide his cock out of your throat, lest it makes a sloppy noise that’ll give you both away. So you breathe through your nose, being very, very quiet.

“No, I was just finishing up some grading,” Toji replies, cool as a cucumber.

His tone is annoyingly normal. Completely unbothered. He’s really convincing. Has he done this before? Is this a normal occurrence? Do a lot of girls offer to blow him for better marks, and does he take them up on it? Are you the one exception to his generosity? 

“Good, good.” Papers shuffle. A chair creaks as the professor sits across from the desk. “I actually wanted to ask about the research methods essays.”

Of course he did.

You squeeze your eyes shut.

Toji shifts slightly above you — just enough that the movement brushes your shoulder — and then he leans back in his chair. “Yeah?” he says.

“I noticed something odd in the submissions this year,” the professor continues. “Half the class seems to misunderstand the section on sampling bias.”

He hums thoughtfully. “You mean where they’re supposed to explain the limitations of convenience sampling?”

“Exactly.”

A sheet of paper slides across the desk.

“You see this one here—”

From below, you hear Toji pick it up.

“—they describe the method correctly, but their conclusion contradicts their own analysis.”

There’s a pause whilst the TA reads. You stare at the underside of the desk and try not to shift your knees. God, this is like torture. Having a cock lodged in your throat and not being able to do anything with it is hell. Above the desk, they’re chatting away, talking about your fellow students, with the professor none the wiser that one such student’s under the desk. 

“Yeah,” he says after a moment. “They’re treating correlation like it proves causation.”

“Precisely!” the professor says, sounding delighted. “It’s surprisingly common.” Another pause. You hear a pen tap the desk twice. “I was thinking next year we might restructure the lecture slightly,” the professor continues. “Maybe introduce a short case study before the assignment.”

“Could work,” Toji replies. “Give them something concrete, tangible, to analyse.”

Your legs are starting to cramp. Your lips tighten around his hot cock. Toji brushes your hair back from your face, a quiet act to show he hasn’t forgotten about you. The professor keeps talking, completely unaware.

“Also,” he says, shuffling more papers, “the literature review sections were stronger this year.”

“Mm.”

“I suspect the workshop helped.”

Toji lets out a quiet huff that might be agreement.

“You handled that well, by the way,” the professor adds. “The students seem to respond to your feedback.”

This is way too boring, you decide. In an act you might end up regretting for the rest of your life, your offended tongue prods his tip where he’s still leaking salty precum. 

He grunts, knee crashing up on the wood. 

The professor asks him if he’s alright, and Toji replies, “Fine. Sorry. Just had a cramp.”

A triumphant smile pulls at your lips, which is quickly wiped away by the sudden pinch at your cheek. You wince, unable to smack him in retaliation. 

A sigh fills the room. “I fear you work too hard, Fushiguro. You ought to take a break here and there. Do something fun and wild, or whatever it is people your age do nowadays.”

“I am having fun,” Toji says, hand coming back to rest on your head, growing heavier and heavier until you’re forced to take him inside your mouth, deeper and deeper. “In my own way.”

He’s filling you up more than he was before, now more insistent, no longer so passive. You’re struggling to take him but he’s not letting up. Fuck, you’re soaked between the legs. Who knew you had an oral fixation?

“Well, good,” the professor says. He pushes his chair back. Your heart jumps in joy. “I won’t keep you any longer, I know those papers won’t mark themselves. Boy do I not envy you.” He laughs. “Enjoy the rest of your day.”

“You too, Professor.”

Footsteps move toward the door. The handle turns. The door opens. Closes. Silence. Two seconds pass.

Then Toji peers down, licking his scarred lips, and mutters under his breath, “You needy fucking girl. Couldn’t wait, could you? Couldn’t resist not being a pain my fucking ass. If you want cock so badly, then here you go.”

His hips thrust up, hand keeping you in place. Your eyes fly open, throat stretching to take all of him in. Oh, he was as pent up, as frustrated, as you were. The force in which he’s rutting inside your throat displays that nice and clear. 

“You’ll do anything for a good grade, won’t you? Even debase yourself like this. God, you drive me crazy.”

You gag around his cock but he doesn’t pay any mind to that. No, Toji’s just rutting inside your mouth over and over again, grunting louder and louder now. 

Meanwhile, your hand seeks out the heat between your legs. You grind against the heel of your palm, moaning around his length. The vibration has his balls tightening up.

“Fuck!”

Hot cum bursts inside, coating the walls of your throat and your tongue. 

Toji leans back in his chair, which creaks. You pull him out, coughing at the salty burn. Damn, even his loads are big. It’s like a cream puff exploded inside your mouth. 

Hands carry you up, sitting you on his thigh. One rubs your back in circles, the other wipes away the tears at your eyes, licking at the wetness he’s collected on his thumb. “You good, kid?” he asks, brows furrowed. 

“Yeah,” you respond, voice hoarse and not fooling anyone. “I’m good.”

You take a sip of his water from his water bottle, not caring about the fact that you’re drinking from where he had been, and if he cared that your mouth which had been sucking on his dick and cum is on his cup, he didn’t say.

He sighs, tucking himself back in and says, “Come by my place tonight. Hand me your essay again and I’ll reread it. But I’m not making any promises about finding extra marks, alright? It’s just a second chance, and the only one you’ll get.”

Dopily, you smile at him. “Throat game that good, huh?”

His lips twitch. He shoves you away, smacking your ass as you walk away.

“I’ll text you the time and place. Don’t be late.”

Nodding, you head for the door, not leaving however till you ask, “Should I wear matching underwear, or is this a strictly keep your clothes on meeting?”

“Fuck off before I regret it.”

“Lacy thong it is!”

.

.

.

“Should I spread my legs now or do you want me to fluff you first?”

Toji’s deadpan face meets you when he opens the door. He sighs as though he’s regretting this already. Regardless, he lets you in. 

You can tell he showered recently — there’s the scent of cheap soap lingering on his skin and his hair is still a little damp. 

His apartment is nice and clean, which surprises you somewhat. Most guys your age tend to be messy. But you should have known the TA would be neat and organised. 

“I’m serious,” you begin, snuggling up to his side and batting your lashes up at him, “what position do you want me? I’m not the most flexible but I’m not too bad.”

Shaking you off, he pushes you in the direction of the living room where the coffee table is covered with carefully laid out papers he no doubt carried from campus to continue working on. “Go sit down, you horny gremlin. Make some room for your essay and let’s get this over with.”

You do as he says, folding your legs so you can sit by the coffee table on the rug. You take the essay out of your bag, shoving all the others to the side. With a frown, you ask, “So we’re really not fucking?”

He folds himself down too, sitting beside you, knee brushing yours. “I don’t solicit sex in exchange for academic favours. Dunno why you’re so surprised by that — can’t recall having done anything to make you think otherwise.”

“Well, you did give in after I blew you, so…”

“I was gonna offer before you did all that,” he informs you, snorting. “Just never promised to give you the marks.”

Toji adjusts his glasses, taking your papers and starting his reassessment of it. His lips purses, brows furrows, and he stares at the thing like it could tell him the answers to the universe. That or it’s so bad he just can’t fathom what you were thinking. 

“Second paragraph, third line, why the hell is it so convoluted?” he asks, voice returning to that grumpy tone you’re more than familiar with now.

It’s the latter, it would seem. He really meant business. You shaved and everything for nothing. What a shame. 

Leaning over, you rest your head on his big bicep, and, with a pout, reply, “I thought it sounded smart; I was pretty proud of that line actually.”

“No, doll,” Toji says, sighing. “The simpler the better. Don’t purposefully complicate your syntax. Only do what’s necessary to get the point across. If I, an expert in this topic, can barely understand what you mean, how is the ordinary person supposed to?”

“Yeah, okay. Simple is better, I get it.”

He continues reading, red pen in hand and making annotations as he goes. Meanwhile, you’re worming your way into his lap: one hand resting on his thigh at first, then a leg thrown over his. He notices what you’re doing — there’s no way he doesn’t know — but he doesn’t put up a fight. Eventually, you’re sitting in his lap, his chin resting on your head, and his arms caging you in. 

Toji’s warm. He’s comfy to rest on despite all the muscles. Closer now, his soapy scent envelops you. It goes straight to your head. You find yourself squirming. 

“Keep still,” he reprimands, underlining a phrase twice for emphasis. “You can’t just use jargon if you’re not going to explain it. It’s bad practice.”

“Got it.” Fiddling with his spare hand, running your fingers down his and over his palm, you ask, “Are academics supposed to have calluses?”

“They bother you or something?”

“No, not at all. I’m just curious.”

He hums. “I do odd jobs here and there, some more manual than others so yeah I built up some calluses.” Without missing a beat, he pivots the topic. “Tell me again what the difference is between compliment and complement.”

You bring that hand up to your breast, imploring him to grope your tits as you reply, “With an I is to praise someone or something, and with an e is to say something matches well with another.”

A moan escapes your lips when he squeezes in approval. Toji mutters, “Good girl. Guess you do listen to me.” Thumb brushing your hardened nipple through the thin material of your top, you squirm in his lap. His lips move against the top of your head. “No bra?”

“I figured you were going to take it off me anyway so I didn’t bother,” you say, still pressing his hand to your tit, riding the motions of every grope and flick of your nipple. 

Another hum. 

Slowly, you guide that hand down lower. He must know what you’re doing, where you want it to end up, but he doesn’t stop you, doesn’t reprimand or put up any resistance; he’s curious to see how far you’re willing to go. And you’re curious to see how much restraint he has, how long he can hold out before his façade of nonchalance breaks and he’s fucking up inside you.

You tease yourself, and him, first — his fingers, with your guidance, tease your bare thighs, following the hem of your tight skirt. Growing breathless, you ask, “What kind of odd jobs do you do?”

Toji’s calluses tickle the sensitive skin in your inner thighs just right. He’s still marking your paper, occasionally fact-checking your ideas and his theories in a textbook on the table. Amused, he retorts, “You curious about me, doll?”

“Hmm, I want to know exactly whose cock will be stretching me out in a minute.”

He snorts, patting your clothed pussy. You jolt with every impact. “I tutor on the side. Fix up some cars in the garage in town. I’m a physical trainer for three clients at the local gym too. And when I’m low on money, I sell risqué pictures of myself. That disgust you?”

All while he answers, Toji’s blunt nails scrape your slit through your panties. He’s not applying much pressure at all, if any, and yet every skim, every travel up and down has goosebumps rising on your skin.

“N-no,” you answer quickly. “I think that’s really cool. If I had a body like yours, I’d take pictures all the time too.”

His laughter rumbles in his chest. An odd sense of pride warms your own. He says, “Your body’s more than good enough to sell too, you know. Don’t act like you don’t know guys give you double takes all the time, or that your ass could stop traffic.”

Giggling, you lean back, gazing up at him with a smile. “Do you stare at my ass sometimes, Toji?”

God, you’re soaked. You can tell, though you’re not embarrassed whatsoever. If anything, you’re just itching for him to pull your panties to the side and touch you skin to skin, to plunge inside your pussy and make a mess out of you.

“Tell me where you can, and should, insert a semi-colon in paragraph six, and I’ll give you an honest answer.” 

He nudges you with his chin. “Go on. Quit thinking with your pussy and give me the right answer.” A little aggrieved, you sit up straight, holding his wrist to keep his hand between your legs. Your eyes scan the section. Tentatively, you point to a full stop on the second line. Toji shakes his head and smacks your clothed pussy again. “Try again, and don’t guess.”

“Here,” you snarl, feeling way past pent up. “Now give me my reward.”

Toji huffs. “Semi-colons help for varying sentence structures. It’s in the little ways you can convey your points compellingly. Don’t underutilise the right punctuations.”

“Yeah, yeah, smarty pants. Rub my clit and answer my question already.”

Cool air brushes against your swollen, glistening lips. You sigh when his warm hand covers the entire slit barely a second later. His middle fingers are instantly coated in your wetness. He groans. “Fuck, doll, you’re dripping.” Toji doesn’t give you a moment to respond to that; his fingers rub at your throbbing clit in tight circles, drawing it out of his hood. You moan, back arching. 

Finally, he answers, “I stare at your ass all the fucking time after I glare at the losers whose eyes wander from their laptop screens . I’m a big, fucking hypocrite — that what you wanna hear?”

“Fuck yes!”

Rustling of paper reaches your ears. Then two hands are on you: one furiously rubbing the bundle of nerves and the other gripping your throat. He squeezes threateningly. Your vision spots, jaw dropping. “Look at you, all desperate to have my cock inside you. And for what? For a couple marks? You’re not ashamed?”

Your ass is grinding back on his boner, sandwiching the hard thing between your cheeks as your own answer. How could you be ashamed when he wants you so bad too?

“I’m horny! Are you gonna fuck me or not?”

In a split second, you find your world spinning. Your back falls on something hard. You’re staring up at the ceiling, papers scattered beneath you. Rough hands tug you down by your thighs. When you peer down, Toji’s staring up at you from between your lips.

“Yeah, I’m fucking you. You already knew I was gonna. You gonna let me taste your pussy first?” A challenging brow quirks up, like he’s waiting for you to push him away. 

Instead, your legs hook over his shoulders, ankles crossed. You grin at him.

Panties pulled to the side, his fingers spread your pussy for him. Those eyes scan every inch. He releases a shaky breath, cheeks flushed and Adam’s apple bobbing. “Even your pussy’s pretty. Fucking gorgeous.” Running a hand through his hair, he says, “You’re always such a pain, aren’t you?”

“I can’t help that every part of me’s pretty,” you reply, twirling your hair.

“Shut up and play with your tits — I like a show with my dinner.” Toji spits a fat dollop right on your clit. It slides down your slit but before it can disappear in the crevice of your ass, his tongue is collecting it and shoving it inside your cunt. 

You gasp. “Fuck, Toji!”

In spite of his aggressive tone, you pull down your top, letting your tits bounce out. Those eyes follow every jiggle. “Good girl,” he rasps. “Squeeze them for me nice and hard. Good. Real fucking good.”

His glasses are foggy now with your own humidity, rattling with every movement. He’s eating your pussy out like he’s starved, like he’s never tasted anything better, like he’s going to make sure not a single trace of you can be found in his apartment after he’s done with you. 

Growling, he spread your thighs wider. “Course you’ve got a sweet pussy,” he says, brows furrowing in what appears to be anger. “Course it’s sweeter than that fucking cheesecake. Course I’ll be craving you till I die.”

Fingers tangle in his hair, tugging for purchase. “Ngh, Toji, my clit…suck my clit!”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Those scarred lips, the very ones you’ve stared at more times than you can count, wrap around your clit, sucking hard the way you did when you were blowing him under the desk. Electricity sparks inside, sending tremors up from your lower belly to your tits to the very tips of your fingers. “Oh fuck, that’s so good.”

Filthy squelches are being wrung out of you, and you know he’s doing it on purpose, addicted to how responsive your body is to him.

Two fingers worm their way through your pulsing hole, basking in the rough textures of your entrance, stretching your gummy walls on their way to curling against that spot that has you oozing more cum out. 

“You’re fucking tight,” he hisses. “You’re gonna struggle taking all of me later.” Then he barks a laugh, spare hand pressing down on your belly where the pressure builds up. Your toes curl. “A better man would take pity on you, go slow or wait another day, but I’ve already had my tongue inside your cunt so I’ll spare you the gentleman act.”

More fingers shove in, ignoring the screech that you let out. You’ve never had more than two and yet all four of his thicker, longer fingers are inside pushing your walls to their very limits. 

Despite that, he remarks, entertained by the shock on your face which he studies through his glasses, “Suck it up, buttercup — my cock’s thicker than this, you know that.”

You do. 

It’s all you’ve been thinking about all day. Hours after, your jaw’s still stretched out, sore and creaking after the workout you put it through. The thought of having something even thicker, longer than his four fingers has you growing dizzy, head handing over the coffee table.

“Yeah, my cock can’t wait to feel you too,” Toji says, not to you but to your pussy which is squelching lewdly and loudly. “Had to resist jerking my dick raw all day so you better make it good for me.”

Is it seconds later, or minutes, maybe hours, when you cum?

How ever long it is no one can deny it’s the strongest orgasm of your life. 

Your entire body trembles, spasming beyond control. Are you screaming or silently moaning? Are your eyes shut or have you gone blind? And is he still pistoning his fingers inside you, damn near pushing all of his hand in? 

“Stop,” you cry out. “No more, please!”

Mercifully, he yanks his hand out. Unfortunately, it leaves you feeling so empty you immediately crave the feeling of his hand gripping you from inside. 

Lips and chin glistening, he kisses both inner thighs, which tremble. 

Toji gathers you with one arm, showing off his strength as he carries you off the table and to the glass door which leads out to the balcony. It’s dark out and all you can see are the lights of people’s rooms in the apartment across. There are families lounging, dogs sleeping, TV’s blaring. 

Behind you, you hear the rustling of his shirt as he throws it off carelessly. Bare skin grazes your own soon after his hands make quick work of the clothes you’re still wearing. In a flash, you’re naked. He bends down to pick up your fallen panties, inhaling the gusset deeply. Your legs cross tightly at the deeply satisfied groan he lets out. 

“Next office hour,” he starts, lazily spreading your pussy lips and smearing your juices around so he can listen to the squelches and keep your squirming, “you better leave your panties with me. Consider it payment.”

You laugh. “Sure.”

Groggily, you try to keep your head up, wondering what you’re doing by the window, still a little out of it. A hand clutches your jaw, aiding you. 

“I’m gonna fuck you against this window,” he announces, leaving no room for arguments. “You want those extra marks? Then you’re gonna be a good girl and take my cock like a champ.”

Ass gyrating back against the hot, heavy thing still confined in sweatpants, you wonder, “Do you have an exhibitionism kink?”

He lets go of you. You have to catch yourself by pressing your palms to the cold glass. Toji drags your hips back, foot kicking your legs apart. His cock plops onto your ass, scalding. “No, I have a ‘get my time’s worth from shameless women who waste my time with demands for better grades by humiliating them’ kink.”

“Sounds long. We should get that shortened,” you drawl.

His cockhead slides through your pussy, coating itself in your wetness. The fat thing bumps against your clit. You shudder. 

Satisfied with your natural lubrication, he prods your entrance. “Yeah, we should. Let’s call it, Shut The Fuck Up And Take It.”

Then he enters you in one go.

You scream.

The window fogs up with your breath. Your eyes roll to the back of your head. 

You’re taking so much of his length so quickly that it should be painful. Despite that, there’s not an ounce of pain, not one you didn’t like at least — only the overwhelming pleasure of being filled up is resonating. 

Toji grunts. “Almost had to fist this cunt and you’re -hah fuck- still too tight.”

Pummelling his cock in, his hips don’t pause for a second. You gasp for breath, palms slipping and sliding on the condensation that’s built up on the glass. It’s like you can feel him in your lungs, so impossibly deep, so hot, so intimidating. 

“God, it should be a crime to have a body like this,” he says, hands groping every part of your flesh he can reach. He slaps your ass to watch it jiggle for him. He’s an ass man, that much is clear.

The force of his thrusting has you pushed closer to the glass, so close now that almost your entire front is flush with the surface. The coldness grazes your nipples. You moan. 

“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?”

He tugs you back to him, body sliding down the glass till your ass is jutted out. Toji carries your hips up so you can reach him, but it means your toes are only brushing the floor. You cling to the glass door as much as you can. Through the glossy haze, you see the marks you left on the glass, from the oils and sweat on your skin. You see the outline of your tits, all round and fat, the handprints you left and the smearing of them all over the place because you couldn’t grapple with one position to have them in. 

Are people watching? Are you flashing a poor old man, are you reigniting a sexual appetite in a pitiful divorcee, making a housewife jealous, creating fantasies for some guy your age? Are people rubbing one out to the flashes of ecstasy on your face, to the swaying of your tits, to the rippling of your ass?

Toji’s fingers creep under you, furiously teasing your clit. You whine. “I think I’m gonna cum again.”

“Go on, gorgeous,” he rasps. “Lemme feel you cum around my cock. Make my dreams come true.”

Two fingers gather the cream that’s formed a ring at his base. He draws three letters on the glass for you to stare at. It spells out c u m.

God, he’s dirty.

Another orgasm ripples through you. Your thighs shake. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, Toji!”

He growls out, hands tightening their grip on your hips, threatening to bruise, “Shit, you’re gonna make me cum early.”

Without waiting for you to come down from your high, he flips you around. Your back thuds against the door. His cock reenters you in a clean, easy slide, cunt beyond soaked and stretched out. Your arms and legs wrap around him. 

Those glasses of him have fogged up so thickly now that they fail to serve their purpose. Toji takes it off with one hand, sliding it onto your head, like a headband keeping your face clear of your hair. “Don’t let them fall,” he orders. “They break and you won’t be getting that internship.”

And his lips?

They smack against yours.

He kisses you, all tongue and teeth and drool dripping down chins, like he’s been waiting weeks, months, perhaps years to do that. And you kiss him back just the same. 

Inside you, his cock throbs. Toji’s hips swing back and forth, pelvis grinding on yours, rubbing your clit and wringing our more obscene squeeeelches. 

“Oh god, I’m so full, Toji. You’re so fucking big.”

“You’re -hngh- t-taking me so well,” he praises, littering sloppy kisses all over your face and neck all while he pinches and rolls your nipples. “Moaning so adorably, all pretty and finally keeping this mouth quiet of smartass comments. You should be like this all the time.”

The rocking of his cock inside you is even better like this. The closeness, the warmth, the taste of him — you wonder why you waited so long to do this. 

Tits squashed to his chest, your nipples scrape his skin, slipping and sliding with the sweat beading down your bodies. The hard planes of his chest feel magnificent. Nothing about his muscles are for vanity only, and the knowledge of the strength he’s holding back has your eyes rolling to the back of your head. 

“You’d miss my smartass comments,” you tell him, head thrown back and hips working their way down on his cock of their own volition.

Toji groans against your neck, licking droplets of sweat. “Yeah, maybe. I definitely wouldn’t miss your spelling errors though.”

Smiling, you tug his head up by his hair, and bite his bottom lip. You pull and let go so it’ll snap back into place like he’d done with your lip when you were under his desk. “Maybe if you taught me like this, I wouldn’t -hah- make so m-many mistakes— deeper, Toji! Fuck me deeper.”

His hips plough deeper inside, like you wanted, hitting that spot inside you till you’re sure it’ll be bruised in the morning. Moans after moans are fucked out of you; his neighbours will give him an earful tomorrow, you’re certain. 

“Book more office hours just to see me and not because you want something from me, then we can see if I can fuck your stupidity out of you,” he retorts. 

You peck his lips. “Aw, does poor, needy Toji want me to give him more attention? Does he miss me when I’m not there? What a cute little baby.”

“Yeah, he does, actually,” he says, smirking. “That a problem?”

“It will be if you don’t make me cum.”

Toji reminds you, “You’ve been cumming around my cock this entire time; you still want more? Greedy girl.”

He pulls away from the window, stalking over to the sofa instead. Each step burrows him deeper inside you, kissing your cervix and pushing out gasps from your lips, all of which he swallows. 

Carelessly, he throws you on the sofa. You bounce with an oomph!

Ankles held by one hand, he keeps your legs upright, hips lifted up to meet his. Toji presses a kiss to your ankle bone before he pushes his cock back inside. Your back arches with a mewl. Like this, his huge body becomes even more glaring — he’s casting a shadow over you, completely dwarfing you, reminding you how easily he could break you, how he could take whatever he wants from you. 

Every time he buries himself to the hilt, a bulge pops through your tummy, right under your belly button. 

“Look at that,” he mutters, brushing a thumb over it. You whine. “Feel me deep inside you? You’ll be feeling me inside for days, won’t you? Once it starts to fade, you can always come back for another fill, you know.”

“Promise?” you ask, grinning ear to ear. 

Toji pulls out, leaving just his tip before he slams back in, jostling you down on the sofa. His abs contract, cock throbbing at the sudden clenching of your walls around him. “Fuck, yes, doll. Promise. I fucking promise.”

His glasses have slid off, rattling somewhere on the sofa with the impact of every thrust. He doesn’t seem to care about them anymore. You’re nearing another orgasm, head whipping around at the intensity of the pressure building in your core. He’s bullying his cock relentlessly in your cunt, chasing after his own high and sending you to yours. 

When your eyes clash with his piercing, green ones, unobstructed by his glasses, you explode with a scream. 

“F-fuck,” he grunts, following soon after. 

Searing cum spurts inside you, cock pulsing, cum painting your walls. His thumb rubs your clit, aiding you through your orgasm. Your moans are vibrating against the walls, definitely disturbing his neighbours, but so are his groans. 

He slumps over, rolling the two of you on the sofa so you’re resting naked on his heated body, his heavy arm preventing you from falling off. Your pussy’s sore, a mix of your cum and his dribbling out and creating a sticky mess on your inner thighs. 

Absentmindedly, as you both catch your breath, he rubs your back. You draw shapes and letters on his chest. Toji combs his hair off of his forehead, chest rising up and down with his breathing. The dirty marks you two left are still on the glass, though it’s no longer foggy. 

Reaching up above him, he gracefully finds his glasses, sliding them on his face. You like him with and without them. 

“So,” you begin, “about those extra marks.”

Toji lifts his glasses up to rub a hand down his face. “Jesus, yes, you’ll get the marks.”

“Thanks!” you chirp. 

“God, you’re a pain in the ass.”

.

.

.

“Fuck, Toji,” you moan. “I already came three times. It’s too -hic- too much.”

Your TA ruts his cock inside you, face buried in the crook of your neck. His glasses are on your nose bridge, blurring your vision; he gets so frustrated when the thing gets in the way of kissing you or eating you out.

“Shut up,” he rasps, hand pressing down on your lower belly so you can feel him even more. “You’re the one who dragged me here. Take every orgasm I give you and be grateful.”

That’s true — you were supposed to have an office hour with him, which is really an excuse to see your boyfriend before you have to attend the internship induction session, but then you took one look at him and his amazing body and started soaking through your panties so here you two are.

Oh yes, you did say boyfriend.

After he blew your mind out, you’d been visiting his apartment after classes so often, you were practically living there, and he didn’t mind. It started out casual, but after realising you two would go grocery shopping, watch movies together, and text each other practically every day, you decided to just seal the deal and make it official. 

In short, he fucks good, and he can tolerate your personality, so you two stuck together. 

A month in, neither of you are really regretting it. At least, if his desperate thrusting and sloppy kisses to your neck’s anything to go by. 

“Missed you so much, Toji,” you whine, hips fucking back into him.

Toji groans, hand groping your tit from under your shit. “Yeah, baby?”

“Mmm.”

“Missed you too,” he confesses, licking a stripe up your neck and scraping his teeth down. Goosebumps rise on your arms. “Been wanting to see you all morning.”

You giggle, holding onto the stall for purchase and so his thrusting won’t make you smack face first onto the door. “You’re so cute w-when you’re needy.”

“Fuck off,” he says with no real heat to his words. 

In the near distance, the door to the men’s toilets opens with a dull metallic creak, the sound echoing faintly off the tiled walls. Feet pad in—slow, unhurried. The steady rhythm of someone who expects the place to be empty.

“Fushiguro?” a voice calls out. “You in here?”

The two of you go very, very still. Toji’s entire body stiffens behind you, muscles locking. His hand clamps firmly over your mouth for extra measure, warm palm pressing tight enough that you can feel the tension in his fingers.

Your heart slams against your ribs, loud enough that you’re half convinced it might echo under the stall. What the hell is the professor doing here?

“Susan told me she saw you walk in this direction. You got a minute?”

Toji releases a tense breath through his nose, annoyed at the interruption but left with no choice but to answer. He lifts you up so your feet hang over the floor and won’t be seen by the outsider. “Yeah, prof. But I’m kinda in the middle of something.”

The professor laughs. “Yes, yes, I’m sure. I do apologise for interrupting you. I was just locked out of my account and can’t send emails for the next hour. You know how terrible I am with technology.” He enters the stall next door. He unzips his pants. You cringe. “I only wanted to ask if you’re prepared to host the internship induction later.”

You go still, this time for a different reason. 

Your boyfriend releases your mouth. Fingers creep over to between your legs, where you’re still connected to him, where he’s still throbbing inside you. He slowly rubs your clit, keeping you from squirming in complaint with his strong arms. Toji responds, “Yeah, got all my notes ready.”

The bastard’s trying to distract you…

“Ah good, good,” the older man joyfully responds. His stream hits the water, and you fight the urge to face palm. “I had a look over the plans and the schedule. Very well organised, I must say. The competition was fierce, which is a testament to the success of the event, so props to you.”

Do men hold conversation so casually in the toilets?

Toji carefully begins moving in slow and shallow thrusts, prodding your g-spot over and over with his fat cockhead. You bite your lips to keep from moaning. Your nails dig into his thick arm. He ignores you. 

“Don’t mention it, Professor.”

The man zips himself back up and flushes, exiting the stall. Outside, the tap runs, and you’re both still as quiet as rocks, afraid that any sudden movement will out you both as sexual deviants. 

He adds, “Oh, and thank you for handling the applications for me; you know I hate all that paperwork nonsense.” 

Your jaw drops. 

Beyond tense, Toji replies like he’s aware of the weight every word exchange carries, “I do what I can do to help out.” 

“I couldn’t do what I do without you,” the professor continues, sincere and ignorant to the fact that you’re there. The rustling of paper towels echoes. “Well, I’ll see you later. Apologies again for interrupting.” 

The exit door swings open and you relax, but then his voice fills the space again. 

“Do say hello to your pretty, little girlfriend for me.” 

Your heart? 

Drops to the fucking floor.

Toji’s grip on you tightens just slightly, barely noticeable unless you’re pressed this close to him.

Your mind races. Did he see you come in? Did someone tell him? Did Susan, whoever the hell she is—

Toji speaks before you can spiral further, his tone sharper now, suspicion threading through it. “What do you mean, Professor?”

“Oh, you know, the girl you’ve been eyeing for a while now — she’s on the internship, yes?” Then he laughs the kind of laughter old men do, all paternal and wise. “Don’t worry, son, I’m not accusing you of pulling strings; I know she’s a very intelligent young woman. Ambitious too. Almost as ambitious as you. I hope you two work something out.”

Your heart slows its beating but you’re not any less tense. 

Sighing, Toji responds, “I’ll let you know if we do.”

“Yes, yes,” the professor says before he leaves for good. 

Finally, it’s just you two in the men’s toilets again. The silence and emptiness is maddeningly relieving. Although, you’re seething, practically vibrating with accusations and anger.  

Toji lets you down. Your feet touch the ground again. You pull him out, whirling on him with a disbelieving glare. You snatch his glasses off your face with one hand and smack his chest with the other. The man doesn’t budge.

“You sneaky piece of shit!”

He gathers both of your wrists with one hand, rolling his eyes. Toji takes his glasses from you and slides it on his face. Seeing you clearer now, he guides his cock back to your pussy, re-entering with ease. You moan, allowing him to hike your leg over his hip so he can press in deeper.

Kissing your lips, he mutters against your lips, “I did what I had to to get your attention. Sue me.”

“God, you’re the worst,” you breathe out, chest jutting out to his, nipples aching and clit throbbing. 

“Yeah, yeah,” he says, “I’m the big, bad wolf, and you’re creaming all over my dick right now. Let’s not act like you got the short end of the stick here.”

“Master manipulator,” you hiss, kissing him back, fingers tangling in his hair as soon he lets go of your wrists to grope your tit and ass.

“Whore,” he fires back.

Then the two of you smile, clutching each other tightly as you both rock into each other, nearing your mutual orgasm and riding the pleasure growing in your bodies. Fuck, he feels so good.

“We’re gonna be together forever and ever, aren’t we?” you ask.

Toji’s scar brushes your forehead with his kiss. 

“That’s the plan.”

You were going to die.

Not in battle. Not with honor. No, you were going to die because you couldn’t figure out how to piss standing up without someone noticing you were doing it incorrectly.

The latrines were a communal sack of shit—just a ditch with a plank over it, no privacy with men lined up shoulder to shoulder like cattle in a field. You'd been holding your piss in for hours, long past the point of pain, but eventually instinct would win. You'd have to figure this out or your bladder would burst.

Think. There has to be a way, you dumb idiot.

“You sick, boy?”

You jumped. One of your tent mates—Ser Mace, a loud gloat with a broken nose and crooked teeth—was watching you with sparked amusement.

“No,” you retorted. 

"Then why are you hovering round’ the toilet like you've never seen one before?" He grinned. "Unless you're shy? That it? Shy little Davos doesn't want the other boys to see his tiny cock?"

Heat flooded across your cheeks. Damn him.

“Fuck off, Mace.” Petyr—another tentmate, the one with the thick northern burr—spoke from somewhere to your left.

"Ain't nothing wrong with embarrassing the young ones," Mace said, grinning wider. Then, before you could turn away, the fat bastard shoved his breeches down and revealed the thickest—no, the first cock you'd ever seen.

Oh, Seven Hells. 

Your stomach lurched and before you knew it, you were heaving, bent double at eye-level with Ser Mace's obscenely large, hairy, pale cock, vomiting the last of tonight's supper onto the ground.

"Seven hells, the boy's never seen a cock before! What, did your mother raise you in a sept?"

You spat, trying to clear the taste from your mouth, and didn't answer. 

"Come on." Petyr's hand gripped your shoulder, hauling you upright before Mace had the chance to say anything else. "Let's get you away from this shit before you embarrass yourself further."

You didn't protest, and allowed Petyr to steer you away from the latrines, away from Mace's wheezing laughter and the stink of piss and vomit. Your boots dragged in the mud, and the taste of bile still coated your tongue.

"Boy's got a weak stomach," Petyr called back over his shoulder, loud enough for the others to hear. "Probably ate something that didn't agree with him. You know how it is."

A few men muttered in agreement, some laughed. But Petyr kept walking, kept his grip firm on your shoulder, until you were well away from the crowd. He stopped near the horse lines, far enough from the tents that no one would overhear. Then he let go and turned to face you. The dim light cut shadows across his face—you couldn't tell if he looked concerned or just tired.

"You all right?"

"Fine," you managed, your throat burned as you spoke. "I'm fine."

"You don't look fine. You look like you're about to be sick again."

"I'm not,” You stopped and took a breath. "Thank you. For getting me out of there."

Petyr studied you for a long moment. He was older than you by at least a decade, with a weathered face and pale eyes that looked like they'd far more battle than most. Northern, definitely—you could hear it in his accent, the flat vowels and rolling r's.

"First time away from home?" he asked finally.

"Yes."

"Thought so." He crossed his arms. "Let me give you some advice, boy. Men like Mace, they can smell fear. Uncertainty. And they'll go after it like hounds on a blood trail. You want to survive this, you need to grow a thicker skin."

You swallowed hard and nodded.

"And for the love of the Seven," Petyr added, his tone softening slightly, "stay away from the latrines when Mace is around. Man's got no sense of decency."

Despite everything, you almost smiled. “Aye.”

"Good." Petyr clapped you once on the shoulder—lighter this time, almost friendly. "Now get yourself cleaned up. We've got drills at dawn, and if you show up looking like you've been dragged through the mud, Ser Alyn will have your head."

He started to walk away, then paused and glanced back.

"And Davos? Next time you need to piss, go at night. Find a tree that’s less crowded."

Then he was gone, leaving you standing alone in the dark.

For a moment, you just stood there, caught between shame and something close to gratitude. Petyr's kindness was strange and certainly unearned. You didn't deserve it—not when everything about you was a lie.

Your feet dragged through the mud as you made your way toward the treeline, away from the glow of cookfires and the noise of the camp. You found a sturdy oak set back from the others, glanced left, then right, and only when you were certain no one was watching did you shove your breeches down and squat.

Finally. The relief was immediate, almost painful.

You rested your forehead against the rough bark and let yourself breathe. Out here, alone in the dark with nothing but the sound of your own piss hitting the ground, the reality of what you'd done settled over you like a weight.

This was a mistake. A grave, monumental mistake.

You'd joined the army in your father's place, wearing his name, pretending to be a son who didn't exist. And for what? Your father had been a strong man once—a knight who'd fought at the Redgrass Field, who'd earned his scars defending the Crown. Now he was weak. Brittle. But at least he was honest.

You were neither strong nor honest. Just desperate and stupid enough to think you could pull this off. Oh Seven Hells, you prayed your parents would forgive you. For stealing your fathers armor, for lying, and above all, for saving him from what would be a certain death.            

Dawn arrived too soon, dragging you from fitful sleep with all the gentleness of a boot to the ribs.

Actually, it was a boot to the ribs.

"Up, you lazy cunts!" Ser Alyn's voice cut through the pre-dawn gloom like a blade. "Prince Valarr arrives within the hour, and if any of you look like the sorry sacks of shit you are, I'll have you mucking out the latrines for a fortnight!"

You scrambled upright instantly, heart hammering against your ribs. 

"Move!" Ser Alyn kicked at another prone form—Mace, who cursed and rolled over with a grunt. "Full kit, weapons sharp, armor polished. I want you lot looking like proper soldiers, not hedge knights that crawled out of a ditch."

The tent erupted into instantaneous madness. Men stumbling over each other in the dark, fumbling for boots and belts, cursing as someone stepped on someone else's hand. You pulled on your father's mail shirt—still too big in the shoulders, too long in the sleeves—and tried to ignore the way your hands shook.

A prince. Gods be good, a prince.

"Davos, you look green," Petyr muttered as he shouldered past you, already half-dressed. "Don't tell me you're going to puke again."

"I'm fine."

"You said that last night too."

You had no answer for Petyr. Your fingers fumbled with the buckles of your sword belt, and you had to start over twice before you got it right. Around you, the other men were doing the same—strapping on armor, checking blades, some of them grumbling about the early hour but most of them looked eager.

And why wouldn’t they be? This was a chance to impress a prince. The prince, to catch the eye of Valarr Targaryen himself, heir to the bloody throne was worth more than winning every fucking upcoming battle. 

You, however, just wanted to survive the day without anyone noticing you were a girl.

The drill yard was a mud-churned mess by the time you assembled, boots squelching in the muck as Ser Alyn paced before the ragged line of soldiers. Fifty men, give or take. Some were knights, others common-born soldiers like you were pretending to be. All of them looked rough and tired, though a few had clearly made an effort—armor buffed to a dull shine, beards trimmed, tabards only mostly stained.

"Listen up!" Ser Alyn ordered. "Prince Valarr is inspecting the camp today. That means you stand straight, you keep your mouths shut unless spoken to, and you do not—I repeat, do not—embarrass me or yourselves. Understood?"

"Yes, ser!" The response was uneven, half-hearted.

Ser Alyn's face darkened. "I said, understood, you fucking lump of idiots?”

"YES, SER!"

Better. You shouted along with the rest of them, throat still raw from last night.

"Good. Now we're going to run drills. Formation work, nothing fancy. When the prince arrives, you'll be in the middle of a proper bloody exercise, not standing around with your thumbs up your arses. Got it?"

"Yes, ser!"

And so, the circus began.

Shield wall drills. Over and over, forming up in lines, shields overlapping, holding the formation as Ser Alyn walked the line and kicked at anyone whose stance was too wide or too narrow. Your shield was too heavy, the rim digging into your forearm, and your shoulder already ached from the weight of the mail. But you held on, you had to.

"Tighter!" Ser Alyn roared. "If a man can shove a dagger through that gap, Davos, you're a dead man! Closer!"

You adjusted, pressing your shield against Petyr's on your left. The man on your right—some grizzled old bastard whose name you didn't know—shoved back, and you nearly stumbled.

"Steady, boy," the old man muttered.

You gritted your teeth and held. The sun climbed higher. Sweat trickled down your spine, soaking into the padded gambeson beneath the mail. Your arms burned. Your legs trembled. But you didn't break, you refused, especially not with a prince coming.

And then—

"COMPANY, HALT!"

The entire line went still, shields snapping up, breaths ragged.

Hoofbeats. From the edge of the yard, riders appeared. Three of them. No—four. The first was a Kingsguard knight, white cloak billowing behind him, armor brilliant even in the morning haze. Behind him came a pair of squires, both young and finely dressed.

Then, Prince Valarr.

You'd expected what exactly? A golden god? A dragon in human flesh?

What you saw instead was a man. Handsome, yes—dark-haired with that telltale streak of silver running through it, bright as a banner. He sat his horse, his armor black enameled steel chased with red, the three-headed dragon of House Targaryen emblazoned on his breastplate. Younger than you'd imagined. No more than five and twenty, if even that.

He dismounted and handed his reins to one of the squires, and started toward the formation. You kept your eyes forward, focusing on the back of the man's head in front of you, on the mud, on anything except the prince walking closer. Around you, the other soldiers stood straighter, chests puffed out like roosters.

Valarr walked the line slowly, hands clasped behind his back. You could hear the soft clink of his armor, the squelch of his boots in the mud. He stopped here and there to exchange words with the men—asked their names, where they hailed from, how long they'd been in service. "You're all here because the realm needs you," Valarr said, raising his voice so the whole line could hear.

"Some of you are knights. Some are common-born. That doesn't matter. What matters is whether you can hold a line when steel is singing and men are dying around you. Whether you'll stand for your brothers, for the king, for the realm." He paused, letting the words settle. "Do that, and you'll have my respect. Fail..." He didn't finish the sentence. Didn't need to.

The silence that followed was heavy, broken only by the restless stamp of a horse's hoof and the distant clang of a smithy.

"Carry on, Ser Alyn," Valarr said, turning back toward his mount.

"Yes, Your Grace!" Ser Alyn's voice cracked like a whip. "You heard the prince! Back to it! Shield wall, reform!"

The line broke apart and began reassembling, and you moved with it, grateful for something to do with your hands. Your heart was still hammering, your palms slick with sweat inside your gloves. You'd been so certain he would see through you. That those pale blue eyes would land on you and know, somehow, that you didn't belong here. That you were a lie, but he hadn't even looked your way.

"Not so bad, eh?" Petyr muttered as he slotted into place beside you, shield raised. "Thought you were going to piss yourself when he started talking."

"Fuck off," you said, but there was no heat in it.

Petyr snorted. "There's the spirit. Now shut up and hold your shield higher. Ser Alyn's watching."

Supper was a grim affair.

Stew again—watery and flavorless, with chunks of something that might have been turnip or might have been boot leather. You ate it anyway, scooping it up with stale bread and trying not to think about the meals you'd had at home. Around you, the men were louder than usual, their voices carrying over the crackle of the cookfire.

"Three days," Garrett was saying, grinning wide enough to show the gap where he'd lost a tooth. "Heard it from one of the quartermasters. Supply train's coming in three days, and there's a whole wagon of whores with it."

"About fucking time," Mace said, shoving a hunk of bread into his mouth. "Been here two weeks and I haven't had a woman since we left King's Landing. I'm about ready to fuck a knothole in a tree."

Laughter rippled through the group. Even Petyr cracked a smile, though he didn't join in the commentary.

"You think they'll be pretty?" the young one—Benedict—asked. He couldn't have been more than six and ten, all gangly limbs.

"Pretty?" Tym snorted. "Boy, they're camp followers. They're not pretty, they're available. That's all that matters."

More laughter. You kept your eyes on your bowl, chewing mechanically. 

"What about you, Davos?" Mace leaned across the fire, his grin turning sharp. "You ever had a woman? Or are you still a blushing maiden?"

Your face heated. "I've had women."

"Right." Mace laughed. "You probably pissed yourself the first time you saw a pair of tits, same as you did with my cock."

"I didn't piss myself.”

"Close enough!" Mace clapped his hands together, delighted. "The boy's a virgin. I'm calling it now. When those whores get here, we're all chipping in to buy Davos his first fuck."

"Leave him alone," Petyr said mildly, not looking up from his stew.

"C’mon Petyr, I'm not being cruel," Mace spread his hands in mock innocence. "Every boy needs his first. Might as well make it memorable."

You wanted to tell him to fuck off. Wanted to throw your bowl at his smug face. Instead, you forced yourself to take another bite of bread and said nothing. The conversation moved on—speculation about which whores would be prettiest, arguments over pricing, Tym boasting about some woman he'd bedded in Flea Bottom who could allegedly do things with her mouth that defied the laws of gods and men. You let it wash over you, background noise, and focused on finishing your supper.

You were scraping the last of the stew from your bowl when a shadow fell over the fire.

"Davos Stokeworth."

You looked up to see Ser Alyn standing at the edge of the circle, his expression unreadable in the firelight.

Your stomach dropped. "Ser?"

"With me. Now."

The men around the fire went quiet, watching. You set down your bowl and stood, wiping your hands on your breeches. Petyr caught your eye, gave you a small nod—you'll be fine—but it did nothing to settle the dread coiling in your gut. You followed Ser Alyn away from the fire, into the shadows between the tents.

"You're serving wine tonight," he said without preamble. "The prince is hosting his officers for supper. They need someone to pour, and you're,” he looked you up and down, his lip curling slightly. “Well you’re small boy. We need someone who’s obtrusive. So, you'll do just fine.”

"Ser, but, I'm a soldier." You began to protest.

"You're a boy who can barely hold a shield," Ser Alyn cut you off. "This is where you're useful. Now stop arguing and get yourself to the quartermaster. He'll give you something clean to wear. You report to the prince's pavilion at sundown. If you spill so much as a drop on anyone important, I'll have you mucking out the latrines for a month. Understood?"

Your jaw clenched. "Yes, ser."

"Good. Now go."

He turned and walked away, leaving you standing alone in the dark. Behind you, you could hear the men around the fire laughing again, their voices carrying on the night air. Talking about whores. About their women back home. About things you were supposed to want but couldn't even pretend to care about.

You closed your eyes and exhaled slowly. Serving wine to the fucking prince of the realm nonetheless. To a pavilion full of officers who would be looking at you, studying you, waiting for you to make a mistake.

This was going to be a goddamn disaster.

The quartermaster's tent smelled like sweat, leather, and a mix of other shit. You ducked inside, blinking against the sudden brightness. Lanterns hung from the tent poles, casting flickering light over tables piled high with supplies—boots, belts, rolls of cloth, dented helmets waiting to be repaired. At the far end, hunched over a ledger, sat the quartermaster himself.

He was a wiry man, older, with ink-stained fingers eyes that squinted from too much close work. He didn't look up when you entered.

"Name," he said.

"Davos Stokeworth. Ser Alyn sent me. Said I need—"

"I know what you need." He set down his quill and stood, moving to one of the tables. "Serving the officers tonight, are you? Lucky boy."

He didn't sound like he thought you were lucky. The quartermaster pulled a tunic from one of the piles and held it up, and eyed you. "You're a small one. This should fit." He tossed it to you. "Put it on. Let's see."

You caught the tunic and hesitated. It was clean, at least—dark blue wool, simple but well-made. Better than anything you'd worn since arriving at camp.

"Well? I haven't got all night, boy."

You turned your back, fingers fumbling with the laces of your gambeson. The binding beneath was still tight, still holding, but your ribs ached with every breath. You pulled the gambeson over your head as quickly as you could, then shrugged into the tunic.

It fit. Barely. The shoulders were a bit wide, but it would do.

"Turn around."

You obeyed and the quartermaster circled you slowly, tugging at the fabric here and there, making small disapproving noises. 

"You'll pass," he said finally. "Barely. Do you know how to serve wine, or am I going to have to explain that too?"

"I know how."

"Good. Because if you embarrass Ser Alyn, he'll take it out on me, and I'll take it out on you. Understood?"

"Yes, ser."

"I'm not a ser, I'm a quartermaster. Just call me Orys." He moved back to his ledger, already dismissing you. "The prince's pavilion is at the center of camp. Big one, you can't miss it. Be there before sundown, and for the love of the Seven, don't drop anything."

You nodded and turned to leave.

"And boy?"

You stopped, glanced back.

Orys was watching you with an odd expression—something like pity. "Keep your head down. Don't speak unless spoken to. The officers, they like their wine and they like their talk. You do not exist there remember that and you'll be fine."

"Aye," you said quietly.

Then you stepped back out into the evening air and started walking toward the center of camp.

The prince's pavilion was impossible to miss. It stood at the heart of the camp, twice the size of any other tent, pitch black with the three-headed dragon of House Targaryen flying from the peak. Torches burned on either side of the entrance, and two guards in crimson cloaks stood at attention, their hands resting on the pommels of their swords.

You slowed as you approached, your mouth going dry. This was insane. You were about to walk into a tent full of knights and officers and pour their wine like some—like some servant. Like you weren't the daughter of a knight yourself, like you hadn't been raised with tutors and music lessons. 

Stop it. You're not that person anymore. You're Davos. A soldier. A nobody.

"Davos Stokeworth," you said, pitching your voice low. "Ser Alyn sent me. I'm to serve tonight."

One of the guards—a broad-shouldered man with a scar running down his cheek—looked you up and down. "You're late."

"I—"

"Get inside. They're already seated."

He jerked his head toward the entrance. You didn't wait to be told twice.

Inside, the pavilion was warm and bright, lit by what felt like a dozen lanterns hanging from the support beams. A long table dominated the center of the space, and around it sat perhaps a dozen men—knights, officers, all of them older and harder-looking than you'd expected. Their armor was piled near the tent walls, and they'd stripped down to tunics and leather jerkins, sleeves rolled up, looking almost human.

Almost.

At the head of the table sat Prince Valarr.

He was laughing at something one of the other men had said, his head tilted back, that streak of silver in his hair catching the lamplight. He looked different like this. Younger, less a prince and more just a man sharing a meal with his friends.

Then his eyes swept across the room and landed on you and the laughter died.

"Ah," he said, straightening. "You must be the cupbearer Ser Alyn mentioned."

Every head at the table turned to look at you.

Your throat closed up and you managed what would be a very, very, sad, and stiff bow. "Yes, Your Grace. Davos Stokeworth."

"Stokeworth." Valarr's brow furrowed slightly, like he was trying to place the name. Then he nodded. "Well, Davos Stokeworth, welcome. The wine is there—" He gestured to a table set against the side of the pavilion, where several pitchers and flagons waited. "Start with Ser Alyn, if you would. The man looks like he needs it."

A few of the officers chuckled. Ser Alyn, seated near the middle of the table, grunted and held out his cup without looking at you.

"Move, boy," someone muttered. "We're thirsty."

Right. Move. You crossed to the side table, hands trembling as you picked up one of the pitchers. It was heavier than you'd expected, the wine sloshing inside. You carried it carefully to Ser Alyn and poured, focusing on keeping your hands steady, on not spilling a single drop.

The wine filled his cup. You stepped back.

"Next," Ser Alyn said.

You moved down the line. One officer after another, pouring wine, setting down the pitcher, picking up another when the first ran dry. The men barely looked at you. A few muttered thanks. Most ignored you entirely, already deep in conversation.

"—heard Daemon's forces are larger than we thought—"

"—doesn't matter, we've got the numbers—"

"—if it comes to a siege, we're fucked. We don't have the supplies—"

You kept your head down, kept pouring, kept being invisible.

And then you reached the head of the table. Prince Valarr held out his cup, his eyes on one of the other officers as he spoke. "Ser Jorin, you were saying about the Stormlands?"

"Yes, Your Grace." The man—Ser Jorin, apparently—was older, grizzled, with a thick beard gone mostly gray. "Reports say Blackfyre's already taken Bronzegate. If he pushes north—"

You poured the wine. Your hands were steadier now, the repetition helping. The cup filled. You started to step back.

"Careful, boy." Valarr's hand shot out, steadying the pitcher before you could pull it away too quickly. His fingers brushed yours—warm, calloused—and you froze.

He was looking at you now. Truly looking with those blue eyes sharp and curious. Your heart pounded against your chest, and you looked away from the intense gaze.

Seven Hells, get it fucking together. 

"Easy," he said quietly. "No rush."

"Yes, Your Grace," you managed. “My apologies, Your Grace."

He smiled—just a flicker, there and gone. "No harm done." Then he released the pitcher and turned back to Ser Jorin. "Go on."

You stepped back, heart hammering, and moved to the next officer.

He touched you. He looked at you. It's fine. You're fine. He doesn't know. He can't know.

You finished pouring and retreated to the side table, standing with your back to the wall, waiting for someone to need a refill. The conversation at the table continued, voices rising and falling, debates about strategy and supplies and how many men Daemon Blackfyre had really brought with him. You tried to listen, tried to focus on anything other than the way your pulse was still racing.

And then Valarr laughed again, and despite every nerve in your body telling you to do the goddamn opposite, you looked up. He was smiling at something Ser Alyn had said, his whole face transformed by it. He looked, gods, he looked like someone you could actually talk to. 

You forced your eyes back down and prayed for the night to end quickly.

The wine flowed freely.

You'd lost count of how many times you'd circled the table, pitcher in hand, filling cups that never seemed to stay full for long. The officers drank like men who knew tomorrow might be their last day, and the conversation grew louder, looser, as the night wore on.

"—swear to you, she had tits out to here—" Ser Jorin was gesturing wildly, nearly knocking over his cup. You darted forward to steady it, refilled it without a word, stepped back.

"You're full of shit," another officer said, laughing. "No woman in Flea Bottom has tits that big."

"I'm telling you, she did!”

"What about you, Your Grace?" This from a younger knight, his face flushed with drink. "Any ladies caught your eye? Half the realm's probably throwing their daughters at you by now."

Valarr leaned back in his chair, swirling the wine in his cup. His eyes were bright—not quite drunk, but well on his way. "I've had offers."

"Offers!" Ser Alyn barked out a laugh. "The boy's had every lord from here to the Wall trying to marry off their daughters. I've seen the letters."

"And?"

"And nothing." Valarr drank, set his cup down with a soft thunk. "I'm not interested in marrying another lords political ambitions wrapped up in a pretty dress."

"Aye, so you want an ugly wife, then?" Ser Jorin grinned.

"I want a wife I can actually talk to." Valarr's voice was easy, but there was something sharper underneath. "Someone with a mind. Someone who isn't going to smile and nod and bore me to death at the breakfast table."

"Good luck finding that," someone muttered.

"Maybe I'll marry a warrior." Valarr was smiling now, the wine making him reckless. "Someone who can hold a sword. Wouldn't that scandalize the court?"

Laughter rippled around the table. You refilled Ser Alyn's cup, moved to the next man, kept your face blank.

"A warrior wife," Ser Jorin mused. "I'd pay good coin to see that. Can you imagine? Some woman in armor, telling the prince what to do."

"Sounds like a nightmare," another officer said.

"Sounds like a good time," Valarr countered. He drained his cup and held it out. You stepped forward automatically, pitcher raised. His eyes flicked up to yours as you poured—just for a moment—and you felt the weight of it. Your hand trembled, just slightly. The wine splashed against the rim of the cup.

Steady. Steady.

You pulled back before you could spill.

"Thank you," Valarr said quietly.

You nodded, stepped away. Your heart was beating too fast, a sick, fluttering organ trapped behind your ribs. The talk shifted again and someone was telling a story about a brothel in Lys. Another was complaining about his horse. The voices blurred together, and you stood against the wall, hands clasped behind your back, and tried to breathe.

The binding was too tight. Your chest ached, every breath felt like dragging air through wet cloth.

Not now. Not here.

You locked your knees and waited. It was well past midnight when Valarr finally pushed back from the table.

"Enough," he said, standing. The word was slightly softer at the edges, blurred by wine. "We ride at dawn. Get some sleep."

The officers rose—some steadier than others—and began filtering out of the pavilion in twos and threes, clapping each other on the shoulders, still laughing about something. Ser Alyn paused to mutter something to Valarr, too low for you to hear, and then he was gone too. You stayed where you were, back against the wall. You were supposed to wait until the tent cleared. Until someone dismissed you.

And then it was just you and the prince.

Valarr stood by the table, one hand braced against the back of his chair, staring down at the maps spread across the surface. For a long moment, he said nothing. Just stood there, silent, his shoulders tight. Then he spoke without looking up.

"You're dismissed," he said.

You bowed and left, thanking the gods.

You woke to Mace's boot nudging your ribs.

"Up, cupbearer. Can't sleep all day just because you spent the night pouring wine for fancy lords."

You groaned and rolled over, every muscle in your body screaming. The ground beneath your bedroll was hard as stone, and the binding around your chest had left deep aches in your ribs. You'd barely slept three hours.

"Fuck off, Mace," you mumbled.

"Ooh, the boy's got a mouth on him this morning." Mace grinned down at you. "How was it? They treat you nice? Feed you scraps from the prince's table?"

"It was fine." You sat up slowly, rubbing your face. Your head pounded. Around you, the tent was already half-empty. Petyr was gone—probably at the latrines or getting food. Benedict sat in the corner, polishing his sword and looking like someone who had no idea what he was doing. Tym was still asleep, snoring like a dying animal.

"Word is there's archery practice today," Mace said, pulling on his boots. "Ser Alyn wants to see who can actually shoot and who's been lying about it."

Your head snapped up. "Archery?"

"Aye. Apparently we're short on archers, and if Blackfyre's forces have the high ground when we meet them, we're fucked." He stood, stretching. "You know how to shoot, Davos?"

You hesitated. "A bit."

"A bit." Mace snorted. "Well, you'd better pray you're better than 'a bit,' because Ser Alyn's in a foul mood. Anyone who can't hit a target's getting assigned to cleaning shit for a week."

He ducked out of the tent, still laughing. You sat there for a moment, heart pounding.

Archery. Gods.

The range was set up in a wide clearing beyond the horse lines—a dozen straw targets propped against wooden frames, each marked with rough circles of charcoal. Men were already gathering, maybe forty or fifty of them, talking in low voices while Ser Alyn stood at the front with his arms crossed.

You hung back near the edge of the crowd, trying to stay invisible.

"All right, listen up!" Ser Alyn's voice cut through the chatter like a blade. "We need archers. Good ones. If you can shoot, step forward. If you can't, fuck off back to your tents."

A few men stepped forward immediately—older soldiers, veterans with the scarred hands of bowmen. Others hesitated, shuffling their feet.

"Come on, don't be shy!" Ser Alyn barked. "I don't care if you've only shot a bow twice in your life. Get up here."

More men moved forward. You stayed where you were.

"You too, boy."

You looked up. Ser Alyn was staring directly at you.

"Me, ser?"

"Yes, you. You've got the build for it. Small, light. Good for a longbowman." He jerked his chin toward the line forming near the targets. "Get over there."

Your stomach sank. "Ser, I don’t.”

"That wasn't a request, boy.”

You swallowed and stepped forward, joining the ragged line of men. Mace caught your eye from across the clearing and grinned, mouthing good luck. Ser Alyn walked down the line, eyeing each man. When he reached you, he paused.

"You ever shot a bow before, Davos?"

"A few times, ser," you lied. Or—no, it wasn't a lie. You just didn't mention how many times. "My father taught me."

"Good. Let's see what you've got." He moved to the center of the range and raised his voice. "First round! Fifty paces! You'll each get three arrows. Hit the target, you stay. Miss all three, you're done. Understood?"

"Yes, ser!"

One of the soldiers handed you a bow—a simple recurve, nothing fancy, but solid enough. The wood was worn smooth from use. You tested the string, felt the tension. It was heavier than the bow you'd trained with at home, but not by much. Three arrows. You nocked the first one, feeling the familiar weight of it, the way the fletching brushed against your fingers.

The first man stepped up to the line. He drew, aimed, loosed.

The arrow hit the edge of the target. Barely.

"Next!"

Another man. Another shot. This one missed entirely, burying itself in the dirt three feet to the left.

“Fucking pathetic! Next!"

You watched them, one after another. Some hit. Most didn't. Your turn was coming, and your heart was pounding so hard you could feel it in your throat.

"You! Boy! Step up!"

You moved to the line. Fifty paces. The target looked small from here, just a circle of straw and charcoal. You raised the bow, feeling the weight of it settle into your grip and drew the string back. You loosed and the arrow flew straight and true, slamming into the target dead center.

Silence.

You blinked, staring at the target. You hadn't meant to—you'd just shot. Just let your body do what it knew how to do.

"Well, shit," someone muttered behind you.

Ser Alyn was staring at you, his expression unreadable. "Again."

You nocked the second arrow. Drew. Loosed.

It hit an inch from the first.

"Again."

Third arrow. This one split the difference between the first two, all three clustered in the center of the target so close together you could barely see the gaps. The clearing had gone quiet. Every man was staring at you now. Ser Alyn walked over to the target, examined the arrows, then turned back to look at you. His face was hard to read—somewhere between impressed and suspicious.

"Where the fuck did you learn to shoot like that?" he asked.

Your mouth went dry. "My father, ser. He—he was good. Taught me when I was young."

"Your father must've been a gods-damned master archer." Ser Alyn pulled one of the arrows from the target and turned it over in his hands. "I've seen knights who can't shoot this clean."

You didn't know what to say to that. Ser Alyn looked at you for a long moment, then nodded slowly. "You're staying on the line. Let's see if you can do it again."

The next round started. Seventy-five paces this time. You hit the target. So did a handful of others, but most fell away, their shots going wide or falling short. One hundred paces. You hit the center again. Only three other men managed to hit the target at all.

One hundred and fifty paces. The target was barely visible now, just a smudge of straw in the distance.

You drew. Aimed. Felt the wind against your face, adjusted for it without thinking.

Loosed.

The arrow arced high, then dropped, slamming into the target just left of center. When Ser Alyn walked down to check, he stood there for a long moment, hands on his hips, staring at the arrow.

Then he turned and shouted back toward the range: "Someone get the prince. He needs to see this."

Your blood went cold.

No. No no no—

But it was too late. Across the clearing, one of the squires was already running toward the center of camp.

Prince Valarr arrived on horseback, flanked by two of his knights. He dismounted and walked toward the range as you kept your eyes down, your heart hammering so hard you thought it might crack your ribs. This was bad, very fucking bad. 

Ser Alyn met him halfway, speaking too low for you to hear. Valarr listened, his expression unreadable, then his eyes swept across the line of men until they landed on you. He studied you for a moment and then nodded to Ser Alyn.

"Show me," he said.

Ser Alyn gestured you forward. "Davos. One more shot. Two hundred paces."

Two hundred paces. The target was barely a speck at this distance, the wind strong enough that you could feel it pulling at your clothes. You nocked an arrow with hands that wanted to shake, forced them steady. You could feel every eye on you—the soldiers, Ser Alyn, the prince. Especially the prince. You drew the string back until your fingers touched the corner of your mouth, felt the tension singing through the bow, and let everything else fall away. Just you and the target. Just the wind and the weight of the arrow and the moment before release.

You loosed.

The arrow flew in a long, clean arc, cutting through the air like it had been drawn there by an invisible hand. It struck the target high and right, just inside the outer ring. Not perfect. But at two hundred paces, in the wind, it was more than good enough. Valarr walked down to the target himself this time, Ser Alyn trailing behind him. He pulled the arrow free, examined it, then looked back at you across the distance. You couldn't read his expression from here, but the fact that he was looking at all made your stomach clench.

When he returned, he stopped in front of you, turning the arrow over in his hands. "Your father taught you to shoot?" he asked.

“Yes, Your Grace," you said, keeping your voice low and steady.

"He must have been very skilled." Valarr handed the arrow back to you. "Or you're a natural. Either way, I have use for someone who can shoot like that." He glanced at Ser Alyn. "I'll take him."

Ser Alyn's brow furrowed. "Your Grace?"

"Send him to my tent after midday. I want to speak with him privately." Valarr's eyes flicked back to you. "Well done, Davos. It seems you're full of surprises."

Then he turned and walked back to his horse. You stood there, heart in your throat, arrow still clutched in your hand.

What in Seven Hells have you gotten yourself into?

You stood outside the prince's pavilion, trying to steady your breathing.

Midday had come too quickly. You'd spent the morning in a haze of dread, barely hearing the jokes and questions from your tentmates. Mace had clapped you on the shoulder so hard you'd nearly stumbled, crowing about how "little Davos" had shown up half the camp. Petyr had just looked at you with something like concern and said nothing.

Now you were here, and the guards were watching you, and there was no avoiding it.

"The prince is expecting you," one of them said, jerking his head toward the entrance.

You ducked inside. The pavilion was quieter than it had been last night. No crowd of officers, no wine-loosened laughter. Just Valarr, standing at the table with maps spread out before him, still in his riding leathers. He looked up when you entered.

"Davos. Come here."

You crossed to the table, stopped a respectful distance away. Your hands wanted to fidget. You locked them behind your back.

Valarr studied you for a moment, then gestured to the maps. "Do you know what these are?"

You glanced down. Terrain maps, troop movements marked in different colored ink. "Battle plans, Your Grace."

"Close enough." He tapped a spot on the largest map—a river crossing, forests marked on either side. "Daemon Blackfyre's forces are moving north. We know their general direction, but not their numbers. Not their exact position. If we're going to meet them, we need better intelligence."

You nodded, unsure where this was going.

"I need scouts," Valarr continued. "Fast, quiet, with good eyes. Someone who can get close without being seen and get out again without getting killed." His gaze flicked up to you. "You're small and light. And clearly you can shoot well enough to defend yourself if things go wrong. That makes you useful."

Your stomach dropped through the floor. "Your Grace, I'm not—"

"You're not a soldier?" He raised an eyebrow. "You volunteered, didn't you? Came here in your father's place?"

"Yes, Your Grace.”

"Then you're a soldier. And soldiers do what they're told." He straightened, crossing his arms. "I'm assigning you to reconnaissance. You'll ride out tomorrow with two others, get close to Blackfyre's camp, count what you can, and report back. Think you can manage that?"

No. Absolutely fucking not. This was insane.

"Yes, Your Grace," you heard yourself say.

Valarr's expression softened slightly. "You're scared. That's good. Means you're not stupid." He moved around the table, closer now. "The men you're going with are experienced. They'll keep you alive if you listen to them. And if you see something—anything—you come straight back here and tell me. Understood?"

"Yes, Your Grace."

"Good." He held your gaze for a moment longer, and you couldn't look away. His eyes were sharp, assessing, but there was something else there too. "Dismissed. Report to Ser Alyn before dawn. He'll give you the details."

You bowed and turned to leave.

"Davos."

You stopped, glanced back.

"Don't get yourself killed," Valarr said. "I'd hate to lose a decent archer."

You nodded and left before you could say something stupid.

You'd been crouched in the same position for hours, muscles screaming, barely daring to breathe.

The other two scouts—Harwin and a lean, quiet man named Durran—had split off at sunset to circle Blackfyre's camp from different angles. The plan was simple: watch, count, don't get caught. You'd drawn the shortest straw, which meant you got the closest position, tucked behind a fallen log at the edge of the treeline with nothing but darkness and luck to keep you hidden.

Blackfyre's camp sprawled below you, a sea of cookfires and tents that seemed to go on forever. Too many. Far too fucking many. You'd tried to count them at first, but gave up somewhere past three hundred. The prince needed to know this. Needed to know how badly outnumbered you were.

Your shoulder ached from holding still. Your legs had gone numb an hour ago. The night air was cold enough that you could see your breath, and every slight movement made the leaves around you rustle. You'd been here since dusk. It had to be near midnight now.

Then you heard voices.

Close. Too close.

You froze, pressing yourself flatter against the ground. Two men were walking up the hill toward your position, their boots crunching through the underbrush. Blackfyre soldiers, had to be. You could see the dark shapes of them through the trees, close enough that you could hear their conversation.

"—don't see why it matters," one of them was saying. His voice was rough, annoyed. "Just kill him and be done with it."

"Because it has to look right," the other man said. He sounded older, calmer. "The prince dies in battle, fine. The prince dies in his tent with a knife in his back? That raises questions."

Your blood went cold.

"So what, we wait for the fighting to start?"

"We wait for the signal. Martyn's got someone on the inside, close to the prince. When the time comes, it'll look like an accident. Friendly fire, it happens all the time in wars.”

"And we're sure this source is good?"

"Good enough that Daemon's paying him in gold. The Targaryen prince dies, their army falls apart, we win." The older man spat into the dirt. "Just be patient."

They were maybe twenty feet away now. Moving closer. You didn't dare move, didn't dare breathe. Your heart was slamming against your ribs so hard you were sure they'd hear it.

Assassination? Worse, an nside job. This had to be someone close to Valarr.

You had to get back. Had to warn him. Your foot shifted and a branch snapped under your boot. Suddenly, the voices drew to a stop.

"What was that?"

"Over there. By the log."

"Fuck."

You stood at once and ran. Didn't think, didn't plan, just scrambled to your feet and bolted into the trees. Behind you, shouting erupted. Boots pounding. Someone yelled for a bow.

The forest was a blur of shadows and branches tearing at your face. You ran blind, lungs burning, legs pumping. You didn't know where Harwin and Durran were. Didn't know which way was camp. Just ran.

The arrow hit you from behind. It punched into your left shoulder with a force that sent you sprawling forward into the dirt. The pain was white-hot, blinding, and for a moment you couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't do anything but lie there with your face in the leaves and feel the warm spread of blood soaking into your tunic.

Get up. Get up get up get up, you fucking idiot, you have to get up.

You dragged yourself to your feet, gasping. Your left arm hung useless, the arrow shaft jutting from your shoulder like some obscene flag. Blood was running down your back, hot and wet. You could hear them crashing through the brush behind you, closer now.

You ran again.

The world tilted and swayed. Your vision blurred. You tripped over roots, slammed into trees, kept going. The sounds of pursuit faded—or maybe you just couldn't hear them anymore over the roaring in your ears.

You didn't know how long you ran. It felt like hours. It felt like seconds.

When you finally saw the lights of camp through the trees, you nearly sobbed with relief. You stumbled out of the forest and into the outer ring of tents, legs giving out. Someone shouted. Hands caught you before you hit the ground.

"Gods—he's been shot—"

"Wake Ser Alyn and the maester—“

You tried to speak, tried to tell them about the prince, about the assassin, but your mouth wouldn't work. The world was going dark at the edges, folding in on itself.

The last thing you heard before everything went black was someone yelling for Prince Valarr.

Pain woke you. Sharp, burning, radiating from your shoulder down through your ribs like someone was twisting a hot poker into your bones. You tried to move and your body screamed at you—don't, don't, stop—and you froze, gasping.

Something was wrong, really fucking wrong.  Not just the arrow wound. Something else. Something worse.

Your eyes snapped open. Canvas overhead with dim lantern light. The smell of blood and herbs and something medicinal that made your stomach turn. You were lying on a cot, blankets pulled up to your collarbone, and your chest felt wrong—loose, unbound, the pressure gone.

No. No no no.

You tried to sit up. Hands pressed you back down—gentle but firm—and a voice spoke from somewhere above you.

"Don't."

You knew that voice.

Your head turned and there he was. Prince Valarr. Sitting on a low stool beside the cot, close enough to touch, his face drawn and pale in the lamplight. He looked like he hadn't slept. His hair was a mess, the streak of silver falling across his forehead, and his eyes, gods, his eyes were fixed on you. Sharp and watching.

"Your Grace," you managed. Your voice came out rough, cracked, barely audible.

He didn't answer right away. Just kept staring at you, and the silence stretched so long your heart started slamming against your ribs. His jaw was tight. Too tight. "Davos," he said finally. "Or should I say—" He stopped. Jaw working. "What's your real name?"

The world dropped out from under you. You couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. Your hand moved without permission—reached for your chest, felt the bandages wrapped around your ribs where the binding should have been gone. It was gone. They'd cut it off.

"I—" You tried to sit up again, panic flooding through you hot and terrible. "Your Grace, I can explain."

"Don't." His hand shot out, pressed against your good shoulder, holding you down. "You'll tear the stitches."

You froze. His palm was warm through the thin blanket. You could feel the calluses on his fingers, the same ones that had brushed yours when he'd steadied the wine pitcher. When he'd looked at you and you'd thought—gods, you'd been so stupid.

"The maester had to cut away your tunic to get to the arrow," Valarr said. His voice was quiet, too quiet. "He found the binding." A pause. "And then he found everything else."

Your throat closed up. You wanted to run. Wanted to bolt upright and sprint for the tent flap and just fucking run until your legs gave out, but you couldn't move. His hand was still on your shoulder and his eyes were still on your face and you were trapped.

"So I'll ask you again." Valarr leaned forward—close enough that you could see the dark smudges under his eyes, the way his jaw was clenched so tight a muscle jumped in his cheek. Close enough that you couldn't look away. "What's your name?"

You opened your mouth and nothing came out.

He waited. In the corner of the tent, an old man sat on a stool—the maester, grey-haired and sharp-eyed, watching the two of you . He'd seen. He knew. "I sent everyone else away," Valarr continued, reading your panic. "As far as the camp knows, you're still just Davos. Wounded, but alive." His eyes flicked toward the maester. "Maester Harrion has agreed to keep silent for now."

For now.

"But I need the truth," Valarr said. His hand was still on your shoulder. You could feel the weight of it, pinning you down, holding you there. "All of it. Starting with your name."

Your shoulder throbbed. Your ribs ached. Blood had soaked through the bandages and you could feel it—warm and sticky against your skin. Everything hurt. Everything was wrong. And Valarr was looking at you like he didn't recognize you anymore.

"It doesn't matter," you heard yourself say. Your voice sounded thin. "Your Grace, my name doesn't matter—you need to listen to me, there's going to be an assassination—"

"Don't."

The word came out sharp. Hard. Valarr's hand tightened on your shoulder—not enough to hurt, but enough to make you flinch. His jaw was clenched, his eyes blazing.

"Don't you dare try to change the subject," he said, and there it was—the anger you'd been waiting for, finally breaking through. "You've been lying to me since the moment I met you. You stood in formation with my men. You poured wine in my tent. You—" He stopped and swallowed. "I touched you."

His hand jerked back like you'd burned him.

The absence of his touch felt worse than the arrow wound. "You let me believe you were someone you're not," Valarr continued, and his voice had gone quiet again. Dangerously quiet. "You lied to Ser Alyn. To the men in your tent. To me." He stood abruptly, the stool scraping against the ground, and turned away from you. "Do you have any idea what you've done? What this means?"

"I didn't have a choice—"

"There's always a choice!" He spun back toward you, and you flinched. "You could have stayed home. You could have let your father answer the call himself. You could have—" He stopped. Dragged both hands through his hair. "Gods. Gods. You're—you're a woman."

He said it like he still couldn't believe it. Like the word didn't fit in his mouth. You wanted to argue. Wanted to scream at him that your father would have died, that you'd saved his life, that you'd done what you had to do. But the words stuck in your throat because Valarr was looking at you like he'd trusted you. And you'd broken that.

"I could have you executed for this," he said finally. "Lying to the Crown. Deceiving the army. and impersonating a soldier." He paused. "Do you understand that?"

"Yes." Your voice was barely a whisper.

"Do you understand that I should have you executed for this?"

"Yes."

Valarr stared at you. His hand moved—unconscious, automatic—toward the hilt of his sword. You watched it happen. Watched his fingers brush the pommel, hover there for a second.

Then drop.

"Fuck," he muttered, turning away again. He paced to the other side of the tent, put his back to you. His shoulders were rigid. You could see the way his hands clenched into fists at his sides.

The silence stretched. Seconds. Minutes. You couldn't tell. Finally, he spoke without turning around.

"Why?"

"My father," you said again. The words came easier this time, like something inside you had cracked open. "He was called to fight. He's—he's old, Your Grace. Wounded. He fought at the Redgrass Field. He gave everything for the Crown. And they—" Your voice broke and you forced it steady. "They were going to send him anyway. Even though he can barely hold a sword anymore. Even though it would have killed him."

Valarr didn't move.

"So I took his armor," you continued. "Cut my hair. Bound my chest and I came here in his place." You swallowed. "I knew it was treason. I knew what would happen if anyone found out. But he's my father, and I couldn't—I couldn't just let him die."

More silence.

Then, quietly he said, "What's your name?"

You told him your real name. The one only your father had called you for the past month. Valarr finally turned around. He looked at you for a long moment, and you couldn't read his expression anymore. Couldn't tell if he was angry or confused or something else entirely.

"You took an arrow for me," he said.

"I—" You blinked. "What?"

"You heard the assassins. You could have run. Could have disappeared into the forest and no one would have known." His eyes were fixed on yours now, searching. "But you came back. You warned me."

"Of course I did." The words came out sharper than you intended. "Your Grace, they're planning to kill you. Someone close to you, someone on the inside—I heard them talking about Martyn, about waiting for a signal."

"I know."

You stopped. Stared at him.

"You—what?"

"You've been unconscious for hours," Valarr said. "Kept mumbling about assassins. About someone close to me." He moved back toward the cot, sat down heavily on the stool. "I've already doubled the guard. Ser Alyn is questioning everyone who has access to my tent."

Relief crashed through you so hard you nearly sobbed. "Then you—you believe me?"

"Why wouldn't I?" Valarr asked quietly. "You got shot trying to warn me. Why would you lie about that?"

You didn't have an answer and he studied you for another long moment. Then, slowly, he reached out—hesitated—and rested his hand on the edge of the cot. Not touching you. But close.

"I don't know what to do with you," he admitted.

Your heart was pounding. "Your Grace."

"You saved my life," Valarr continued. "But you also lied to me. Deceived me. Committed treason." He exhaled. "I should have you executed. I should. But—" He stopped and looked away, his jaw ticking.

"But?" you pressed.

"But you're the best damn archer I've seen in years," Valarr said. "And you took an arrow in the back trying to save me." He dragged a hand down his face. "And I—" He stopped again. Shook his head.

"I can't execute you," he finished quietly. "I should. But I can't."

The tent was too small. Too hot. You could feel your pulse in your throat, your shoulder, everywhere.

"So what happens now?" you asked.

The wheelhouse had been your father’s idea of comfort.

Cushioned seats, curtained windows. Your house’s sigil pressed into the wood of the door in pale pink and soft green.

You had spent the first two days of the journey with a book open on your lap, pretending to read while the wheels hit every stone and branch on the ground. By the third day, you had given up pretending and simply watched the curtains sway.

The Lord Aldric Sweetbriar sat across from you with his ledger, making small notes with his careful hand. He had barely looked up since you had finally crossed the Crownlands.

You did not interrupt him, you were good at that. It was one of the few things you were genuinely praised for, yet it was depressing.

Outside, the land had changed. You had noticed it gradually, the way you noticed most things; quietly and too late to say anything about it to anyone.

The usual green of the Reach; soft, fragrant, and familiar, had changed into something harder and less forgiving. The air that crept in through the tiny gaps of the curtain was different too. Heavier. It sat in your lungs differently than that of the cool, dewy mornings of Sweetfield; your home, where the mist made the village smell like wet earth and lavender.

Underneath your sleeve, you pressed your fingers to your wrist without thinking. Faintly damp. It has been since yesterday, and it is not entirely because of the heat.

The wheelhouse slowed.

You heard it before you felt it. The driver’s call, the change in the horses’ rhythm. The curtain swayed in the breeze, and you caught a glimpse through the gap.

People. More people than you had ever seen gathered in one place in your entire life. Moving in every direction with the chaos the city had always known in its entire existence.

Letting the curtain fall back into place, your fingers found your wrist again.

Wallflower, you heard your sister Rowan’s voice in the back of your head, insufferable yet full of warmth. You are absolutely going to hate it there.

“We are nearly at the gates,” Your father closed his ledger, then looked at you properly for the first time in hours. His eyes moved over your face, steadily assessing.

“How are you finding the journey?" It was not quite a question, it rarely was with him.

“Well enough,” you said softly. Though it was not much of a response, your father always accepted and understood. Understood that you were nervous in the way you were your whole life. The one where you learned from a very young age to keep away and not let it show on the outside.

Your Lord father nodded. “You will find your footing, daughter.”

You thought back to Briarkeep, in Sweetfield. The way the roses climbed the pale grey stone in the mornings. The way your youngest brother, Celyn always smelled faintly of whatever dirt he had been digging in. You said nothing.

The gates came. The noise swelled around the wheelhouse like water rising, and you sat still, letting yourself drown in it. You could hear horses and vendors, their voices layered together. It was nothing like you had ever known. Not even during the busiest mornings of the village square in Sweetfield, where you can still hear the brook.

The air was nothing like the Reach. It was thick and carried everything with it. Smoke, animals, too many people living too close in vicinity. It was not entirely unpleasant, but entirely overwhelming.

You were the youngest daughter of House Sweetbriar. The last of Lord Aldric’s daughters, the one that came after Rowan. Before her, was Edwyn and Elara. Growing up in the shadows of your older siblings, you spent your entire life finding your way in the space they had long already filled.

As Aldric’s heir, Edwyn had the house. Elara had her good match. Rowan had also found hers.

You had the garden. You had your books. You had Celyn’s tiny hand in yours on the mornings he climbed into your bed before Briarkeep woke.

Now, you had this. Trying to remember how to breathe in air that felt nothing like home.

“They call it the city of a thousand smells,” you said, mostly to yourself.

Your father glanced at you, the corner of his mouth slightly moving. “Who calls it that?”

“A book.”

“Which book?”

“I fear I do not remember.” You did remember. You remembered exactly which particular shelf of Briarkeep’s modest library it was in, how old you had been when you read it, the fact you had read everything on that shelf twice. Though, you thought of it as irrelevant, that nobody had ever thought to ask.

Aldric let out a sound of amusement, before looking out the curtain. “It is not wrong,” he responded.

As the wheelhouse continued to roll on, you thought about what your father wanted from this trip. The thought that sat in your chest the same way it did for weeks.

Lord Aldric had built his life with precision; good trade, good matches, good reputation. Every piece was placed deliberately and well.

Edwyn had married into another steady house from the Reach, his lady wife already with child. Same with Elara. With Rowan, nearly so.

Now, the last daughter, the quiet wallflower of Briarkeep, was being brought to King’s Landing like the final entry in his careful plan.

A connection beyond the Reach, he had told you over supper.

You had considered them. You laid awake in bed considering them. A Lannister would want gold and a name that rang across the Seven Kingdoms, you had neither. A Baratheon would want strength and storms, a lady who could stand tall in a great hall full of warriors, you were the girl that stood at the edge of them.

You had even thought, just once, in a weak moment you were not proud of, about what it would mean to carry a name like Targaryen. Full of dragonfire, to carry a babe with blood closer to the gods than that of humans.

You dismissed the thought immediately. You were only the youngest daughter of a house so minor that half the lords of the Reach would need a moment to think about it. Your house grew herbs, you pressed flowers and read books nobody asked you to read. When you did talk, it was mostly to a boy of six, with innocent eyes that matched her mother’s.

What could you possibly offer anyone whose name meant something?

The wheelhouse rolled to a stop.

Around them, the noise of the city had not quieted but changed. Sounds of boots on cobblestone, distant clangs of armor, and low murmurs.

Your father had descended first, offering you his hand. You took it and stepped down onto King’s Landing for the first time.

The heat was immediate. You felt it on your skin, through the fabric of your dress, resisting the urge to press your cool fingers to your cheeks.

You stood beside your father, and looked up at the Red Keep for the first time. It was enormous. You had read the histories, the accounts of different visitors across generations. None of it had prepared you for the sensation of standing at its feet, at its mercy as the youngest daughter of a lesser house from the quietest corner of the Reach.

Lord Aldric placed a brief hand at your back. It was steady and grounding. The faint smell of his own fragrance made from herbs and oils only found in Sweetfield. It only did so much to comfort you, a reminder of how far you are from home.

Beckoning you forward, you took your first step and followed your Lord father. Wallflower, you still heard Rowan’s voice. You hushed her in your thoughts.

The morning had already started before he was ready for it, which was becoming a habit he utterly resented.

Valarr stood at the window of his chambers while his squire worked at the laces of his doublet behind him, looking out at the courtyard below. Preparations had been underway long before dawn.

Tables being carried. The ebony and red banners being straightened. Servants moving about. There was an urgency that filled the air, that everything needed to be perfect. Perfect for a nameday celebration in the Red Keep.

His nameday.

To him, it did not feel like a celebration. It felt like a deadline.

“Too tight,” he said, without turning.

His squire murmured a soft apology and adjusted. The young prince said nothing.

Watching banners being rehung for a third time, his mind went back to the private conversation he had with his father two evenings ago. The one he had been dreading, but was inevitable.

You are not a boy anymore, Prince Baelor had said. A man of your age, your name, your station. The time has come to think seriously about what comes next.

What comes next? As though it were a simple thing. As though it was not the question that sat in the center of everything now.

The heir of the heir. Second in line to the Iron Throne.

He needed to look for a bride. A future queen of the Realm, to rule by his side when the time comes. He was definitely not ready.

His squire finished with the laces and moved to grab his cloak. Valarr finally turned away from the window, catching his own reflection in the polished mirror across the chamber. 

He thought he looked exactly like someone who was about to spend the entire week being presented to the daughters of every noble house with enough ambition to secure an invitation. He was not particularly happy about it.

Valarr was far from ungrateful. From a very young age, he fully understood the weight of his name and position, and what it required. However, understanding and being at peace with it was not always the same.

A future queen. Someone whose name would sit beside his in the history books, a face he did not yet know. Someone who was somewhere in the Seven Kingdoms right now, perhaps dressing for the festivities, or perhaps already within these walls.

He wondered, briefly, what was she thinking about at this moment.

“Your Grace,” His squire stepped back. “You are ready.”

Valarr looked at himself in the mirror once more. The black doublet he wore was accented by deep burgundy, the three-headed dragon forged in steel at the breast. His dark hair was done more neatly than usual, his silver streak proudly showing.

He thought about the day ahead. The incoming introductions and careful conversations. The noble ladies that would be presented. The Lord fathers who would be watching. All enshrouded by the grand performance of a nameday celebration.

The young dragon prince straightened.

You had read about the Great Hall of the Red Keep.

It was so grand and vast in a way that made you feel your own insignificance, that you were only one person. To be standing in a room that bore witness to power and greatness.

Aldric stood beside you, feeling the complete opposite. That was the thing about your father that you never quite managed to inherit. He could walk into any room, and find his footing within moments, even as a lesser lord that merely dealt with herb trades.

By no means was he arrogant. He was simply a man that held a particular steadiness within himself, a man who knew exactly who he was.

Your father took a breath, straightened his shoulders, and became Lord Aldric Sweetbriar, a man whose house you might not immediately recognize but whose bearing you would not miss.

You secretly envied him for it.

“Come, daughter,” he said, and beckoned you forward into the noise. You only followed because it was you had to.

The hall was already full and continued to get fuller.

You stayed close to your father’s side and tried to do what you always did on occasions like these: observe, rather than participate. It was a strategy that proved to be quite successful at small gatherings in the Reach.

There were lords and ladies from every corner of the Seven Kingdoms, some clustered together like in a map. Lannisters in their signature red and lustrous gold. Baratheons standing broad shouldered and loud across the hall, already nursing goblets of wine. 

The familiar Tyrells gathered near the center of the hall, as they always did. Orbiting them were other lords from the Reach that you recognized by sigil. 

Despite being the quietest in the hall, the northern lords were easy to spot. They held their demeanor so differently than those of the south, standing watchfully. You noticed that they had not yet decided to take their thick furs and cloaks off yet, even in the humid air of King’s Landing.

You recognized that particular stillness. Those who were more accustomed to silence rather than southern spectacle. Embarrassingly, you felt an unexpected affinity towards them. Perhaps you could do well in the North.

You continued observing the room, and kept your hands still like Elara had taught you.

Your father was already in conversation with a lord from the Crownlands, warm and genuinely interested. He introduced you briefly, and you smiled. Then you stepped back and let him continue, slightly behind his shoulder like a shadow.

Then you became aware of the women perhaps about an hour in. A group of highborn ladies near the far end of the hall, the kind of women who had been raised in grand castles rather than being merely invited to them.

“Is that a Sweetbriar sigil?”

The voice was not quiet, it was not meant to be. It held the character of someone who had grown up in rooms where their voice was always worth hearing. Then, light laughter. Dismissive and entirely certain of itself.

“The Red Keep allows herb merchants now, apparently.”

You kept your eyes forward, and face entirely still, with practiced grace. Instinctively, you pressed your fingers against your wrist once again. Thinking back to the brook behind Sweetfield, and Celyn’s soft giggles, you pretended to not hear their discussions.

“My dear.”

The voice came from your left. It was warm and unhurried. You turned.

Lady Ellinor Tyrell was not a young girl but a striking woman, the kind of lady that was naturally placed at the center of any space she occupied. You remembered Edwyn’s silly infatuation about her when you were younger, filling your ears with detailed descriptions of her beauty and grace. 

“Lady Tyrell,” You greeted, bowing your head slightly before curtsying.

She looked at you with genuine warmth and slight amusement, like she had heard exactly what had been said earlier. Seeing your father deeper in conversation with the other lords, she gently took both your hands in hers.

“I had thought that was you,” her eyes moved over your face with fondness. “You have grown since I last saw you at Highgarden.”

“I was the age of four and ten, my lady,” your voice came out steadier than you felt. “My father had brought us for the harvest feast.”

“Aye, that is right,” the corners of her eyes creased warmly. “I remember that you spent the whole of the afternoon in the gardens, and nobody could find you for supper. The head gardener spoke of you afterward, and said that you knew more of the medicinal properties of half his plants than most of his staff combined.”

Something in your chest had loosened. “He was far too kind to say so, my lady.”

“He was truthful to say so.” Lady Tyrell then tucked your hand gently through her arm, turning you both away from your busy father.

“How does your Lord father fare? Your siblings? All is well?”

“Yes, my lady. Well enough. My youngest brother Celyn has only just turned seven.”

“The little one,” she said softly. “Seven already. The years do not slow for any of us.”

Gently drawing you forward, she says, “Come, there are some among our company who will be glad of your acquaintance.”

“Lord Fossoway has been asking for your father’s rosemary oil for the better part of the year, and has not had the good sense to simply send a raven to Briarkeep.”

A breath of a laugh escaped you, before you could stop it. Lady Ellinor’s eyes crinkled at the corners.

“There,” she said quietly, only for you to hear. “That is better.”

She then led you gradually toward the gathered group of Tyrells and other houses from the Reach. She always kept you included in the discussions, without making it feel like a charity. The Reach lords and ladies received you with easy warmth and familiarity. You were one of theirs, after all, no matter how small your house is.

Your father caught your eye from across a group of Crownlands lords, giving you a small nod. Well done, hold steady. You heard his voice in your head, before straightening your own posture.

For a fleeting moment, you were not the wallflower of Briarkeep.

Only for a moment.

The hush came without warning.

One moment the great hall was full of noise; voices, laughter, and the clink of goblets across the gathered nobility. Then, it stopped. Not all once, but in a wave.

You felt it reach you before you understood what it meant.

Every head turned toward the doors. Yours did too.

“His Grace, King Daeron the Good of House Targaryen, the Second of His Name, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm.”

The herald’s voice carried through the great hall, ringing through the stone walls.

“His Grace, Baelor of House Targaryen, Prince of Dragonstone, Hand of the King, and heir to the Iron Throne.”

The rustle of fabric, and soft footsteps rippled around you. Lady Ellinor inclined her head with graceful precision. You lowered yourself into a curtsy beside her, eyes fixed on the cold stone floor.

“His Grace, Valarr of House Targaryen, Prince of the Realm, on the occasion of his nameday.”

You heard footsteps, slow and measured. Moving through the parted crowd. The whisper of fine fabric. The soft clink of ceremonial armor.

After Prince Matarys, the family of Prince Maekar followed, filling the hall with the full weight of Targaryen blood gathered in one space. You kept your eyes down and your curtsy steady, listening to each name.

Then the herald fell silent. A beat of silence.

Then King Daeron’s voice, older and gentler than you had expected, carried throughout the hall.

“Rise.”

You rose with everyone, before finally taking a look at the royal family for the first and probably only time.

Impossible to miss, you saw the king first. White haired and measured, wearing the crown of his father, Aegon the Unworthy. Beside him stood Prince Baelor. The grey at his temples did nothing to diminish him. If anything, it had only refined what was already there.

When the older prince shifted, your eyes found the one beside him without meaning to.

Prince Valarr Targaryen.

You had heard about him from others’ accounts. The descriptions had been accurate enough, dark brown hair with a silver streak that showed his Valyrian ancestry. Somehow, it still failed to prepare you for the reality of him standing in the same room as you.

He looked on to the hall of people celebrating his nameday, with an expression you could not quite name from a distance.

He did not look unhappy. Nor entirely at ease.

Perhaps a combination of the two.

He did not look your way once. Why would he? There were higher born lords and ladies filling every inch of the hall, daughters of great and wealthy houses positioned carefully within his line of sight.

Prince Valarr stood with his shoulders straight, his face composed, and his eyes moving steadily across the room without once landing on the unremarkable youngest daughter of a lesser Reach house, standing quietly at Lady Tyrell’s side.

You told yourself you were relieved. Mostly.

“He is more handsome than the accounts would suggest, is he not?” Lady Ellinor’s voice came softly at your shoulder, with quiet amusement. You became suddenly aware that you had been staring.

Heat crept up the back of your neck.

“I fear I would not know, my lady,” you said, gathering whatever composure you had left. “I have not read many accounts.”

“No,” Lady Ellinor said, with a sound that was not quite a laugh. “I do not suppose you have.”

You kept your eyes carefully forward, your stomach filling with a slight discomfort; like you had been caught doing something you were not supposed to.

The celebration resumed itself around the royal family’s presence, noise swelling back into the great hall with ease. Lords and ladies continued to move about. Goblets were refilled. Musicians finding their place once again.

It was a nameday celebration. You reminded yourself of that.

Across the hall, you watched as the young prince was received by the first group of lords. You could not hear the words being exchanged from this distance. You did not need to. The men’s postures. The practiced smiles. Their daughters positioned themselves deliberately at their Lord fathers’ sides, lovely and composed. Like they had prepared their entire life for this moment.

Prince Valarr received them graciously. He was patient. Yet, there was something behind his eyes, even at this distance. You recognized it the same way you did for the northern lords.

A person resuming their duties, while something continues to weigh heavy on their mind.

You understood that feeling rather well.

Having detached himself from the Crownlands lords, your father appeared at your side. Lady Ellinor had since separated from you, being pulled away by her own family.

“The royal family,” he observed, in the quiet tone he always used when he took note of something.

“Aye,” you said. “So it is, my lord.”

Aldric was quiet for a moment, surveying the hall with patient yet ambitious eyes. The eyes of a man who had come to King’s Landing with a purpose, and intended to see it through.

“I spoke with Lord Brightwater this evening. A Crownlands house, good standing.” He paused. “He has a son. Second-born. Near your age, from what I understand.”

You looked at your father.

He was not looking at you. He was watching the hall with the same steady expression.

“He seemed a reasonable man,” Lord Aldric continued. “His house is respectable. Not large, but steady.”

You understood what he was not saying. You had always been good at reading between the lines of what he said. 

Do not look toward the prince, my sweet daughter. We are not here for that, and you know it as well as I do.

He did not say any of it. He did not need to. Because he was kind-hearted enough to not speak of it plainly to you.

“I see,” you said softly.

“I thought it worth mentioning,” Your father said gently.

You looked back at the group of lords and ladies, with the young prince at the center of them all. The prince who had not looked your way once and would likely not think to.

You pressed your fingers to your wrist beneath your sleeve.

“Yes,” you said. “Worth mentioning.”

The great hall had received him exactly as he expected it to. A prince of the great dragon house. The heir of the heir.

Valarr moved through the first hour with the careful patience his father had taught him his entire life. Lord after lord. Name after name. Exchanging conversations and pleasantries that always had hidden meanings and agendas underneath them.

Instead of enjoying the feast, he knew his real duty. Matarys drifted past him at some point, with the satisfied and relaxed expression of a youngest son enjoying himself without the weight of obligation on his shoulders.

“How fares my big brother?” His younger brother said, falling into place beside him for a moment with a goblet in hand.

“Well enough,” Valarr said.

The even younger prince looked at him sideways. “You have spoken to four lords in the past hour, and smiled at all of them in exactly the same way.”

“That is called courtesy, dear brother.”

“That is called exhaustion,” Matarys took a long sip. “The Lannister lord has had his eyes on you for the past quarter hour. He has his daughter with him. The one in gold.”

“I am aware.”

“Her beauty is quite astounding.”

“I am also aware of that.”

“But?”

Valarr said nothing. Matarys seemed to understand. He did not push. He simply downed the remaining wine in his goblet, and patted his older brother on the shoulder. He then drifted away into the crowd, like he still had all the freedom and time in his hands.

Valarr watched him go with a combination of envy and affection in his chest.

Making sure to keep his face composed, he let out a subtle sigh before turning back to receive the Lannister lord.

Baelor caught his eye from across the hall. A look that said nothing, yet everything. Valarr gave him the smallest nod in return.

He had lost count of how many conversations he has had. This time, it was a lord from the Stormlands. Broad and direct in the manner of his region. It felt refreshing to him, especially after the Lannister lord that seemed to only speak in glamorous riddles.

Until something in his periphery caught his attention without quite announcing itself.

Near the group of Tyrells and Reach lords. A girl at Lady Ellinor Tyrell’s side, standing with the quiet grace of someone who had been observing everything. There was nothing loud about her. Nothing deliberate. She was simply there. Her stillness was different from the other ladies he had observed this evening.

The highborn daughters were still in the same way an archer’s drawn bow was; calculated and waiting.

She was still in the way a person is when they were genuinely content to observe. She stood still, feeling like no one was watching her.

Valarr did not know why his eyes stayed on her for half a second longer than they should have. There was no obvious reason for it. She was not positioned to be noticed. Her sigil, at a distance, he could not place it. A small rose on green, it must be a lesser house he was not familiar with.

Then the Stormlands lord had said something that required his attention. The prince teared his eyes away from her.

She had not crossed his mind again. Not deliberately.

Though once, near the end of the evening, when the feast had concluded and the lords were beginning to retire to their chambers, Valarr’s eyes moved one more time toward the place the Reach group had been.

She was gone. With her father most likely. Off to retire to whatever chamber had been arranged for them.

There was no reason to notice the absence of someone whose presence he had barely registered.

He noticed it anyway. Briefly.

Then, Matarys appeared at his side to announce that the evening was finally over. Valarr let himself be steered toward the corridor, and put the evening behind him.

He tried to.

Valarr had not slept particularly well.

This was not unusual following the first night of a week-long celebration. There was always a particular kind of restlessness that came after hours of practiced performance.

He dressed unceremoniously, sending his squire away earlier than usual. He stood at the window, watching as the Red Keep woke up in the pale morning light. He stood still until a knock came.

It was not his squire. He knew his squire’s knock.

“Enter,” Valarr said.

Surprisingly, it was his father. He looked like a man who had been awake for several hours and had already put them to good use.

“Come,” Baelor said. “Walk with me.”

Entering his study, Baelor settled into a chair near the hearth. He gestured for Valarr to do the same.

He looked at his son with attention that made Valarr feel seen and measured his entire life, never unkindly. He let the silence sit, comfortable and undemanding.

Until he said at last, “Well.” The single word doing the work of a much longer question.

Valarr took a few moments to think.

“It was the first evening,” he said. “The Lannister lord presented his daughter. A Baratheon cousin. Several other ladies from the Reach.”

“And your thoughts?”

“Gracious. Well prepared. All of them exactly what they were meant to be. Or taught to be.” He paused. “The Lady Lannister especially. I could not find a fault with her if I tried.”

Baelor tilted his head forward slightly. This was his son.

“But?”

Valarr sighed softly, “But I kept looking for the person underneath the preparation and could not find her.” He said plainly, knowing his own father was the one person he could be plain with. “Perhaps she was there. Perhaps I did not look long or well enough.”

Baelor nodded slowly. He did not push. He never did.

After a moment, “There was a sigil I did not recognize. Near the Tyrells, perhaps from the Reach. A pale rose on green.” Valarr said it as casually as he could.

“A lesser house, I think. I could not place the name.”

His father looked at him with an expression that was entirely neutral, yet somehow still managing to be amused.

“Sweetbriar,” Baelor said, without hesitation. He remembered everything. “House Sweetbriar of Briarkeep. A minor house of the Reach. Loyal to the Tyrells for generations. Their trade is in herbs and botanical oils.” A brief pause. “Lord Aldric’s youngest daughter.”

Valarr absorbed all this information with a nod that he deliberately kept measured.

His father’s eyes did not leave his face. “Is she the one who has caught your eye?”

“No,” Valarr said, perhaps a bit too promptly. “I was only wondering, father.”

“Mm.” Baelor said nothing further on the subject. Valarr thought it was considerably worse than if he had said something.

“Only a few days remain,” he said at last. “The young lords and ladies your age are gathering in the gardens this morning. It would do you well to go among them. Not just as a prince looking for a bride.”

He held Valarr’s gaze steadily. “Simply as a person among people.”

Valarr exhaled slowly through his nose as he pulled the study’s door closed behind him.

The corridor was quiet. He stood for a moment with his hand still on the door, thinking about how he wished not to go to the gardens before accepting that he had to go regardless.

He turned away from the door.

“Your Grace.”

Valarr stopped.

The Lady Lannister was standing in the same corridor outside his father’s study, dressed in a gown of morning sunlight. She was as composed and lovely as she had been the previous evening. Donning the same practiced smile.

“My lady,” he said. “Good morrow.”

“And to you, Your Grace.” She gently stepped beside him, with the practiced ease of someone who knew how to handle something when given an opening. “I had heard the young lords and ladies are to gather in the gardens this morning. Might I have the honor of accompanying you, my prince?”

There was no graceful way to say no. There was no reason to say no.

“Of course, my lady,” he said.

The gardens of the Red Keep were at their best in the morning, before the heat of the day settled fully into the air. They were already gathered by the time Valarr arrived.

Groups of lords and ladies dispersed among the paths and flowerbeds, the casual mingling of people who were all here for the same unspoken reason, pretending to simply enjoy the morning air.

The Lady Lannister walked beside him and spoke beautifully of the gardens and the weather, how it reminded her of her home at Casterly Rock.

Valarr was certain that he was adequately present in the conversation; he thought of her as pleasant company.

With mild guilt in his chest, he just wished that he found her more interesting than he actually did.

He then steered her gently toward a certain group of highborn ladies. “The Lady Serrett is there,” he said. “I believe you are acquainted.”

She understood. He could see that she understood. She received it with perfect composure, dipping into a curtsy and a smile that flickered with subtle disappointment.

“Of course, Your Grace. I thank you for the company.”

“The pleasure was mine, my lady.”

After the group had received the Lady Lannister, he continued walking through the gardens, giving small nods and smiles of acknowledgement towards the other groups.

He looked along the paths. The rose arbor. The far end near the fountain where a group of younger lords had gathered.

He did not find what he was looking for.

He stopped.

What exactly was he looking for?

A pale rose on green.

Lord Aldric Sweetbriar’s youngest daughter whose name he still did not know. A girl he had no particular reason to be looking for in the gardens of the Red Keep.

Valarr was looking for her anyway.

He became aware of this with slight discomfort, a realization. He turned away from the gardens. He did not need to be there.

The young prince heads for the library.

The library of the Red Keep was not a place most guests sought out during a nameday celebration. It was tucked away in the quieter part of the castle. It smelled of old parchment and the settled dust of books that had been there for generations.

Valarr had been coming here since he was a young boy. It was the one room in the Red Keep where nobody expected him to be in.

He pushed the door open. Then stopped.

You turned a page. It was a simple gesture. Simple in the same way you breathed in air.

You had found the library by accident the previous evening, slipping away from the corridor while your father talked to yet another lord.

You have not even broken your fast yet, and you are still here. The morning light came in clean through the window beside you. You had your feet tucked underneath you on the chair, which Elara would have had something to say about, with a book open on your lap.

For the first time since leaving the Reach, you felt entirely comfortable.

Then, the door opened. You looked up.

For a moment, neither of you moved.

Then you were on your feet with a speed that almost sent the book flying. You quickly closed it and held it tightly in your hands, before immediately dropping into a curtsy. Heat rose in the back of your neck and ears.

Seven hells. Of all the rooms in this enormous castle. Of all the people to walk through the door.

“Your Grace,” You managed, eyes fixed on the level of his boots. “Forgive me, I did not – I had not thought –” You stopped, trying to collect yourself. “I shall take my leave at once.”

“Please, do not.”

His voice was gentle. Not unkind. Not amused at your expense.

You cautiously looked up from his boots. He was looking at you with an expression you could not name. Not displeased. Curiosity?

“I did not come to drive you out, my lady,” he said. “Sit. Please.”

You sat, slowly pulling your book back to its earlier position. Trying not to look like a person who had not just been caught sitting with her feet tucked under her in the dragon prince’s library reading a book she had taken off his shelf without permission.

Prince Valarr settled into the chair across from you, a look of quiet curiosity on his face.

“May I ask what it is you are reading, my lady?” he asked.

You looked down at the cover. “A history of the Valyrian freehold, Your Grace.” You paused. “I do hope it was not – that is, I took it from the shelf without –”

“It is a library,” he said simply. “Books are meant to be read.” The corner of his mouth moved up slightly. “What do you make of it so far?”

You blinked. The question was genuinely curious, it caught you off guard.

“It is –” You started, carefully thinking. The prince looked at you as though he actually wanted to know. “Considering the subject matter, whoever wrote it was far more interested in dates than in people. I keep finding myself wanting to argue with the written annotations.”

Something shifted in his expression. “I have written those annotations.”

You looked down at the book with sudden horror. Opening the book, you found a passage about the early dragonlords, a small annotation written neatly beside it.

This is not what the Maester Gyldayn wrote. See the Fires of the Freehold, Chapter Fourth.

You stared at it for a moment. Then helplessly, “You are correct that it is not, Your Grace. Maester Gyldayn contradicts this passage.”

Valarr looked at you more properly then. “You have read the works of Maester Gyldayn.”

“I have read most things, Your Grace,” you said, before catching yourself. It came out with more confidence than you had intended to present to a prince of the Seven Kingdoms in a library you had wandered into uninvited.

But, Prince Valarr did not seem to find it presumptuous. If anything, he found it the complete opposite.

“You are Lord Aldric’s daughter,” he said then. Not quite a question. “Of House Sweetbriar.”

You looked at him in shock. “You know of my house, Your Grace?”

“As a Prince of the Realm should,” he said simply. “It is my duty to know of the noble houses that swear their banners to the great houses of the Seven Kingdoms.”

“Your house is from the Reach, loyal to the Tyrells since the beginning. Your trade is in herbs and oils.”

You stared at him. Not the careful practiced stare of a lady maintaining her composure in the presence of a prince. But a genuine, unguarded stare of someone that finally felt seen, and remembered.

“I–” You stopped. “Yes, that is correct, Your Grace.”

“You were not in the gardens this morning,” he said, before even thinking about it. His expression shifted slightly.

“No, Your Grace.” You kept your voice even. “I find I am better suited to libraries and books than gardens.” You paused, “which is perhaps strange, given that my house trade is botanical.”

“Not strange,” he said. “Honest.” The prince looked at you for a moment with the same quiet curiosity. “You were here yesterday evening as well.”

It was more of an observation than a question. You had not seen him outside the Great Hall the previous evening and yet he somehow knew.

“Yes, Your Grace,” you admitted. “I discovered it by accident. Forgive me, I hope that was not–”

“No need to apologize, my lady,” he said gently. “I have been coming here since I was a young boy. It is the one room in the Red Keep where nobody expects anything of me.” He said it so plainly. “I find that I am protective of it.”

“I understand, Your Grace.” You looked down, before shyly looking back up. “I have a corner of the garden at Briarkeep. Behind the lavender rows where they grow tallest. Nobody thinks to look for me there.”

The prince was quiet for a moment, looking at you with the same expression he had worn since he sat down. One you still could not name.

“You preferred this to the gardens this morning?” he said. “Even knowing the lords and ladies our age were gathering?”

“Your Grace,” you said carefully, “with all respect – I am merely the youngest daughter of a lesser noble house from the Reach. The lords and ladies in the gardens are not gathering for my benefit.”

Something shifted across his face. Not pity. Something more complicated and careful.

“And yet your Lord father has brought you here,” he said.

“My father,” you started, after a small pause, “he is an optimistic man. It is one of his finest qualities.” You looked down at the book briefly. “He has his eye on the second-born son of Lord Brightwater.”

“He is quite ambitious, yes. But he is realistic. That is why we are here, Your Grace.”

You said it steadily, because it was true and because you had made your peace with it, rather than thinking about the alternative. The thought you had long dismissed since before arriving at King’s Landing, that you had no business thinking about right now, sitting in the library with a prince of the Seven Kingdoms.

Prince Valarr was quiet for a long moment.

“Pardon me, Your Grace,” you said then, thinking the silence felt too dangerous to leave uninterrupted. “Do you not want to be in the gardens yourself? I understood that the morning was intended for–”

“For the search,” he said, with a grimace not directed at you. “Aye, it is.”

Valarr leaned back in his chair and looked at the shelves in the room, the morning light moving slowly across the long rows of books.

“My nameday celebration,” he said, “is not entirely a nameday celebration.”

“I know,” you said gently, looking down at your hands.

He looked at you.

“Everyone knows, Your Grace,” you said, with kind honesty. “The daughters who have been brought by their Lord fathers.” You paused. “It is plain enough to anyone paying attention.”

“And you pay attention, my lady,” he responded.

“I do little else,” you said, before thinking about it.

The prince almost smiled. It was close enough that you noticed it and looked away, back at the book in your hands.

“Have you made a decision yet, Your Grace?” you asked, in a quieter tone. Rowan would be slack-jawed if she were here. You were not sure where the sudden courage to ask came from. Perhaps it stopped feeling like a conversation between a crown prince and a lesser lord’s daughter. You could not name this feeling yet.

He was quiet for long enough that you thought you had overstepped.

“No,” he finally said. “I have not.”

You looked up at him.

“Does that surprise you, my lady?” he said.

“A little,” you admitted. “O-Only because you are who you are, Your Grace. Every great house in the realm would consider it an honor beyond measure. I had assumed the matter would be easily decided.”

“Easily decided,” he repeated quietly, more to himself. “Aye. It ought to be.”

“Every lady I have spoken with has been everything she was meant to be.” He looked at the open window, the sunlight getting brighter as the morning began to pass.

“Gracious and accomplished. With names that would sit well beside mine in history books. I have no reasonable objection to any of them.”

You waited patiently.

“And yet,” he continued. “I kept looking for the person underneath all of that.”

“Every exchange and conversation felt like a prepared performance. Every smile and gesture placed exactly where it was meant to be. I stood inside of all of it yet I felt–”

He paused. “Absent. As though it was happening to someone who looked like me while I watched from a distance.”

“I do not think they are false,” he said. “I think they have simply been prepared so thoroughly for this that there is no longer any distance between the preparation and the person. I keep struggling to find where one ended and the other began.”

You were quiet for a moment. Then the silence swelled even more.

Until, “My eldest sister Elara,” you started slowly, “was presented to her husband at a feast in the Reach when she was seven and ten. She spent a year beforehand learning everything about his house, his preferences, his family, the way he took his wine.” You paused. “She is also genuinely fond of him. Genuinely happy. The preparation and the person – they were the same.”

“I am not saying that it is not real,” you continued carefully. “Only that perhaps the preparation does not mean there is nothing underneath it. Perhaps it only means you have not yet been given the proper circumstances to find out.”

Prince Valarr was quiet for a moment. “And what circumstances would those be?”

You thought about it honestly. “Ones that do not feel like an audition,” you said plainly. “A room where nothing is required. Where there is nothing to perform for.”

He looked at you. “A room like this one,” he said, with an unreadable expression.

You suddenly became aware, the heat rushing back to your neck. “I did not mean–” You began.

“I know,” he said quietly, with the sincere intent of not making you feel foolish. “I know you did not.”

He looked at the book in your hands, the small annotations he wrote resting underneath your fingers.

“I do not know your name, my lady,” he started. “I know your house, your father, your trade. I know you have read Maester Gyldayn’s work, and disagree with this author’s treatment of dates.”

The corner of his mouth moved. “I do not know your name.”

You looked at him. At the prince sitting across from you in a library, who had not stayed in the gardens, who had come here instead, who was looking at you with something in his mismatched eyes –

You stopped. His eyes.

You had not been close enough the previous evening. One brown. One blue. Warm earth and still water.

You forgot, for just a moment, what he had asked you.

You told him your name.

Valarr said it once, quietly, as though he was testing the weight of it on his lips. You would sacrifice anything to the Seven to hear him say it once more.

A knock at the library door. Valarr’s expression shifted. Something concealing the openness that had been there a moment ago.

“Enter,” he said.

It was his squire, slightly out of breath. He had been looking for the prince for longer than he wanted to admit.

“Your Grace,” he bowed. “Your presence has been requested. Prince Baelor awaits you in the–”

“Aye,” Valarr rose, without hurry and hesitation.

You rose too, instinctively. He looked at you. For a moment he simply looked, in the same way he had been looking since he sat across from you.

“My lady,” he said. He was the young dragon prince again, not the person who had been sitting across from you, discussing Gyldayn’s work in the quiet of the morning.

“Your Grace,” you replied, dipping into a curtsy.

He held your gaze for just a moment longer than what was strictly necessary.

Then he turned and followed his squire out of the library. The door closed.

You stood beside your chair for a moment, the book still in your hands. Everything in the room felt like the prince had not even stepped foot in here. You sat down slowly.

You opened back to the same page you had been on before the door opened. Reading the same sentence three times.

Then you turned to the small annotations, your fingers gently brushing against the dried ink. His handwriting, small and neat.

This is not what Maester Gyldayn wrote.

You closed the book carefully. You pressed your fingers to your wrist beneath your sleeve.

I do not know your name.

He knew it now.

You were not entirely sure what to do with any of what happened during the last hour.

Sitting in the library for a while longer, with the book closed in your lap, you did not read. Instead, you thought.

You were the youngest daughter of House Sweetbriar. Your father had his eye on Lord Brightwater’s second-born son. In five days, the prince’s nameday celebrations would conclude and you would return to Briarkeep. To the lavender rows and Celyn’s muddy hands.

In five days, the prince would have already chosen a lovely bride worthy of carrying the Targaryen name. Worthy to stand by his side as the future queen of the Seven Kingdoms. Worthy to read small notes of affection in his neat handwriting. Worthy to get lost in those mismatched brown and blue eyes of his–

You shut the thought down before it could finish itself.

Setting the book on a small nearby table, you stood. Smoothing your skirts the way Elara had taught you.

You were here because your father is an optimistic man with a good eye for opportunity, and a second-born son of a Crownlands’ lord who was by all accounts reasonable and steady.

You were not here for mismatched eyes and written annotations.

You picked up the book once again, before putting it back on the shelf you had found it in.

Then you left the library and went to find your Lord father.

You thought about almost nothing else. Almost.

The great hall was somehow louder on the second evening than the first, which you had not thought possible.

You sat with your father among the Reach lords, several tables removed from the royal family, which was exactly where a house like yours belonged. You kept your hands folded in your lap, and did what you usually did: observe.

Your father was already in conversation with the lord beside him. You let the noise drown you and tried not to think about the library.

You were not succeeding particularly well in that regard.

Until, it happened so suddenly. You were looking at nothing in particular. The lit torches, the three-headed dragon on one of the banners, the other guests between you, a pair of mismatched eyes already looking back.

Your breath caught.

You looked away immediately. Back to your hands, to the untouched goblet of wine in front of you, to your father’s profile as he continued to speak to the lord next to him.

Your neck felt warm.

You did not look back.

Across the hall, Prince Valarr looked away a moment after you did. Just a moment.

Matarys, beside him, said nothing. But he noticed.

The feast continued. The torches began to burn lower. You kept your eyes where you belonged.

You did not look back. Almost.

Lord Aldric Sweetbriar was always gentle about things. Especially to his youngest daughter. Somehow, it made it more difficult to argue with him than if he simply raised his voice.

He had knocked on your chamber door before breakfast, ledger already closed under his arm.

“You will go to the gardens this morning,” he said. “With the other ladies.”

“My Lord father–”

“You will go,” he said again. Same tone. Same eyes. “We are here for a purpose, daughter. Your purpose is not the library.”

You had gone to the gardens.

You found the quietest corner you could, which was unfortunately not very quiet. You sat on a bench, a slight distance from the gathered lords and ladies, a book tucked under your arm like a shield. 

The gardens were beautiful, with the flora being more well kept than those at Briarkeep, which was saying something.

The gathered group’s energy has shifted, as though someone significant had arrived. You looked up.

He had come alone, which surprised you. No squire at his shoulder, not even Matarys. Just the young prince, stepping into the gardens with ease.

He saw you before the group saw him.

For half a second. In that half second, his gaze found the quiet corner you sat in. His expression shifted the same way it did at the library.

Then the crowd turned, the lords and ladies straightening around his presence.

He moved toward you. Not enough to be obvious, just a slight shift in direction. A small step, the beginning of an intention.

Highborn ladies appeared on both sides, along with a young Westerlands lord that extended a hand to him in greeting. The group closed around him.

There was no gracious way to refuse. He went with them. Of course, he did.

Valarr glanced back once subtly. You had already looked back down at your book.

You read the same page four times.

After midday, your father had formally introduced you to Lord Brightwater’s son in the gardens, with the quiet satisfaction of a man ticking something off a carefully planned list.

His name was Lucian. He was tall, brown haired, and well-mannered. He smiled at you, and it felt genuine.

“My Lord father tells me you are a great reader,” he said, walking beside you on one of the garden paths.

“He flatters me,” you said. “I simply have few other hobbies, my lord.”

“I find the same is said of me.” He glanced at you sideways, “What do you like to read, my lady?”

You gave him a real answer, and he listened and responded thoughtfully. It was a pleasant conversation.

He was everything your father had said. Steady, kind, and genuine.

Yet, you waited for something underneath it.

You were still waiting when the walk concluded, your fathers gently separating you both. Lord Aldric looked quite satisfied.

Across the gardens, the young prince watched you walk with the young Brightwater lord.

He then returned his attention to the lord beside him, responding back to his question.

He did not look back across the garden path. He did look back just once.

Matarys, who was a few steps behind him, looked between his older brother and the distant figures of you and Lucian Brightwater.

He said nothing. Not yet.

On the fourth day, you had borrowed yet another book. This one was thinner than the last, a collection of botanical records from the early Andal settlements. It seemed it was forgotten, wedged in between two heavier books in one of the shelves at the library.

It seemed that there was no gathering today. Your chest fluttered, your steps lighter than usual as you approached the empty gardens. 

The sunlight came in low and golden through the hedges, and the air was cooler than usual. It was enough to faintly remind you of home.

You sat down on a bench near the far end of the path, opening your book. Given the circumstances, this was one of the rare times you felt entirely content.

Then, footsteps on the stone path, gradually getting closer.

You had recognized them before you looked. You somehow learned the particular rhythm of his walk, without even meaning to.

Valarr sat down at the other end of the bench without asking, which would have been presumptuous from anyone else. From him, it simply was not.

He looked at the gardens for a moment, thinking about what to say.

“Another one,” he said, nodding at the book.

“Botanical records from the early Andal settlements,” you said. “I found it wedged between two considerably large volumes. It looked forgotten and lonely.”

“And do you have opinions about it, my lady?”

“I have opinions about everything,” you spoke plainly. “I simply do not often say them aloud.”

He turned to look at you. “You say them to me.”

You did not know how to answer. Deciding to look down at the page, you both knew it was already an answer in itself.

The silence had settled between you and the prince. It was comfortable; neither of you felt the need to fill it.

Until, “You have siblings, my lady?”

“Four, Your Grace,” you said. “Edwyn is the eldest and the heir of Briarkeep. My father has taught him well, he will be a good lord.”

“Then Elara. She taught me everything I know about being a proper lady; keeping my hands still and not saying the first thing that comes into my head.”

You looked down at your fingers inching toward your wrist. “For which, I am quite successful.”

“And the third.”

Something warmer moved through your voice. “Rowan,” you looked at a hedge across the path. “Rowan is the kind of girl that fills a room without knowing it. She is bright, yet restless, incapable of keeping her thoughts to herself if there is anyone nearby to hear it.”

Your fingers brushed against the illustrations on the page. “She is the one who started calling me Wallflower.”

Valarr stayed quiet, yet attentive. He was listening completely.

“It was not meant unkindly,” you said. You knew it never had been and you had always known it even when it brought you unease. “Rowan thought it was funny at first. Then it was simply the truth. I had become the name whether I wanted it or not.”

The corner of your mouth moved. “She always meant it affectionately. But, she was also completely certain that she was right.”

“Was she right?” he asked. 

You considered it honestly. “Mostly,” you admitted. “I stand on the sidelines. I observe rather than participate. I am not fond of large rooms full of people I do not know.” You paused. “It still brings me unease when she says it. Which probably means it is true.”

He was quiet for a moment. Then, “You said four.”

You looked at him.

“Edwyn, Elara, Rowan,” he said. “That is three.”

You stared at him. Valarr had been paying the same quality of attention to you that you paid to everything else. The realization sat in your chest with a feeling you could not name.

“Celyn,” you responded. “He is the youngest. Seven years of age.”

You took a moment, trying to gather his character in mere words. “He has very strong opinions about the garden. Delivers them with the full authority of a Grand Maester.”

Your mouth curved ever so slightly. “He once spent an entire afternoon in tears because a bee had died near the lavender rows. He felt personally responsible.”

Something shifted in Valarr’s expression, quiet and recognizing.

“He sounds exhausting,” he said.

An amused breath escaped you before you could stop it. Valarr’s eyebrow slightly twitched upward at the soft sound.

“He is the best person I know,” you said simply without hesitation.

Valarr looked toward the hedges for a moment. “I have a Matarys,” he said.

You looked at him.

“He is not seven,” he continued. “He is considerably older and considerably more troublesome.” He says with both exasperation and affection.

“He delivers his thoughts with the confidence of someone who thinks they are never wrong.”

“That is Celyn,” you replied, smiling down at the book still open in your lap.

“Then I apologize, most earnestly, for what is about to come,” he said.

This time, a genuine giggle escaped you. The sound made something flutter inside Valarr’s chest. It was real and unguarded. It was beautiful.

“You can call me Valarr,” he said.

You looked up at him, his mismatched eyes brighter than ever.

“When it is only us,” he continued. It did not sound like a command nor a request, just something honest. He looked toward the path, “Every conversation I have had begins and ends with my titles. Sometimes I feel as though I am merely a title rather than a person.”

He looked back up at you, “you are one of the few people I have spoken with who makes me forget that. I would rather not be reminded of it when it is only us.”

You looked down, “That is a great deal of trust to extend to someone you have only known for four days.”

“Aye,” he said plainly. “It is.”

“Then you must do the same for me,” you said quietly.

He looked at you with a slight crinkle in his eyes. Then he said your name. This time, the way he said it felt like he had known you for the longest time.

You looked back down at your book before he could notice the slight change in your expression.

Afterwards, the conversation flowed easily between you and Valarr. Just two people surprising each other with opinions and knowledge, passing the book to each other like it was the most natural thing in the world.

You did not notice how much time had passed until more voices began to fill the garden. The morning had ceased to belong to only you and Valarr.

He stood up slowly, before saying your name once again. He bid you goodbye, before walking back up the path to where he came from.

You sat with the book closed in your lap, letting the morning light shine on your face. The same feeling in your chest returned, the one you still could not name.

You were beginning to suspect that it did not need one.

Could the Great Hall get any more lavish? You thought. There were more candles than the previous nights, and more flowers blooming along the tables.