Valarr’s Lover

Ashford tourney was supposed to be for mending long lasting alliances with the houses of the Reach. Instead, your father-by-law had lost two of his son’s on the journey, and the one that remained had managed to kill a horse during his first and now only joust. He had been banned from competing for fear the small-folk would try and pelt him to death with stones in the arena. You had been there all of three days, and you were all as sick of it as the people were of you.

Therefore when the evening jousts commenced at sunset, you had urged your husband to join you on a walk in the meadows. No one else will venture there you had said, they are preoccupied with the tournament.

And your words rang true, the meadow was deserted. Insects flew freely, birds sung loudly, an orange glow cast across the entire scene. It was picturesque. Utterly beautiful. That’s where you led amongst the flowers of the field, your head resting in your husband’s lap as his fingers fell idly through your hair.

“You are going to get filthy led down there.” He uttered, fingers tangling several strands together in a pattern which slightly resembled that of a plait. “You worry too much about things that do not matter my dragon.” You reached up a hand, pressing your two central fingers against his lips as he parted them, welcoming their taste against his tongue before biting down lightly. A pout fell across your face as you yanked your hand back, little red crescents bled across your fingers from the rawness of his touch. Biting was a known affection of your husband. He did it playfully, he did it endearingly, he did it in bed, he did it when he thought you needed a reminder of to whom you belong. You had grown used to it being a silent form of I love you, this makes you mine.

In retaliation to his brute touch you kissed his palm tenderly, pressing his fingers flat against your cheek as your lips caressed his callous hands. “You do not always have to be so gentle.” He murmured, his unused hand resuming its place at the crown of your head, massaging gently. “I do not seek to hurt you, husband.” It was true, did his immature actions like killing a horse in a friendly tourney make you want to suffocate him with your pillow? Yes. Would you ever do such a thing? No. Because you maintained impulse control, something your husband feverishly lacked. “People talk of our marriage you know.” It felt like a confession from his lips, he desired to be feared but he hated the whispers that carried pity in your direction, that he would dare lay a hand to his own wife, he would sooner cut it off himself than do such a thing to you. He was rough when he knew it brought you pleasure only, never would he strike you down for merely existing, why would he have taken you to wed if your thoughts and feelings deserved to be silenced at his hand? But he knew what people thought, he was publicly careless in his actions, he hurt others without thinking twice. They pitied you publicly, his own family even contributed.

The Mad Prince’s Poor Wife

Brightflames caged dove

The living ghost of Summerhall

They truly believed you to be so unseen. Sure you were quieter than most, but your husband was devoted to your every need. They did not see his affection, they had not earned it. You had never had to, but to hear the whispers on the wind of their blatant pity was painful. You were not ignored, far from it. But in Summerhall there was few that made good company, you often found yourself wandering the halls late at night when sleep would not find you, resulting in the living ghost becoming an unwanted nickname - because the servants truly believed you were wandering due to the fact your husband was bedding whores in your shared bedchamber, another misconception, he just snores very fucking loud.

“I know of what they say.” You looked up to meet his eyes lightly, his contrasted your own heavily “but again, it does not concern me for they do not know me.” He scoffed, untangling his fingers from your hair “Yes but maybe it should, they speak as if I hate you, I bed whores in our shared bed, I make you suffer when I do bed you.”

“Maybe they think that because you make me scream.” You giggled, you caught the amusement flash across his face in a subtly proud smirk before he shook his head “That is absolutely beside the point. Do not be so vulgar, it is not befitting of a Lady.” He was teasing, abundantly so, he lowered his face until he was inches from your own, upside down from your perspective. The tip of his nose brushed against the bridge of your own, however in his distraction you placed several kisses to his taught jaw. His eyes fell shut with a hum, you tangled your hands in his hair, pulling his face as close as you could get it to your own, kissing his forehead to his cheek tenderly, before releasing him and turning onto your stomach, resting your arms in his lap. You were propped up that way, giving him better access to the entirety of your face. He seized the opportunity to entwine his hands with your hair full, locking them at the base of your scalp so that you were forced to maintain eye contact with him. “Look at this dress. Have you any idea the coin I spent on it?” He tutted, the once flush pink skirts were saddled with marks of dusty mud - it would undoubtedly brush off but he enjoyed the game of making a fuss. “Probably more than was necessary.” You smiled, meeting his lips in a devastating kiss as he groaned into your mouth.

“It is growing late, we should return to bed.” He pulled away ever so slightly but you chased his lips with your own, “I do not wish to depart yet! No need to stay in that dreary place when this is the view.” He groaned against your lips before he was silenced by your tongue fighting its way back into his mouth. You settled yourself into his lap now, allowing you a better reach to his face as he chuckled quietly at your desperation for closeness.

“Do not laugh at me.” You whined, his hands settled to your hips in an attempt to settle your dispute. “You are desperate.” He titled his head, a lazy smile planted onto his face, such a vast separation from the brute man that held his own on a tourney field. “I am allowed to be desperate you are my husband.”

“Yes well, if you would come with me to bed I would be able to satisfy your desires.” He raised an eyebrow, a kiss pressed to the side of your face. “I desire your company and your affection and I want it here in this field.” You demanded, maybe it did sound a bit desperate in hindsight but you didn’t have the care for it. He only laughed louder as you pouted at him, “you sound childish. Lose the attitude my flame it does not best suit you.”

“Childish! How dare you!”

“Oh how dare I? Gods I do forget myself.” His lips joined to your neck in a flurry of hurried kisses that only forced your laughter to join with his. “There, is my wife now satisfied?”

A hazy smile joined your face, you adored your husband more than anything because to you this was who he was. It brought you pain more often than not to know how those around you viewed your relationship. They did not see his affection, they saw your withdrawal from public affection. You did not hold hands, you did not kiss or even touch where others could see. Because it was not for them to have. What you shared was gentle and sacred and entirely your own.

A/N: shorter and entirely out of character for aerion i know, but i couldn’t resist. sometimes i forget im literally writing fanfiction and i can write whatever i want however i want so yes this is not who aerion is as a character but i had a lot of fun so i hope you all enjoyed.

as always: likes, comments, reblogs + any interactions at all are always always appreciated - take care everyone!!

DISCLAIMER: All themes, plot, images used in general and characters from A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms + elsewhere belong to the rightful owners, I hold no rights to the original media - but my writing belongs to me.

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As always, he’s snapping away with the creaky little film camera he refers to as his ‘old lady’. As you lead your group of kids closer to the shore, he lifts it to his face, presumably to take a candid snap of you mid-row. It’s hard to tell if he caught you catching him, but you keep your eyes ahead and your posture as elegant as the violent heat will allow. For the sake of the photo, of course. 

“Looking good,” he calls down to you, before helping you out onto the lake’s short pier. You accept the compliment, even though you’re sure you look anything but. 

He sticks around to help you haul kids out of kayaks and make small talk. His voice stays measured and his expression errs on the side of slightly bored, though when the last few campers are wandering off to archery with Aerion, he’s still there. Still there, even as you trudge in the direction of your cabin, in desperate need of a change of clothes. He sticks by your side the whole way, talking less now because ‘by your side’ actually means a few paces behind, probably still with his camera glued to his face. 

“You alright back there?” 

“Yep,” he answers too fast, voice cracking. You chuckle, then almost as quickly, all humour dissolves as the simmering temperature of your blood rises to a boil. The sweat lathering between your thighs has brought you past the point of chafing and now your legs are just sliding together as you walk. Back on the lake, you’d run out of bottled water and had to resort to Mother Nature herself to cool yourself down. Probably, your underwear is visible through your shorts, soaked both in sweat and a few sloshes of lake water. 

“Fuck,” you mutter under your breath. Valarr hurries to catch up, nudging your shoulder with his and fidgeting with the buttons on his camera. 

“You okay?” 

“Yeah, uh–” You press the heel of your hand to your forehead, casting a frown around the camp. Towards the woods, the shade, or back to your cabin to change? “Just thinking.” 

Valarr nods, not quite following. “Do you…want me to go?” 

“What? No, no you’re fine.” You start walking again, hopeful that our body will pick whichever option gets you out of the dry, raging sun quickest. “Oh, hey. Do you know if they still have those fans in storage?” 

Valarr’s lips quirk. “The ones with all the rust?”

Still walking, you grab his shoulder and shake. “I would kill for a breeze right now. A little rust doesn’t scare me.”

For a split second, you notice his mouth agape as if he’s in the middle of saying something. Then, nothing. His mouth clamps shut and he wrangles his face back into mild and aloof. You jostle his shoulder again. 

“Are you with me, or are you with me?”

You just about manage to knock him out of his head. He chuckles, nods, runs his finger along the leather strap keeping his camera around his neck. “Yeah. Let’s go and get you your breeze.” 

Inside the storage shed, it’s fucking baking. Dust swirls with every step and trickles down your throat. You break out into a coughing fit, wafting your hand in front of your face and hanging back as Valarr treads deeper. Shovels, pliers, hammers and wrenches hang from a far wall, casting long, slanting shadows over a workbench. Tiny windows permit only thin slats of light, otherwise among the maze of shelves, it’s simply more shadows. 

After only a few minutes of aimless wandering, you’re leaning on the workbench and trying to fan air in through your vest, to little avail. Something about the shadows feels heavy, ever-tightening and only adding to the muggy viscidity swirling around under your clothes. It’s all you can focus on, along with the faint wooziness humming in the back of our head. You should’ve had a bigger breakfast, you should’ve brought out an extra bottle of water.

Valarr hefts a fan onto the counter, panting and leaning on it while he looks at you expectantly. He’s standing so close you can feel his breath fanning warm on your skin. Just as you suspected, it’s covered in coppery blots that will absolutely slow it down, yet you still react as if a miracle has occurred. 

“You must really need to cool down, huh?” 

“God, you have no idea.” You lift your vest to wipe away sweat and notice Valarr’s eyes flit downwards. “I could use your help bringing that to my room, too.” 

Valarr falters, damn near drops the fan on his feet. “O–Of course. Yes. Yeah, I’ll–I should probably keep an eye on you, yeah.”

His phrasing only strikes you as odd for a split second, because as soon as you try standing, your heat-stricken legs start shaking. Instinctively, you lean on Valarr and he has to balance both you and the fan the entire walk back to your cabin. 

You do try helping him, but the second you get indoors, Valarr will barely let you stand up. 

“It’s too hot,” he insists. If the sweat seeping through his t-shirt in patches is any indication, he’s right. Still, you argue, it doesn’t seem right to let him do all the work. 

He waves it off. “I like doing things for you. It’s fun.” 

“Fun?” 

He huffs out a laugh and busies himself with the fan. As its blades cut through the air, wafting a mild but welcome coolness from the corner of the room, you sprawl out on the bed, sighing with relief. His gaze trails towards you, nervous at first, then unabashed. You don’t trust your judgement in this heat but you struggle to think of a word to describe the look on his face, other than longing. 

“Valarr,” you whisper, flashing him a taunting smile. “You’re staring.” 

He steps towards the door, then doubles back, mouth flapping open and closed. “Sorry.” 

You shake your head. “You’re good.” 

Just as he’s about to walk out, you shift in bed, beginning what you know is about to be a painstaking changing process by peeling your vest up from the bottom. Only enough to let a sliver of torso breathe, but apparently enough to stop Valarr in his tracks. 

“What,” you joke, “do you still wanna keep an eye on me?” 

His jaw ticks but he manages to keep his expression stoic, at least relatively. For a moment he remains stationary, one hand on the doorknob. He stares into space with his jaw ajar, eyes vacant as if he’s sleepwalking. When you snicker at his sudden stillness, he blinks rapidly, suddenly awoken.

“No,” he says. Too abrupt for the long silence he just let pass and oddly defensive. Even he seems to notice this, tries brushing it off with nervous laughter. “Sorry, I just mean–I should probably give you a minute. I don’t want…You know, I should–If you’re gonna change…”

You’re laughing again. Brazen this time, giddy in the heat and at his nerves. 

“Oh, uh–Sorry,” he says again. “You were kidding.” 

“I was,” you say, smile at once broadening and softening as you gesture to the fan. “But all jokes aside, thank you. You’re the best, I owe you one.” 

He’s in the middle of dismissing your thanks, promising it was nothing and that he’d do it any time, when you blow him a kiss. Already pulling your vest higher as he pulls the door open, you’re laughing again. You don’t notice the manic glint in his eyes as he smiles back at you, or that when the door shuts behind him, a shadow flits past your window soon after. As you peel off your clothes and stand directly in the fan’s measly breeze, you don’t notice anything going on outside this room at all. 

You kissed him. From a distance, through the air. As a joke, probably. But you kissed him. 

Towering pines line the entire perimeter of camp, thinning as they get closer to the centre of camp. Outside the senior cabins, the trees have been allowed to remain, imposing and casting vast blots of shade. Probably, it’s because these cabins are the oldest, the smallest and least tended to throughout the year. An Ashford of years long passed seems to exist among these cabins, something almost haunted about the way they’re cloaked in shadow. 

Valarr is only trying to catch some shade back here. It is, he swears, entirely a coincidence that the coolest, most consistent patch of greenery is directly parallel to your cabin’s back window. He’s not going to climb in again; it’s the middle of the day. So really, what harm is there in just–hanging out? Just looking. None, he decides, sliding down the trunk with the most lush array of branches. 

You’re taking your time changing. By now, there’s music playing and you’re still half-naked, twirling and bopping in front of the fan, singing along with a faint smile on your face. Valarr doesn’t think about lifting his camera, it just happens. He doesn’t think about it when his index finger is click, click, clicking the camera’s shutter button, his ears so accustomed to the minute, explosive sound that signals yet another photo that it doesn’t register. 

When you start actually changing, his brain just about slips from his skull and starts oozing out of his ears. Your back, the expanse of skin as you peer into the closet and pull out a new shirt. Legs, underwear riding up your ass as you pull down your shorts. Your bare chest–God. His camera stays glued to his face and his mouth stays agape. It’s almost as if he can taste you, the air’s thick heat as good as your warm, perfect body pressed against his lips, his tongue. 

Busy drooling over you, he still isn’t really thinking about the fact that you’re practically naked and that he’s capturing it from damn near every angle, totally without your knowledge. Eventually though, he has no choice but to pay it attention, when he blinks and realises he’s wandered right into the light. 

Both of you freeze. Valarr’s fingers instinctively tighten around the camera, pulling it to his chest as if it might shield him from vision. Yours fly over your chest, eyes wide and then instantly narrowing. 

“What the fuck?” 

“I–” 

You give him no time to respond, repeating yourself with a more vicious hiss in your tone. “Valarr, what the fuck?” 

Finally, he lets the camera drop. Its weight at the end of the leather strap tugs his neck forward, makes his head dip in a way that he hopes comes across as deferential. Eyes still narrowed and one hand still covering your chest, you reach for the window. Before slamming it shut, you poke your head out and hiss at him again. 

“Get in.” 

He does as he’s told and once inside, stands shifting from foot to foot with his back against the door. When he opens his mouth to speak, you shush him and gesture to the camera. With a flannel acting as a robe, you no longer seem at all self conscious about how scantily clad you are. Valarr, of course, can be conscious of absolutely nothing else. 

“Show me,” you bark. He blinks, busy gawking. What’s left of his brain only congeals into something solid enough to croak out a desperate, pained sound. He means for it to communicate guilt. It just sounds like he’s moaning. 

You scoff and reach for him, wrangling the camera from around his neck without any more words. Valarr is half-certain you’re about to beat him over the head with it but instead, all he can do is watch as you fiddle with its buttons, scowling. 

“How the fuck do you work this thing?” 

“You–” He flinches when your searing gaze meets his. “You can’t, uh–It’s film.” 

“So?” 

“The, uh–” His breath catches and he has to wipe his palms off on his t-shirt. “There’s kind of a whole process, it–”

“Whatever,” you snap. Sidling over to the bed, you gesture in its direction, still messing with his camera. “Alright, it’s your turn. Sit down.”

Valarr’s eyebrows raise. “What–” 

“Get on the bed.” Your tone hasn’t gotten any friendlier, so Valarr scrambles to sit, pushing back towards the headboard on his hands. “Clothes off.” 

He follows your orders more immediately this time, tossing his t-shirt, shoes and jeans to the floor in a careless heap. In just his boxers and socks, he looks up at you with wide, awe-filled eyes. His mouth hasn’t stayed totally shut since he got inside and when he closes it now, it’s only so he can swallow deeply and wet his lips. 

You circle around him like a shark surrounding its prey, continuing to frown down at the camera in your hands. “Were you touching yourself?” 

Despite himself, his nerves instantly dissolve. His posture straightens against the headboard and he struggles to keep the look on his face sane. “No ma’am, I haven’t. Not ever.” 

“Ever?” You look down your nose at him with disdain. “But you wanted to, right?” 

He shakes his head. You don’t buy it for a second. 

“So you were just gonna, what? Take these pictures and look at them?” 

To Valarr, this seems like the greatest gift in the world. It’s hard to imagine how much more he could hope to want. Chest still puffed, he shakes his head again. 

“I wanted to wait. For you.” 

“For us to fuck?” 

He flinches, perhaps at the vulgarity, in both your words and tone. You cross your arms over yourself and half-heartedly fight through a smirk. 

“You’ve gotta be kidding me.” 

“We don’t have to–”

“No shit, we don’t have to. From what I recall, I’m in charge.” 

“Yes ma’am.” His response is immediate, shaky and hoarse. “Anything you want, I’ll do.” 

“Yeah?” 

“Anything.” 

Your expression remains unimpressed but you kneel on the opposite end of the bed and hold the camera to your face. “Alright,” you mutter again, “your turn.” 

Valarr is suddenly hyperaware of the bulge in his boxers that glaringly outlines is dick, straining with need against the waistband. “Are–Are you sure?”  

All you give him is a nod, and then a flinch backwards as you take a practice shot and the flash catches you off-guard. Giggling, you line up for another one, biting on your bottom lip and tilting your head. The rest of Valarr’s brain turns to mush and of its own accord, his hand runs up his thigh. 

He’s still braindead as he toys with the waistband of his boxers, watching you study him through the lens, just like he’s been doing to you for weeks. With his head leaned back against the headboard, he rubs a hand over his crotch slowly. He lets out a low moan of relief and closes his eyes, hips rolling forwards to gain him more friction. You sit back and watch, enthralled, as he palms himself as languidly as if he was giving a massage, letting out long, breathy moans. His lips are twitching into a satisfied smile when, eyes still closed, he speaks again. 

“Ah, God, can I look?”

“Hm?”

“Can I–Mm–Can I look at you?”

You giggle. “Of course, what?” 

His hand slips beneath the waistband and his eyes crack open, just enough to see you. “Thank you,” he whispers. 

“I had no idea you were so…”

“Devoted,” he gets out through a stuttering moan. 

“Obsessive.” 

“I–Oh my God.” His hand moves quicker and his hips jut further upwards. It may have something to do with the way you’ve slipped off the flannel, and are now slowly running your fingers lightly across your chest, nipples hardening under your own touch. You pretend not to notice what it’s doing to him and another click-flash startles his senses. 

Eyes squeezed shut again, he swears the overwhelm might just make him pass out. “Shit, shit, oh shit.” 

“Everything okay there?” 

“Can I taste you? Please?” 

“Taste what?” 

He whines. “Anything. Anything, please. A kiss. Your–Anything. God, I wanna put you in my mouth, please.”  

“You think you’ve earned it?” 

“I–uh,” he whines. Probably not, but he keeps begging anyway, spurred on by the giggles bubbling out of you and the flash that goes off every time he bucks up into his hand. 

“Hang on, hang on,” you interrupt. When he opens his eyes, it’s to the sight of you crawling forwards, straddling his leg with your flannel in tow. You lean forward to tie it around his head, making sure the sleeves are wrapped tight over his eyes. Then, he doesn’t really know what you’re doing. 

Your warmth on his leg disappears and returns changed. Wetter, warmer. A bundle of fabric is pushed into his palm. 

“Alright,” you whisper, tugging lightly on his new makeshift blindfold. “You gonna be good and keep this on for me?” 

“I will,” he answers in a rush, chest heaving. He brings the bundle in his hand up to his face, shoving his nose into it and inhaling, only to let out a moan so obscene, his whole body erupts with heat. Your smell, straight from the core of your body, pressed flush against his face. Before he can help it, he’s tangling his tongue into the fabric, swirling your panties between his teeth to suck. He’s still sniffing, cupping his balls with his other hand and gyrating against the torturously empty air. Every cell in his body is static with desire; he hums with it. Figuratively, then literally, deep longing purrs coming from the back of his throat. 

The flash goes off again, though all he can really interpret is the button clicking and the rush of the shutter opening and closing. Much closer to his face this time, as your seeping warmth stays on his thigh. He whines into your panties and lets his longing come out ragged, shredding his throat to pieces. 

“Please.” 

“Mm,” you moan. “What’s that?” 

“Your–Ah–On my thigh. Can I see? Please, let me watch you.” 

This time, your laugh isn’t coy and giggling. It’s a dark chuckle, breathed right into his ear. The vibration and your warm, sudden breath sends a shiver through him. “Oh, I think you’ve done plenty of that.” 

He whines and strains his hips forwards, though there’s only so far he can do that now that you’re on top of him. 

“Ngh, God, baby.” Beneath his boxers, his hand pumps faster. “Can I–Ah–More. Please? More.” 

“Getting a perfect view of my tits through the window isn’t enough?” You tease, leaning forward so your lips brush his neck. “You need to see them up close, too?” 

He groans and then whimpers, letting his voice drop low. “Please, baby. Please, please, please.” 

You can absolutely understand how Valarr ended up like this. It’s addictive. Index finger on the shutter button, eye squinting through the viewfinder. Up close and in his lap, you probably have a better view of Valarr right now than he’s ever had of you, and the thought has you dripping all over his thigh. 

“God,” you whisper, “you look so good like this.” 

His face flushes as he bites down on his lips, which are rosy pink and puffy with how much his tongue and teeth have been swiping at them. He’s rubbing your panties against his cheek and whining mindlessly while you grind against him and pretty soon, the camera isn’t doing your real view nearly enough justice. As you rub yourself on his clenched, shaking muscles, one of your hands slips down to circle your clit. 

“Fuck, Valarr.” A moan hums sweetly from the back of your throat and Valarr lets out a groan so pained it turns into a growl. He says your name and bucks his hips, thigh clenching  deliciously under you with the strain. 

“Please, let me see you. Please, I’ll–Ah–I’ll make it worth it, I’ll–” he gasps, “fuck you so good, be so good for you. I’ll be good, feels so good, baby, please.” 

You let him keep babbling, periodically humming, “yeah?” just to spur him on. Eventually, you’ve teased him so long that it’s even starting to drive you crazy, so you lift off him for just a second, cradling his face before padding away from the bed. After rifling through your clothes piled together on the floor, you set your phone up on the bedside table. With the front facing camera, it’s angled just right to watch yourself climb back into Valarr’s lap, this time taking his dick in your hand to slide onto it, nice and slow while he whines for you. 

“Baby, oh my God,” he splutters. “So good, oh–So good, fuck.” Likely to avoid gripping you without permission, he tangles his fists into the sheets, biting his lip and moaning in short, desperate bursts. He can’t steady his breathing the entire time you ride him, and you can’t help but reach for your phone to train the camera on him. 

You pan down his body to capture his heaving chest, squirming torso and the dark, swirling happy trail that rises and falls just as desperately with each breath. For a moment, your hips still so you can steady yourself, to take two fingers and trace them over the spritz of white hair that streaks through said happy trail. Of course, Valarr responds with a sudden upwards thrust and a broken moan, his dick burying deeper into you and hitting a spot that has you gasping into his mouth. 

You hold the phone out to film you making out, tongues sliding against each other as you work up a sweat in his lap. Finally, he seems to have built up the bravery to touch you, and his hands squeeze your hips with a pinching pressure. 

“Baby,” he moans into your mouth. “Please, I–Oh my God.” 

“What?” 

“I’m–I’m gonna–”  

You lower the phone to cradle his face in both hands, holding him tenderly as he rambles his way into orgasm. “It’s okay, honey. Go ahead.” 

“Can I–”

“Uh uh, baby. You’re gonna cum just like this,” you taunt. “Surely you’ve seen me enough times to remember what it looks like.”

You expect more arguing but he wails and bucks upwards again, nodding as a spurt of warmth fills you. He keeps pulling you down, fucking himself through it until all he can do is twitch inside you. Already, his breaths are slowing in anticipation of a gentle, permissive come down. But that’s not what you’re here to give him. 

While he’s gasping and pawing at your body, you untie the flannel from his face. He looks up at you with downturned brows and a faint, exhausted smile. 

“Thank you,” he whispers, letting his head fall back on the headboard. 

“That was good?” you ask, tilting your head.

“So good.” 

“So, we’re gonna go again, right?” 

“Uh–” 

Hips rising and falling to make lewd slapping sounds when your bodies meet, you lean in. This time, it’s not to mutter into his ear, but to be inescapable in his line of vision. You clutch his jaw for good measure, smirking when the downward turn of his eyebrows only gets more pronounced. “This isn’t what you wanted?” 

“I–” he gasps. “Baby–I can’t.” 

“Oh, but you can.”

“I can’t, I–Oh, shit. It’s–God, it feels…” Once again, his words devolve into moans and you taunt him further, insisting he be good, that he’s earned this, that if he can take it, maybe next time you’ll be nicer to him. Phone forgotten in the messy sheets, you ride him ragged yet again, this time purely chasing your own pleasure. His pained, broken moans fill your ears as his weeping, sensitive cock pumps you full, and you cum around him so hard that your bitten lip starts to bleed. 

On the come down, with your sweaty bodies pressed together, you’re already thinking about watching the video back tonight. About the embarrassed flush he’s sure to greet you with, the next time you see each other around camp. Of course, you keep the video a secret. Seems only fair and besides, you start opening the window extra wide when you change in the mornings, take your time bending to pick things up when you know Valarr’s around, and even when it seems certain that he couldn’t be. 

What you keep totally secret is the folder in your phone full of camp photos. That night, after watching the video with your legs pressed together and your bottom lip between your teeth, you scroll through a seemingly innocuous array of memories. Wildlife and selfies, group lake pics and sunsets. It just so happens, that in the background of every other picture, you can catch a glimpse of Valarr’s lean arm raised candidly in the distance, or him in profile, jaw sharp and right behind Tanselle striking a peace sign. Or the most recent, of his shirtless back at a campfire, pretending he might join in as all the boys took turns jumping over the flames. 

You drift off to sleep with a faint smile on your face and a fresh sprout of lustful sweat across your whole body. At one point you might’ve called yourself crazy, but after this afternoon, how much of an issue could a few candid photos really be? You’re just looking. 

"Your lady longs for you so much that you're sending a second letter this fortnight, Ser Gwayne?"

And the Hightower heir can sense the slight dissatisfaction beneath Ser Criston's tone, but he does not dwell upon it. Only smiles, nodding. "Yes, Ser. My lady worries, for her heart is pure and sensible. I must do what I can to quell her doubt of any mishaps that might've befallen me."

"Ah, of course. A most dutiful husband you are, Ser."

It isn't until their troops inevitably need to fall back to Oldtown two moons later that Gwayne gets to see his sweet lady wife again.

You've been waiting for this moment for so long, your heart hammering into your chest like a bird's wings as you see your husband's horse trot through the gates.

No one and nothing matters when you finally are cradled in Gwayne's arms, pressed to his steel-clad chest, sweet nothings whispered against your temple as your man peppers your warm skin with kisses of tenderness and longing.

Ser Criston looks away from the sight, scoffing. He knew the acclaimed Hightower heir was good for nothing but sweet presses of lips and warm embraces. Not even a kiss on the lips when greeting his lady wife? He should be ashamed to not bestow such gifts upon a gorgeous creature such as you.

Later, when the crowd had thinned and most knights were off to their sleeping arrangements, the Commander had to do one last search of their horses and supplies before calling it a night as well.

What Cole didn't think to find in the stables was Gwayne, on his knees, head squeezed between your thighs as he feasted on your cunt, moaning like a man starved, the sound muffled by the folds of your pussy.

The sight stopped Ser Criston dead in his tracks.

Ser Gwayne. Pious, dutiful, ever devoted to the faith, now sitting in the same position one would for prayer, but using his mouth not to plead to the Gods, but to bring his lady pleasure.

And what immense pleasure he did bring, for your hands were fisted in his auburn hair, tugging with intent, the demand for more crystal clear. You wanted more, smushing the knight into your heat, hips grinding against his face with abandon as you whined, trying to quiet the volume of your wantonness with your hand pressed to your mouth, but it was in vain. Nothing felt as good as your husband's tongue between your legs, only second to the feeling of his cock splitting you open.

"Yes, yes, my love, yes," fell from your ruddy lips, eyes glistening with unshed tears from how good Gwayne was making you feel. "I missed your mouth greatly," you lilted, fingers unrelenting as they weaved through your husband's hair, offering him respite from your rough insistence, petting him as you would an obedient hound as he continued to circle his tongue against your hole, the tip of his nose bumping against your clit. "Couldn't wait until we were together anew, husband."

All you got in return was another moan, unbashed and wet from the slick of your cunt against Gwayne's mouth, your words spurring him on, broad palms smoothing up your thighs to lift your skirts higher, bunching them at the waist, held in his fists. "My sweet wife," he babbled, flattening his tongue from hole to clit, parting your folds on the ascent. "The moons without your cunt have been dreadful," your knight says, words woven around a whine, lapping at the peeking nub between every word, kindling the heat in your lower belly. "Not being able to taste you each morrow left me wanting, even in times of battle and bloodshed."

Oh, what a debauched picture that was. Your dutiful husband, ever present when called to arms, thinking about worshipping between your legs as he swung his sword, falling enemies and stealing breath after breath from steel-clad men. The thought made you shiver, brushing auburn hair from Gwayne's temples to get a good look at those baby blues you so cherished, a dopey smile onto your lips as you whispered. "You must be cautious, my love," you chastised, albeit tenderly, running your fingers through his hair to soothe, hoping the ache for you had dwindled, if only a little. "Such thoughts might distract you, and then you might not come back to me."

Gwayne shook his head swiftly upon hearing your reprimand, leaning into your touch as a flower moves towards the sun, soaking up all its warmth down to the marrow. "Never," he protested, eyes widening, ever eager to prove his devotion to you. "I shall never fall to another man's sword, if it meant not seeing you again, sweetling," and he turns his face towards one of your palms, pressing a searing kiss upon the skin as he whispers. "That is my solemn vow."

You feel like your heart is going to burst out of your chest and splatter at your husband's feet from the earnestness of his promise, weaving warmth along your body, from your head down to your toes, a full-body gratefulness at having such allegiance offered to you.

"A vow you had upheld valiantly, my love," you praise, your hand shifting to cradle his jaw, thumb brushing against the plump of his bottom lip as you slowly tug him down, back towards your cunt, to which he allows without resistance. "One for which you shall have the prize you so dreamt of, even in bloodshed."

Gwayne's tongue lolls out as you guide his head, eager to have you on his palate again, eyes fluttering shut as the sweet musk of your pussy becomes more potent. It coaxed him to dip his chin so he could press his nose in damp curls and inhale deeply, exhaling a punched-out groan, as if he had forgotten the smell of you in the mere moments that had passed since he'd been tongue deep between your thighs.

"This cunt is a gift from the Gods, sweetling," he praises, mouth open and panting against your folds, just breathing you in lungful by lungful. "I wish I could have it with me on campaign," Gwayne continues, white-knuckling the skirts bunched at your waist, as if the imagery of such a thing wounds him. "Feast on it from morrow to dawn. Allow you to have my tongue whenever you please, my love."

You cannot help but moan at such a confession, fingers returning to his auburn strands to grip and tug, eliciting a muffled whine from your husband, whose tongue dipped between your folds anew, flicking at your clit on the upstroke, knowing how much you favoured it. "You're so good to me, husband," you coo, lips curling into a loving smile, holding your knight still by his hair as your hips resume their grinding, humping against Gwayne's awaiting tongue, using him for your pleasure.

And he loves it. Gods, does he love it. Blue eyes half-lidded, heated with love and lust as he only gives you more of it, poking his tongue as far as it would go for you to rub your clit against, moaning with each movement of your hips, bringing you even closer by the grip on your skirts.

"Oh, my sweet husband," you moan, feeling the heat tingling up your spine and pooling low in your belly with each wet swipe against your clit. "I can't wait to have your cock as well." The words are the opposite of pious, not at all what a lady wife should offer her betrothed, but you are past caring. "For your mouth feels heavenly, and still, I cannot wait to feel you inside me again."

The words melt and light Gwayne in equal measure, feeling his cock strain even harder against his breeches, hips kicking, rubbing himself along the seam of his pants in anticipation of what's to come. He nods, the motion making his tongue rub in rapid succession along your clit, the stimulation so delicious it makes you cry out, wanton and unbashed. Words fail him, the only thing that matters now being making you cum so he can sheathe himself into your pussy and have you milk him for all he's worth, like a prized stallion made for breeding.

It doesn't take long for your back to arch off of the hay bale you are lounging upon, Gwayne's name on your lips, your juices flowing down his tongue and chin, which your husband laps greedily. He has to stop the grind of his hips to not cum into his breeches like an untrained squire, even if the friction of his hard cock against the material of his pants feels heavenly.

He knows your pussy surpasses that by the thousands, which is why he forces himself to still the pathetic humping of his hips. It's only moments now until he'll be inside you, letting you catch your breath, pressing sweet, open-mouthed kisses to your inner thighs and behind your knees as he massages the muscle there, willing you pliant and lax for what's to come. "Thank you, sweetling. Gods, so pretty for me," he whispers against warm skin, reverent and grateful, mouth still wet with your slick. "Missed you so much. Never want to be away from you again. Never, never—"

Perhaps it's safe to assume that Ser Criston Cole will not utter a word about Gwayne and his lack of prowess anytime soon, after what he witnessed tonight.

you don't say anything, just lean back into your pillows and let him have this moment to himself. you know just what it means to him, know aerion will commit this to memory with the same sort of quiet devotion you've seen him treat you with for the past couple of years. you understand.

during the next few weeks after you bring her home, he'll watch her with a protectiveness that seems nearly exhausting. aerion sits up at three in the morning when he hears you bring your daughter to bed to feed her for the night, and the whole time he sits completely conscious beside you even as your eyelids start drooping and you keep startling out of sleep. you find him in the nursery in the middle of the night more often than not, and you stand by the doorway with an eye barely cracked open and watch him just stand there next to the crib like a dragon guarding his hoard.

"aerion, she's fine," you breathe tiredly. "come to bed."

aerion doesn't startle. he barely moves, just the slight movement of his pale head as he acknowledges your presence. "right, just making sure."

some nights, you don't say anything. you just linger by the door, not daring to make a sound as you listen to him cradle her crying form, pacing gently around the small room as he soothes her with a softness to his tone you've never heard aerion use with anyone before—not even you, definitely not his siblings either. the sheer absurdity of it makes you suddenly wide awake.

"shh, shh. don't cry, i'm here. daddy is here."

aerion carries his daughter everywhere and barely lets you hold her for more than a few minutes when you're out together. it's like he has this constant need to reassure himself that she's his, that he has something to hold and protect and guard for at least a couple of years now. he looks proud of it too, a smug little curl to his mouth when strangers that happen to pass by audible swoon over the litte thing and mumble that she looks just like him.

At last, Maekar wrote to Dorne. Your father was not the ruling prince, but from Lord Orran Martell, his brother. Close enough to matter, far enough to manoeuvre. When the letter reached him, he read it once, then again, then a third time, slower. Only then did he allow himself a smile.

The carriage carried the scent of cedar and dust, and the road behind you stretched longer with each turn of the wheels.

Your father had spoken plainly. No softening, no illusions. He laid out the value of the match, the reach it offered, the place it would secure. He spoke as he would to a man he trusted with consequence. That was his way of showing regard.

He did not pretend the groom was good. He did not ask you to pretend either.

You are strong enough for this, he had said. I would not send you otherwise.

He had expected hesitation, perhaps fear, but he had not found it.

You watched the land shift through the narrow window, red stone fading into green, dry air thickening with damp. The world changing in slow increments.

You turned the name over again and again, testing it.

Aerion Brightflame.

You had heard the Ashford story, of course, everyone had. The mercy of the hedge knight that some called wisdom and others called weakness. What stayed with you was not the cruelty itself, cruelty was common enough among men with power and power made men careless with other people.

I am no man, he had reportedly said. I am a dragon.

You found this almost amusing.

Not because it was foolish, though it was. Because it told you something useful. A man who believed himself a dragon was a man who had built his entire self upon a story. And stories had seams, they could be read, they could, if one were careful, be rewritten.

Maekar thought he was sending you to tame his son. You could feel it in the careful tone of his words, you could feel the hope through the careful diplomacy of his acceptance letter, which your father had allowed you to read. The prince wanted a strong wife for his son. A steady hand. Something that might anchor Aerion to the earth before he burned everything around him.

But you intended to do something more interesting than that.

The journey north gave you time, and you used it well. The rhythm of the road settled into your bones, wheels creaking, hooves striking dirt, the quiet murmur of voices beyond the curtains. Long hours where nothing changed except the light.

You let your thoughts arrange themselves without forcing them. That was how it always worked best. Piece by piece.

By the time you reached the Crownlands, the structure of your plan had taken shape. You named it: Seven Steps to Tame a Beast.

King's Landing announced itself in smell before sight, woodsmoke, salt, something sour beneath both. Too many people, too little space, all of it pressed together and left to simmer. The Red Keep rose above it all, pale stone against a dull sky. It looked less like a crown and more like something grown in the wrong place.

The reception was brief, formal and efficient.

Maekar received you himself. He stood solid and broad, the years written into his face in hard lines. His hair had gone mostly to silver. His eyes were sharp, searching, measuring. You held his gaze just long enough, then gave him courtesy and nothing more.

Aerion was not there, you noticed.

STEPT 1. Keep Your Distance from the Wild.

A wild creature does not welcome approach. Every movement is weighed, every sound judged. You do not step into its space uninvited. You do not reach. You watch. You learn the rhythm first. Where it rests. What startles it. What draws its attention and what it ignores. Rush, and it turns. Wait, and it forgets you are there.

You did not seek Aerion in those first days, even if it took some effort.

There were servants willing to arrange a meeting. Courtiers who offered, curiosity thinly veiled. You declined each time, politely, with reasons that could not be pressed. Fatigue, settling in, amild headache.

In truth, you were mapping him. You began where he could not avoid being seen.

Meals.

He sat very straight, almost too straight, not relaxed. Every movement placed with care, hands set just so. Shoulders squared. The stillness was deliberate, the kind that came from control, not comfort. He ate little. Drank more than he should, though he kept it from showing. His eyes moved often. Not restless. A sweep, measured, taking stock of the room without drawing attention to it. He noted everything.

He laughed twice in three days, both times it was wrong. Too quick, it stopped at his mouth and went no further. The men around him laughed as well, they always did. You watched them more than him in those moments. Watched how easily they bent to it. Mirrors, all of them, they gave him back what he wanted to see.

On the second day, a steward stumbled over a name. A small mistake, barely worth notice. But Aerion noticed. His jaw tightened, just once. A brief pause before he spoke, a fraction longer than natural. Then it passed, the steward went on, unaware. You did not miss it, he disliked error. Disliked imprecision. The world, in his mind, should hold its shape. When it did not, something in him bristled.

On the third day, there was a gathering. Music, wine, low voices. People playing at ease.

You took a place near the edge, beside a column. Your handmaid stood with you, quiet, unobtrusive. You spoke when required, smiled when expected, nothing more.

Aerion crossed the room twice. The first time, he did not look at you. The second time, he did. A brief glance, flat and measuring. The kind given to something not yet worth attention. You were already looking elsewhere when it happened. Your focus set just past him, as though he were incidental.

Still, you saw enough. The slight tension at his mouth, the way his gaze held for a breath, then moved on. He knew you were there. Of course he did, and he was not interested.

Good.

Interest that comes too easily is useless. It has no weight; it does not last. Curiosity had to be earned.

That night, you sat by the window and let the city settle into silence beneath you.

He was proud, that was obvious, but there was something under it. Control, carefully maintained. He was not as unrestrained as the stories suggested. It meant the outbursts were not constant. They built. Pressure, then release.

He was intelligent. More than most around him allowed. That kind of mind, left without challenge, turns inward. Finds its own amusements, not always good ones. He had been told he was exceptional for too long. Ordinary things no longer held him.

Boredom, then. Boredom as a spark.

You suspected he had never been met with anything real. Only reflections and performance. That would have to change. You drew your braid over your shoulder, thinking.

You were not satisfied. You never were, this early. But you understood the ground beneath your feet now. Where it dipped, where it held. You had not spoken to him yet; you had barely shared a room. And still, you were closer than anyone here knew.

The ceremony took place at dawn.

Black candles burned low, their smoke thick and sweet, curling into the corners of the chamber. The maester spoke in High Valyrian, his voice steady as he shaped words that had existed long before the Conquest. Pale light slipped through a narrow window, thin and colourless. Maekar stood off to the side, his posture rigid, his expression set in that familiar way of a man who no longer expected much in return for doing what was required.

Aerion arrived on time.

He was dressed as expected, red and black, pale hair brushed to the side. He took his place beside you without hesitation, carrying himself like a man waiting out an obligation he could not avoid. He did not fidget; he was too controlled to do so. Instead, he held still, composed to the point of absence, his attention drifting toward the candles now and then as if searching for something that was not there.

When the maester's words required it, he took your hand. His grip was exact, dry and cold. It lingered only as long as custom demanded, then released at once, as if he had touched something hot and withdrawn before the burn could catch.

You kept your gaze forward and before you let your mind move forward, it was over.

The feast was small and slightly mournful. The kind of gathering where people ate and spoke because it was expected, not because they wished to. The food was well prepared, the wine even more so. Conversation moved carefully, never quite settling.

You were seated beside Aerion.

He spent the early portion of the meal demonstrating how effortlessly he could ignore you. He spoke across you, around you, treating the space you occupied as if it had always been empty. It was not for your benefit, it was for the others, for himself, for the quiet need to show that nothing had changed.

During the second course, he turned his head slightly in your direction, just enough to acknowledge you without granting you the full courtesy of attention.

"You are quieter than I expected. I was told Dornish women always had opinions about everything."

It was not the sharpest thing he could have said. You suspected he was holding the sharper things in reserve, testing whether blunt instruments would serve before reaching for finer ones. You let your fingers rest on the stem of your cup before answering.

"We do," you said. "We simply learn early which conversations are worth having."

Then you returned to your plate.

The silence stretched. You could feel it tighten, like cloth pulled just a little too far. You did not look at him; you did not need to. Beside you, he drank, then turned away, letting the moment dissolve.

Across the table, Maekar was watching. When the music began, it was him who moved first. You saw the decision before he acted. He crossed the room with purpose and spoke low to Aerion. You did not hear the words, but you did not need to. There was no request in the exchange.

Aerion turned toward you. He extended his hand with slow precision, making absolutely certain that every person in the room understood this was costing him something.

"Will you honour me, dear wife," he said, the words shaped correctly, the tone less so.

You placed your hand in his.

The floor was not crowded. The other couples kept their distance, leaving a space around you that felt exposed rather than open. He danced well, you noted without surprise, he had been trained to do everything.

This close, you could see the pale sweep of his eyelashes, lighter than his hair, catching the faint light when he blinked. The depth of his lilac eyes was clearer up close, not just colour but something layered beneath it. He had two scars under his cheek, but his skin still looked almost unreal in its smoothness.

His hand at your waist was the same as his grip during the ceremony, measured, controlled, with no warmth.

“Let us understand one another,” he said, his voice low enough to remain private, though there was nothing intimate in it. "I did not want this. I want you to know that I know what my father intends by it, and I want you to know that it will not work."

You let the music carry you through a turn before answering.

“I know you did not want it," you said. "I did not ask for your wanting. I asked for nothing at all, if you recall.”

"You will want things eventually. All wives do."

"Perhaps." You met his gaze briefly, then let it drift past him. "But I did not come here to want things from you, Aerion. I came because the arrangement was made, and I do not refuse an arrangement simply because it is inconvenient."

His hand tightened slightly at your waist, not painfully, but enough to notice.

"You think you can manage me." he said almost curious.

"I think, that they have been trying to manage you your whole life." you said. "And it has not served you much. I am not interested in managing you. I am interested in being your wife. That means I will keep this household in order, I will hold my place properly, and I will do what is required of me. Whether you choose to be part of that is yours to decide."

Another turn as the music continued.

"But I will be here," you added, quieter now. "That part is not negotiable."

He said nothing after that, but you did not mistake the silence for agreement.

Your chambers had been prepared with careful attention as expected. The fire lit, the bed done, everything arranged with quiet precision. You dressed for the night and sat near the hearth with a book open in your lap, though you were not reading.

You waited but he did not come.

The fire burned low. The sounds of the city shifted beyond the walls, settling into the deeper quiet of night. Somewhere, the watch called the hour and you closed the book.

You were not offended; you were not disappointed. You had already known Aerion would rather spend his wedding night in a brothel.

You extinguished the candle by the window and watched the room fall into shadow.

STEPT 2. Become a Familiar Shape.

Constant presence, always at the same distance, without sudden change. Given time, you stop being something to watch for. You become part of the world itself.

In the days that followed, you made yourself ordinary. It took more care than it appeared. True ordinariness had to be consistent. Too much absence would be noticed. Too much presence would draw the eye. You chose your places and kept to them. The great hall in the morning, a corridor near the training yard in the afternoon, a chair by the window in the library, once, where you read for two hours without lifting your head when he entered.

You did not seek him out and you did not avoid him. You were simply there. Aerion noticed.

At first, it was nothing clear. A pause when he entered a room and found you already in it. A shift in his attention, brief and controlled. The smallest recalculation. He had expected something from you. You could see it in what he did not find. No coldness, no wounded pride, no performance at all.

You gave him nothing to work with. Three days after the wedding, he passed you on the library and spoke to you for the first time since the feast.

“I trust you slept well. I confess I cannot say the same for the woman I spent the night with. She complained I kept her awake until dawn.”

You stopped reading and looked up at him.

“Kept her awake, or kept her waiting?” you asked, tilting your head slightly. “There is a difference, I find, between a man who exhausts a woman and a man who simply prevents her from sleeping. One leaves her satisfied. The other leaves her staring at the ceiling." A brief pause. “From what I have heard of you, I suspect she saw rather more of the ceiling than she would have liked.”

You walked away with your book before he could answer.

You had learned early that a voice could betray a person faster than any blade. Most people used it badly. They made it loud when they wanted to be heard, sharpened it when they wanted to cut. They filled it with weight and urgency, as if force alone could make something true. Your father had taught you otherwise. In his solar, he spoke with the same measured evenness whether he was discussing grain yields or deciding a man's fate. A voice that only rises when threatened, he had told you once, is a voice that teaches people when you can be threatened.

You remembered that.

STEP 3. Let It Hear You Before It Sees You.

A calm voice, used often, without command. No edge to it, no sudden movement tied to the sound. The creature learns the voice first, without reason to fear it. Given time, the sound settles into the background. Familiar, expected, something it turns toward without quite knowing why.

So, you began to speak.

The first time was nothing. A grey morning, the stone still holding the night’s cold. Aerion walked the corridor outside the great hall with two of his usual companions, and you were walking alone, and there was no reason to say anything, silence would have served just as well, would in fact have required less effort, but you spoke anyway.

“The easternmost courtyard is iced over this morning,” you said as you went by. “If you are riding, the south gate will be quicker.”

You did not look at him as you said it. You did not look back after.

Behind you, there was a brief silence, and then the low sound of his companions resuming their conversation. You could not tell if he had answered, it did not matter. The point was the sound itself, your voice, steady, offering something useful and nothing more, left behind in his morning like a small, ordinary fact.

You did this again two days later. And again, after that.

An observation about the kitchens. A remark about a particular courier who had been delayed. Once, on the stairs, a quiet comment about a book you carried, spoken into the space without asking for anything in return.

He said nothing the first time. The second time, he gave you a look, the same one you had seen before, sharp and narrow, weighing, deciding whether what it saw was worth the trouble of attention. The third time, he answered, briefly, as if the words had slipped out before he could stop them.

You counted this as exactly what it was, progress.

The friction came eventually. Midday meal, smaller than the evening gatherings, the kind where people allowed themselves to speak a little more freely. You were seated across from Aerion rather than beside him, which meant you had the less comfortable position of being visible to him rather than adjacent.

He had been in a particular mood all morning. You had seen it earlier, out in the courtyard. A tightness in the way he held himself, a coiled irritation that suggested some earlier conversation had not gone as he'd wished. He kept it contained, but it showed in small places. The set of his shoulders, the way his gaze lingered a fraction too long.

Halfway through the meal, he looked at you directly.

“I saw you speaking with the hedge knight this morning. The boy could barely look at you.”

“Ser Duncan,” You corrected, “Could barely look at anyone,” you said. “He has learned that drawing attention to himself is dangerous. A useful instinct, when one lives in a dangerous environment.”

Around the table, the shift was immediate. Eyes moved away, shoulders shifted, someone found their cup suddenly very interesting. No one wanted to be part of whatever this was.

Aerion's mouth curved, but not warmly.

“You say that as an observation. I wonder if you mean it as a criticism.”

“I mean it as neither.” You set down your knife. “A knight who flinches is a knight who has learned what happens when he does not. That tells you something about where he lives.” You looked at him steadily. “The more interesting question is what it tells you about yourself.”

“I am not in the habit of concerning myself with knights anymore.”

“No,” you said. “But you might concern yourself with the fact that a man who fears you will serve you only as long as he must. Fear is a short leash, and the moment it slackens, the moment you turn your back, a frightened man will not think of loyalty. He will think of himself.” You picked up your knife again. "Respect holds longer. It is less satisfying, I imagine, but considerably more reliable."

The table was very quiet.

Aerion's expression did not change, which was its own kind of change, in the vocabulary you had spent weeks building. The muscles around his jaw held with a precision that was not natural stillness. He was choosing his next words with more care than usual, which meant the previous ones had landed somewhere he had not expected them to reach.

“You speak as though I require your counsel,” he said almost thoughtful.

“I speak because the observation seemed worth making,” you said. “What you do with it is your own concern.”

You returned to your meal.

He said nothing more. But he did not look away for a longer moment than was comfortable, and when he finally did, it was not with a quick dismissal, it was with adjustment.

In the library, three days later, you found him already there when you arrived.

This was unusual. Aerion was not, in your observation, a man who spent mornings in libraries by preference. You entered anyways and took the chair you usually took, near the far window, which had the best light and a view of the inner yard, and opened the book you had brought.

For a time, neither of you spoke. The fire cracked softly. From outside came the steady rhythm of steel on steel, practice in the yard below.

“The Celtigar boy.”

You did not look up immediately. You marked your page, then lifted your eyes.

“The one my father is considering for a trade agreement,” he went on. “You spoke with him yesterday.”

“Briefly.” you said.

“He is not what he presents.” There was something restrained in the way he said it. Irritation, perhaps, or reluctance, as though the act of asking you something, or almost asking you something, cost him more than he was willing to fully account for.

You studied him for a moment. “No,” you agreed. “He is not. His family's debts are larger than they've admitted, and his uncle's position in the city has been weakening for two years. The trade agreement would favour him considerably more than it would favour the crown.

Aerion's eyes moved over your face, his gaze precise.

“You gathered that from a brief conversation.”

“From the conversation, and from the days before it,” you said. “People show where the pressure is, if you pay attention.”

A pause.

“My father should know,” he said.

“He should,” you agreed. “I thought you might be the appropriate person to tell him.”

You let that rest between you without elaboration, the implicit suggestion that this was a useful thing, that you were offering it to him rather than taking the credit for it, that you were treating him as someone worth offering useful things to. You did not dress it in sentiment. You did not soften it into a gesture. You simply left it there, plainly, for him to take or ignore as he chose.

He chose to take it. Not gratefully, not with any acknowledgment of the exchange's nature. He simply gave a short, almost inaudible sound of agreement and turned back to his book.

You had met, in your life, exactly three people who understood the particular discipline of the open hand.

Your father was one of them. A merchant woman in Sunspear who had built a trading empire from a single stall was another. The third was a maester who had served your household for eleven years and who had, in that time, quietly accumulated more influence over its workings than anyone with an official title. None of them had achieved what they achieved through force, or through the performance of authority. They had achieved it through the same mechanism, over and over, they gave things away, then let them go.

STEP 4. Offer Without Expectation.

Something of value left within reach, knowledge, advantage, ease. Then you step back. You do not insist. You do not demand. You do not watch too closely. The creature must come to the thing on its own terms, or the thing carries the smell of a trap. Patience here is not passive. It is the most active thing you can do, the discipline of the open hand, extended and then stilled, asking nothing, waiting without the tension of waiting.

You began small, that was where patterns took hold.

The first thing was almost accidental, simple enough to pass unnoticed.

Over weeks, you had seen how Aerion’s mornings turned. When his correspondence waited in disorder, something in him tightened. It was a small irritation, but it spread, it created a particular friction that compounded into the broader texture of his day. His steward handled it unevenly, some days careful, others careless.

You said nothing about this to anyone.

Instead, you mentioned to the steward’s assistant, a young man called Pell, anxious and observant. You mentioned once, that mornings that begin clean tend to stay that way, as though sharing a general philosophy, and then you moved on.

Next day, the letters were sorted before Aerion reached his study. You were nowhere near him when he noticed. You were in the eastern courtyard, the air sharp enough to sting your throat, walking slow circles over frost-hardened ground.

The second offering was more direct, and more deliberate.

The previous night, you had lingered in the great hall long enough to catch a conversation not meant for you. Two of Maekar’s advisors, careless in their angle, speaking of the Plumm family, a loan, a disputed inheritance, a claim that had the potential to become inconvenient for the crown if left unaddressed. The kind of thing that moved slowly until it did not.

You wrote it down, simply a single sheet of paper, placed beneath a volume you had observed Aerion taking from the library shelves twice in the past fortnight, angled just so, easily visible to someone reaching for the book.

You were gone before he arrived, you did not check if it had been taken. This was the discipline, the open hand, and then the stillness.

He found you in the corridor outside the great hall two days later. The way he approached told you enough, straight line, no hesitation, you knew the paper had been found and used.

“The Plumm family matter,” he said. “My father addressed it this morning. He mentioned information that reached him through unusual channels.”

“Did he.” you said.

“He did not know the source.” A pause. “I did.”

You met his gaze, nothing more. “Anyone listening could have heard it,” you said. “I assumed it was worth noting.”

“You assumed,” he repeated sceptical. “And the assumption led you to leave an unsigned document in a place you knew I would find it, rather than simply speaking to me, or to my father directly.”

“Speaking to your father directly would have made it mine to claim. It seemed more useful for it to be yours.” You said, you were well aware that he needed to slowly gain his father’s trusts again.

“You expect me to believe you want nothing in return.” He said.

“I expect nothing from you,” you replied. “I noticed something that seemed relevant to your interests. I noted it where you could find it. That is all.”

He studied you for a long moment, measuring again, then stepped past you without another word. You turned in the opposite direction and continued walking.

The pattern continued.

Days filled with small things, each one easy to miss on its own. A map left open to the right page before a meeting. A quiet word to a knight whose behaviour toward Aerion had been developing a particular insolence. Not a warning, only a reminder of how quickly favour could turn. The knight corrected himself. Aerion noticed the change; you were reasonably certain he had chosen not to address it directly.

During a meal he caught you refilling his cup before the servant reached it, an automatic gesture, barely conscious, and he watched your hand as you set the jug down.

“You do not behave like someone who dislikes me,” he said.

“I am not certain I dislike you,” you said, truthfully. “I have not yet seen enough of you to decide.”

“You have been living in the same castle for a month.”

“So, my husband has taken to keeping track now?” you said, a light note of teasing slipping in despite yourself. You lifted your cup and took a slow sip, letting the taste of the wine linger as a small, knowing smile curved at the corner of your mouth.

He exhaled through his nose, not quite a scoff he meant to share. He didn’t answer. His gaze lingered, a fraction too long to be careless, as if he were trying to smooth over something that had caught him off guard. There was a faint tension in his face, in the set of his jaw and the stillness of his shoulders, the sort of thing that suggested he was trying very hard not to let any hint of embarrassment show.

Later you noticed he took the map you left on his desk. Maekar’s manner afterward told you enough, less strain and more thought behind his words when he spoke to his son.  Aerion did not mention it and you did not either.

The absence of acknowledgment said what it needed to. He would take what was useful, he would not name the source. Pride held that line, but still, he had used it. He had accepted the offering, even reluctantly, even silently. That mattered more.

Which meant the distance was slowly shrinking.

He came to your chambers late on a Thursday, when the castle had settled into its quieter rhythm and the corridors carried only the distant steps of the watch.

You sat at your vanity, drawing the brush through your hair in slow, even strokes, winding you down toward sleep. Your sleeping gown was light, meant for the warmth of the room and the privacy of it, nothing more. Your hair hung loose, longer than it appeared when pinned, falling across your shoulders in a way that belonged to a version of yourself you did not generally allow the castle to see.

The door opened without warning, but you did not turn.

You watched him through the mirror instead. It gave you a clearer view than facing him outright. He stepped inside, then paused when he saw you, or the version of you caught in the glass. Something flickered across his face, quick and unguarded, before he shut it down.

You kept brushing your hair.

He crossed the room at an unhurried pace. No sudden movement, no sign of haste, still, there was weight in it. He stopped behind your chair and rested both hands on its back. In the mirror, his eyes met yours directly, without the usual angle or distance.

You held his gaze and continued the brush stroke to its end.

The silence lasted several seconds. In the mirror you watched him watching you. The loose hair, the gown, the particular version of you that belonged to this room and this hour, and you watched him notice that he was watching, and tighten slightly around it.

“I have been really patient with you,” he said at last, his voice low. “I have watched you move through this household for weeks. The documents, the steward, the arrangements that appear before I ask for them.” A pause. “No one does this without a ledger. Show me yours.”

“I told you I keep no ledger,” you said.

“Everyone keeps a ledger.” The words came sharper now. “Whether they admit it or not.”

You set the brush down on the vanity and folded your hands in your lap, and looked at his reflection. The candle shifted, and for a moment the light caught him differently in the mirror. The closeness of him. The space between you that had narrowed without either of you naming it.

“You are angry,” you said. “Not because you think I want something from you. You are angry because you cannot determine what it is, and that distinction is troubling you more than you would like to admit.”

His grip tightened slightly on the chair, his frown deepened. “Do not tell me what troubles me.”

“Then tell me yourself.” You said. “You came here and opened that door without knocking. If you have something to say, say it plainly.”

“What you have offered me,” he said, and this time the control thinned, sharpened into something colder, “is the manner of a woman who wants something. The oldest trick there is. Every woman I have met wanted things. Every woman in this castle wants things. You-” and here something almost contemptuous entered his voice, directed less at you than at his own inability to solve you “-stand there with your quiet gestures and your useful information and expect me to believe it costs you nothing, that you want nothing from me.”

“I told you I expect nothing from you,” you said, for the second time in your acquaintance “Which is not the same as wanting nothing.”

His eyes narrowed slightly. For a moment, his gaze dipped, catching on the fall of your hair over your shoulder, the line of your neck in the candlelight, before returning to your reflection with more force than before.

“Then what do you want,” he said lowly, moving a strand of your hair behind your ear.

You watched him for a moment. The tension in his shoulders. The way he held himself still, as if movement might betray him. The closeness of him, the warmth of it at your back.

“To see you for what you truly are,” you said, now turning around to look up at him. “When no one is performing fear at you.”

The room went quiet.

He did not move at once. His hands remained on the chair, though you felt the subtle shift in them, the restraint in it. His breathing changed, barely, but enough to notice. His gaze stayed on yours, searching now in a way it had not before.

Then he straightened. His hands lifted from the chair with care, as if he had to think about the motion before making it. He held your gaze for a moment longer, something unreadable passing through it. Then he turned and left.

The door closed with a loud thud behind him.

You looked back at your reflection in the glass. The room holding a trace of him still, something unsettled in the air. You reached for the brush and finished what you had started.

A man like Aerion did not adjust. He did not take pressure and reshape himself around it. His world ran on confirmation, on power answered with submission, on a rhythm that reassured him of his place in it. You had been interfering with that rhythm since the morning you arrived. Quietly, consistently, without giving him anything he knew how to answer.

A disruption like that never passed without consequence.

STEP 5. Survive the First Test of Teeth.

Before any bond forms, there is a test. A feint of violence, a warning, a measure of what you are made of. Not always meant to hurt, but whether to see of you will break or bite back. If you do, is over.

You held this thought in the quiet of your morning as you dressed carefully and went about your day.

The argument started in the corridor outside his study, late in the afternoon, when the light came through the western windows, catching dust in the air, turning it gold. You had passed him with the usual moderate acknowledgment, not ignoring him, not seeking him, the same distance you had maintained for weeks, and he had stopped walking.

“You were in my father's solar this morning,” he said.

“I was,” you said. “He asked my opinion on a correspondence from the Arbor.”

“He asked your opinion on that matter,” Something tightened in his face. “Instead of asking me?”

“He did.”

“You have been very busy these days,” he said, “Making yourself useful, to my father, to every corner of this household except the one that is actually your concern.”

“You are my concern,” you said. “Which is precisely why I do not sit waiting for you to need something."

“I do not need anything from you.”

“No,” you agreed. “You have made that very clear last time we discussed. And yet here we are, having this conversation, which you initiated.”

He turned and walked into his study. Not an invitation, but not a dismissal either, and you followed because the conversation was unfinished.

“You think you are very clever,” he said, moving behind his desk, putting wood and distance between you, like it might help him sort what he could not name.

“I think I am.” you said defiantly.

“You think,” he said, and the voice had dropped into its most dangerous register. “That you can arrange yourself into something that suits you, move pieces across a board you were not invited to play on, smile at my father in his solar, look at me like that, and that none of it will have a cost.”

“I have never believed anything is without cost.” you said.

“Then if you are so clever, you should have calculated more carefully.” He stepped past you, toward the door. “You will remain in this room until I say otherwise.” The words came out with anger and the door shut behind him.

You stood in the centre of the room for a moment. Then you moved to his chair, behind his desk, and sat in it, and looked at the documents arranged across the surface, and began, with the unhurried attention, to read them.

Three days later, in the great hall. You had not sought Ser Duncan out specifically. You had spoken with him before, briefly, like with most people in the Keep, and found him to be earnest, possessing more native intelligence than his manner suggested. He was easy to be around. You were in the middle of an unremarkable conversation about the road conditions north of King's Landing, he had travelled them recently, and you had asked a practical question. You felt the shift before you saw him.

A hand settled at your waist. Firm, claiming, meant to be seen, his fingers pressing into the fabric of your dress. Ser Duncan's expression went still, not quite discomfort and not quite confusion.

“My wife,” Aerion said. “I was looking for you.”

Duncan inclined his head and stepped back. You kept your expression exactly as it had been. Aerion’s gaze lingered on you, then flicked once toward the knight, measuring, assembling something he did not like. The hall had gone quiet.

“Is this a game to you,” he said under his breath. An accusation that had the shape of a question.

“No,” you said.

“Then what is it.” He moved in front of you. “What are you doing with the hedge knight-” He stopped, jaw tightening. “Are you provoking me, deliberately.”

“I was having a conversation about road conditions,”

“Do not.” His voice dropped further. “Do not use that voice with me.”

“Which voice would you prefer then? One where I lie?”

“You know,” he said quietly, to you, only to you. “What he did to me.”

“I know what happened at Ashford,” you said, equally quietly. “As does most of the kingdom-”

The struck came fast. Mid-sentence, mid-breath, in front of the hall and the fire and Ser Duncan's suddenly rigid stillness. The back of his hand across your cheek with a force that turned your head and produced a sound that silenced the nearest conversations.

You straightened. You did not touch your face. You did not look at Duncan, who you could feel in your peripheral vision. You looked at Aerion, directly, steadily, with the same expression you had worn in the study, and you said nothing at all.

His jaw was tight and the hall was watching it all. He gripped your wrist, hard, the mark already beginning, and turned toward the corridor, and you went with him because the scene that would result from not going would cost you more.

In your chambers, he released you without a word and left. The door shut and the lock clicked.

You sat by the window. The light had shifted, pale now, moving slowly across the stone. You looked at your wrist, at the faint marks forming. You were not afraid and you were not angry, so you waited with patience.

Maekar went to Aerion that same evening, of course he did. No one told you outright, but you knew before a word reached you. The servant who came to open your chamber door avoided your eyes, her hands slower than usual on the latch. Raised voices, you guessed. Maekar did not shout often, but when he did, it carried. Aerion would have been made to stand there and take it. For the insult. For making a spectacle of his own wife. For stepping, once again, where he had been warned not to. You could almost hear it. The sharp edge of Maekar’s restraint, the threat beneath it.

You let out a slow breath. This would not help. It would tighten something in Aerion, push him further into himself before it loosened anything at all.

He did not return that night, or the next.

On the third, you woke to the sound of your door.

The room was dark, the fire long since reduced to coals and a faint red glow. The kind of hour when even the castle seemed to pause, caught between one watch and the next. You lay still for a moment, listening to the sounds that followed the door, unsteady footsteps, the sounds of a man navigating a familiar space with less precision than usual.

You had smelled the wine, thick and sour on the air, and something else beneath it, cheap perfume and sweat. You had passed enough doorways in this city to know it came from a brothel.

He moved through the dark toward the bed with care that bordered on effort. Not quite stumbling, but close. You lay still with your eyes not quite closed and your breathing steady and you watched him through your lashes.

He stopped at the bedside. For a moment, he only looked at you.

He was less put together than you had ever seen him, his hair dishevelled, collar open, his clothes carrying the evidence of hours spent in places this castle was not and had not bothered to hide it well. His gaze moved over you, slower than usual, lingering in places he would have ignored in daylight. There was anger in it. That much you knew. But there was something else tangled into it, something the drink had loosened.

Then his hand shot out and closed around your throat.

The force of it drove the breath from you before you could think. His grip was sure, fingers settling with a familiarity that made it worse. The ceiling tilted as your body reacted, instinct rising fast and sharp. His face was above yours, close, and it was not the face of a man in full command of himself. His eyes were bright, unfocused in a way that had nothing to do with the dark. His grip tightened.

You felt the tightness clearly, the pressure at your windpipe, the pulse hammering under his hand. The animal instinct toward struggle that rose in you like a tide and that you identified and still you did not move.

And then, quietly, helplessly, from somewhere underneath the shock and the constriction and the absolute clarity of your own danger, you laughed. Not loudly. Not mockingly. Not shaped for him, not meant for anything at all. It simply came, as if your body had found something in the moment that did not fit the rest of it. Simply absurd and honest and almost intimate in its desperation.

The sound of it, barely audible, stopped him completely.

His hand did not leave your throat, but it stopped tightening. His expression shifted, confusion cutting through whatever had driven him here.

“What are you-” he said. It came out raw, his voice rough, stripped of its usual control. “What are you doing, what are you doing to me.”

You said nothing. You held his eyes in the dark and did not struggle, you did not look away.

“I hate you,” he said. The words came out flat, almost tired, like a confession.“I hate what you do. I hate that I cannot-.” His voice broke across the unfinished sentence. “I cannot find the edges of you. I cannot-.”

His grip loosened, fractionally, and then fractionally more.

Something in his face gave way. The control slipped, not all at once, but enough. His shoulders dipped, the tension draining in uneven pieces. Something beneath the surface rising without permission. His forehead dropped, his weight shifted, and then, with the slow, helpless gravity of exhaustion, he leaned against your chest, his hands still loosely at your throat, his body giving what his pride would not. Choked sobs forming on the back of his throat as his shoulders trembled.

You lay still beneath him. The room held its silence. No voices in the corridor, no movement beyond the walls. Only the weight of him, and the strange, unguarded vulnerability he had not allowed himself before.

Carefully, you lifted your hand. Slow and measured. The way one moves around something that might startle.

He felt the motion before you completed it.

He pulled back at once. Your hand knocked aside, not gently, but not the way he had struck you before either, with less force and more reflex. He was off the bed and standing before you had fully processed the movement, and the reassembly was happening in real time, you could watch it, the walls going up stone by stone, the expression reorganizing, the posture recovering its usual architecture.

He did not look at you as he wiped his tears with the back of his hand, and left.

You lay in the dark for a long time after the door closed. Your throat ached. When you touched it, you could feel where his fingers had pressed, the marks already forming under the skin. You let your hand fall back to the bed. You had survived the teeth.

There is a particular kind of silence that follows a storm.

It is not peace, peace settles. This waits, it hangs over what is left, thin and watchful, as if the ground itself is deciding whether anything will take root again. You lived in that silence for six days. You ate in it, walked the corridors in it, spoke when required and otherwise let it sit around you, like weather that refused to move on.

Aerion was never where you were. Not once, not even by accident.

You noticed the pattern the way you noticed everything else. He left rooms when you entered them, not with obvious avoidance, but with quiet efficiency, but avoiding something nonetheless, something that he had not yet decided how to face. The corridors he had habitually used became corridors he did not use. The hours he had kept became hours he abandoned.

Like he was afraid of you. Not in the way people feared harm. In the way they feared being seen too clearly.

STEP 6. Allow Contact on Its Terms.

The first touch is not taken, it is allowed. A still hand. No pressure. No attempt to hold or redirect or claim. The creature must choose the contact, or the contact means nothing. It is the most fragile moment in the entire sequence the one where everything that has been built can collapse in a single wrong movement. Patience here is not strategy. It is something closer to faith, the belief that what has been established is enough to bear weight, if the weight is placed gently enough.

You dressed with care that seventh night, with a specific kind of nightgown your hair loose again, and went to him.

His chambers were deeper in the keep than yours, further from the outer walls, further from the sounds of the city, the kind of rooms that held heat and shadow in equal measure. The door was heavy. The light beneath it was the particular amber of firelight rather than candle, which meant he was awake and the hour was not the reason.

You did not knock.

The room was larger than you had expected, and sparser. There were maps on one wall, detailed ones, and a writing table covered with papers that had the disordered quality of work abandoned mid-thought. A shelf of books, several displaced at a specific angle with care. On a low table near the window, a cup and a flagon, mostly empty. The fire was high, built up more than the room's warmth required, the kind of fire you build when you want something to look at.

He was standing before it.

He turned when you entered, and the firelight caught his face in a way that daylight had never been permitted to. His eyes carried the particular redness that came not from drink but from something that had happened before the drink. His shoulders, which were always exact, held themselves with an effortful maintenance, but it took effort to keep it that way.

You closed the door behind you. The latch caught with a sound that was very small in the quiet.

“You should not be here,” he said.

“Probably,” you agreed. You did not move further into the room yet. You stood near the door and looked at him across the firelit space between you and said “What is wrong.”

“Nothing that concerns you.” He turned back to the fire. The set of his shoulders said the conversation was over, but the fact that he had not told you to leave said something else.

You crossed the room.

Slowly, without purpose written into the movement. You stopped beside him. Not close enough to require acknowledgment, not far enough to be a withdrawal, and you looked at the fire.

Neither of you spoke.

The fire crackled, wood settled with a low crack, and you waited.

A minute passed, then another. The fire shifted, settling lower in the grate, and in the new configuration of light you saw it, brief, barely visible. A single track of tears, catching firelight, at the corner of his jaw.

You did not look at it directly.

“Aerion,” you said.

“My father-.” he began, and then stopped, like the words had caught on something.

You let the silence hold.

“He saw,” he said with flatness. “The marks on your neck. He saw them. Someone spoke of what happened at the hall too.” His jaw tightened. “He made himself very clear.”

“How clear,” you said.

“In all his wisdom, has threatened me, again, to send me into exile.” The word sat between you. Heavy enough on its own. “He called it a last chance. He has called it that before.” Something crossed his voice that was not quite bitterness. “The words had begun to lose their meaning, but it felt too serious now”

You turned to look at him then.

He was still facing the fire, but the profile of him had changed. The structure of his expression had begun to crack. Not enough for others to notice but enough for you. He looked, in the firelight, less like the man who had locked you in his study and struck you in the great hall and more like something earlier than that, rawer and less certain and considerably more alone.

You reached out. Slowly, with the deliberateness you had promised yourself, no force, no urgency, no claim. Your hand found his and held it with the lightness of something offered rather than taken.

He looked down at it.

“I should have covered the marks better,” you said. “I misjudged the consequence. That was my error, and I am sorry for it.”

“That is not-.” He stopped; his hand had not moved. “That is not what this is about.”

And he pulled away fast. Almost startled by it. With the sudden, electric motion of something that has allowed contact and immediately regretted the allowing. He stepped back, something sharp and unsteady in his eyes.

“Do not,” he said, and the word came out wrong, cracked across the middle of it. “Do not do that. Do not stand there and apologize and take my hand and look at me like-.” He stopped again, breath uneven. “Like there is something worth-.” He stopped again. His hands had closed into fists at his sides and he was breathing with effort. “You do not know what I am.”

“I know what you have done,” you said.

“Then you know enough.” He turned away. “You know I hurt people. You know I cannot-.” His voice fractured. He pressed on through it. “I cannot stop myself… there is something wrong with me. There has always been something wrong with me and everyone who has come close enough to see it leaves or breaks. And you are here, in this room, at this hour, and I do not-.” He stopped.

The fire was the only sound.

“I am a beast,” he said, very quietly. Tears running free down his cheeks. “That is what I am. That is all I am.”

You looked at him for a long moment.

“You are a man,” you said, “who has been told a story about himself for so long that he has stopped questioning whether it is the only story available.”

“It is not a story. It is evidence of everything I have done.”

“Evidence can be read in more than one direction,” you said. 

“Do not make me into something I am not.”

“I am not making you into anything.” You held his gaze. “I am telling you that what you are is not to be fixed. That the thing you have been, it is not the only version of you that exists. And that-.” You paused, because the next words required accuracy, and accuracy required care. “You matter to me. Not the prince, not the name. You. What is underneath all of this. That matters to me.”

The room was absolutely still.

He looked at you with an expression you had no entry for in the vocabulary you had built of him, something unguarded, almost frightened, like he has been handed something he does not know how to hold and is not certain he can afford to drop.

Then something gave way.

Not loudly. Not all at once. His breath shifted. His shoulders dropped. Whatever he had been holding together slipped. His breathing changed. You did not move toward him, but you did not need to.

He crossed the remaining distance himself without thinking about it, and then his forehead was against your shoulder and his hands were at your sides without grip, without force, simply present, and he was not making a sound but you could feel the shaking of him and the wetness against the fabric of your nightgown and the weight of him.

You stood very still.

You did not put your arms around him. You did not make any movement that could be felt as claiming. You simply held yourself and let him use it, and the fire burned lower as he came apart quietly against your shoulder without asking permission and without being asked to stop.

You did not know how long it lasted. Long enough.

You raised your hand slowly, slowly enough that he could have pulled away again, enough to be refused, and brought your fingers to his hair.

It was shorter than it looked. Silver-pale and fine, the kind of hair that carried light rather than colour, and beneath your fingertips it was softer than you had anticipated. You drew your hand through it once, carefully, from the crown of his head down to the nape of his neck, where the hair ended and the skin began, warm and taut over the column of his spine.

He did not move away.

He leans into your touch involuntarily, as if starved for contact. His eyes flutter shut, a shudder running through him at the simple gesture. It's a chink in his armour, a crack in the façade he has built around himself. He hates how good it feels, how desperately he craves your gentleness, like something that had been starved for so long it had forgotten the word for hunger until the smell of food arrived. He hates that it's you, a woman he has dismissed as a nuisance, a distraction.

You kept your hand still at the nape of his neck and waited until the tension in him eased, just a little, then you took his hand. He did not resist the guiding.

That told you more than anything else had. Aerion Brightflame, who resisted everything, who turned even small things into contests, let himself be guided across the room, no argument, no pause. Just the quiet, spent compliance of someone who had nothing left to push with.

You lay down and he lay beside you.

For a moment he remained on his back, staring upward, and you could feel the effort in him, his composure still running even now, still attempting to impose order on something that had moved past the reach of order.

Then, slowly, as if testing each inch of the movement, allowing himself permission one fraction at a time, he moved closer. His head found your chest. His arms came around your waist, and the grip that followed was not gentle exactly, it had too much need in it for gentleness, but it was not aggression either, it was anchoring.

“Don't mistake this for weakness,” he muttered, eyes fixed somewhere above you, studying something very far away. “Or tenderness.” A pause. “I merely refuse to let my father's words haunt me alone tonight.”

“All right,” you said.

You brought one hand up to his hair again. The same movement, slow, unhurried, from crown to nape and back, repeated with the consistency of something that asked nothing in return. Your other hand rested against his back, barely any pressure at all.

The fire had burned low and the room was mostly shadow.

“If you much as breathe a word of this to anyone,” he murmured into your chest, his voice rough but stripped of its usual edge, “I'll deny it until my last breath.” His arms tightened slightly, involuntarily. “Stay with me tonight… please.”

“I'm not going anywhere,” you said.

As the night went on, Aerion slowly succumbed to sleep. Something about being held, about your gentle touch, brought a peace he had rarely known. He did not dream of dragons or conquests, for once. His sleep was free of the constant restlessness that usually plagued him. He burrowed into your chest, unconsciously seeking more of your warmth, of your presence.

You lay awake longer than he did. Not from discomfort, too much to process, lying in the dark with their thoughts arranged in rows like objects after a flood.

His breathing had changed, his weight against you had changed. The man who had come apart was now simply sleeping. With his face against your chest and his silver hair tickling your collarbone and his arms loosely maintaining their hold even in sleep, the grip eased to something that felt closer to a choice rather than necessity.

You ran your hand through his hair one more time, very slowly. He made a small sound, low and entirely unconscious, and pressed closer.

You looked at the ceiling for a long time and eventually, sleep took you too.

The room was in the grey-dark of late night, not yet dawn, but the black had thinned to something softer. His breathing had changed again; he was watching you.

His breath caught as he took in the sight of you, soft, vulnerable, beautiful in the unguarded way of sleeping things. A strange warmth curled in his chest, foreign and unsettling. He hesitated. His fingers twitched toward your hair, as if to brush a stray lock from your face, then stopped. He scowled at himself, at this weakness. But the scowl faltered when his gaze lingered on the way your lashes rested against your cheeks, the rise and fall of your breath.

Slowly, carefully, he shifted closer, draping an arm over your waist as if claiming you, not with arrogance, but with something dangerously close to possessiveness. His lips pressed against your temple in a fleeting, uncharacteristically tender kiss.

You opened your eyes. The ceiling was grey above you. Beside you, or rather, around you, Aerion had stilled, as if caught in the act of something he had not meant to do.

“Is something wrong?” you asked quietly.

He cleared his throat, his thumb idly tracing circles on your skin, trying for normalcy, trying to ignore the way his stomach twisted at your proximity.

“Are you comfortable?”he asked.

“Yes,” you said. You turned your head slightly to look at him. “Are you?”

He gave a noncommittal hum, not meeting your gaze. The truth was he had slept better than he had in years, but he was not about to say so. That would imply weakness. He shifted slightly, the arm around your waist drawing you a fraction closer without him seeming to notice. His fingers continued their circles, almost absentmindedly, as though he were lost in thought and the touch was the only thing keeping him tethered.

The grey outside the window had begun its slow migration toward something lighter. The fire was entirely cold now, the room held only the warmth of the bed, of proximity, of the particular heat that accumulates between two bodies in the hours before dawn.

Then awareness settled in him fully. Of the closeness. Of the precise arrangement of you against him, the warmth of your body, the thin fabric of your sleeping gown, the way the hem had shifted in the night to lie differently against your skin. His hand tensed briefly.

He swallowed.

You felt it, the shift that moved through him, the awareness sharpening into something specific, something that did not belong entirely to the vulnerability of the preceding hours. His lips parted, but no words came. He looked at you with an expression caught precisely between irritation and something he could not arrange into anything controllable, frustrated by the evidence of his own body, by the want that had surfaced without authorization.

You could feel it, the warmth of him. The unmistakable pressure of his want against your hip, present and unambiguous, and the particular tension of a man who has noticed you noticing and does not know what to do with it.

Neither of you spoke.

His hand, which had stilled, began very slowly, as though testing whether the motion would be stopped, to move again. Not the idle circles of before. Something more deliberate, more aware of itself, tracing the line of fabric against skin, as if testing whether the moment would break.

You did not stop him.

Not passive, there was nothing passive in the attention you were giving to this moment, to his breathing, to the fractional shifts of his weight and the warmth of his mouth near your temple and the press of him against your hip that had not diminished. But still in the way you had always been still near him, present, available, making no demand and offering no resistance, letting the space between you be defined by what he chose to do with it.

He exhaled.

“You are-.” he began, and stopped, his jaw tightened. He tried again, and the words he found were not the ones he had started with, “This changes nothing.”

“I know,” you said.

“I mean it.”

“I know you do,” you said.

His hand moved again with less hesitation, no longer tentative, something with more intention behind it, and his body followed, shifting against you with the weight of a man who has been resisting something for weeks and has arrived, at last, at the particular exhaustion of wanting and the decision to stop pretending otherwise.

His mouth found your throat, the same throat he had gripped days ago in the dark. You brought your hand to his hair, fingers threading through silver.

Aerion exhales slowly, a controlled breath that does nothing to conceal the tension wound through his jaw, his shoulders, the deliberate stillness of his hands. He's beautiful in his conflict, you think. Unbearably so. That sharp face, that proud mouth, carved for cruelty or for this, and tonight the line between them seems very thin.

He opens his eyes again, his gaze locking with yours again. He looks almost pained, his pride warring with the desire that's quickly consuming him. He wants you. Gods, he wants you so much it hurts, and he hates that he can't bring himself to deny it any longer. He hates how powerless he feels at your touch, how he craves more despite his better judgment. His breathing is ragged as he leans over you, his eyes dropping to your lips. “Stop me. Say... say no.” The words come rough, almost like a plea.

You looked at him for one long moment, you take in the conflict laid bare for the first time, the stubborn pride, the hunger he can no longer hide, the exhaustion of holding both apart.

Then you kissed him first.

He kisses you back like a man drowning who has finally stopped fighting the current. His hands come up to grip your face, not gently, and the sound that escapes his throat is low, rough, barely human. The careful prince, the controlled and calculating Aerion Targaryen, dissolves in the space between one breath and the next. What replaces him is something rawer. Hungrier. Something he's kept caged behind violet eyes and cutting remarks for far too long.

The kiss deepens without hesitation, consuming. His mouth moves against yours with a kind of desperate precision, tasting, claiming, as if he's cataloguing every detail through touch alone. You feel the heat of him, radiating off his skin like fever, like fire, like something that has been burning in secret for too long and has finally found air.

His hands roam your body with a feverish desperation, as if trying to memorize every curve, every gasp, every shudder beneath his touch. His kisses trail from your lips down your neck, nipping and sucking at your skin, marking you as his, branding you in the only way he knows how. His hands grip your hips, pulling you flush against him, letting you feel just how badly he aches for you. He's lost in the sensation, in the fire between you both, consumed by it. He's not gentle about it. He leaves a trail of hot, open-mouthed kisses down your neck, his teeth grazing that sensitive point where your shoulder meets your throat. He wants to mark you, to make you scream his name, to make sure there's no doubt in your mind or anyone else's of who you belong to.

His free hand slides under your nightgown, his fingers trailing up your thigh, leaving trails of fire in their wake. His touch is possessive, demanding, as if he's making up for every minute he's denied himself this pleasure. Your breath hitches as his fingers trace higher, teasing, taunting, every brush of skin against skin sending sparks through you. His lips return to yours, swallowing your gasp as his touch grows bolder, more deliberate. He plays with your breasts, kneading them and pinching at your nipples until you arch into him, your back lifting from the mattress like a prayer. His hands clutch at you, clinging as if you're the only solid thing in the world. He's panting now, his control frayed to the breaking point.

“Gods,” he breathes against your collarbone, “I've been waiting-.” He cuts himself off and bites down instead of finishing the sentence, leaving a bruise.

He buries his face in that spot on your neck, his breath hot against your skin, his lips roaming feverishly as if he can't get enough. Then he kisses down your body, his mouth leaving a trail of hot, wet marks down your stomach, your hip, your inner thigh. His hands slide up your legs, his touch rough but reverent, the touch of a man who has never let himself experience something so wholly, so completely. He moves with the focus of someone who has thought about this, who has imagined and resented and wanted in equal measure.

He pauses for a moment, looking up at you, the desire in his eyes burning hotly as he takes in the sight of you, spread out before him like a feast.

“Gods, woman...” His voice comes out low, cracked at the edges. “You look exquisite.”

Your hand goes to his hair, gripping it, silver-pale between your fingers, and you guide him where the ache pulses hottest. He goes willingly, like a man possessed, his lips tracing a path to the very heart of you. He worships at your altar, exploring you with a fervour that borders on madness, his tongue drawing slow, deliberate strokes against your folds, lapping at the slick heat of you with a thoroughness that makes your thighs tremble. He kisses your core the way he kissed your mouth, thoroughly, hungrily, as if he intends to ruin you for anything else.

He slides one finger inside you, curling, exploring, while his tongue continues its work, finding the rhythm that makes your hips roll helplessly toward him. Then two fingers, stretching you slowly, his pace maddening, his silver head moving between your thighs while his free hand pins your hip to the mattress. He teases. He draws it out with the patience of a man who has denied himself too long and now intends to take his time about the undoing. Every time you feel yourself cresting toward the edge, he eases back, withdrawing just enough, slowing just enough, his eyes flicking up to watch your face with something that looks almost like satisfaction.

The third time he pulls back from the precipice, you take a fistful of his hair and drag him up.

“Now,” you tell him. “Take me now.”

A feral smirk curls his lips at your demand. He rises up over you, his chest heaving, his entire body taut with anticipation. He leans down to capture your lips in a bruising kiss, you taste yourself on his tongue, one hand gripping your thigh, the other cupping your face as if to brand the moment into your memory.

“As my lady commands,” he growls against your mouth.

He shifts his hips, pressing himself against your entrance. Then, with one sharp thrust, he buries himself inside you, filling you completely, claiming you in every way possible. The moment he's sheathed inside you, a ragged groan tears from his throat, half pleasure, half disbelief. His forehead drops against yours, his breathing ragged, his fingers digging into your hips as if he fears you'll vanish.

“Gods,” he chokes out. “You feel so- warm. So tight.”

He's barely coherent. That, more than anything, undoes you.

His hips roll against yours in slow, deliberate strokes, each one deeper, more possessive than the last. He watches your face, memorizing every gasp, every flutter of your lashes, as if this is the only thing that's ever truly mattered. His eyes, those violet eyes that have looked at you with contempt and hunger and everything in between by now, are dark, pupils blown wide, and he doesn't look away. He watches you as if watching you is a compulsion he can no longer afford to deny.

“Look at me,” he rasps, when your eyes begin to close. “Don't you dare-.”

And you do, you hold his gaze.

His jaw tightens. Something moves across his expression that he doesn't have the composure left to conceal, something raw and frightened and ferocious all at once. His strokes deepen; his grip hardens.

Then he flips you, without warning, rolling you onto your stomach with the ease of a man accustomed to taking what he wants. The mattress shifts beneath you. His hands find your hips and drag you up to meet him. One palm presses flat between your shoulder blades for a half-second, then slides up, fingers winding into your hair, pressing your face into the pillow.

His lips find your ear, his voice low and rough as he whispers, “I won't be gentle, sweetling.”

It sounds like a warning. It sounds like a promise.

“I don't want you to,” you answer.

The sound he makes at that is almost feral, something ripped from somewhere deep in his chest that he would never willingly give you in daylight. His fingers dig into your hips as he takes you with a force that borders on brutality, each thrust deeper, harder, driven by pure unrestrained need. His lips drag across your shoulder, teeth sinking into your skin to stifle his groan as he loses himself in the heat of you. He releases your hair so both hands can grip your hips, holding you in place, as if he fears you might slip away if he doesn't, his fingers leaving half-moon marks you will feel for days.

His pace is relentless. Desperate. Driven by a hunger that has been building since the first moment he looked at you and hated that he wanted to keep looking.

“I can't-.” you gasp, the pleasure coiling impossibly tight.

“Come for me,” he growls, the words bitten off, rough and low. “Come on- I want to feel you. All of you.”

And you do, you shatter. Your whole body arches into it, trembling beneath him, clenching around him, and you hear his sharp, broken exhale, feel the way his rhythm stutters.

His release hits him like a storm, violent, consuming, unstoppable. His body tenses, his fingers digging into your flesh as he spills inside you with a ragged groan, his forehead pressed between your shoulder blades. For a moment, he just breathes against your skin, his chest heaving, his muscles trembling with the aftershocks.

Then, slowly, he collapses over your back. His weight settles, heavy, present, real. His lips move against one of the bruises he's left on your shoulder. Then another. Not in apology, Aerion Targaryen does not apologize. But in something. Acknowledgment, perhaps.

Neither of you speaks.

His arm slides around you, not tenderly, but with a kind of quiet insistence, as if placing himself between you and something invisible. You feel his heartbeat against your back. Fast, still. Then slower. Then slower still.

The silence stretches. It does not demand anything from either of you. His breathing deepens, but his grip does not loosen. You close your eyes.

Sleep comes for you both like a tide, not gentle, not kind, but inevitable. The way all true things are.

STEP 7. Never Cage What You Cannot Break.

A beast is not tamed by taking away its fangs. That only makes it weaker, and weakness is not the same thing as trust. It is tamed, if it ever is, by giving it a reason not to use them. It stays because it chooses to. It stays… because it chooses to.

The manse Maekar had given you sat at the edge of a quieter part of the city, near enough to court to satisfy obligation and far enough to breathe in peace. It was smaller than the Red Keep, less grand, but that suited the both of you. No one had said so out loud, yet it was clear enough. The walls were warm stone. The windows faced east and caught the morning light instead of shutting it out. Lavender grew along the outer walk, planted by someone before your time, and it had survived the winter with a stubbornness that felt almost personal.

Inside, signs of a shared life had gathered in slow, ordinary ways. His books beside yours on the shelf. Your embroidery frame positioned near the best window, which he had moved without comment one afternoon when he noticed the light falling wrong. A second cup on the table by the fire, already poured.

None of it was dramatic, all of it mattered to you.

You settled deeper into the chair, adjusting your weight carefully. The pregnancy sat heavy in your lap, in your lower back, in the way you rose slowly from chairs and descended stairs with one hand trailing the wall. Seven months had left their mark. Your belly was full and round beneath the loose linen of your gown, warm to the touch, occasionally shifting with the insistence of someone who had not yet been born but already had opinions on its own.

You pressed a hand briefly to your side where the movement was. A flutter, a press. I know, you thought at it. I know you're there.

The fire crackled. Across the room, Aerion sat at the writing table with his back half-turned to you, working through correspondence with the focused quiet of a man who had learned, slowly, imperfectly, to channel his energy into something productive rather than destructive. Candles burned at either side of the table. His silver hair, longer now, caught their light and held it.

He had not spoken in some time. Neither had you.

The silence was not tense. That distinction still struck you sometimes, even now, the difference between his silences then and his silences now. Before, quiet had been the space between provocations, the held breath before a storm. Now it was simply the room at rest, two people existing in the same warmth, without the need to perform that fact.

Your needle moved through the embroidery. A branch. Leaves in pale green thread, stitched slowly because you no longer rushed things that deserved to be unhurried. You had learned that too, somewhere along the way, though you weren't certain when. Perhaps it had been a lesson you taught yourself while teaching him.

“You've been rubbing your back for the better part of an hour.”

His voice came without him turning. Your hand had drifted there without you noticing. You lowered it. “I'm fine.”

“I didn't say you weren't.”

You went back to the embroidery and the scratch of his quill resumed.

You looked at the back of his head for a moment, at the set of his shoulders, the long line of his spine. He was still proud in his posture. That had not changed, nor would it. But there was something different in it now. Less like a man braced for attack. More like a man who had simply grown comfortable inside his own frame.

Maekar had expressed quiet satisfaction, the last time you had attended court. Not in words, the prince was not a man for words where a look would suffice. But satisfaction nonetheless. You had understood it without needing it explained. So had Aerion, which had caused a complicated expression to move across his face, something between pride and the ghost of old resentment, before easing into something closer to acceptance.

He was still Aerion. He could still cut with a word when he chose to. His patience was a thing learned rather than natural, and it occasionally showed its seams. Two weeks prior, at a supper that had run overlong, he had said something to Lord Peake's second son that had made the table go briefly silent. But he had stopped there, he had not pursued it. He had reached instead for his wine and redirected the conversation with a deliberateness you recognized, because you had practiced that deliberateness in front of him, repeatedly, until he understood what it looked like.

He was not fixed, he was better. There was a meaningful difference.

The fire shifted, throwing new shadows. You set down the embroidery and pressed your palm flat against the side of your stomach, feeling the weight of it, the warmth. The child moved again, long, slow, like something turning in a dream. You breathed around it.

The scratch of the quill stopped.

You did not look up immediately. You felt, rather than saw, the moment his attention shifted, the feeling of being observed by Aerion, which you had long since learned to recognize. It was different now too.

You looked up.

When you looked up, he had already turned in his chair. He was watching you with those violet eyes of his, pale in the candlelight, and there was something in his face he had learned to hide less well over time. Not because he had grown careless. Because keeping it hidden had begun to cost him too much, and he had finally decided, with the quiet certainty he brought to every important thing, that it was no longer worth the price.

Then he rose from the table.

He crossed the room at an unhurried pace, the way a man walks when he has already made up his mind. When he stopped in front of you, his gaze dropped from your face to your hands, then to the rounded curve beneath the linen. Then he knelt.

Not in surrender. Not in show. One knee to the floor, steady and deliberate, bringing himself level with what he meant to honour. He reached out, and his hand, the same hand that had once gripped and demanded and taken, settled with impossible gentleness against the side of your stomach.

He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to the fullest part of you.

He stayed there a moment, forehead resting lightly against you, his hand curved around the life you carried. His breathing evened out. His eyes were closed. He did not speak at once, and you did not ask him to.

Then, very quietly, without lifting his head, he said, “I love you.”

You looked down at the top of his silver head, at the broad line of his shoulders bent in a shape that was not quite defeat and not quite humility, but close enough to make your throat tighten. You thought of the man who had once watched you across a banquet table with cold, assessing eyes and found nothing in you worth his attention. You thought of all the months between then and now. The arguments. The patience. The slow, stubborn work of remaining.

You reached down and touched his face gently. He looked up at you. The candlelight made his eyes very bright.

You held his gaze and said, simply, “I love you as well.”

No strategy in it. Just the truth, spoken in the same quiet room where you had spent months learning each other's silences.

He turned his face and pressed one more kiss to your stomach, almost habitual, as if he had already developed the instinct, then rose slowly and settled himself on the arm of your chair. His hand remained at your side, warm and present. You returned to your embroidery. His shoulder rested against yours, and he did not move away.

The fire burned low. The night spread softly around the manse.

Later, when he had drifted into sleep beside you and his breathing had gone slow and even, you lay awake in the dark and thought about the whole path that had brought you here.

Seven steps, written out with the clean, measured certainty of someone who understood that hearts, even difficult ones, had their own structure. You had approached him with respect for what it was, patience for what it could become, and no illusions about the process between.

But somewhere in the long careful middle of it, something had shifted that no guide could have anticipated, or perhaps the guide had always known it and simply not named it. The method had worked. But the method had not been the point.

The point was that he had changed.

Not because you had fixed him. Not because you had caged him or diminished him or stripped away the things that made him difficult. He was still proud. Still sharp. Still capable of the particular cold cruelty that had earned him his reputation, though he used it less now, and never against you.

He had changed because he had chosen to. Because somewhere in the accumulated weight of all those quiet days and careful moments, something in him had found a reason.

And he, Aerion Targaryen, the Bright Prince, the man they called Brightflame for the way he burned, had stayed too.

His hand rested over yours in the dark, light and warm and present.

The beast doesn't need its fangs removed, you thought, closing your eyes. It just needs something worth protecting more than it needs to bite.

Sleep came, slow and complete, and took you both with it.

Why it still ends && why it makes him worse:

This is the crucial point. You still cut it off.

Not because he's done something wrong, which is almost the problem, really. With Aerion, the endings happen in the wreckage of a specific fight, something to point at. There's a reason. With Valarr, I suspect the ending happens because of the accumulation of the thing itself. He gets too close. He knows too much. The devotion becomes its own kind of pressure, the way being studied that precisely starts to feel like being held.

You end it, and here is why he's now genuinely more dangerous than canon-Aerion:

Aerion doesn't know who he is. Aerion is a mess of compulsions and self-destruction and genuine wounds; his obsession with you is mostly about you but also partly about all the things he uses you to avoid feeling about himself. When he spirals it's because he's also spiralling about himself. There's volatility baked into his very existence in that sense.

Valarr-who-had-you-first knows exactly who he is. Years with you have finished that process for him. The golden boy is gone. Not dead or anything, not discarded, but integrated, weaponised. He knows his own hunger now. He knows how to use the charm and when the charm is a screen. He knows what he wants with the absolute clarity of a man who had it and lost it and now is busy doing nothing but thinking about it since.

Aerion is dangerous the way fire is dangerous: hot, unpredictable, capable of burning the wrong thing.

Valarr in this AU is dangerous the way someone who plays the long game is dangerous. He's still patient and he still remembers everything. But now he remembers you specifically, five years of you, every preference and pressure point and the exact way you laugh when something surprises you. And he has infinite resources and absolutely no unlearned impulses left. He's already past the phase of figuring it out.

He knows.

What "the one that got away" does to someone like Valarr:

Here's the thing about his character in this verse that makes this so tasty: Valarr's darkness has always been about control dressed as attention. He keeps score. He doesn't let things go. Even in canon!tt, six weeks after you leave, he shows up at your grandmother's house with a travel bag and lets himself back in. That's not a man processing a breakup. That's a man who decided the breakup didn't count yet.

Scale that up by five years and a completed arc.

He would be the most charming, most genuinely tender, most comprehensively dangerous person in any room you entered.

Because the thing about dark!valarr-who-had-you is that his darkness looks like devotion. It looks like someone who loves you so specifically, so entirely, that it reads as romantic until you realise there's no space in it.

When Aerion enters the picture the dynamic completely inverts from canon TT. In canon, Aerion is the chaotic destabilising element who belongs in a way Valarr doesn't. In this AU (of an au?😭)? Valarr has the history. Valarr has the years. Valarr looks at Aerion and sees a man who has something that belongs to him, and he has five years of intimate knowledge to work with and all the patience in the world to do so.

And he wouldn't put his fist through a wall about it. That's the terrifying part.

He would just smile, and remember, and wait.

The arc: complete corruption vs. genuine integration

The idea of Valarr in both verses was always the concept of "corrupted golden boy". Either he goes off the rails completely or he learns and adapts genuinely and the darkness becomes a part of him rather than him always playing at being golden.

I think the valarr-first AU is actually the version where both happen simultaneously. The years with you are the genuine integration. He's not performing anymore and he's not hiding the hunger or learning to work around it. He absorbed you into his understanding of himself completely, and he's entirely real in a way that the current transitional Valarr isn't yet.