the longing never watered

It was a thought spoken aloud. Maekar hardly realised his mouth had moved, staring broodingly out across the courtyard.

Your dowry was a hefty one — an armada of newly-built warships and skilled men to man them, as well as the simple prospect of your father's ear and support. In return, your father gained a stronger foothold in the Seven Kingdoms, a relationship with the monarchy and the realm that would benefit both the Iron Bank and his family beyond all sense — but what would there be for you?

You had jewels, and more gold than you could count; you had dresses and slippers and cloaks, and all the amusements you could hope for. There was nothing Maekar could give you that you wouldn't already have; and though you would no doubt be perfectly pleased with strings of rubies or pearls, he simply wouldn't have it — his pride would not allow for it.

Aerys said nothing; it was as if Maekar hadn't spoken at all. Baelor gave a hum, and tapped his fingers against the table. 'Twas Rhaegel who first spoke, soft and song-like.

"Gifts for a young bride," he said, head rocking idly from side to side. He tapped his fingers along the arms of his chair, humming. "Gifts for a girl…"

"What is proper?" mused Baelor, then. He leaned back in his seat and smoothed a hand over his jaw, writings abandoned upon his desk. "I would imagine she is no stranger to all manner of finery…"

There was a scowl upon Maekar's face. "Therein lies my predicament."

"You'll find none of us particularly well versed in such matters," continued Baelor. "I, especially, am… out of practice. Perhaps you might ask mother?"

He thought about it. Yes, it was perhaps the best course of action… It was only his pride which had prevented him from doing so. Running to mother for help with his bride felt entirely juvenile; he'd hoped that his brothers would bear more bounteous fruit.

Aerys remained quiet for a long time. Only the sound of Baelor's quill against parchment was to be heard as he returned to his missives. Then, just as Maekar had given up on the thought altogether, he spoke:

"I do believe us all entirely capable of preparing an assortment that will please Maekar's bride." Maekar perked up, gaze intent. "We shall begin thusly…"

─── ༻⋅☼⋅༺ ───

1. A feast — for what is more suitable for a gregarious young bride than a chance to be celebrated? So says the King and Queen. "My lady," purred Lord Baratheon, seizing your hand in his. "You are entirely radiant this evening, may I say. If you would do me the honour of a dance…"

Within a sennight of your announcement, a feast was prepared by the King and Queen's insistence. A gift, they said, before the wedding proper.

Relatively hasty though its preparation was, it was masterful in execution; the Great Hall was adorned in all manner of ornamentation, from banners and cloth-of-gold wreaths to bouquets of exotic flowers; multiple pigs were put to spit in a crust of herbs and salt, and there were pheasants and beef and goose, and a whole plethora of dishes to go with them. It was a marvellous display of abundance that sent both the serving wenches and courtiers into a flurry of awestruck gossip — even Maekar, dour as he was to endure the court, was exceptionally pleased.

Those seven days allowed the most important lords of the surrounding areas to gather: those from the closest stretches of the riverlands and the Reach, as well as the stormlands and crownlands. All came with their suites in tow, proud and haughty, and the air was abuzz with excitement — a royal engagement, it seemed, was worthy of a spread rivalling that of the King's name-day celebrations. Maekar wasn't particularly overjoyed to see half of their smug faces, but your excitement eclipsed his annoyance.

Dinner (with all its courses and toasting and well-wishes) had not long passed before you were whisked away to dance by Syrah — your betrothed had grumbled, but relented his time with you. It was then that Rhae had decided that she wished to follow, content to be spun and tugged every which way between the two of you. You couldn't remember the last time you'd laughed with such zeal, dizzy with wine and dance.

And then — in the middle of twirling her like a spinning top—

"Lord Baratheon," you said, a smile upon your face. "A pleasure, truly — I missed you at the King's name-day tourney, did I not?"

(Maekar, you found, had very little fondness for the man. Upon reading through the list of guests confirmed to attend, he'd let out a long-suffering groan, and collapsed back in his seat.

"Fucking Baratheon," he'd muttered, staring into the distance. "I'd rather have the Grey Lion at my table.")

The Laughing Storm had come with a retinue twice the size of most others, and was wholly unabashed by the audacity of it; among them was a troupe of Dornish puppeteers, whom he had apparently been hosting in Storm's End for many moons. Apparently, he'd offered their services with all the fawning and praise a man of his status could muster.

(Syrah was incredibly happy to be the one to tell you of his alleged infatuation with one in particular — a pretty girl, you were told, though entirely beneath his station. It did gladden you to know you weren't the only person sending the nobility aflutter with scandal.)

"A fault completely my own. A spin with the guest of honour?" asked the man. You had no desire to be rude, being the lady of the evening; and in truth, you found him entertaining, this Lord Baratheon, with his mischievous eyes and sociable nature. Thus, you allowed him a dance — a single dance, you warned — and urged Rhae back to her father's side.

His teeth were a shocking white when he smiled, sharpened like fangs. And smile he did — laughing raucously as he pulled you straight into the fray, not bothering to wait for the ongoing couples to finish. He spun you so fast the faces around you began to blur, twisting you this way and that. "Had I known a woman so radiant resided in the King's court, I would have stolen you from under your dragon's nose!"

"Lord Baratheon!" you said, a surprised laugh leaving you before you could stop it. "Have you no shame?"

You were not offended. If rumour served, Lord Baratheon had his puppet-girl, and he was no doubt well aware of the might of Maekar's ire. The Laughing Storm seemed to find great glee in stirring the pot, is all.

"Oh, I'm terrible," Lord Baratheon said. He guided you around the other couples at breakneck speed, narrowly avoiding the shoulders of a lord whose face you hadn't the time to register— "When I take Storm's End, my dear, I shall raze it to the ground with my debauchery."

"May your lord father live long, then."

"Ah, a wound from a lady cuts deeper than any sword."

"Well, I hear a mace leaves a terrible mark."

Lord Baratheon's grin turned keen — and he made to spin you once more, hands tightening around you, when—

"Baratheon," said Maekar through gritted teeth, voice hard and forceful. "Allow me a dance with my wife."

Your head was still whirling — the stop was incredibly abrupt — but even then, you could detect the distinct displeasure on Maekar's face. He had never seemed a small man, but beside Lyonel (who was already as big as a man could be) he seemed to loom.

(A dizziness came over you — decidedly not from the dancing.)

You wondered how he'd got there so quickly. The dancing was a good distance from the high table.

"Wife?" Lyonel echoed, smiling lazily. "Why, I seem to have missed the wedding."

Maekar glared.

"But of course, lord dragon," Lyonel continued. He still had a grasp of your hands — as quick and decisive as anything, though, Maekar simply reached over and jerked your wrist away. You tried not to think of how his fingers clasped so easily over the entirety of it, moving you back to your rightful place at his side. "Oh, worry not, my friend. I have no desire to start another war — the ashes of the last have barely settled."

At that, the excitement dimmed, and your smile with it.

You had heard tales of the Blackfyre rebellion from Maekar's own mouth; the rest of the court — nay, the realm — seemed to speak around it, like the very thought of it could fester. It had been years since Daemon Blackfyre fell upon the Redgrass, and yet the scars remained, blackened and rotten. The ghosts of the war roamed, still, among the living, and a celebration of love was certainly not the place to invoke them.

You wished, suddenly, that you hadn't taken Lord Baratheon's hand at all.

Maekar's scowl worsened, his displeasure curdling like sour milk upon his face. He took a daring step forward, placing himself before you in such a way that you were shielded almost entirely — a dog poised to snap its terrible teeth in service. You almost let him. It wasn't the place for it, though, and the repercussions would far outweigh the satisfaction. You couldn't imagine the King or Queen would be very pleased if tensions overflowed — and Summerhall was ever so close to Storm's End, was it not?

You wound your arms around Maekar's elbow.

"Come, my love," you said, your cheek flush against the silken arm of his doublet. His arm tensed beneath you, before relaxing. "Shall we have a look at the puppeteers in the courtyard? I hear Lord Baratheon is very fond of them."

Maekar did not move. His glower was an enduring thing. You were glad to not be on its receiving end.

Lyonel's grin took a cold edge. "Fond is a word for it, I suppose."

"And tell me," you said, "which is your favourite?"

His smile widened — though, perhaps smile was the wrong word entirely. This was a baring of teeth, and those fangs of his seemed more troubling than ever. Lord Baratheon was not fond of any disrespect towards his puppet-girl, it seemed, which was alright with you. You yourself were not fond of disrespect towards your husband-to-be, no matter how slight. Yielding was not an option — you would die, you thought, before rolling over for any man other than your betrothed.

"Story, that is," you added after a long pause. "Your tales and fables are so different from those we have back home."

There was a moment in which Lyonel simply stared. The weight of his gaze was immense; pupils so stark against the blue of his irises that you felt, for a moment, as if you were pinned in place. Maekar had not moved — he simply remained at your side, ever watchful, regarding Baratheon with narrowed, distrustful eyes.

The moment passed. And then, as if the words were cut from him, Baratheon spoke. "Durran Godsgrief, my lady. He who erected the castle at Storm's End against the ire of the gods — we are an ever defiant bunch."

Your smile widened. He would not go quietly, but your point had been made. "Marvellous. Come, my love."

Terse goodbyes were exchanged, before you turned on your heel, and Lyonel Baratheon disappeared into the crowd. You released a breath, your heart thudding in your chest — despite yourself, there was some relief in turning away from him. A dragon you may have had at your side, but facing the stag still daunted.

You could feel Maekar's eyes upon your cheek as you trailed slowly towards the exit, arm in arm.

"I know," you said, pursing your lips. "Far too intrepid of me. I should have smiled and said naught — 'tis embarrassing to have your bride order you about like a stableboy, I am sure."

The next step you attempted was firmly refused — Maekar stood as still as stone, forcing you to turn and look at him.

"Do not deign to speak for me," Maekar said. You peered up at him through the cover of your eyelashes, and met his gaze. To anyone not versed in the peculiarities of him, they might think him angry — eyes narrowed, brow furrowed, his lips turned down at their corners — but you knew better. You could spy that particular shade of scarlet starting at the tips of his pale ears. The bob of his throat beneath his white whiskers. You blinked in surprise. "You held your own. I… appreciate such qualities."

"Oh?" you said. His eyes cut away — found some nondescript point in the distance amongst the crowd — but your hand darted up to the side of his neck, and they returned to you. Your smile had taken on a note of smugness. His skin was warm, pulse skipping under your palm. "Do continue, Lord Targaryen. Which other qualities of mine do you so appreciate?"

Maekar rolled his eyes. His hand engulfed your own as he promptly removed it from his neck, and it remained as such — held surely, tightly within his — as he began to walk once more. "If you want to see these blasted puppets—"

"I shan't embarrass you any longer, my lord," you said airily. "I know your desire for me eclipses all sense."

There was a scoff.

(But he did not deny it.)

─── ༻⋅☼⋅༺ ───

2. A book — for what good is a life without knowledge? So says Aerys.

There was a great thud as something heavy and fabric-bound dropped to the table before you. Your cup rattled gently against its saucer at the disturbance.

"Oh? What is that?"

Maekar didn't answer; he simply groaned as he dropped into the chair opposite you, slumping into the cushions, arms bracketing the headrest. His weary gaze found your window, where the sun was near setting. "My head is addled."

Ironically, as the wedding neared, your time was spent further and further apart; dress fittings, invitation writing, and all manner of arrangements needed your input. Maekar was similarly engaged with the wedding tourney, which was looking to be a grander and grander affair by the day. In the two days that had passed since the engagement feast, you'd spent perhaps an hour together, and had missed his little ones entirely, occupied with their lessons as they were. You were trying very intently to not let it irritate you.

"Not particularly fond of flower arrangements and table settings, my love?"

He shot you an unimpressed look, before his eyes fluttered slowly shut.

"Yes, well, I feel the same," you said, setting aside the parchment you'd been scrawling upon. "In truth, your mother has been doing most of the work — her, Aelinor, and Alys — and still, I find myself weary. "

A tut. "I cannot look upon another ceaseless list. I despise half the cunts on them."

A soft laugh left you — and, using his lethargy to your advantage, deftly slid over and tucked yourself into his side. He blinked at the press of your weight on the cushions beside him, gaze firmly tacking you in place. "What is it?"

"Must there be something wrong for me to sit at my husband-to-be's side?"

He scoffed, though it was fond. He returned to rest once more. "There usually is."

"How terribly you lie."

For a while you sat like this, side by side, fatigued by the sheer volume of things which must be done for any respectable wedding. Every time you blinked, you swore you saw bunches of peonies and lilacs, heard Queen Myriah's voice — now, which will go most with your dress? It would be best for Lord Lannister to sit near the dais. And where shall the minstrels play? Yes, yes, that sounds adequate.

It seemed strange to imagine a time after this. A quieter time, in Summerhall, where your husband and children would be your most pressing company. Rhae with her birds, Daella with her sewing. Daeron and his wine, and Aegon's mischief. You hid a smile — or, rather, were in the process of hiding a smile, when a grumbling snore snapped you from your reverie.

You blinked. "Maekar?"

There was a grunt, but he remained as he was — softened by not-quite-sleep, splayed over his seat like a great, big cat. Suddenly, you were overcome with a terrible wave of affection, and, grinning, reached over to brush his hair back. The circles beneath his eyes were darker than usual, you noted. Sullen grey against his pale complexion, the lines and wrinkles beneath caused by more than age alone.

"You poor man," you crooned. "How horribly they've run you ragged."

His usual response — an abashed sort of annoyance that would have him swatting away your hands or chastising you for treating him like a child — was markedly absent. Instead, he pressed his head deeper into your hand, and you knew then that he was more spent than you'd thought. It was with this knowledge that you reached over and cupped his whiskered jaw, pulling him slowly to face you, his exhalations hot against your palm.

Maekar's eyes opened, just slightly; half-lidded and heavy, so dark their violet appeared more indigo. The weight of his gaze was a dizzying thing. It halted your heart in your chest and seized your impulses. If he would have requested something of you, in that moment, you did not think yourself strong enough to deny him.

"Shall I leave?" you asked quietly.

A frown. "No."

"I'd rather you sleep in a bed, my love. Your old bones are not what they used to be."

He turned his face away to give a loud yawn — and yes, he must be tired indeed to not rise to your provocations. When he turned back, it was with a wave of his hand towards the table. Towards that mysterious package, which had quite honestly escaped you. "A gift for you, by way of Aerys."

Quirking an eyebrow, you turned towards it, your question finally answered. There was little doubt of what it was; 'twas rectangular in shape, clearly, and if you knew anything about Maekar's elder brother, it was his fondness for reading. You leaned forward to peer at it.

(A large, warm hand fell from the headrest to your back.)

The fabric was a deep, warm red, brocaded with what appeared to be orange and yellow silk, and tied into a large knot at its top. You tugged at it gently, and undone it came; and what sat beneath was a thick, tall tome, suitably dusty and worn. You flipped to the first page.

Chronicles of the History of Westeros Vol. I, by Archmaester Aren.

You hummed, hauling the book onto your lap. "Fitting."

"Knowledge is next to godliness, he says."

"I suppose I cannot disagree." The pages were rough beneath your fingertips, and smelled, as all old books did, of dust. It was a comforting smell, familiar.

"He says it might bring comfort. To — familiarise yourself with your new home."

"That is… kind of him." It was. Aelinor and Myriah did not need to make implications of Aerys' aversion to people, for you saw it easily. He did not enjoy gatherings or feasts or any such occasion that would require conversation of him; he preferred the library, and his study, and — if anything — the company of maesters. You turned another page, idly beginning to read.

"In the year 49 AC, Rhaena Targaryen wed Androw Farman, the second son of the Lord of Fair Isle. It is said the Queen in the West's choice in husband was borne not of love for him, but for her husband's sister, Elissa—"

The leather of the chair creaked and squeaked, suddenly, as Maekar began to move — further and further down, groaning all the while, before his head took its place upon your lap, right below the book. You paused.

"Comfortable, are we?"

A grunt. "You may continue."

With a shake of your head — and a grudging laugh — you did exactly that.

─── ༻⋅☼⋅༺ ───

3. A companion — for what is more enduring than the bond between two living things? So says Rhaegel.

The next day saw you sitting across from Queen Myriah and her ladies-in-waiting, reviewing — for the nth time, it seemed — the meals for the celebration. If you'd thought the engagement feast grand, the wedding was looking to outshine it; mostly because of Myriah, you thought, who was most pleased to see her youngest son marrying again.

("If only Baelor would allow himself the pleasure," she had sighed once. "Alas.")

The menu was ever-growing; roasted boars, pheasants baked in a crust of herbs and Dornish lemons, beef stewed in a rich, savoury gravy, and numerous dishes to compliment them. There would be bread baked with the Reach's finest grain, and cakes and sweets abound, and fiery peppers stuffed with cheese from Dorne, and the most excellent wines… And then there was the wedding pie, of course, which would be filled with birds — most likely doves, according to Myriah, though the fowlers had noted a strange influx in jays…

Once the menu had been sent away to both the King and Maekar for approval, you deflated in your seat. Myriah shot you a fond look over her chalice.

"I fear I will never be able to repay you, my Queen," you said. "Had I tried my hand at organising any of this alone, I would have run it into the ground."

"How often must I tell you?" she replied, tutting. "Myriah. I have all sons, you know, and each daughter I have gained has been more lovely than the last. Cassella — more wine, if you will."

You watched her as her cup was filled. They said that Baelor took after his mother most, and this was true. He had her dark hair and sallow skin, and kind smile. Rhaegel had her hair, but his father's colouring; Aerys, similarly, looked Daeron's twin, but thinner. But Maekar had a certain softness to his face that came by way of Myriah — it was not obvious, and he would no doubt scoff if you told him, but you could see it. When his mind was away and unencumbered, he took on a particular lightness; his frown eased, his scowl softened, and Myriah's likeness shone through.

"I am gladdened," you said eventually. "Braavos is a long journey, and… well, I shan't see my own mother as often as I would hope."

Her eyes raised to you again, knowing. "Many say the worst of marriage is the troubles that come after; the disagreements, or the coldness of the marriage bed, or love — which is oft slow to grow. But for us — for the women, who leave our homes and everything we know behind — this is our burden."

You had come to terms with this, perhaps even before you'd stepped foot upon Westerosi soil. It was the fate of any woman who was to marry; you shed your identity, your home, your culture, and adopt those of your husband. It was expected of you — not by Maekar, perhaps, but by the very world you inhabited. You could not prevent your living in Westeros, or the distance that would surely grow between you and your family, or the mannerisms and habits you would no doubt adopt — but you would treasure that which you could keep. Your songs and tales and traditions. Your Braavosi tongue. Your strange, eastern quirks. This, you swore.

You opened your mouth to say something — an agreement, maybe, or a gentle prise into Myriah's own troubles — but before you could, the doors to the Queen's solar were knocked upon.

"A courier from Prince Rhaegel, Your Grace."

Myriah raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Yes, allow him entry."

The courier was a young man, and in his arms a simple wooden box. There was a lid atop it — and as he sat it down (not on the table, mind, but on the floor) you swore it jostled itself.

"Your Grace, my lady," said the man, finally bowing low. He wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead. "A gift by way of Prince Rhaegel for Prince Maekar's bride. There is a note…"

You met Myriah's gaze, eyes wide. "For — for me?"

"One of the more delightful aspects of marriage. The husband may get the dowry, but the wife gets the gifts," the Queen said, smiling. A small piece of parchment was proferred from the messenger's pocket, and with some hesitance, you took it. "And my sons are particularly welcoming."

You opened the note, and looked upon Rhaegel's looping hand.

Companionship is a gift most treasured, read the note. Thus, it is my gift to you! Delight in her! She is named Chestnut for her coat, and is blessed with a kind and generous temperament.

"Oh, gods," you breathed, a smile growing on your face. "Rhaegel, he—!"

The box gave another rumble — and yes, it had moved by itself. This time, the top went flying off, and there was a startled little yip! from its interior. Gasping, you stood, and chanced a look inside.

"Oh, gods," you repeated. "My Queen — Myriah, look at her!"

Chestnut was small and plump — belly still round with milk — with fur a deep, red-brown, and floppy ears, and a little pink nose. When you reached inside she greeted you with all the unguarded enthusiasm of a pup, nudging at your hand with a wet snout, and peering up at you with dark, shiny eyes. She could not have weighed any more than a feather pillow. Her cold little paws dug gently into your skin as she pushed herself up to nudge at your cheek.

"How darling," cooed the Queen. She chuckled, then. "The first of many children, I hope."

Your smile was blinding. "Oh, Maekar will be delighted."

─── ༻⋅☼⋅༺ ───

4. A symbol of unity — for what is a marriage, if not this? So says Baelor.

Maekar was decidedly undelighted with Chestnut.

He had given Rhaegel multiple firm and unyielding no's, apparently. He had little fondness for the pup; she annoyed him, making a habit of chasing playfully after his boots as he walked, curling up at his feet, and clambering into his lap whenever he sat (despite the fact that he always very promptly removed her). Her nose — which she greatly enjoyed shoving into the nearest face — was irritatingly cold, and she required far too much attention for any one creature, according to him.

Chestnut was not happy about this, being that she was entirely enthralled by him, but she did not take his rejection personally.

Between your chastising and the children (who were incredibly fond of Chestnut, in that simple, enamoured way that all children are fond of small, fluffy creatures), Maekar begrudgingly accepted Chestnut as the newest member of the household.

You doted on her. She ate only pheasant poached in beef broth — shredded for her convenience, of course — and carrots and peas and pumpkin, when the kitchens allowed for it. Every day you brushed her lovely brown fur and took her for walks around the gardens; every night she curled up upon a pile of pillows at the foot of your bed, though she had a great fondness for trying (and failing) to hop in beside you.

Rhaegel had been right — during such an overwhelming period, what balm soothed better than a companion? And overwhelming it was, despite how much had already been accomplished. Your family would arrive in less than a week, and their apartments were prepared; your dress had been fitted, your wedding jewels sourced, and all the great lords and ladies of the realm were trickling, slowly yet surely, into the Keep.

You would soon be a married woman — it was hard to conceptualise, even now, even with the long and arduous journey you'd taken to it. You thought deeply on this as you pet the downy fur between Chestnut's ears, gazing intently into your fireplace.

This would be the rest of your life. Summerhall. Children and Chestnut. Keeping the house as Maekar's wife. Spending your days horse-riding and reading and tending to all those things a woman usually tends to. And, of course, the… the marriage bed.

Your cheeks were suddenly hot. Chestnut gave a gentle grumble, and you realised suddenly that you'd stopped petting her. A grievous mistake, to be sure.

"My apologies, little princess," you teased quietly. "I shan't stop again, if I can help it—"

There was a sudden, swift knock on the door. You cast Chestnut a sorry glance as the guardsman cleared his throat.

"'Tis the Crown Prince, my lady."

You pushed yourself up from the floor with such force, you almost tripped over your hems.

Baelor?

It seemed you were seeing more and more of Maekar's brothers these days — which, to be sure, was not unappreciated, nor totally unexpected — though they did seem to come at the most unanticipated times. It was terribly late. Night had fully come, and you were but half an hour from bed.

But it was the Crown Prince. You'd be a fool to turn him away.

Baelor Breakspear looked entirely perfect in your doorway. To be sure, you'd never seen the man with a hair out of place; fatigue did not seem to plague him, despite rising earlier and sleeping later than most. He went to great trouble, you thought, to maintain such a manicured facade. You may have spent most of your time in the Kep besotted with Maekar, but you had noticed much of Baelor, too. He diffused even the most tense of moments with practiced ease; he greeted everyone with the same regal graciousness; he even took great care to enjoy things with just the right amount of zeal, never too little or too much. The Baelor in Maekar's war stories seemed another animal entirely.

You smoothed your skirts. "My Prince."

"My lady," said Breakspear. His hands were clasped politely behind his back, eyes fixed on you. It was another thing you'd noticed about him — the man gave his full, undivided attention to whomever he was speaking. It was incredibly nervewracking. "If I may…"

"I — I apologise. If I had known you meant to visit, I might have…" You trailed off. You weren't sure what you might have done. Prettied yourself up? Prepared a platter of tea, so he could hum just-so, regardless of whether he liked it or not?

"Please, accept my gravest apologies. I understand this is hardly the best time, but I feared this would be the only moment I might catch you alone."

He stepped further into the room, that gentle smile of his on his face. This close to the fire, his eyes seemed to sparkle. One a dark, impenetrable brown. The other, blinding blue.

"Alone?"

"Mm." You hardly noticed you'd moved, naturally following Baelor's lead as he moved throughout the room. As you sat upon the chaise, he came to kneel before you, smoothing a hand over Chestnut's head. You had more than half a mind to urge him up. To have the Crown Prince kneeling before you, no matter the reason, was less than appropriate. "I see my brothers have been far more punctual with their gifts than I."

"She is delightful." Your voice came quiet. Heat rolled off him in waves, and you could feel it against your knees, though no part of him truly touched you. His head was bowed, his profile illuminated in fiery orange. You watched him for a moment as he indulged the pup, open affection blooming upon his pretty face. You could see Maekar in him, sometimes. "And Aerys' gift was well-appreciated."

He made a humming noise, and — as if you'd come to some unspoken, mutual agreement — you let silence trickle in. For a few moments, everything was quiet between you. The fire crackled, and Chestnut snored her little self away, and Baelor breathed slow and steady, and no words were said.

It was a mindless, tired huff from Chestnut that seemed to rouse Baelor from his thoughts.

"My apologies. I shan't keep you long," he said, then. "'Tis better late than never, I suppose, where gifts are concerned."

You felt your cheeks warm. It wasn't that you hadn't expected it, but — but Aerys and Rhaegel both had had their gifts delivered. You had thanked them, of course, but they were not present to watch as you opened the boxes and undid the knots; they did not place themselves at your feet, or examine your every move meticulously. "I am flattered, my prince, though it really isn't necessary — I have more than enough. Maekar makes sure of it."

(Of course you wanted a gift. Only fools did not want gifts. But it was unladylike to not show a small bit of hesitance, you told yourself.)

Baelor's eyes flickered up to you. "A marriage is a means of giving," he said. "From husband to wife, and wife to husband, and family to family. It would do me a great honour if you would accept my gift."

"I — I will, of course. I only…" You shook your head. "I shall, my prince."

"In quieter company, I would insist you call me Baelor. We are to be family, after all." He lifted that large hand from Chestnut's head, then, and reached inside the inner pocket of his doublet. You watched intently as he pulled something out — and, confusion furrowing your brow, you bowed your head to look at it.

'Twas clearly a dagger for its shape and size, curved like the tooth of a great beast. It was contained within a scabbard of gold, embedded with jewels and smooth, coloured glass, the metal engraved masterfully with all manner of ornamentation. The pommel appeared to be a simple, dark green — but when Baelor proffered it gently to you, and the firelight shone upon it, you realised it was completely transparent. A great chunk of some precious stone, faceted with 8 faces.

"My prince — Baelor — this is…" Your gaze flickered between the knife and his eyes, which remained fixed on the blade in your hands.

It felt… strange, in some way, to accept it. You were no stranger to jewels or gold or pretty things, but even you could tell that there was some otherworldly weight to this strange little dagger. It was not simply a knife — Baelor was handing you something bigger, something heavier, and you were wholly ignorant to what it was.

"Go on," Baelor said, then, quiet. "Unsheathe it."

You were helpless to deny him, a slave to both his whims and your own curiosity. The scabbard was cool in your hands, the engraving rough and textured when it brushed over your skin. You slid the knife from its holder and watched, fascinated, as the gold of the blade shined in the light. So polished was it that you could see yourself, wide-eyed and lips parted, in its gleaming surface. You didn't want to touch it. You'd never seen something so perfect — completely flawless, save for a thin line of engravings down the centre. With a squint you tried to read the script, but it was foreign to you.

"Before Aegon conquered Westeros," Baelor murmured, "and before my father united it, Dorne was a kingdom proper. There were the First Men and the Andals, of course, but there were Rhoynar, too. They fled to Dorne when their homeland was taken, and brought with them all manner of traditions."

"Your mother's people," you recalled. "House Nymeros Martell; of the line of Nymeria. She married Mors Martell, and they united Dorne."

"Precisely."

The sharpened edge shimmered in the firelight. "I do not recall the Rhoynar being a particularly violent people."

A low laugh. "Yes, well. It is not the most convenient blade, I must say, for its use was largely ornamental. It stood as an assurance, from husband to wife — from… family, to wife. Protection, wealth. A symbolic tool with which to ensure her safety and prosperity."

A marriage is a means of giving. From husband to wife, and wife to husband, and family to family.

You'd known it. Felt it even while ignorant, the severity of the blade in your hand. The promise it bore. You swallowed, and it was sticky in your throat. "I… I would hope to have no need of it, Baelor."

He hummed. For the first time since meeting him, he looked more his age than ever. There were lines beneath his eyes; a solemness that presented itself in the corners of his lips. His hand moved unconsciously upon Chestnut's head. The grey in his hair shone like silver.

"You will have no need of it," he promised. "Not only do I swear it, but your betrothed unmistakably does. 'Tis simply an old custom — one even my mother may scorn as blasphemy, though I have always held great fondness for it, regardless."

His voice had taken on an edge of something soft. Wistful. That cloak of composure was wearing away, eating itself from the inside, and you were helpless to do anything but watch.

"And what does it say here — along the middle?" You looked up from the knife. He was already watching you.

"Love comes with a knife," he said. "Not some shy question, and not with fears for its reputation."

"Oh."

"A union of love is a wondrous thing," Baelor continued. His stare filled you with a graceless sort of nervousness. What did he see when he looked upon you? A wide-eyed girl, her emotions written on her face? Ignorant and green, puzzled by his gift, and his proximity, and the softness in his voice when he spoke to her? "A divine blessing. There exists no man more deserving of it than Maekar. It… goes without saying that I wish you both the best."

You cleared your throat in a poor attempt to steady yourself.

"Thank you, Baelor." The dagger was heavy in your hand, and you met your own eye in its reflection. "I do not think I can ever hope to repay this kindness."

"Repayment is not necessary, my lady." With a final pat to Chestnut's head, he stood, and in the midst of your musing, you had only the mind to sit, peering up at him. "..In truth, I had once hoped to bestow such a gift upon my late lady wife, but was dissuaded — such customs are frowned upon in the Faith, you see. I have… I have always carried the regret with me. The simple sight of your approval is gift enough."

A wave of sorrow overcame you. Even the heir to the throne, it seemed, could not have the freedoms he desired. You stood, and the movement seemed to sober your companion — he stood straight, suddenly, a warm chuckle rumbling in his throat.

"Forgive the ravings of an old man, if you will, my lady," he said, watching you from beneath his eyelashes.

"You do yourself a great injustice, Baelor, speaking of yourself like that."

A smile. "You are too kind. It relieves me to know that you are marrying Maekar. He… requires some patience." His hands were clasped again. The facade returned with vigour, as perfect as ever. "As you well know, he can be… waspish, at times."

"Yes," you said, quickly sheathing the dagger once more. It felt wrong to even set it down; you grasped it tightly in both hands as you walked Baelor slowly to the door. "His greatest charm."

"I am glad you think so."

Needing no command, the guards opened the door as you neared.

"Well, then," Baelor said, giving you one last smile. "The gods give thee good night, my lady. I apologise again for disturbing you."

"'Twas no disturbance, my lord. I shall treasure your gift for as long as I live. Thank you, and — and good night."

His eyes remained on you for only a second longer — and then he nodded politely, and turned on his heel. The moment his eyes left you, you felt your breath return. In truth, you hadn't realised it had left.

For a moment, you stood in place. A strange sort of sadness pulled at your gut, but you could not linger on it; it was late, and you would be married in only a few days, and your bed was calling.

You peered down at your gift, glinting even in the low light.

Love comes with a knife. A smile pulled at your lips. You liked that.

─── ༻⋅☼⋅༺ ───

5. A tooth from an old dragon, conquered and made humble.

"If the winds hold, my family might arrive tomorrow," you said.

Since becoming engaged, you had taken many meals in Maegor's Holdfast; as time passed, the table only grew more and more full. Aerion and Daeron had arrived from Summerhall only the day prior — the former, you were markedly ignoring —, and Aemon three days before from the Citadel. Between Maekar's brood, Rhaegel's children, and the excitement of the gathering, there was not a dull moment at the table.

It was no small wonder that you felt, for the first time that night, you were getting a proper word in with your husband.

(Betrothed, you reminded yourself. Not-yet-husband.)

"My father is kind," you added, peering up at him. "You needn't worry, my love."

"Worry?" Maekar gave a sharp laugh, rife with disbelief. "I do not fear your father, girl. We are peers, or have you forgotten?"

"Your age?" you asked breezily. "No, of course I haven't."

"…How you test my patience."

"You would be ever so bored without me."

The wedding ceremony was to be held in two days, and a full sennight of tourney-games and revelry were to follow. A raven had been sent ahead of your family, and they weren't far from the Western coast. The idea of seeing them after so long away was a nerve-wracking one. It was the melding of your two selves: the girl you were with your family, and the woman you were in the Keep. The eldest daughter and eastern lady.

You closed your eyes, resting your head against Maekar's shoulder as you walked.

"The maester says the sun should hold," you said, stifling a yawn. "Your gods must be awfully fond of our union."

"Hm."

"I do wonder what my bride's cloak will look like," you added. "Father is — yawn — partial to Qartheen silk, though I prefer its Braavosi counterpart, and mother has never known a day of subtlety in all her years—"

Another yawn cut you off — louder, this time, and so entirely mighty that it stopped you in your tracks. When it was finished, you blinked up at Maekar, eyes watering. "I shall sleep for ten days and ten nights when this is over."

He snorted at your declaration, nudging you back beside him. "Had you nothing to spend your time doing, you'd be irate."

In silence you left Maegor's Holdfast and crossed its lengthy drawbridge. With a nod to the Kingsguard posted at its end, Maekar turned you towards the wing which housed your quarters.

"You have been training hard," you said suddenly, voice quiet. His arm tensed as you ran your hand from his elbow to his bicep, smoothing your palm over him. You chanced a glance up at his face, and found his jaw hardened. A smile tugged at your lips. "I hope you do not wear yourself out too much. I worry, you know." A pause. "We will have to consummate our marriage, of course, and at your age—"

There was a loud groan, but he was smiling, despite himself. It was helpful in its own way; as you entered the wing, and began up the stairs towards the next floor, almost everyone you passed had no desire to stop and talk. The uncharacteristic happiness upon your beloved's face turned away even the most terrible of drivellers. "Do you only know how to jest when it comes to my age?"

"I fear you may already know the answer to that, my love."

Before long, you were turning the corner towards your apartments. The hallway filled you with a sense of nostalgia. It wasn't so long ago that you were coming to this place for the first time, stepping upon these floors, ignorant of the future that awaited you in the Red Keep; learning the bricks and rugs and tapestries, until, one day, you knew them intimately.

Within a few days, you'd most likely never return to these quarters again — no, if you were to visit the Red Keep again, your quarters would be in the Holdfast, shared with your husband.

"Need I remind you," Maekar continued, "you are the one marrying me."

You rolled your eyes as you came to a stop at your door. Your guard lingered at an appropriate distance, as usual — thus, you found no shame in turning to your husband-to-be, smoothing your hands up his arms until they rested upon his shoulders. Your smile was sharp when you purred, "Oh, I need no reminding."

His ears were reddening — and no matter how hard he tried to grimace, you could see the pleasure behind it. "You are terrible."

"Yes, very. Have you anything else to say before I retire, Maekar?"

You were not expecting a yes — thus, you began to turn towards your door, hands sliding from him. Usually he left you with a very stilted goodbye, as if he were embarrassed by the mere prospect of dropping you at your own door — sometimes, if he'd been at the wine, or was in a particularly good mood, he'd stand and dawdle, clearly not wanting to leave, but unable to open his mouth and ask it of you. Mostly, the idea of showing any public displays of affection seemed to fill him with equal parts embarrassment and hunger. It was an incredibly entertaining thing to witness.

"Wait," he commanded.

Your brow raised. "Hm?"

"I… have something, for you," he said, the words coming out begrudging. He was glaring again, that way he did when he was embarrassed, hand fishing in the pouch at his hip for something. "…If you would accept it."

"Oh?" You were reminded of Baelor's gift, only the night prior. You had told Maekar of the knife the morning after, and he had already known of it; albeit, he did not seem entirely pleased. Acceptive, perhaps — happy to have indulged his beloved brother, but annoyed at the prospect of you being the recipient. You wondered if it had bothered him enough to…

He said nothing more. From the pouch at his hip he withdrew an even smaller silken bag, a silvery grey in colour and tied shut with thread-of-gold, and held it out. He watched you intently, that frown still on his face, as you took it in hand and tugged it gently open.

At first, you were unsure of what it was, bundled up and dark as it was; but it poured out into your hand, cold and heavy, and you realised, then.

A delicate chain of blackened silver, studded with bloody garnets along itself. Hanging heavily at its centre looked something like a metal tooth, dark like burnished steel. You brought it closer to yourself, eyes searching. It was not smooth, but marred by marks and striations; it had not been treated gently, clearly.

You recognised it, somehow, despite the plainness of it — looked upon it, its particular shape and size, the weight of it, the colour.

A tooth, you realised. A tooth from an old dragon. Your throat suddenly tightened.

"Where did you take this from?" you asked, eyes trained upon it. You could hardly raise your voice above a whisper. "Your shoulders, or your spine?"

"The shoulder." You realised how close he was, then; whether he had moved, or you had, you didn't know. You were both staring at the necklace in your hands, knowing it meant more than he could perhaps ever say aloud. His head was bowed towards you — his entire self, really, the whole bulk of him arched towards you like a flower towards the sun. "From the face of the right pauldron."

Light caught on the shimmering facets of the garnets. It was stunningly beautiful. Delicate and feminine and yet, intense in its ferocity. Fire and blood. Unbowed, unbent, unbroken. A token befitting the wife of the Anvil of the Redgrass Field.

You looked up at him through your eyelashes, and found his gaze scalding. "And now your armour is missing a tooth."

His jaw clenched. "It has found a more deserving place."

You held the necklace out, and with no further prompting he took it in his hands. You turned your back to him, and lifted your hair from your nape; and you felt the heat of him as he stepped closer to you, chest to your back. With a delicateness at odds with the size of him, his hands came to your front, fingers brushing against your clavicle. The chain was cold as it settled against your skin. Cold, but familiar, hanging about your neck as intimately as any other part of you.

You had no looking glass to see how the necklace pressed against your collarbones, the tooth hanging low upon your bosom; but you turned and met Maekar's eyes and saw the hunger in them, a reluctance in him to turn his gaze from you. Pleasure stirred something terrible in your stomach. You liked when he got like this — when he was left unguarded, unsure of what to do with all he felt, powerless to do little other than stare and frown and grit his teeth. The power of it was intoxicating.

You did this. You put this gleam in his eye and this flush upon his cheek. 'Twas you who walked arm in arm with him, and you who whispered in his ear, and you who drew those laughs from him, and you who could test and push his patience.

"Of all the gifts that I have received, this I shall cherish most," you whispered. "I — I shall never take it off."

"Hm." That pleased him. You could see it on him, clear as day; self-satisfaction pulled at the corners of his mouth, puffed his chest out.

"I am only ashamed that I have nothing to give in return."

"Seven hells, woman. Were the warships not enough?"

You said nothing, gazing down at the tooth against your skin. After a pause, Maekar exhaled.

"…The only thing I require of you is your happiness," he muttered. "'Tis gift enough."

The tooth was warmed against you. You remembered your hands drifting over them in Maekar's tent what felt like an age ago. He had been fearsome. Terrifying. A man hardened by blood and bone, and you had set your hands upon him and tied your pretty green ribbon around him. And he had looked at you like he was looking at you now, this man who had crushed and killed more than you could fathom — who was spoken about in perpetual buts.

A great warrior, but a terrible speaker.

A magnificent fighter, but easy to anger, and quick to annoy.

An asset on the battlefield, but not in court.

A mind for the war tent, but not for the solar.

You felt such an urge to touch him, then, that you had to dig your fingers into your palms, anchoring yourself to the pinching pain that came with it. He was yours. He was yours, all of him, and yet you could not touch him until you had wed. You had no personal qualms with having your way with him — but with the most important people in the realm gathered, the embarrassment of such a tryst would displease your mother and father-in-law. And they did say that patience was a virtue…

"You say that you are unlearned in the ways of love," you could only say, swallowing your desire, "and that you are prickly and mannerless — but I have seen more gentleness from you, Maekar, than from most men. More love, more affection…"

He blinked down at you. No words escaped him. His astonishment almost looked like disgust — lips parted, brow furrowed — but that dumbfounded silence spoke more than any words could.

"Two days," you said, squeezing your palms tighter. The weight of the tooth rose and fell with your breathing, and you took comfort in its heft upon your chest. "Two days, and then... and then I shall be able to kiss you as I want to now."

When the girl and her cousin walk into the tent, she lights a taper of lavender and zest from the blood oranges of Dorne and rises from the bench. The air is dark and thick as oil; the fragrance is the only thing that will permeate such an aura that emanates from that girl.

"Back early," she observes. "Did the violence spoil your appetites?"

"Just tired," the girl says as the tent flaps close behind them. Tanselle, dark brow furrowed, only grips her hand tighter. "I dragged Tanselle back. Rotten luck I was struck with an upset stomach on a night like tonight, but nothing that cannot be fixed with night's sleep." She moves towards the screen that hides her quarters, but her cousin pulls her back with a harsh jerk of her elbow. "Ow!"

"You are not to leave without telling me everything. You won't even explain what the prince has anything to do with this."

"Well, any woman would be jealous of a prince," Sweetling says with a shrug and a benign smile. Aggy busies herself with settling the candle to a holder. Tanselle's hand flies off as if her cousin had scalded her. "Even worse, a prince's wife. I think I was just entirely overwhelmed with envy. You know what that does to us women."

"Yes, you most of all, I'm sure," Tanselle bites. "You hide something. It frightens me."

"And what would that be? In all our years have I ever lied to you? Harmed you in any way?"

"… no."

"Then my habits cannot be broken now."

"Or perhaps it is just in time."

"I am simply overtired, and I've had some minor squabble with Ser Lyonel; one that you shall not worry yourself with. Then I saw the Young Prince and my idiotic lovelorn heart turned violent." Sweetling draws back and starts making her way towards her cot, sending a lazy look over her shoulder. Aggy watches, her lips set into a firm line, and there's something a little unsettling in the detachedness in the girl's eyes. A soft push in her legs urges Aggy to follow as the girl says, "Good night, Tansy." It must be the urging of the Mother.

Tanselle scowls. "I loathe when you call me that."

"I know. Good night."

"Sweetling!" She steps forward. Aggy grabs her wrist, and shakes her head. The fangs in the girl's words does no more than glance off her iron skin. "Don't stop me! She's being unreasonable. If you had seen what I saw, you'd understand. I've never, never, seen her so distraught."

"Never seen does not mean it has never happened. Allow me. Send yourself to sleep and away from this for just a few hours."

She does not wait to hear her answer. The screen that partitions Sweetling's room is perhaps one of the most beautiful pieces ever made in the Seven Kingdoms—carved depictions of a crowned knight raising a greatsword from a stone, of a castle that rose from an island at the end of a long winding river, of a woman and the crowned man again, kneeling in the depths of the water. All on smooth, dark-stained wood and bordered by etched horse heads and stars.

She raps her knuckles upon this screen lightly before rounding the corner and raising the taper higher.

"Don't believe anything she says." Her hair is messy, and her dress will need cleaning. Aggy suppresses the urge to click her tongue and instead sits down on the edge of her bed, reaching forward to feel her brow. "She worries too much."

And this girl—this young girl who once had messy braids and mud caking her face and wide hollow eyes, who once stood stalwart in the frame of her door asking with a lady's grace for bed and board, for her father and her, just one night—comes to mind. A girl-woman. She had grown too fast, too quickly. Aggy steps closer to the bed and juts out her chin and swallows down those memories. It would not do well to dwell on such ancient times.

"Aggy, I just want to sleep."

"Is that so? When was the last time you were abed in dirty clothes?"

For a moment, the girl doesn't move. Then, with eyes still glimmering in the low candlelight and narrowed upon her like a hawk, she reaches to her bodice and slowly begins to undo the laces.

As the fabric falls away from her body to reveal a milky white shift: "You're not my mother."

The words to hit her square in the chest then fall aside to be ignored. "No, I'm not," she agrees, taking hold of the dress and drawing herself up, "no matter how much you were in need of one. Sleep. I will insist to your father that we shall only perform once tomorrow. In the afternoon, after the lists have ended perhaps."

"No. No, not on account for me. Tell my father nothing."

Aggy resists snorting. Barely. "I will not listen to an overtired girl. Tanselle was right about one thing—you have had naught a moment's rest since we arrived. Embroiling yourself with the Baratheon House—"

"Have you too come to chide me too for my supposed foolishness?"

"Love makes fools of us all, whether we will it or no. Sooner or late, we will all be burned by its touch."

"Then be glad I do not love him."

Aggy adjusts the fold of fabric over her arm and lifts a dark eyebrow, holds the candlelight far from her face. "Then who?"

She cannot see her eyes. Only the fire lighting the pits of Sweetling's gaze in wobbling, glassy specks of orange. For a moment, it is quiet—the sound of a trembling breath coming out, the silent whoosh of the candle. Sweetling grabs at her blankets and tugs them up her legs before easing herself down on the bed and turning away.

"…Please leave me be."

"If you wish. This will soothe you to sleep." Setting the candle on the small bedside stool, Aggy draws the bushel of rosemary from her pockets as well, picking the greenest sprigs from the bunch and gently strewing them through the basin Sweetling uses to wash her face in the morning. "And this will steep overnight. When you wake, wash yourself well with it. It will cleanse the remnants of the dark energy that clouds you."

It is only as she reaches the screen that Aggy hears quietly: "Thank you."

⋆༺𓆩⚔𓆪༻⋆

The next morning is cool and drafty. As the sun barely rises, she comes upon Tanselle sitting at her craft bench, bent over a bland shield scraped of paint and surrounded with her own pots and brushes. A heavy blanket cloaks her shoulders, a blanket she holds back and taut around her shoulders to avoid it scraping the surface of her work.

Aggy frowns at the unfamiliar crest outlined there. An elm tree by the looks of it, with a falling star.

A portent, that is. What it means though, she does not know.

⋆༺𓆩⚔𓆪༻⋆

GARNET

The buzzing of the tent is similar to a distressed hive of bees. A trail of black powder—it lays between the feet of all those in the troupe tent and awaits a stray ember to set them all alight. Garnet turns his collar up against the strangely chilly morning draft as he sets about his duties.

The master announces there to be only a sole performance in the afternoon and it allows the troupe a lax morning. The others mingle amongst themselves, but Garnet cannot stop looking over his shoulder, cannot ignore the ghost fingers brushing along the back of his neck, sending shivers down his spine. He spends his morning as he oft does: scrubbing down the plate pieces of costume, polishing the swords, taking a few experimental jabs when no one's looking, and hopes it is nothing.

In the mid-morning, Master Pol asks him to run to the fields and assure that the troupe's horses are well.

He sets down his sword. Well, not his sword. Not yet. "Me, ser?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Sweetling does that when she takes Summer out for a ride in the morning. And I wait on her when she comes back."

"Indeed."

"Then why am I doing it today?"

"It must be that she cannot do so."

"Is she ill?"

"No."

"Then why?"

"Because I said so. Now, go. I am done with this conversation."

Garnet sets down the dulled sword, his shoulders dropping. Yara sends him a sympathetic grimace as she walks past, but she does not speak up for him. No one will. No one can.

Master Pol heaves a harsh, ragged sigh and turns back to his wooden puppet. The sound of his sharpened tools carving and wicking away bits of wood to the dirt fill the silence. Garnet traces the ridge of his shoulders with his eyes. Notes the muscle still there, laying dormant. The master's hands are calloused from years of working with them roughly. Pale scars litter his skin where his sleeves are rolled up. Sweat dots his temples.

There are tales of who the master was before he was the leader of a puppeteer troupe. A sellsword who tired of endless bloodshed. A merchant who ran from debts and shed his cloak for one of a mummer. A once noble knight, unparalleled and of great renown. They are shifting facets of who the master is. Garnet doesn't know which one is the true side of him.

"Garnet," he speaks, softer this time. A slight turn of his chin over his shoulder. His eyes, shadowed by his thick eyebrows, are weary.

"Yes, sir?"

"Take money from my pouch. Buy yourself a full meal from one of the carts. A good meat pie, some sweetened juice. As token of my thanks."

"Sir?"

He turns back around. "Go."

Garnet finds the master's pouch hanging from a hook where he always keeps it and pulls out a handful of stags to slot into his own coin purse.

Perhaps no one wishes to speak against the master because who would want to? He knows what he knows. Garnet does as he's told.

⋆༺𓆩⚔𓆪༻⋆

"Holding down the horses well?"

Garnet twists around, nearly toppling over from his perch on the fence as Sweetling trudges up to him along the path, kicking up small bursts of dust. She pulls a shawl tighter around her shoulders. He waves. "Good morrow."

"Good morrow. My father told me he sent you. I just wanted to see Summer for myself." Exhaustion marks her in the puffiness of her face, the dark circles beneath her eyes. Her steps are slow and sure, and her voice is raspy. Not from sleep but from some invisible cord of rope pulling tight through a sharpened metal hoop. Caught. Fraying. "How do they fare?"

"Well. Summer keeps licking at the dew sticking to the wooden posts instead of grazing though."

"A strange habit she indulges in from time to time." Leaning in beside him, she settles hands on either sides of him, her shoulder pressing into his back. "They should be enjoying the cloudy weather. It looks like it will rain before we see sun."

"A bad omen."

"Is that what Aggy told you?"

He shrugs. "Well yes, but the horses are the only ones who don't seem ill at ease."

"The only ones?" Garnet glances down. Sweetling is already staring at him, eyebrows furrowed. "Is something the matter?" He shifts on the fence and immediately her hand comes to cup his side, careful that he doesn't lose his balance. "Garnet."

"No. No of course not."

His eyes trickle from each of the grazing horses back to Sweetling before he swings his legs and jumps off, landing with a thump. Then, he turns and ducks between the rails to lean in beside her, chin nestled deep in his forearms. Her fingers come up to his back, then comb through his hair. "Nothing is the matter yet something bothers you so plainly. Would you lie to me?"

He buries his face into his elbow. "No."

"I would like it if you looked at me when I spoke to you. Make it feel less like I'm speaking at you." Her hand settles between his shoulders, and she bends down so her face is level with his. He turns just enough to peek at her. A soft smile. A quiet smile. Fragile. Flickering as a candle stands against a breeze. He shakes his head petulantly and turns his face again into his arms. A laugh like cold water. "Gods, you remind me of my little brother so much sometimes. He would pout just as you do."

Garnet lifts his head for a moment. "Your little brother?"

"Yes. Did you know I had one?"

"No." He straightens up a little, fingers digging into the rail. Sweetling turns to look at the horses, smiling as Summer sways over, flaxen tail swishing, mane shifting like molten metal, oozing and falling and reflecting the light the way a mirror sheens.

"Not many people do. Keep it a secret, would you?" Her mare chuffs, lifting her head in greeting to allow her rider to press a kiss to a velvet nose. "Hello, sweet girl."

"Is it because he's dead?" Garnet regrets the words as soon as they're said. Sweetling's fingers slow in their scratch of Summer's chin, and she crosses her arms limply at the wrists upon the fence, cocking her head.

"Would that be easier? Hm, perhaps it seems so at times."

"He's alive."

"Oh, yes, very much so. And as healthy as a horse. He had never been otherwise. The last time I saw him, we had been in Dorne, just before the year began anew. You had not joined us yet, still playing in the Princess Daenerys's Water Gardens, but my father and I had gone to see him." Sweetling turns to him, and the tenuous smile comes again. She brushes a strand of Garnet's long hair away from his eyes, tucks it gently behind his ear. "He grew up so fast, just as you do every day. Yesterday he had been a boy. Today he is a man. Ferocious with an axe, even worse with a halberd, but truth be told there is no weapon you could put in his hands that he would not make into an extension of himself. I think you would admire him very much, Garnet. He is the type of man to inspire that in boys."

"Really?" An inquisitive cock of his brow. "Then why does he not join us?"

"Because he has a different home, and a different sort of responsibilities," she answers and when Garnet looks up at her, there is a distance in her gaze that tells him she is not with him; far away. In another land. Another world. Another life.

"But why not join us and be together? Is it because he is not skilled at the arts?"

Sweetling laughs. "No. Though, I do think he has no inclination to learn. He devotes his life to strategy and warfare, I fear."

"Then as a guard for us," Garnet argues. "I think I remember… Aggy and Master Pol and I thought it would be very wise for a hired sword to protect us."

"Ah, you thought so as well? And so we must need protecting then," she teases, but all the same she does not disagree. Instead, she watches the horses wistfully, and Summer raises her slim head, blows out pleasantly, shakes out her mane. "I don't think you're wrong, and I would want nothing more than for him to come with us."

"Then why doesn't he?"

"Because sometimes that is how things are, no matter how much we wish it different. We have another brother. Younger, but older than you by a few years. He is on the cusp of being a man, and needs a good role model." Her fingers trail along the wood grain. "Either way, we are at the whims of the order of our world. An old order that cannot be changed by simple people like us."

"Aegon the Conqueror united the Seven Kingdoms and changed everything," he mumbles petulantly.

She offers her hand up to her horse for exploration. "Yes, and he did so with his sisters and three dragons. We are not them."

Summer snuffs at Sweetling's fingers before turning to Garnet, and the mare sniffs at his hair before lipping at his bangs. Letting out a squawk, he pushes the horse away but she only roams back, nose pushing beneath the fence at his breast and then at his trousers, seeking a treat. Sweetling laughs, reaching down to pull her steed's attention with another good chin scratch.

Garnet tugs his vest straight again. "If I had a dragon, I would fly anywhere I wanted."

She hums. "Really? Where to first? The Wall? The Summer Isles?"

"Essos. Braavos, I think."

"Braavos? Bit far. Any reason why?"

By now, the wind picks up and the clouds overhead begin to drift ever so slightly. The sunlight pierces the canopy just enough that in a certain light, he can see bands of gold stretching down to the Meadow.

"I have a sister. Her name is Saffron." If he closes his eyes, he still sees her big round eyes, as blue as his, but her hair had been darker. Browned with age, but still curling girlishly like spiral spools of ribbon. "She left in search of better prospects after Princess Daenerys promised me safe board in the Gardens. But before she did, she promised she'd send for me once she found a husband so that I could join her. She was pretty. Anyone would be lucky to marry her. But she hasn't sent for me. Not even a letter to know she's still trying. Maybe she forgot about me."

"No, of course not," says Sweetling, wrapping an arm around him. His head against her side, he listens to the subtle thud of her heart. She's warm and smells of bed. He closes his eyes when she bends her elbow and begins to pull hair out of his face, as gentle as a mother. "It is very hard to forget about your little brother. They nag at you like ticks, cling onto you until you can't ignore the ache they leave behind. And everything reminds you of them. You remind me of mine own, Garnet, not because you resemble him in my memories when you sulk, but because you exist as you are. Because every boy in the world exists as they are. And every young boy is the one from my childhood with a knack for trouble and precocious and very precious to me."

He turns his head into her side, eyes squeezing tighter. His hands, somewhere in the process, have latched onto her, twisting the skirts tight in his fists. "Precious?"

"Oh, of course. More than anything. Ever since he was born, I did all I could to make sure he was safe and raised well. Even if it meant I went far, far away. On that, I can understand Saffron, and I think she prays, like I do, that you do not hate her for it."

"I couldn't," he mumbles. "I just wish she would come home."

Softly, as fingers brush along his brow and sweep his bangs away from his eyes. "She wishes she could go home, too. I promise."

Garnet falls asleep against her in the faint sun. When he wakes, they are sitting beneath a tree near the pastures, his head in her lap. She is braiding a chain of daisies and tells him that he's missed luncheon as she crowns him with it. He closes his eyes again and rolls onto his side. His face begins to burn from the peeking sun.

The sun in Essos must be like this. Perhaps he hears the humming of his sister, just a thousand leagues away.

⋆༺𓆩⚔𓆪༻⋆

LYAM

"I will see you again tonight? After the show?"

"Tonight! So soon? My, my, I might think you've grown fond of me."

"Of course, Lacey. More than anything I've ever had in my life."

"And you've had much?"

"Ow."

"Oh, I'm sorry. Let me kiss it better." Lacey has to go on her tiptoes to kiss Lyam on the cheek, but he's gotten into the habit of bending down to give her easier access. Her arms sling around his tree-trunk of a neck, and her nose presses deeper against his skin. "There." Against his ear. "Better?"

"Hmmm, maybe one more to soothe the ache?" he teases, but this time, when she goes to kiss him, he turns his head quick enough to steal the kiss with his own lips, and it must be as sweet as that Arbor stuff. He wouldn't know, but Lacey would. She claims Ser Lyonel allows a taste if he pretends to look away on account of her looks, just because she thinks it's adorable to see Lyam pout.

Not that he minds giving her those lovesick eyes. Lacey has long, lovely dark hair and pale green eyes and freckled cheeks that have darkened in the sun, and he wonders what Master Pol would say if they took her with them for the rest of their lives.

For the rest of Lyam's life, that is. All his misery at the grey and mild weather had been scooped out and replaced with the sun that laid in Lacey's smile. She keeps sneaking away from her duties to see him—Ser Lyonel himself had allowed her leave when she had explained herself and who she was off to see. He can see why Sweetling is easier on him.

Lacey slips out of the tent with another indulging kiss and a bid good luck, which leaves Lyam feeling listless and dreaming of their next meeting.

Only one show until he can see her again.

As the rows begins to swell with eager audience members, he stretches his arms high above his head back stage. There's a bounce to his step. Leonora sends him a withering look as she helps Garnet tie together his leathers, but he ignores her.

She always has been distasteful of human joy.

Turning the corner, he stumbles back when he runs directly into someone, and he looks down, an apology already spilling out of his lips when Sweetling twists around, clad entirely in black and tucking a cloth into her belt.

"In a rush, are you?" she asks mildly, pausing in her task to rub at her shoulder. Her eyes do not meet his and avert back to making sure the fabric is secure. "Was it to see Lacey before we had to be in position? She isn't in the crowd."

"No. She just left to return to her duties."

"Ah." Turning around again, she continues her warmups blissfully ignorant. Lyam stands awkwardly beside her, watching the scurrying movements of the others, seemingly chaotic but organized and practiced, and feels the silence wash over him. His tongue is clumsy, searching for words he can string together. He's not sure if he should apologize for an imagined slight, or if there is one and she wishes for him to brush past it.

It's not as if Sweetling ever outright said she was upset with him, privately to the others or to Lyam himself. Still, as she crouches, she winces and favours a leg, and he wonders if his blind eye two nights ago had been to her detriment.

But she had insisted he go! To enjoy himself! Was it his fault?

He swallows. Looks at her. She does not notice. "Something on your mind?"

"No. Never." Finally, she meets his eyes fleetingly. She arches an eyebrow, then shakes her head and tugs at her belt. "Why? Feeling some remnant of guilt at last for allowing me to slip away from your grasp?"

"Hard to catch an eel in a vat of oil," he retorts. "You were the one who urged me to talk to her."

"I did, I did. I think I just found the night a bore and envy you and your new love."

"You did not have a chance alone with your ser?"

"Ah, no such thing as privacy with him," she says. "Everything is a performance. Something I am beginning to relearn."

Master Pol walks past them without a word. Sweetling withers as the curtains are pushed apart and swing shut. Her eyes trail not on her father's head but on his hand, firm on the pommel of his sword. The leather scabbard it rests in is the last thing to slip out of sight. Hands tightening her belt with a hard yank, she turns around and walks over to the bench where she would mount Lyam's shoulders, and the other stagehands would mount the dragon on hers.

A noose of uneasiness cinches tight against his throat. Lyam's hand finds her shoulder, boots skirting over the packed dirt ground. He pulls her aside to the bench, and she takes his offered hand to help herself up. When she moves to let go, though, he holds on tight, tugs gently. Her gaze knifes to him. "Sweetling. What is it?"

Her fingers twitch against his palm as if she cannot decide whether to hold him or let him go. Lyam makes the choice for her. His palm ices over where her skin used to be. "Garnet had a bad feeling about today," she says at length, voice nearly swallowed by the cacophony of noise around them. "Do you feel it, too?"

He frowns. "It was a bit rainy and glum in the morning," he remembers. "And the lists were a mess, of course; Prince Aerion killing that knight's horse and breaking his leg. Shoddy work."

A disturbed look comes across Sweetling's face. She spins him around and he slots into position and it is practiced work the way they move. Her hand on his head, impeccable balance. She hoists a thigh onto one shoulder, and he clamps her leg securely. "He killed a horse? A knight's horse in a tourney?"

"You hadn't heard? It was the scandal of the day. I do believe Ser Hardyng's leg is shattered."

"I suppose I was… absent, today. Did he mean to?"

"They're all saying he did, and he was loathe to forfeit his steed and his other winnings," Lyam mutters. There is an internal rhythm between them as she bends her knee thrice, then she jumps and he catches her upon his shoulders, takes a few staggering steps to balance. "It's a wonder how a boy like him became a prince."

Testily: "It's all luck disguised as divine fate. Best to keep that to yourself. You never know when he might hear you."

"A Targaryen prince come to see our show?" As the dragon puppet descends upon him and Sweetling's calves tighten against his ribs, Lyam's fingers tighten around her thighs. He lets out a snort as his world darkens. "As if he even knows someone like me exists."

There is a loud count down somewhere. Behind the stage, it all falls silent.

The curtains part. Whatever his partner might've said is lost to the cheers of the crowd as they surge forth.

⋆༺𓆩⚔𓆪༻⋆

POL

Once, when Pol had been young and foolish, he had come to her; Lady Della, with face ashen and eyes wide, perched on a marble bench in a slant of sunlight and surrounded in the blooming flowers of the Red Keep. In his hand, the missive stating she had sent for him, sealed by her lilac wax.

She had been beautiful waiting for him there. She'd always been beautiful. How wonderful, he thought, to follow her from Dorne to the Crownlands and to never be apart.

In some cruel twist of fate, even years after her death, it was true. He cannot escape her ghost. He does not know if he even wishes for it.

The play goes well. The crowd is reactive. Cheers and bays and claps loudly. Pol thinks that perhaps he had been too hasty to come to this show armed. He just couldn't ignore the sneaking addition to his shadow when he woke this morning to Aggy insisting that his daughter needed rest—that hard, braided chain of fear.

The crowd is silent. Tanselle, cast as Serwyn of the Mirror Shield, pulls her sword free from the throat of the dragon and endless red tissue spills from the imagined wound.

Later, when he reflects on this moment, scours every detail, tries to invent ways to travel back through time to prevent it, he will decide it is here that the world splits into two eras irreversibly. Irrevocably. The time before. The time after.

The clatter of the wood sword cuts the silence as the Prince Aerion, glittering and red and pale and slight, shifts his jaw, hands crossed lax upon the pommel of his sword. His eyes are bright in the firelight as he lifts them from Tanselle to the dragon head rising despite its sputtering death. Its jaw unhinges.

Pol, watching from the wings of the curtains, reaches for his waist.

Then, as carelessly as flicking away a stray mote of dust: "Bring me the sword hand and her hunting trophy."

"Yes, Prince Aerion."

It happens swiftly. The household guards of House Targaryen are bats swarming a cave, baring silver teeth drawn for blood. They storm onto the stage, crushing everyone in their way and the dragon lurches as the guards crowd around it, reaching blindly and yanking at what they manage. A piercing scream erupts from its mouth.

It falls to the ground with a harsh crash, truly dead. A brazier tips over when the crowd flushes out in a stampede of screaming as the remaining few guards flanking Prince Aerion descend upon the cowering troupe like vultures.

Without another second of pause, Pol unsheathes his sword, tosses his scabbard aside, and runs onto the stage. There are blurs of people on their knees and crawling. Behind him, he hears a ragged gasp but he cannot waste time to look. Tanselle shouts as her mail coif is torn from her head, and Garnet jumps onto stage, a blur of gold that shoots to the dragon's head.

But they are no louder than the blood roaring in his ears. For the first time in years, he comes alive.

His blade trembles and sings in his grip as he pushes away the guards that pull his people by their hairs and clothes, shriveling, shrinking, weak who cannot defend themselves against the black-plated soldiers.

Duck. Swing. Step.

Jab. Parry. Feint.

These men yearn to see his blood, he realizes as he is nearly too slow to block another strong blow that sends his teeth chattering. Eyes meet his opponent's as Pol sends his blade forward to the soft part of the guard's neck, right above where the dragon is emblazoned on the chest plate.

The tip of his sword will never claim his life.

Instead, he swerves, and comes back around again, aims higher. The flat side of the blade rings against the guard's helmet. Pol's foot sends him off stage in an undignified crash.

"Stop it! Let me go!"

To his side, a gauntlet backhands Garnet to the ground, turning with a poised blade.

Pol does not remember the breath he takes in the span of reaching the boy. He will only remember that he sends his blade through the man's legs. How his opponent stumbles and groans before he sends him to the ground with a harsh kick. He will think he is dazed and battle lost, but it is the opposite.

As a blade touches whetstone after so long in disuse, as the rust is battled by scouring and lard, and as fire is to oil, his mind will never be clearer, work quicker.

He thinks of the last time he fought like this. On the day of Red Grass against Blackfyre troops. Mounted and charging at first, but soon he found himself in the dirt, scrabbling at a man who wanted to kill him. Blood in his mouth, between his fingers, in his eyes. Was it his? He cannot remember any more than the taste of iron and the promise of his children waiting for him.

A holy screech pierces the haze. And it is the sound of a babe screaming for her father.

He turns. The air rank with smoke burns his eyes, but he squints, breathes deeply, ignores how thick everything is in his chest. The carcass of the dragon puppet has been upturned onto its side. Lyam lays still on the ground, and Pol's eyes linger on his body for a moment before he flits to Sweetling, scrambling on hands and knees away from a dark shadow, but her elbows keep buckling and she is slow.

The guard steps over her. Bends down. Grips her jaw until Pol sees her skin giving in and dimpling. Reaffirming his grip on his sword, he stalks over. She clenches her mouth tight but the guard forces it open, digging his gloved fingers into her skin.

Her lips part and tears to spring into her eyes, shoot down her cheeks like falling stars in the burning light. As soon as the man manages to sneak a finger into her mouth, his daughter—pride, bright, burning and brilliant, surges through his veins—bites down.

The man screams, then slaps her spiraling to the floor. Her head snaps against the stage, mouth open from shock, and instantly there are more on her, pinning her down and forcing her mouth open. One man straddles her, barking at her to stay still. She lets out a shriek. Fury, white and blinding, sends a savage strength down Pol's arm.

With a ragged breath, he launches himself forward. The crash of his shoulder into plate armour sends a dull ache ringing through his body. His palms scrape against the wood as he pulls out his belt knife. It is smacked out of his grip.

Pol grits his teeth. Sends his fist into a face and feels satisfying cracks. The resonance of the metal bouncing back into the wood stage hollowly echoes deep in his marrow as he strikes him again and then again, the helm denting until the guard curls in on himself, clutching at his bloody face.

He stands.

The other guard's flashing silver. He jerks out of the way, prepared again but the guard is not interested in him. He chases Sweetling, scrambling back. Her foot strikes when he is close enough. It meets him in the hip, slowing him but not stopping him and her eyes widen when his gloved hand snatches her ankle, dragging her back.

Picking up his dropped knife, Pol staggers. Then, with hot pulsing pain deep in his hands, he shoots forward. His footsteps are loud. The guard turns. He ducks. The air splits above him with the speed the sword and then there is a boot that lodges itself into his ribs. Pain spirals through his old body. Curling, he braces against the next kick. It does little to ease the pain. The next goes straight to his face.

He hears the snap. Then feels it everywhere at once, pulsing in the centre of his head. There is blood, warm and gushing somewhere on Pol's skin. Something has broken. He cannot see through one eye. The world, oh how the world spins. Trying to get up sends him only to the ground again. Catching himself, his palm scrapes against the wood and his fingernails dig into the grain.

Pain blasts the air out of his lungs and through his back as he crashes backward. The guard steps forward through the kick and shakes his head. Is that pity? Or scorn?

"Tough old cunt."

He cannot decipher it. The guard turns and gestures. Another shadow comes and hoists his daughter to her feet, secures her tight with two huge hands on her shoulders.

Then, he lifts his sword arm high. The flames consuming the tent somewhere ripple over the metal, and he readjusts the grip of each finger slowly, relishing it or steeling himself for the task at hand Pol will never know. All he can see is Sweetling's eyes. Round with fear, a ring of white. Della's eyes. Blood smatters her face. She looks to a point past him with no light. There is no hope.

His heart goes cold. His blood no longer flows. He looks down, and expects to see a sword piercing his back, through his gut, greeting him through a new seam in his stomach.

Is he dead?

And so Prince Aerion says, "Let her scream for her traitor cousin before we silence her forever."

Pol, shivering and stomach trying to empty itself, wonders how Maekar could have turned such a blind eye on his son as he turns around.

The princeling holds Tanselle by her scruff behind him. Not so far away. Not close enough.

And slowly, he reaches down and grabs her hand. "I should have your tongue for what you've said tonight," he murmurs quietly to her, his fingers wrapping around one of her own but his eyes never, never straying from Sweetling. There is a fire there, wicked. Terrible. Tanselle's cheeks are wet with her tears. She shivers from sobbing. Aerion lowers his gaze to his prey. "Thank me for being merciful."

Tanselle's voice is a thick, clotted garble as she closes her eyes. "Prince Aerion—"

"Thank me."

"Let her go, now! Take me instead!"

Aerion's fingers tighten. There is naught but a symphony of crackling wood, the muffled protesting outside this burning tent. The shifting fabric of a squirming body strewn around them. Moaning of someone trampled in the upturned benches. The clanking of the guard's armour. His daughter's ragged panting. His own racing heart.

Aerion stands, patient. Waits. His eyes flit from Pol, to Sweetling, and then to his prisoner again. "Turn, and see what your treason has wrought. I shall wait for you to be consumed by your guilt."

A breath so desperate that it screeches against his ribs like a sword rings against bone.

Tanselle swallows. "I'm… I'm sorry, Prince Aerion."

"Hm. That is not what I asked for."

In the corner of Pol's eye: a crop of gold hair.

The damnable snap that will mark the night into his memory until he dies.

And then the hedge knight comes.

He brings two guards to the ground before he reaches Aerion and throws him to the dirt. Sweetling surges to her feet. She springs forwards, breaking free enough from the guard's grasp for a forgotten knife on the ground but the man wrenches back. Feet kicking in the air, she is brought to a crash against the stage, the knife kicked from her hand. "Let me go!"

Pol pushes himself to his hands and knees and his throat pushes up a wad of blood. It splatters between his fingers.

"Stop it!" he hears. "Hold him down!" calls another voice.

"Let me through! I'm unarmed. Go defend your prince, fools! Father!" There is a descending figure and then hands around his shoulders, pulling him upright onto his knees. A cold hand touches his jaw, and he forces his eyes to open as a sleeve wipes away the trails of blood pouring down his face. "Tansy! Tansy, let me see."

Another figure drags herself by her knees over, head bowed and crumpled as she holds onto her hand. Pol blinks again and rubs his face fiercely. His vision clears just enough to see Sweetling's hands trembling as she pulls her cousin into her chest, tucks her head underneath her chin as if she's but a child. "It's alright. It's alright. I will protect you." Her eyes meet his wildly before turning to where the hedge knight stands, guarded by three men. Towering over all. "Duncan..."

Prince Aerion's voice is crackling and quiet, the fire that rests in the dragon's throat. He shakes his head. "Why did you throw your life away for this whore?" he asks softly. "She's scarcely worth it. She's a traitor. The dragon ought never lose." The princeling crosses his hands across his front, pouty lips cruel and red as he stares at the hedge knight, judging him. His eyes, deep and violet and bitingly cold, fixate on the young man's chest, and his chin jerks down to burn a hole into where a pendant swings against Ser Duncan's chest. Pol's heart rends at what he sees etched into the wood. "What of this carving upon your breast? Where did you come upon such a thing? Hm?" He cocks his head, serpentine. "Nothing more to say?"

"Leave him alone." Blood splatters onto the stage when she speaks. A wretched cough and her shaking shoulders. By his ear, above Tanselle's head, Sweetling's voice is strong. Quiet. "It's mine."

"Sweetling, no!" roars Ser Duncan.

Prince Aerion's head snaps to her, and he steps up onto the stage, a single pale eyebrow raised. The black and bloody shadows of men seem to enclose them—impenetrable walls of obsidian and steel. "Yours? Is this a friend of yours, hedge knight? Pity. Beneath that blood and bruising—" Sweetling shakes with fury as she bares her teeth in a vicious snarl. She struggles to her feet— "she was pretty. And claims to be worth much more than she is. Bring me her tongue."

The air ignites. Another guard materializes behind Aerion and stalks over to his daughter, sheathing his sword and pulling out a short dagger from his belt. Tanselle screams as she is shoved aside and Pol reaches for a weapon but the fire has drained from his body and he is sluggish on his knees.

Sweetling thrashes, her breath falling fast and shallow as two men from behind them kick in her legs. She falls to her knees with a hollow thud and they land a hard slap to her face. Her head snaps to the side, eyes rolling back, and she lolls for a moment before she comes back to consciousness just as the guard stands before her and begins to pry her mouth open.

"And you, hedge knight." Aerion paces, eyeing each movement like a commander oversees a battlefield. "You've loosened one of my teeth. We'll start with breaking all of yours."

And as guards wrestle the hedge knight to the lip of their stage, set his mouth to the wood: "Don't make my father watch," he hears her beg. "Please… please… mercy."

The man standing before her turns. Their eyes meet. Just for a moment.

Then, a sharp nod.

Your name is on his lips when there is a sharp crack to the back of his head, and then his world turns black.

⋆༺𓆩⚔𓆪༻⋆

In his dreams, Pol sinks into a sea of darkness.

"Uncle? Uncle, please wake up."

"Take them to the castle. The hedge knight… and the girl. I do believe this belonged to her, once. Beg pardon, boy, but would you hate me if I returned it to her?"

Someone spits to the ground. It splats and spreads. He feels it. There's blood on his hands.

"Leave it with him, Ser Donnel. There will be no use of its luck with me. Just… a maester for the rest of them. For my father. For my cousin. I beg of you."

"You are in no position for requests, my lady, but I will be sure to bring your requests to the prince. Only after you come with me."

"Thank you." The wood gives. "Ser Duncan?"

"I'm here, Sweetling."

"It would be wise not to speak any more. Not until the princes see to you both."

Della did not die that day in the birthing bed, Pol thinks as the sound of footsteps fade and he falls into unending sleep. No, not at all.

⋆༺𓆩⚔𓆪༻⋆

SWEETLING

They keep you in the cell for shorter than you'd think. Clothing in tatters and bloodied, you are in the midst of digging the crusted blood out from beneath your nails when you are summoned by Prince Aerion.

"So he can kill me?" you ask the guards as they help you stand.

"No," one of them says. "By order of His Grace, the lord Hand, no harm shall come to you."

And so this is how you find yourself in his warm room, furnished well with polished wood shelves, a hearth that is fed and kept small, and carpeted well with a heavy rug of a dark, burnt red upon the stone. Aerion sits at the desk, food placed upon a stack of books nearby, and it is on this that he is staring at when the guards bow and await new orders.

One holds his sword lightly and stares at you doggedly as if one stray move will be the one that has you with the princeling's throat in your teeth. You barely hold back the snort that wishes to escape.

Aerion does not look up from where he picks blood from his chin using the reflection of his knife. "Bring me sweetened wine and an unguent from the maester. She won't hurt me. This whore has lost her fire."

You are alone in this room. There is too much space between you and the door. Between Ser Donnel manning it and yourself. You do not know if he will stop the prince. You think it is blind desperation that you hope for it.

"I thought it best," the prince says as he sets the knife down carefully, "that we speak alone before my father or my kingly uncle sets their gaze upon you. I think it shall be trouble enough to judge the hedge knight. But you… you are the mouthpiece from which villainy has been spewn."

"Villainy?" Your brow creases. "Do you charge me with a crime?"

"High treason. You attack the dragon's honour for which you must stand trial."

"For a play?"

"For depicting the slaying of our sigil. Do you think a simple man can bring the downfall of the House Targaryen?"

"Is that what you saw it as?" you demand. "Some foretelling of the future? A prophecy? My prince, it was but a fable."

Aerion arches an eyebrow. "Based on the truth in which a dragon was slain. Do you not see? Is it not obvious? You show a commoner destroying our mighty beasts to smallfolk and do not think of what that could incite in them? It is treason of the highest order and I do not take that lightly."

"Your pride is so easily wounded."

"It is the honour of my king I defend. A king who has defended his crown once, and shall do so again through me." Aerion's violet eyes widen, his lower lip jutting out in a soft pout. He is insufferably handsome in this light, warmed by the fire, softened by it somehow. "What say you? Are you guilty?"

Stiffly: "Is this to be my trial?"

"No. I simply wish for your confession for this first charge before we move onto the next. How do you plead?"

"I do not plead at all. It is no crime to entertain people."

"No? You do not plead at all? Didn't your father ever tell you that insolence is no virtue? Mine did." Your shoulders turn rigid as he stands, clearing his throat and patting at his lip with a cloth already reddened and damp. "Yet still, I find your mummer's farce the much more grievous, far more personal wound. Tell me truthfully. The pendant the hedge knight wears; is it yours?"

"I do not wish to confess my supposed sins to you."

"Then who?"

"If Prince Baelor is otherwise occupied, I shall wait in that cell until he is not. If not him, then Prince Maekar."

"My father would have you whipped."

"You would have my tongue," you reply swiftly. "I see one has more benefits than the other."

"I was exercising mercy," hisses the princeling smoothly, eyes narrowing, lips curling into a faint smile. "I would have your head."

"Then have it, but have it with the Father's justice." Fists balling at your sides, you step forward, pull your shoulders back, and meet a boy's eyes. Somewhere in a corner of your mind there is cool brackish water at your feet. The sound of a boy's laughter, and the shining scales of a fish beneath the sun. "Charge me guilty and put me to the sword."

No, you think.

You push the memory away.

You steel your heart.

"I will demand a trial by combat."

For a moment, Aerion stares at you, tongue in his cheek, tracing the gummy hole where his tooth had once been. In the stillness, you feel every ache. The blistering bruise on your cheek, the soreness in your jaw.

Then, he snorts out a laugh, waving a hand lazily and collapsing back into his chair again, picking at the tidbits of the forgotten platter of cheese and meats. "I had assumed you to be foolish, but not so incredible as this. You intend to bring some knight to heel?"

"I would name a champion to fight for me as is custom. Or are you so treacherous as to deny me this—" his lip curls. You turn to look over your shoulder at Ser Donnel— "and have your kingsguard slaughter me now?"

"You make me out to be a villain," he simpers. "I am the dragon of Old Valyria. My men do not die without noble cause."

"But they will harm the innocent."

"I see none before me. Sit."

"Give me ink and paper," you demand, standing. "Allow me my summons."

"Of whom?"

"Of Ser Cedrick of House Dayne."

The chair legs scatter over the cobblestone floor when Aerion shoots to his feet. It nearly tips over but rocks and rights itself as his lips part, eyes narrowed, nose scrunched up and nostrils flaring. He looks nearly ready to scorch you to your bones, but then he lets out a short, disbelieving breath and crosses his hands behind his back, turning away to the hearth as if to be all princely. You hold onto your bearings with a tight, bloody grip. Fear is a serpent in the shade of your heart.

Slowly, quietly as a maester teaches basic arithmetic to a child, he speaks to the fire: “You would name… my cousin as your champion? The Sword of the Morning is no hedge knight who will charge into battle to his folly. He stands for all of Dorne. Dorne serves the crown,” he says calmly, eyeing you over his shoulder. His lips are flushed, and the split that Duncan gifted him has begun to bleed again, but it is his eyes that snare you. Wide and wild and furious beneath his blanket of calm.

"Am I not of Dorne?"

“Yes, and on what account would Ser Cedrick come to this pathetic village and fight for the honour of a bastard whore?”

And it is with all the intensity of the burning sun that repelled the Targaryens over and over the course of two centuries that you answer him with a heart of stone: "You slight his sister's honour and spilt her blood in peacetime. Name your sword, Prince Aerion, unless you intend to be cut down yourself."

He opens his mouth. There will be no reply.

There is naught but the banging of the door that echoes in the chamber.

No sooner does the clamouring stop does the door swing open, and you whirl around, your battered heart throwing itself against your ribs. In strides a man, tall and proud yet weary, draped in a heavy riding cloak and all black. Beneath, the silver buttons of his jerkin flash as he passes by the flames that glance off the hilt of his sword. His feet fall heavy and sure.

"Father."

"Sit, boy. Do not think me pleased by what I've heard." Prince Maekar does not pause. He reaches for the wine first, pouring himself a goblet and unclasping the cloak from around his throat simultaneously, tossing the heavy cape onto a chair with a thump. Your gaze meanders along his shoulders and down his back, throat beginning to dry. You clutch at the closest thing you can find purchase on—the back of the proffered chair—unsteady and trembling.

You're not sure if it's the day catching up to you, or if it truly is fear, cold, sour fear, that locks you.

Prince Maekar turns. His eyes, narrowed and sheltered by his pale eyebrows, latch onto you, and the cup pauses on its journey to his mouth.

The world slows to a stop as you take him in.

His face is more lined, his beard more severe. Prince Maekar wore his hair cropped short and tidy once. Sheared from fever when he had been plagued with the pox and never a man for change, the prince's scars marked him for all to know. As if there'd been a subtle pride woven into how his shoulders pulled back, the tight clasp of his hands behind himself. Yet now whiskers cover his cheeks, his hair parts neatly and sweeps behind his ears, and his eyes, once so guarded and careful, allow you access to his soul.

It is in that moment, you see something in him change. The structure of his shoulders fall, and his lips part with the most silent of breaths. Yet it howls in your ears. It howls because you feel it, too.

The sound of a heart stopping. The sound of it starting again. The sickness that comes with blood rushing everywhere at once. When you recall this moment, you will not remember sinking into the curtsey, nor Aerion's bewilderment as Prince Maekar steps toward you, the goblet all but forgotten and set aside.

His order comes out soft. He cannot look away. Neither can you. "Leave us."

The white tail of Ser Donnel is the last thing you see in the corner of your eye before the door claps shut.

And then, choked with emotion you cannot name, you call to him as you have not since you were nine.

It was a thought spoken aloud. Maekar hardly realised his mouth had moved, staring broodingly out across the courtyard.

Your dowry was a hefty one — an armada of newly-built warships and skilled men to man them, as well as the simple prospect of your father's ear and support. In return, your father gained a stronger foothold in the Seven Kingdoms, a relationship with the monarchy and the realm that would benefit both the Iron Bank and his family beyond all sense — but what would there be for you?

You had jewels, and more gold than you could count; you had dresses and slippers and cloaks, and all the amusements you could hope for. There was nothing Maekar could give you that you wouldn't already have; and though you would no doubt be perfectly pleased with strings of rubies or pearls, he simply wouldn't have it — his pride would not allow for it.

Aerys said nothing; it was as if Maekar hadn't spoken at all. Baelor gave a hum, and tapped his fingers against the table. 'Twas Rhaegel who first spoke, soft and song-like.

"Gifts for a young bride," he said, head rocking idly from side to side. He tapped his fingers along the arms of his chair, humming. "Gifts for a girl…"

"What is proper?" mused Baelor, then. He leaned back in his seat and smoothed a hand over his jaw, writings abandoned upon his desk. "I would imagine she is no stranger to all manner of finery…"

There was a scowl upon Maekar's face. "Therein lies my predicament."

"You'll find none of us particularly well versed in such matters," continued Baelor. "I, especially, am… out of practice. Perhaps you might ask mother?"

He thought about it. Yes, it was perhaps the best course of action… It was only his pride which had prevented him from doing so. Running to mother for help with his bride felt entirely juvenile; he'd hoped that his brothers would bear more bounteous fruit.

Aerys remained quiet for a long time. Only the sound of Baelor's quill against parchment was to be heard as he returned to his missives. Then, just as Maekar had given up on the thought altogether, he spoke:

"I do believe us all entirely capable of preparing an assortment that will please Maekar's bride." Maekar perked up, gaze intent. "We shall begin thusly…"

─── ༻⋅☼⋅༺ ───

1. A feast — for what is more suitable for a gregarious young bride than a chance to be celebrated? So says the King and Queen. "My lady," purred Lord Baratheon, seizing your hand in his. "You are entirely radiant this evening, may I say. If you would do me the honour of a dance…"

Within a sennight of your announcement, a feast was prepared by the King and Queen's insistence. A gift, they said, before the wedding proper.

Relatively hasty though its preparation was, it was masterful in execution; the Great Hall was adorned in all manner of ornamentation, from banners and cloth-of-gold wreaths to bouquets of exotic flowers; multiple pigs were put to spit in a crust of herbs and salt, and there were pheasants and beef and goose, and a whole plethora of dishes to go with them. It was a marvellous display of abundance that sent both the serving wenches and courtiers into a flurry of awestruck gossip — even Maekar, dour as he was to endure the court, was exceptionally pleased.

Those seven days allowed the most important lords of the surrounding areas to gather: those from the closest stretches of the riverlands and the Reach, as well as the stormlands and crownlands. All came with their suites in tow, proud and haughty, and the air was abuzz with excitement — a royal engagement, it seemed, was worthy of a spread rivalling that of the King's name-day celebrations. Maekar wasn't particularly overjoyed to see half of their smug faces, but your excitement eclipsed his annoyance.

Dinner (with all its courses and toasting and well-wishes) had not long passed before you were whisked away to dance by Syrah — your betrothed had grumbled, but relented his time with you. It was then that Rhae had decided that she wished to follow, content to be spun and tugged every which way between the two of you. You couldn't remember the last time you'd laughed with such zeal, dizzy with wine and dance.

And then — in the middle of twirling her like a spinning top—

"Lord Baratheon," you said, a smile upon your face. "A pleasure, truly — I missed you at the King's name-day tourney, did I not?"

(Maekar, you found, had very little fondness for the man. Upon reading through the list of guests confirmed to attend, he'd let out a long-suffering groan, and collapsed back in his seat.

"Fucking Baratheon," he'd muttered, staring into the distance. "I'd rather have the Grey Lion at my table.")

The Laughing Storm had come with a retinue twice the size of most others, and was wholly unabashed by the audacity of it; among them was a troupe of Dornish puppeteers, whom he had apparently been hosting in Storm's End for many moons. Apparently, he'd offered their services with all the fawning and praise a man of his status could muster.

(Syrah was incredibly happy to be the one to tell you of his alleged infatuation with one in particular — a pretty girl, you were told, though entirely beneath his station. It did gladden you to know you weren't the only person sending the nobility aflutter with scandal.)

"A fault completely my own. A spin with the guest of honour?" asked the man. You had no desire to be rude, being the lady of the evening; and in truth, you found him entertaining, this Lord Baratheon, with his mischievous eyes and sociable nature. Thus, you allowed him a dance — a single dance, you warned — and urged Rhae back to her father's side.

His teeth were a shocking white when he smiled, sharpened like fangs. And smile he did — laughing raucously as he pulled you straight into the fray, not bothering to wait for the ongoing couples to finish. He spun you so fast the faces around you began to blur, twisting you this way and that. "Had I known a woman so radiant resided in the King's court, I would have stolen you from under your dragon's nose!"

"Lord Baratheon!" you said, a surprised laugh leaving you before you could stop it. "Have you no shame?"

You were not offended. If rumour served, Lord Baratheon had his puppet-girl, and he was no doubt well aware of the might of Maekar's ire. The Laughing Storm seemed to find great glee in stirring the pot, is all.

"Oh, I'm terrible," Lord Baratheon said. He guided you around the other couples at breakneck speed, narrowly avoiding the shoulders of a lord whose face you hadn't the time to register— "When I take Storm's End, my dear, I shall raze it to the ground with my debauchery."

"May your lord father live long, then."

"Ah, a wound from a lady cuts deeper than any sword."

"Well, I hear a mace leaves a terrible mark."

Lord Baratheon's grin turned keen — and he made to spin you once more, hands tightening around you, when—

"Baratheon," said Maekar through gritted teeth, voice hard and forceful. "Allow me a dance with my wife."

Your head was still whirling — the stop was incredibly abrupt — but even then, you could detect the distinct displeasure on Maekar's face. He had never seemed a small man, but beside Lyonel (who was already as big as a man could be) he seemed to loom.

(A dizziness came over you — decidedly not from the dancing.)

You wondered how he'd got there so quickly. The dancing was a good distance from the high table.

"Wife?" Lyonel echoed, smiling lazily. "Why, I seem to have missed the wedding."

Maekar glared.

"But of course, lord dragon," Lyonel continued. He still had a grasp of your hands — as quick and decisive as anything, though, Maekar simply reached over and jerked your wrist away. You tried not to think of how his fingers clasped so easily over the entirety of it, moving you back to your rightful place at his side. "Oh, worry not, my friend. I have no desire to start another war — the ashes of the last have barely settled."

At that, the excitement dimmed, and your smile with it.

You had heard tales of the Blackfyre rebellion from Maekar's own mouth; the rest of the court — nay, the realm — seemed to speak around it, like the very thought of it could fester. It had been years since Daemon Blackfyre fell upon the Redgrass, and yet the scars remained, blackened and rotten. The ghosts of the war roamed, still, among the living, and a celebration of love was certainly not the place to invoke them.

You wished, suddenly, that you hadn't taken Lord Baratheon's hand at all.

Maekar's scowl worsened, his displeasure curdling like sour milk upon his face. He took a daring step forward, placing himself before you in such a way that you were shielded almost entirely — a dog poised to snap its terrible teeth in service. You almost let him. It wasn't the place for it, though, and the repercussions would far outweigh the satisfaction. You couldn't imagine the King or Queen would be very pleased if tensions overflowed — and Summerhall was ever so close to Storm's End, was it not?

You wound your arms around Maekar's elbow.

"Come, my love," you said, your cheek flush against the silken arm of his doublet. His arm tensed beneath you, before relaxing. "Shall we have a look at the puppeteers in the courtyard? I hear Lord Baratheon is very fond of them."

Maekar did not move. His glower was an enduring thing. You were glad to not be on its receiving end.

Lyonel's grin took a cold edge. "Fond is a word for it, I suppose."

"And tell me," you said, "which is your favourite?"

His smile widened — though, perhaps smile was the wrong word entirely. This was a baring of teeth, and those fangs of his seemed more troubling than ever. Lord Baratheon was not fond of any disrespect towards his puppet-girl, it seemed, which was alright with you. You yourself were not fond of disrespect towards your husband-to-be, no matter how slight. Yielding was not an option — you would die, you thought, before rolling over for any man other than your betrothed.

"Story, that is," you added after a long pause. "Your tales and fables are so different from those we have back home."

There was a moment in which Lyonel simply stared. The weight of his gaze was immense; pupils so stark against the blue of his irises that you felt, for a moment, as if you were pinned in place. Maekar had not moved — he simply remained at your side, ever watchful, regarding Baratheon with narrowed, distrustful eyes.

The moment passed. And then, as if the words were cut from him, Baratheon spoke. "Durran Godsgrief, my lady. He who erected the castle at Storm's End against the ire of the gods — we are an ever defiant bunch."

Your smile widened. He would not go quietly, but your point had been made. "Marvellous. Come, my love."

Terse goodbyes were exchanged, before you turned on your heel, and Lyonel Baratheon disappeared into the crowd. You released a breath, your heart thudding in your chest — despite yourself, there was some relief in turning away from him. A dragon you may have had at your side, but facing the stag still daunted.

You could feel Maekar's eyes upon your cheek as you trailed slowly towards the exit, arm in arm.

"I know," you said, pursing your lips. "Far too intrepid of me. I should have smiled and said naught — 'tis embarrassing to have your bride order you about like a stableboy, I am sure."

The next step you attempted was firmly refused — Maekar stood as still as stone, forcing you to turn and look at him.

"Do not deign to speak for me," Maekar said. You peered up at him through the cover of your eyelashes, and met his gaze. To anyone not versed in the peculiarities of him, they might think him angry — eyes narrowed, brow furrowed, his lips turned down at their corners — but you knew better. You could spy that particular shade of scarlet starting at the tips of his pale ears. The bob of his throat beneath his white whiskers. You blinked in surprise. "You held your own. I… appreciate such qualities."

"Oh?" you said. His eyes cut away — found some nondescript point in the distance amongst the crowd — but your hand darted up to the side of his neck, and they returned to you. Your smile had taken on a note of smugness. His skin was warm, pulse skipping under your palm. "Do continue, Lord Targaryen. Which other qualities of mine do you so appreciate?"

Maekar rolled his eyes. His hand engulfed your own as he promptly removed it from his neck, and it remained as such — held surely, tightly within his — as he began to walk once more. "If you want to see these blasted puppets—"

"I shan't embarrass you any longer, my lord," you said airily. "I know your desire for me eclipses all sense."

There was a scoff.

(But he did not deny it.)

─── ༻⋅☼⋅༺ ───

2. A book — for what good is a life without knowledge? So says Aerys.

There was a great thud as something heavy and fabric-bound dropped to the table before you. Your cup rattled gently against its saucer at the disturbance.

"Oh? What is that?"

Maekar didn't answer; he simply groaned as he dropped into the chair opposite you, slumping into the cushions, arms bracketing the headrest. His weary gaze found your window, where the sun was near setting. "My head is addled."

Ironically, as the wedding neared, your time was spent further and further apart; dress fittings, invitation writing, and all manner of arrangements needed your input. Maekar was similarly engaged with the wedding tourney, which was looking to be a grander and grander affair by the day. In the two days that had passed since the engagement feast, you'd spent perhaps an hour together, and had missed his little ones entirely, occupied with their lessons as they were. You were trying very intently to not let it irritate you.

"Not particularly fond of flower arrangements and table settings, my love?"

He shot you an unimpressed look, before his eyes fluttered slowly shut.

"Yes, well, I feel the same," you said, setting aside the parchment you'd been scrawling upon. "In truth, your mother has been doing most of the work — her, Aelinor, and Alys — and still, I find myself weary. "

A tut. "I cannot look upon another ceaseless list. I despise half the cunts on them."

A soft laugh left you — and, using his lethargy to your advantage, deftly slid over and tucked yourself into his side. He blinked at the press of your weight on the cushions beside him, gaze firmly tacking you in place. "What is it?"

"Must there be something wrong for me to sit at my husband-to-be's side?"

He scoffed, though it was fond. He returned to rest once more. "There usually is."

"How terribly you lie."

For a while you sat like this, side by side, fatigued by the sheer volume of things which must be done for any respectable wedding. Every time you blinked, you swore you saw bunches of peonies and lilacs, heard Queen Myriah's voice — now, which will go most with your dress? It would be best for Lord Lannister to sit near the dais. And where shall the minstrels play? Yes, yes, that sounds adequate.

It seemed strange to imagine a time after this. A quieter time, in Summerhall, where your husband and children would be your most pressing company. Rhae with her birds, Daella with her sewing. Daeron and his wine, and Aegon's mischief. You hid a smile — or, rather, were in the process of hiding a smile, when a grumbling snore snapped you from your reverie.

You blinked. "Maekar?"

There was a grunt, but he remained as he was — softened by not-quite-sleep, splayed over his seat like a great, big cat. Suddenly, you were overcome with a terrible wave of affection, and, grinning, reached over to brush his hair back. The circles beneath his eyes were darker than usual, you noted. Sullen grey against his pale complexion, the lines and wrinkles beneath caused by more than age alone.

"You poor man," you crooned. "How horribly they've run you ragged."

His usual response — an abashed sort of annoyance that would have him swatting away your hands or chastising you for treating him like a child — was markedly absent. Instead, he pressed his head deeper into your hand, and you knew then that he was more spent than you'd thought. It was with this knowledge that you reached over and cupped his whiskered jaw, pulling him slowly to face you, his exhalations hot against your palm.

Maekar's eyes opened, just slightly; half-lidded and heavy, so dark their violet appeared more indigo. The weight of his gaze was a dizzying thing. It halted your heart in your chest and seized your impulses. If he would have requested something of you, in that moment, you did not think yourself strong enough to deny him.

"Shall I leave?" you asked quietly.

A frown. "No."

"I'd rather you sleep in a bed, my love. Your old bones are not what they used to be."

He turned his face away to give a loud yawn — and yes, he must be tired indeed to not rise to your provocations. When he turned back, it was with a wave of his hand towards the table. Towards that mysterious package, which had quite honestly escaped you. "A gift for you, by way of Aerys."

Quirking an eyebrow, you turned towards it, your question finally answered. There was little doubt of what it was; 'twas rectangular in shape, clearly, and if you knew anything about Maekar's elder brother, it was his fondness for reading. You leaned forward to peer at it.

(A large, warm hand fell from the headrest to your back.)

The fabric was a deep, warm red, brocaded with what appeared to be orange and yellow silk, and tied into a large knot at its top. You tugged at it gently, and undone it came; and what sat beneath was a thick, tall tome, suitably dusty and worn. You flipped to the first page.

Chronicles of the History of Westeros Vol. I, by Archmaester Aren.

You hummed, hauling the book onto your lap. "Fitting."

"Knowledge is next to godliness, he says."

"I suppose I cannot disagree." The pages were rough beneath your fingertips, and smelled, as all old books did, of dust. It was a comforting smell, familiar.

"He says it might bring comfort. To — familiarise yourself with your new home."

"That is… kind of him." It was. Aelinor and Myriah did not need to make implications of Aerys' aversion to people, for you saw it easily. He did not enjoy gatherings or feasts or any such occasion that would require conversation of him; he preferred the library, and his study, and — if anything — the company of maesters. You turned another page, idly beginning to read.

"In the year 49 AC, Rhaena Targaryen wed Androw Farman, the second son of the Lord of Fair Isle. It is said the Queen in the West's choice in husband was borne not of love for him, but for her husband's sister, Elissa—"

The leather of the chair creaked and squeaked, suddenly, as Maekar began to move — further and further down, groaning all the while, before his head took its place upon your lap, right below the book. You paused.

"Comfortable, are we?"

A grunt. "You may continue."

With a shake of your head — and a grudging laugh — you did exactly that.

─── ༻⋅☼⋅༺ ───

3. A companion — for what is more enduring than the bond between two living things? So says Rhaegel.

The next day saw you sitting across from Queen Myriah and her ladies-in-waiting, reviewing — for the nth time, it seemed — the meals for the celebration. If you'd thought the engagement feast grand, the wedding was looking to outshine it; mostly because of Myriah, you thought, who was most pleased to see her youngest son marrying again.

("If only Baelor would allow himself the pleasure," she had sighed once. "Alas.")

The menu was ever-growing; roasted boars, pheasants baked in a crust of herbs and Dornish lemons, beef stewed in a rich, savoury gravy, and numerous dishes to compliment them. There would be bread baked with the Reach's finest grain, and cakes and sweets abound, and fiery peppers stuffed with cheese from Dorne, and the most excellent wines… And then there was the wedding pie, of course, which would be filled with birds — most likely doves, according to Myriah, though the fowlers had noted a strange influx in jays…

Once the menu had been sent away to both the King and Maekar for approval, you deflated in your seat. Myriah shot you a fond look over her chalice.

"I fear I will never be able to repay you, my Queen," you said. "Had I tried my hand at organising any of this alone, I would have run it into the ground."

"How often must I tell you?" she replied, tutting. "Myriah. I have all sons, you know, and each daughter I have gained has been more lovely than the last. Cassella — more wine, if you will."

You watched her as her cup was filled. They said that Baelor took after his mother most, and this was true. He had her dark hair and sallow skin, and kind smile. Rhaegel had her hair, but his father's colouring; Aerys, similarly, looked Daeron's twin, but thinner. But Maekar had a certain softness to his face that came by way of Myriah — it was not obvious, and he would no doubt scoff if you told him, but you could see it. When his mind was away and unencumbered, he took on a particular lightness; his frown eased, his scowl softened, and Myriah's likeness shone through.

"I am gladdened," you said eventually. "Braavos is a long journey, and… well, I shan't see my own mother as often as I would hope."

Her eyes raised to you again, knowing. "Many say the worst of marriage is the troubles that come after; the disagreements, or the coldness of the marriage bed, or love — which is oft slow to grow. But for us — for the women, who leave our homes and everything we know behind — this is our burden."

You had come to terms with this, perhaps even before you'd stepped foot upon Westerosi soil. It was the fate of any woman who was to marry; you shed your identity, your home, your culture, and adopt those of your husband. It was expected of you — not by Maekar, perhaps, but by the very world you inhabited. You could not prevent your living in Westeros, or the distance that would surely grow between you and your family, or the mannerisms and habits you would no doubt adopt — but you would treasure that which you could keep. Your songs and tales and traditions. Your Braavosi tongue. Your strange, eastern quirks. This, you swore.

You opened your mouth to say something — an agreement, maybe, or a gentle prise into Myriah's own troubles — but before you could, the doors to the Queen's solar were knocked upon.

"A courier from Prince Rhaegel, Your Grace."

Myriah raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Yes, allow him entry."

The courier was a young man, and in his arms a simple wooden box. There was a lid atop it — and as he sat it down (not on the table, mind, but on the floor) you swore it jostled itself.

"Your Grace, my lady," said the man, finally bowing low. He wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead. "A gift by way of Prince Rhaegel for Prince Maekar's bride. There is a note…"

You met Myriah's gaze, eyes wide. "For — for me?"

"One of the more delightful aspects of marriage. The husband may get the dowry, but the wife gets the gifts," the Queen said, smiling. A small piece of parchment was proferred from the messenger's pocket, and with some hesitance, you took it. "And my sons are particularly welcoming."

You opened the note, and looked upon Rhaegel's looping hand.

Companionship is a gift most treasured, read the note. Thus, it is my gift to you! Delight in her! She is named Chestnut for her coat, and is blessed with a kind and generous temperament.

"Oh, gods," you breathed, a smile growing on your face. "Rhaegel, he—!"

The box gave another rumble — and yes, it had moved by itself. This time, the top went flying off, and there was a startled little yip! from its interior. Gasping, you stood, and chanced a look inside.

"Oh, gods," you repeated. "My Queen — Myriah, look at her!"

Chestnut was small and plump — belly still round with milk — with fur a deep, red-brown, and floppy ears, and a little pink nose. When you reached inside she greeted you with all the unguarded enthusiasm of a pup, nudging at your hand with a wet snout, and peering up at you with dark, shiny eyes. She could not have weighed any more than a feather pillow. Her cold little paws dug gently into your skin as she pushed herself up to nudge at your cheek.

"How darling," cooed the Queen. She chuckled, then. "The first of many children, I hope."

Your smile was blinding. "Oh, Maekar will be delighted."

─── ༻⋅☼⋅༺ ───

4. A symbol of unity — for what is a marriage, if not this? So says Baelor.

Maekar was decidedly undelighted with Chestnut.

He had given Rhaegel multiple firm and unyielding no's, apparently. He had little fondness for the pup; she annoyed him, making a habit of chasing playfully after his boots as he walked, curling up at his feet, and clambering into his lap whenever he sat (despite the fact that he always very promptly removed her). Her nose — which she greatly enjoyed shoving into the nearest face — was irritatingly cold, and she required far too much attention for any one creature, according to him.

Chestnut was not happy about this, being that she was entirely enthralled by him, but she did not take his rejection personally.

Between your chastising and the children (who were incredibly fond of Chestnut, in that simple, enamoured way that all children are fond of small, fluffy creatures), Maekar begrudgingly accepted Chestnut as the newest member of the household.

You doted on her. She ate only pheasant poached in beef broth — shredded for her convenience, of course — and carrots and peas and pumpkin, when the kitchens allowed for it. Every day you brushed her lovely brown fur and took her for walks around the gardens; every night she curled up upon a pile of pillows at the foot of your bed, though she had a great fondness for trying (and failing) to hop in beside you.

Rhaegel had been right — during such an overwhelming period, what balm soothed better than a companion? And overwhelming it was, despite how much had already been accomplished. Your family would arrive in less than a week, and their apartments were prepared; your dress had been fitted, your wedding jewels sourced, and all the great lords and ladies of the realm were trickling, slowly yet surely, into the Keep.

You would soon be a married woman — it was hard to conceptualise, even now, even with the long and arduous journey you'd taken to it. You thought deeply on this as you pet the downy fur between Chestnut's ears, gazing intently into your fireplace.

This would be the rest of your life. Summerhall. Children and Chestnut. Keeping the house as Maekar's wife. Spending your days horse-riding and reading and tending to all those things a woman usually tends to. And, of course, the… the marriage bed.

Your cheeks were suddenly hot. Chestnut gave a gentle grumble, and you realised suddenly that you'd stopped petting her. A grievous mistake, to be sure.

"My apologies, little princess," you teased quietly. "I shan't stop again, if I can help it—"

There was a sudden, swift knock on the door. You cast Chestnut a sorry glance as the guardsman cleared his throat.

"'Tis the Crown Prince, my lady."

You pushed yourself up from the floor with such force, you almost tripped over your hems.

Baelor?

It seemed you were seeing more and more of Maekar's brothers these days — which, to be sure, was not unappreciated, nor totally unexpected — though they did seem to come at the most unanticipated times. It was terribly late. Night had fully come, and you were but half an hour from bed.

But it was the Crown Prince. You'd be a fool to turn him away.

Baelor Breakspear looked entirely perfect in your doorway. To be sure, you'd never seen the man with a hair out of place; fatigue did not seem to plague him, despite rising earlier and sleeping later than most. He went to great trouble, you thought, to maintain such a manicured facade. You may have spent most of your time in the Kep besotted with Maekar, but you had noticed much of Baelor, too. He diffused even the most tense of moments with practiced ease; he greeted everyone with the same regal graciousness; he even took great care to enjoy things with just the right amount of zeal, never too little or too much. The Baelor in Maekar's war stories seemed another animal entirely.

You smoothed your skirts. "My Prince."

"My lady," said Breakspear. His hands were clasped politely behind his back, eyes fixed on you. It was another thing you'd noticed about him — the man gave his full, undivided attention to whomever he was speaking. It was incredibly nervewracking. "If I may…"

"I — I apologise. If I had known you meant to visit, I might have…" You trailed off. You weren't sure what you might have done. Prettied yourself up? Prepared a platter of tea, so he could hum just-so, regardless of whether he liked it or not?

"Please, accept my gravest apologies. I understand this is hardly the best time, but I feared this would be the only moment I might catch you alone."

He stepped further into the room, that gentle smile of his on his face. This close to the fire, his eyes seemed to sparkle. One a dark, impenetrable brown. The other, blinding blue.

"Alone?"

"Mm." You hardly noticed you'd moved, naturally following Baelor's lead as he moved throughout the room. As you sat upon the chaise, he came to kneel before you, smoothing a hand over Chestnut's head. You had more than half a mind to urge him up. To have the Crown Prince kneeling before you, no matter the reason, was less than appropriate. "I see my brothers have been far more punctual with their gifts than I."

"She is delightful." Your voice came quiet. Heat rolled off him in waves, and you could feel it against your knees, though no part of him truly touched you. His head was bowed, his profile illuminated in fiery orange. You watched him for a moment as he indulged the pup, open affection blooming upon his pretty face. You could see Maekar in him, sometimes. "And Aerys' gift was well-appreciated."

He made a humming noise, and — as if you'd come to some unspoken, mutual agreement — you let silence trickle in. For a few moments, everything was quiet between you. The fire crackled, and Chestnut snored her little self away, and Baelor breathed slow and steady, and no words were said.

It was a mindless, tired huff from Chestnut that seemed to rouse Baelor from his thoughts.

"My apologies. I shan't keep you long," he said, then. "'Tis better late than never, I suppose, where gifts are concerned."

You felt your cheeks warm. It wasn't that you hadn't expected it, but — but Aerys and Rhaegel both had had their gifts delivered. You had thanked them, of course, but they were not present to watch as you opened the boxes and undid the knots; they did not place themselves at your feet, or examine your every move meticulously. "I am flattered, my prince, though it really isn't necessary — I have more than enough. Maekar makes sure of it."

(Of course you wanted a gift. Only fools did not want gifts. But it was unladylike to not show a small bit of hesitance, you told yourself.)

Baelor's eyes flickered up to you. "A marriage is a means of giving," he said. "From husband to wife, and wife to husband, and family to family. It would do me a great honour if you would accept my gift."

"I — I will, of course. I only…" You shook your head. "I shall, my prince."

"In quieter company, I would insist you call me Baelor. We are to be family, after all." He lifted that large hand from Chestnut's head, then, and reached inside the inner pocket of his doublet. You watched intently as he pulled something out — and, confusion furrowing your brow, you bowed your head to look at it.

'Twas clearly a dagger for its shape and size, curved like the tooth of a great beast. It was contained within a scabbard of gold, embedded with jewels and smooth, coloured glass, the metal engraved masterfully with all manner of ornamentation. The pommel appeared to be a simple, dark green — but when Baelor proffered it gently to you, and the firelight shone upon it, you realised it was completely transparent. A great chunk of some precious stone, faceted with 8 faces.

"My prince — Baelor — this is…" Your gaze flickered between the knife and his eyes, which remained fixed on the blade in your hands.

It felt… strange, in some way, to accept it. You were no stranger to jewels or gold or pretty things, but even you could tell that there was some otherworldly weight to this strange little dagger. It was not simply a knife — Baelor was handing you something bigger, something heavier, and you were wholly ignorant to what it was.

"Go on," Baelor said, then, quiet. "Unsheathe it."

You were helpless to deny him, a slave to both his whims and your own curiosity. The scabbard was cool in your hands, the engraving rough and textured when it brushed over your skin. You slid the knife from its holder and watched, fascinated, as the gold of the blade shined in the light. So polished was it that you could see yourself, wide-eyed and lips parted, in its gleaming surface. You didn't want to touch it. You'd never seen something so perfect — completely flawless, save for a thin line of engravings down the centre. With a squint you tried to read the script, but it was foreign to you.

"Before Aegon conquered Westeros," Baelor murmured, "and before my father united it, Dorne was a kingdom proper. There were the First Men and the Andals, of course, but there were Rhoynar, too. They fled to Dorne when their homeland was taken, and brought with them all manner of traditions."

"Your mother's people," you recalled. "House Nymeros Martell; of the line of Nymeria. She married Mors Martell, and they united Dorne."

"Precisely."

The sharpened edge shimmered in the firelight. "I do not recall the Rhoynar being a particularly violent people."

A low laugh. "Yes, well. It is not the most convenient blade, I must say, for its use was largely ornamental. It stood as an assurance, from husband to wife — from… family, to wife. Protection, wealth. A symbolic tool with which to ensure her safety and prosperity."

A marriage is a means of giving. From husband to wife, and wife to husband, and family to family.

You'd known it. Felt it even while ignorant, the severity of the blade in your hand. The promise it bore. You swallowed, and it was sticky in your throat. "I… I would hope to have no need of it, Baelor."

He hummed. For the first time since meeting him, he looked more his age than ever. There were lines beneath his eyes; a solemness that presented itself in the corners of his lips. His hand moved unconsciously upon Chestnut's head. The grey in his hair shone like silver.

"You will have no need of it," he promised. "Not only do I swear it, but your betrothed unmistakably does. 'Tis simply an old custom — one even my mother may scorn as blasphemy, though I have always held great fondness for it, regardless."

His voice had taken on an edge of something soft. Wistful. That cloak of composure was wearing away, eating itself from the inside, and you were helpless to do anything but watch.

"And what does it say here — along the middle?" You looked up from the knife. He was already watching you.

"Love comes with a knife," he said. "Not some shy question, and not with fears for its reputation."

"Oh."

"A union of love is a wondrous thing," Baelor continued. His stare filled you with a graceless sort of nervousness. What did he see when he looked upon you? A wide-eyed girl, her emotions written on her face? Ignorant and green, puzzled by his gift, and his proximity, and the softness in his voice when he spoke to her? "A divine blessing. There exists no man more deserving of it than Maekar. It… goes without saying that I wish you both the best."

You cleared your throat in a poor attempt to steady yourself.

"Thank you, Baelor." The dagger was heavy in your hand, and you met your own eye in its reflection. "I do not think I can ever hope to repay this kindness."

"Repayment is not necessary, my lady." With a final pat to Chestnut's head, he stood, and in the midst of your musing, you had only the mind to sit, peering up at him. "..In truth, I had once hoped to bestow such a gift upon my late lady wife, but was dissuaded — such customs are frowned upon in the Faith, you see. I have… I have always carried the regret with me. The simple sight of your approval is gift enough."

A wave of sorrow overcame you. Even the heir to the throne, it seemed, could not have the freedoms he desired. You stood, and the movement seemed to sober your companion — he stood straight, suddenly, a warm chuckle rumbling in his throat.

"Forgive the ravings of an old man, if you will, my lady," he said, watching you from beneath his eyelashes.

"You do yourself a great injustice, Baelor, speaking of yourself like that."

A smile. "You are too kind. It relieves me to know that you are marrying Maekar. He… requires some patience." His hands were clasped again. The facade returned with vigour, as perfect as ever. "As you well know, he can be… waspish, at times."

"Yes," you said, quickly sheathing the dagger once more. It felt wrong to even set it down; you grasped it tightly in both hands as you walked Baelor slowly to the door. "His greatest charm."

"I am glad you think so."

Needing no command, the guards opened the door as you neared.

"Well, then," Baelor said, giving you one last smile. "The gods give thee good night, my lady. I apologise again for disturbing you."

"'Twas no disturbance, my lord. I shall treasure your gift for as long as I live. Thank you, and — and good night."

His eyes remained on you for only a second longer — and then he nodded politely, and turned on his heel. The moment his eyes left you, you felt your breath return. In truth, you hadn't realised it had left.

For a moment, you stood in place. A strange sort of sadness pulled at your gut, but you could not linger on it; it was late, and you would be married in only a few days, and your bed was calling.

You peered down at your gift, glinting even in the low light.

Love comes with a knife. A smile pulled at your lips. You liked that.

─── ༻⋅☼⋅༺ ───

5. A tooth from an old dragon, conquered and made humble.

"If the winds hold, my family might arrive tomorrow," you said.

Since becoming engaged, you had taken many meals in Maegor's Holdfast; as time passed, the table only grew more and more full. Aerion and Daeron had arrived from Summerhall only the day prior — the former, you were markedly ignoring —, and Aemon three days before from the Citadel. Between Maekar's brood, Rhaegel's children, and the excitement of the gathering, there was not a dull moment at the table.

It was no small wonder that you felt, for the first time that night, you were getting a proper word in with your husband.

(Betrothed, you reminded yourself. Not-yet-husband.)

"My father is kind," you added, peering up at him. "You needn't worry, my love."

"Worry?" Maekar gave a sharp laugh, rife with disbelief. "I do not fear your father, girl. We are peers, or have you forgotten?"

"Your age?" you asked breezily. "No, of course I haven't."

"…How you test my patience."

"You would be ever so bored without me."

The wedding ceremony was to be held in two days, and a full sennight of tourney-games and revelry were to follow. A raven had been sent ahead of your family, and they weren't far from the Western coast. The idea of seeing them after so long away was a nerve-wracking one. It was the melding of your two selves: the girl you were with your family, and the woman you were in the Keep. The eldest daughter and eastern lady.

You closed your eyes, resting your head against Maekar's shoulder as you walked.

"The maester says the sun should hold," you said, stifling a yawn. "Your gods must be awfully fond of our union."

"Hm."

"I do wonder what my bride's cloak will look like," you added. "Father is — yawn — partial to Qartheen silk, though I prefer its Braavosi counterpart, and mother has never known a day of subtlety in all her years—"

Another yawn cut you off — louder, this time, and so entirely mighty that it stopped you in your tracks. When it was finished, you blinked up at Maekar, eyes watering. "I shall sleep for ten days and ten nights when this is over."

He snorted at your declaration, nudging you back beside him. "Had you nothing to spend your time doing, you'd be irate."

In silence you left Maegor's Holdfast and crossed its lengthy drawbridge. With a nod to the Kingsguard posted at its end, Maekar turned you towards the wing which housed your quarters.

"You have been training hard," you said suddenly, voice quiet. His arm tensed as you ran your hand from his elbow to his bicep, smoothing your palm over him. You chanced a glance up at his face, and found his jaw hardened. A smile tugged at your lips. "I hope you do not wear yourself out too much. I worry, you know." A pause. "We will have to consummate our marriage, of course, and at your age—"

There was a loud groan, but he was smiling, despite himself. It was helpful in its own way; as you entered the wing, and began up the stairs towards the next floor, almost everyone you passed had no desire to stop and talk. The uncharacteristic happiness upon your beloved's face turned away even the most terrible of drivellers. "Do you only know how to jest when it comes to my age?"

"I fear you may already know the answer to that, my love."

Before long, you were turning the corner towards your apartments. The hallway filled you with a sense of nostalgia. It wasn't so long ago that you were coming to this place for the first time, stepping upon these floors, ignorant of the future that awaited you in the Red Keep; learning the bricks and rugs and tapestries, until, one day, you knew them intimately.

Within a few days, you'd most likely never return to these quarters again — no, if you were to visit the Red Keep again, your quarters would be in the Holdfast, shared with your husband.

"Need I remind you," Maekar continued, "you are the one marrying me."

You rolled your eyes as you came to a stop at your door. Your guard lingered at an appropriate distance, as usual — thus, you found no shame in turning to your husband-to-be, smoothing your hands up his arms until they rested upon his shoulders. Your smile was sharp when you purred, "Oh, I need no reminding."

His ears were reddening — and no matter how hard he tried to grimace, you could see the pleasure behind it. "You are terrible."

"Yes, very. Have you anything else to say before I retire, Maekar?"

You were not expecting a yes — thus, you began to turn towards your door, hands sliding from him. Usually he left you with a very stilted goodbye, as if he were embarrassed by the mere prospect of dropping you at your own door — sometimes, if he'd been at the wine, or was in a particularly good mood, he'd stand and dawdle, clearly not wanting to leave, but unable to open his mouth and ask it of you. Mostly, the idea of showing any public displays of affection seemed to fill him with equal parts embarrassment and hunger. It was an incredibly entertaining thing to witness.

"Wait," he commanded.

Your brow raised. "Hm?"

"I… have something, for you," he said, the words coming out begrudging. He was glaring again, that way he did when he was embarrassed, hand fishing in the pouch at his hip for something. "…If you would accept it."

"Oh?" You were reminded of Baelor's gift, only the night prior. You had told Maekar of the knife the morning after, and he had already known of it; albeit, he did not seem entirely pleased. Acceptive, perhaps — happy to have indulged his beloved brother, but annoyed at the prospect of you being the recipient. You wondered if it had bothered him enough to…

He said nothing more. From the pouch at his hip he withdrew an even smaller silken bag, a silvery grey in colour and tied shut with thread-of-gold, and held it out. He watched you intently, that frown still on his face, as you took it in hand and tugged it gently open.

At first, you were unsure of what it was, bundled up and dark as it was; but it poured out into your hand, cold and heavy, and you realised, then.

A delicate chain of blackened silver, studded with bloody garnets along itself. Hanging heavily at its centre looked something like a metal tooth, dark like burnished steel. You brought it closer to yourself, eyes searching. It was not smooth, but marred by marks and striations; it had not been treated gently, clearly.

You recognised it, somehow, despite the plainness of it — looked upon it, its particular shape and size, the weight of it, the colour.

A tooth, you realised. A tooth from an old dragon. Your throat suddenly tightened.

"Where did you take this from?" you asked, eyes trained upon it. You could hardly raise your voice above a whisper. "Your shoulders, or your spine?"

"The shoulder." You realised how close he was, then; whether he had moved, or you had, you didn't know. You were both staring at the necklace in your hands, knowing it meant more than he could perhaps ever say aloud. His head was bowed towards you — his entire self, really, the whole bulk of him arched towards you like a flower towards the sun. "From the face of the right pauldron."

Light caught on the shimmering facets of the garnets. It was stunningly beautiful. Delicate and feminine and yet, intense in its ferocity. Fire and blood. Unbowed, unbent, unbroken. A token befitting the wife of the Anvil of the Redgrass Field.

You looked up at him through your eyelashes, and found his gaze scalding. "And now your armour is missing a tooth."

His jaw clenched. "It has found a more deserving place."

You held the necklace out, and with no further prompting he took it in his hands. You turned your back to him, and lifted your hair from your nape; and you felt the heat of him as he stepped closer to you, chest to your back. With a delicateness at odds with the size of him, his hands came to your front, fingers brushing against your clavicle. The chain was cold as it settled against your skin. Cold, but familiar, hanging about your neck as intimately as any other part of you.

You had no looking glass to see how the necklace pressed against your collarbones, the tooth hanging low upon your bosom; but you turned and met Maekar's eyes and saw the hunger in them, a reluctance in him to turn his gaze from you. Pleasure stirred something terrible in your stomach. You liked when he got like this — when he was left unguarded, unsure of what to do with all he felt, powerless to do little other than stare and frown and grit his teeth. The power of it was intoxicating.

You did this. You put this gleam in his eye and this flush upon his cheek. 'Twas you who walked arm in arm with him, and you who whispered in his ear, and you who drew those laughs from him, and you who could test and push his patience.

"Of all the gifts that I have received, this I shall cherish most," you whispered. "I — I shall never take it off."

"Hm." That pleased him. You could see it on him, clear as day; self-satisfaction pulled at the corners of his mouth, puffed his chest out.

"I am only ashamed that I have nothing to give in return."

"Seven hells, woman. Were the warships not enough?"

You said nothing, gazing down at the tooth against your skin. After a pause, Maekar exhaled.

"…The only thing I require of you is your happiness," he muttered. "'Tis gift enough."

The tooth was warmed against you. You remembered your hands drifting over them in Maekar's tent what felt like an age ago. He had been fearsome. Terrifying. A man hardened by blood and bone, and you had set your hands upon him and tied your pretty green ribbon around him. And he had looked at you like he was looking at you now, this man who had crushed and killed more than you could fathom — who was spoken about in perpetual buts.

A great warrior, but a terrible speaker.

A magnificent fighter, but easy to anger, and quick to annoy.

An asset on the battlefield, but not in court.

A mind for the war tent, but not for the solar.

You felt such an urge to touch him, then, that you had to dig your fingers into your palms, anchoring yourself to the pinching pain that came with it. He was yours. He was yours, all of him, and yet you could not touch him until you had wed. You had no personal qualms with having your way with him — but with the most important people in the realm gathered, the embarrassment of such a tryst would displease your mother and father-in-law. And they did say that patience was a virtue…

"You say that you are unlearned in the ways of love," you could only say, swallowing your desire, "and that you are prickly and mannerless — but I have seen more gentleness from you, Maekar, than from most men. More love, more affection…"

He blinked down at you. No words escaped him. His astonishment almost looked like disgust — lips parted, brow furrowed — but that dumbfounded silence spoke more than any words could.

"Two days," you said, squeezing your palms tighter. The weight of the tooth rose and fell with your breathing, and you took comfort in its heft upon your chest. "Two days, and then... and then I shall be able to kiss you as I want to now."

You think you're not quite drunk yet, but you're making your way there. It's been a long day of putting up with clients and all you need is a brew on this dump of a space port until your ship slinks in tomorrow morning. 

Which means that there's a specific series of events that must happen before the incoming dawn the next day. You're going to get as shitfaced as you can until you feel like you can't blink straight, stumble your ambling way to the doorway of your room, and collapse on the bed until your alarm jolts you awake from the veil of unconsciousness. 

You hold up your watch to make sure you've set your alarm, though now that there's a slight tilt to the world, it seems like it's harder to tell the hour than before.

You hold up your arm to the the dingy light of the bar, and this is when you take a few things into visual reconciliation. As in, you become aware of the neighbor beside you that you're certain wasn't there a few drinks ago. 

He's massive, with an impossible, indomitable musculature and a bad attitude to go with it—he seems to practically dwarf his seat and you in comparison. Vaguely, you're aware that even though the bar is relatively crowded with other people in pursuit of that invaluable hobby of getting wasted, there is no one on either side of him, save you. 

Ad it appears in your ignorance of him in the pursuit of getting shitfaced, it seems he's racked up his own arsenal of empty shot glasses that litter the ample countertop around him. You realize only belatedly that he's staring at you, and that if you're able to reckon the way he stares at you, then you must be staring back. 

He's smiling with rather impressive set of teeth. But even through the haze of alcohol, it seems like this is more carnivorous than friendly. 

"See somethin' you like?" He asks, and as he leans in, he looms over you, dominating all other visual acuity you might be able to spare. He overpowers all your other senses, a powerful arm brushing away the glasses that carousingly roll away from him, now that they're beneath his notice. It appears that you are on the forefront of his awareness. 

"Oh—"—you're at a loss for words, so you search for honesty—"—I'm just trying to tell the time." 

You hold out your arm for him to see, framed in the dull light—those red eyes drink in the sight of your arm offered out to him, in plain view for him to admire. 

"I'm kinda fucked up right now." You confess to him, as though this was poignantly obvious for his reckoning. Perhaps this is what makes his grin gleam brighter, even though he's cloaked in shadows much as you are. It's odd how he seems to be illuminated by a breadth of light that you can't understand. 

"Lemme see." He reaches out with a wide hand, and you can't help but suck in an obvious gasp at the way that the calloused landscape of his palm feels against your soft skin. He make a proprietary noise at your audible admission. 

Something twists taut in your abdomen as you watch him look at the information your watch relays to him. Though, you wonder if he's only taking the chance to run an inquisitive hand down the length of your forearm. Part of you hopes he won't stop. 

Then, he looks up to you—you feel rooted to your seat as he stares you down. He hasn't let go of your arm. 

"Says you ain't drunk enough," He's crude as he informs you around a coarse smile, "You can tell that those're still numbers." 

It takes a second for the joke to catch up to you, but you smile irregardless—this prompts his own to grow. "Funny. You got a point though." 

"Yeah, don't I?" He sets a gaze you might define as appraising upon you, before he turns to the sleepy-eyed bartender, releasing you from the grasp of one of his hands.

But only one—the other still traps your wrist in his fist that easily holds the width of your arm. It might take others ample time to do that, but he manages so easily something takes steals your breath away. 

"Hey—two more shots." He informs with a display of thick fingers—you wonder how it would feel to have them pushed into your mouth, though you suppose this is drunken thoughts making manifest.

And the thought of more alcohol is suddenly making you draw up in surprise, though the bartender obliges the production of two shots of disturbingly clear spirits. A dribble of the liquid winks down the side of one of the glasses. 

"You think you had enough?" You ask, and it's at this inquiry his hand tightens over you, making something electric ghost up your arms, up your back, in your core. You have to clench your legs together to keep from saying something you'll regret. 

"Never—"—He graces you with a wicked grin, and jerks his head in the direction of one that you realize is closer for your benefit—"—'Sides, one of 'em's for you." 

You're touched, but something winks suspicious in you. You decide to play hard to get. You can tell from the way his shoulders broaden, he's eager to match the challenge. 

"I can buy my own drinks." you assert. He chuckles, and it's a crass sound that goes to all the right places. 

"Didn't say you couldn't." He says, and his hand that holds you is drifting up your arms—with how big his palm is, it's no difficult task for him to search you. You let him. 

"Maybe," His voice growls deep, his eyes finding yours, "I wanna buy 'em for a cutie when I see 'em."

"What cutie are we talking about?" you ask, letting a sly smile dart across your face. He is flirting with you. 

"The one I'm looking at." He shoots back expertly, and there's a great palm that presses over the span of your thigh—you look only with your eyes to see that possessive hand begin to travel up the length of your leg. God, it's big. God, his touch burns. 

You look back up to him, this man—this giant who seems insistent to while down your defenses which are already rapidly crumbling. "I don't even know your name." 

He smirks. "Surprised you don't."

"Should I?" You ask, willing to play the game. You don't think you've had this fun in a while, and it's been a long day. 

"More fun you don't." He says, but it's clear from the hesitance on your face that the game stops if he does. 

"Lobo." The syllables hit rough. But, one good turn for another—you produce your name for him and this makes that hint of teeth return once more. 

"So what do I owe you for this?" You ask, tilting your head. 

"Think you're a smart girl." His voice pitches in a low timbre, that hand that is making up to the junction of your hip and thigh growing needy. You have to smother a gasp as it clenches tight. You know what I want, it says, though you'd have to be a fool to not be able to discern it from the look in his eyes. 

But you don't resist the surprise in your voice as his intentions sink through. "Oh—really? Me?" 

Not that you haven't had your roll in the hay with many a one-night stand—but Lobo seems far out of your wheelhouse, not the type to usually look your way. Except that he's looking very intently, with an insistence, with a hunger that you're certain he intends to satiate. 

"Why the fuck not?" He asks and you have to breathe in slow, careful—especially as that thumb works into the flesh of your hip, rolling the vulnerable skin easily in his hand. Letting you know just how bad he wants you. 

"Think I could really sink my teeth into a girl like you—"—He chuckles and you know that you're going to fuck him—"If you want." 

"Maybe I do." you say, and your voice reflects the same desire in those eyes. 

"Then come on." He paws at you, eager to usher you to more convenient locales. "Drink up." 

It burns going down, but you've never been more excited for the scald than now, as it sears the inside of your mouth, your throat. You barely have enough to process it, before you feel that great hand pawing at your arm, ushering you along; you're barely cognizant of Lobo settling his debts with the bartender before you feel your center of gravity becoming unmoored, going topside-up—you gasp. 

"Easy," He grunts, but you barely register the words as you feel a great palm ease down under your thighs, "Just gettin' us there quicker." 

And then he lifts you up, over the heft of his shoulder. You've never been manhandled in such means, to be hefted around like nothing, to be used like this, in front of everyone.

You radiate heat with humiliation and a terrible warm arousal that's sinking in the pit of your stomach, in between your legs—but you can't even acknowledge the eyes of the gaping onlookers in the bar, who avert their gazes as Lobo turns to look at them. All you can think about is the hand that has clapped over the slope of your ass, squeezing possessively. 

"Think I'm gonna," He grunts in your ear and you shudder, "Take my time with you." 

You're drunk, so you don't really keep track of everything, the quick journey to the room that he's booked in one of the greasy motel stops for the night—all you're aware of is when you finally stop.

All you can keep track of is the way that those rough hands feel pawing at your clothes, peeling you out of them, the deep, throaty chuckle as he tears away each layer that makes you feel more and more vulnerable. 

He pushes you onto the bed—you're not quite certain when you were sat down there, as he was making rather convincing argument with his mouth as it sucked on the column of your throat, his hands coaxing you out of your shirt.

The scrape of the sheets pull against your back, but you don't take heed of this—all you can do is gasp as he frees you from your bra with a sharp tug, the fabric ripping. You don't care: all you can take in are those eyes that are dark with a needy lust. 

He looks at your tits with sharp appraisal, something evaluative and heady in his eyes—his hand that tore your clothes asunder rolls a tit against the calloused landscape of his palm. His thumb working over your nipple, making it pert and draw to attention.

You angle your head back into the bed, mouth a perfect 'o' as you moan, though your breath catches as his other hand works to free you from your pants—when the air catches on your legs and you're down to nothing but your panties, you can't help but feel vulnerable, shy. 

"Uh-uh," He scolds you, as your thighs begin to involuntarily tuck in, reticent to his visual analysis, "Keep 'em open for me." 

His hand is massive, and as it pushes your thighs back open, his fingers turn to swipe over the fabric that protects your entrance from the roam of his fingers—there's a low, crude chuckle he makes as he feels how damp it is, the manner that you buck into him, grind against the heel of his palm. 

"Want me bad, dontcha?" He asks and you whimper, nodding wordlessly—any verbal plea that you could make falls by the wayside in your state of inebriation and want. You want this man who's so clearly wanted you from the beginning, who makes you feel so small in comparison, who treats you like a piece of meat—you want him to fuck you. 

"Please—"—You beg, but he's already obliged the physical request that you've made quite clear, pulling your panties to the side so that he can tease a rough fingertip at your entrance. You can tell that it won't take much, and he doesn't waste much time to slide in a finger; another crass noise escapes him as he admires how easily your pussy swallows it up, a punched-out moan of pleasure making its way out of you. 

"Oh, fuck—"—You whine, but you don't have time to really say more before he starts to set a pace, curling his middle finger in just the way you like it. There's something unnerving, how well he knows the needs of your body, the way that you want to be touched.

The thumb and forefinger of his attending other hand pinch your nipple and you start, though the sigh eases its way into a satisfied groan that he mirrors as he watches your reaction. 

"Fuckin' look real good like this, honey," He praises you in that coarse, proprietary manner he did in the bar, "Think you're gonna take my cock real nice." 

"Yes—yes," You agree, because you think if you can take this finger, which already felt impossibly huge, you'll do that no problem. You wish he would put you to the test, as you rock against this finger that is ekeing such pleasure from the meter of your body, that is making your thighs tremble, that is making you sigh and have your breath catch so piteously. "Please—I want it—"

"Yeah?" He asks, and he pushes his finger in even deeper—you wail. He laughs at the noise, at the way that your legs spread wider, eager to take what he can offer, even in the throes of coming undone. "I like a girl who says what she wants." 

"Ah—"—He pumps his finger in again, hitting the back of something that makes your vision blur, that makes spots dance—and this is only his finger—"—I can do it, Lobo, please—"

"Heard ya the first time," He says, and then that finger slides out, and takes with it all the electric heat—but there's something that shocks through you as he squeezes your tit, as you hear the grate of his zipper unshelving the goods. You can't help but sit up a little to look. 

He's huge—just like every other part of him. As you look at his cock that juts out for you, that hand working up and down the length, something in you does wonder how you're going to take this, how you're going to be so sore in the morning. You wonder if you'll even be able to walk. But you're hopelessly, drunkenly excited for the prospect. 

He doesn't give you much time to consider this, though from the gleam of those canines, the way that his eyes are predacious as they watch you, he's happy with the stunned look that you have. But then you find your legs pulled up by the ankles, swiped up in the grasp of that hand that was eager to seek out the warmth of your pussy.

One of your legs is rather brusquely hefted over one shoulder, the other over the other—he moves you with ease, presses your legs back—you gasp with the pain and pressure as his body pushes over you. But you have more pressing matters at hand—rather, the length of his cock that is pushed against your entrance. 

You feel the curve of the head edge against the slick heat—all you can do is feel your mouth fall agape, stare up at him as he grins down at you, ready to eat you alive. 

"Ready?" He asks, and it's clear that he's going to have a good time. You nod and this is all the permission he needs before he sinks into you, rolling those wide hips down with deliberate gravity to ease you into it. The stretch of your walls is unbearable, something excruciating and agonizing and wonderful at once as he works that cock both long and wide, tapering at the base as he pushes further and further in. 

"Oh my God—"—You breathe, because you feel as though all the air has been pushed out of you as he works into you. Your fingers clutch desperately into the sheets, his hand still finding purchase on your tit that grasps hungrily at you.

His other hand finds landing on your hip to work himself in—you feel like you're being split open. You open your mouth to make a noise but nothing comes out, your eyes twist shut—you're certain that he can't even be halfway in but he's already hitting the back—

"Doin' good," he praises you, which feels like a badge of honor, "Takin' me real well." 

"Fuck—"—Is all you can think to say as his hips buck into you—"—Fuck—"

"Yeah?" He asks, and it's almost taunting, as you can feel sweat beading at your forehead, something treacherous and wonderful building in the pool of your abdomen. "Let me help you out with that." 

He pulls back, and there's a relief but also a sense of missing something—you don't have to miss it for long. It's a terrible, leisurely move he makes as he rolls his hips back into you, sinking his cock back in. And then he starts to set the pace. 

You feel like you're nothing more than a fuckdoll, a possession being fucked into the bed, with the brutal pace that he starts to set as he sails in and out of you. The only noise that fills the room are the obscene, wet noises as he sinks in his length in and out of you, the helpless moans as he fucks himself into you, the low, dirty groans he grits through his teeth as he takes his fill. 

His hand abandons your tit to meet the other one around your waist, so that he can press your legs back even further against him—his fingers sink into the soft flesh of your hips, practically wrapping around you as he pumps in and out of you.

The air is taut and charged, something intoxicating as he mutters dark praise under his breath about how good your tits look bouncing up and down him, how he likes a girl with meat on her bones, how he likes the way you look pressed under him—

"Doin'—so good," He says, and it's both praise and challenge as he hits the back again and you see stars—"—Think you can take more?" 

"Yes, yes, yes," You beg and he chuckles as he obliges, that slick length working in and out of you with abandon. "More, please, please—" 

You feel perspiration beading at your temple, something galvanizing as he continues to fuck you, something building easily and steady as he continues to push you to the edge with that relentless pace that has both moans and curses sliding out of you. 

"Lobo—"—You twist your eyes shut, fist the sheets in your clenched grasp—"—I can't—think I'm gonna—"

"Yeah?" He grunts as he keeps that rhythm that you chasing that nascent heat that builds greater and greater in your abdomen. "Lemme see it." 

You're not one to disappoint—you keen as you shake through your orgasm that's arrived embarrassingly fast—but you can't really blame yourself. The ample flesh of your thighs trembles as he holds you steady, only slowing the pace but not entirely stopping as he keeps fucking you through it.

You writhe under him but can't fully escape—not that you want to—a litany of praise and curses as you come. It's everything you wanted, everything you needed—it's perfect. 

You're only vaguely aware of the hands that are pawing at your tits, squeezing the flesh on the comedown, though you can't entirely ignore the cock that is still working into you, the eyes that are admirative, the smile that is hungry to watch you. 

"That was—"—You attempt, but fail to truly put to words how you feel—"—That was—"

"Real' fuckin' great," He grins. "Think I'm gonna like it the next five times, too." 

Seems like a promise, as he sinks back into you, that he intends to fulfill. You think you've never been less excited for the morning to get here, as round two begins with a roaring start. 

You’d laughed then, loud enough to gain the attention of the rest of the courtiers at the long table — because Ser Gwayne was not entirely wrong, to be sure, but he was far too generous for his own good; generous enough to believe that the effort of your marriage actually meant something in the grand scheme of things.

Gwayne Hightower was a sensible man. He was not outwardly affectionate, maybe, but he was no less kind. There was no great love in your union — not like all the songs and fairytales insist, at least — but there was safety. Security. Stability. His presence often found you like the thick walls of an ancient keep, steadfast against the howling winds of a summer storm. You would find no certainty of your future in war, but being Gwayne’s wife meant, at the very least, that you were still alive today.

That unsaid assurance is perhaps a greater gift than any truly loving marriage could’ve been for you. And, perhaps, it was with that unsaid assurance that you came to admire him, without ever realizing you were doing so — always searching for his face in crowds, waiting every night for the familiar sound of his footsteps to walk outside your chamber doors, constantly watching him from a distance (which has become a most embarrassing habit of yours).

You find him now on the western balcony overlooking Blackwater Bay, where the moon climbs high over shimmering midnight waters. The salty breeze mixes with the scent of damp stone and dying fires from the lantern light glittering in the city below. Gwayne stands alone with his forearms propped on the pale stone balustrade, having exchanged his armor for a forest-green doublet embroidered with winding gold vines. The fading torchlights gild his silken auburn hair, stirred loose by the sea breeze.

You linger just beneath the archway, hidden in the place where the torchlight turns to shadow, studying the slope of his strong shoulders and how they rise and fall with each breath. He looks lonely; lonely enough for your chest to tighten with the want to close the distance between you and slip in beside him. But your feet refuse to move. And whatever affection was warming in your chest before pierces through you like a sword.

“You’re staring.” The suddenness of his voice startles you.

“…You’re supposed to be watching the sea,” you respond, half-shy. He doesn’t look back at you when you emerge finally from the shadows; slippers scuffing the cobblestones, black skirts fluttering at your feet.

“I was,” Gwayne nods.

“Then how could you possibly notice I was standing there?”

He turns to face you then, as you settle on the balcony just beside him, keeping a few feet of careful distance between you like you always did — as if, in your union, an invisible line had been wedged between you and could not be crossed. 

The corner of his mouth lifts slowly into a crooked smile. “Because I notice everything about you,” he answers like it’s simple, like he hadn’t just stolen the breath from your lungs.

Heat crawls up the low neckline of your dress, speckling across your cheeks and the very tip of your ears. You turn away, face screwed in a feigned disgust, and busy your hands with an imaginary wrinkle on your sleeve. 

“That,” you murmur. “Is a terrifying thought.”

“Well, it ought to terrify you,” Gwayne quips knowingly, bending softly at the waist to fold his arms along the stone railing. “I’ve seen the way you steal the candied slices off of all your lemon cakes just to leave the sponge untouched, you know? Like an utter madwoman.” 

“Well…” you huff, face flaring hot at the acknowledgment of being so openly seen by another. “It seems I made the dreadful mistake of marrying the observant man in the Seven Kingdoms.”

“And here I thought that distinction belonged to my cousin,” Gwayne jokes lowly, brows raised to his hairline. “I shall write to Lord Ormund at once and relieve him of the title.”

You laugh quietly through your nose and turn away again. Silence settles comfortably over you once more, filled only by the distant clanging of metal as guards change their shift and the far-off crowing of a caged raven. The night feels impossibly dark, emptier than usual. It feels like an omen of sorts.

“It grows worse, does it not?” you wonder aloud through the breath that catches in your chest, as if you were half scared to even ask.

Gwayne’s thin smile slowly fades. His adam’s apple bobs in his throat. “Aye,” he nods. “I fear it does.”

“I keep… hoping that…” You swallow around the invisible hand tightening around your throat. “That they’ll remember I am your wife before they remember whose blood I carry. I feel it’s the only reason they’ve yet to take my head.”

“Of course, they remember,” he assures you.

“It feels less and less so these days.”

“They’re only frightened—”

“I’m frightened,” you remind him.

The admission lingers between you like the salt water scent hanging in the air. Gwayne studies you for a long moment — he sees the flicker of sincerity flashing across your face right before you turn away from him again, and the way your jaw clenches a second later in regret of saying the words aloud. 

He leans an elbow along the parapet to face you fully. And, as if to soothe you, he asks, “If there were no war… No thrones, no dragons—”

“No Hightowers?” you add.

“—If the Stranger himself appeared before you now and offered you another life,” the auburn-haired man continues with a hint of a smile gracing his lips. “What would you do?”

You ponder the question for a moment, eyes zeroed on the navy black horizon ahead as your fingers fidget on the stony barricade. “I should like a farm,” you answer, mouth twitching into an absentminded grin. “Somewhere far away from here. So I could raise chickens—”

“Chickens?” he scoffs a dry laugh, then softens a second later at the sincere look you give him. He swallows hard and nods supportively. “Most ladies would’ve said children, is all…”

“Well, I am not most ladies…” you tell him. “I would have a field of apple trees, and a hundred dogs to protect all my chickens and horses and fluffy cows— you know, the ones that live down in the Reach?”

“Well…” Gwayne croons. “You’ve certainly thought about this, haven’t you?”

“Every day,” you confess. The honesty in your answer strikes him down like a blade; the sorrowful look that heavies your face even more so. The reality of your situation returns to you then, settling over you like gravity’s inevitable weight. You swallow hard before you confess, “I fear they’ll kill me if matters grow worse at Dragonstone.”

“They won’t.”

“You cannot know that.”

“I do,” Gwayne assures you and takes a slow step closer, until the inherent warmth of his skin dulls the bite of the bitter sea wind. He ducks his chin to his chest to chase your gaze, peering down at you with glittering blue eyes. “I swore a vow before gods and men, did I not?”

“So do most men—”

“Well, I am not most men,” he lilts with an air of amusement hanging on the edge of his words. “I actually meant my vows.”

Your eyes soften as they search his face, looking for any hint of hesitation or doubt in his handsome features. You find no uncertainty there; just the maddening, immovable confidence that seems to be stitched into the very fiber of his making.

“If this castle should fall tomorrow…” you whisper to him, eyes narrowing in skepticism. “Or if your family decides that I have become too great a burden to keep here… What happens then?”

“Then I shall stand in the doorway,” he shrugs.

A shocked laugh sputters from your mouth at his boyish conviction. “And if they mean to come through it?”

“Then…” His lips jut softly. “They shall first have to make a corpse of me.”

“You are a valiant knight, Ser Gwayne, but you cannot fight an entire army.”

“Perhaps not,” he replies with a sad sort of smile. “But armies are made of men. And every man who wishes to reach you will first have to face me... As I said… I meant my vows.”

Something in his words strikes a deep sadness within you. No one had ever spoken of your being like it possessed any value worth defending, and now the words come from the very family you were meant to despise.

But even still, for the first time since the ravens brought the tidings of war and the dragons took wing against dragon, you believed him. You believed that, should the whole realm come crashing down around you, Ser Gwayne would likely be the only one left standing at your side when the last stone fell.

And, gods, how stupid you were to do so.

ii. OATHS & ASHES

The news of your husband’s leaving came not from your husband himself. 

It came, rather, in whispers at court, slithering through the Red Keep like snakes beneath rushes — passing from Gold Cloak to stable boy to serving girl to scullion. “They say Ser Criston and his knights are marching for Harrenhal on the morrow,” says a thick-accented handmaiden. “Lord Hand means to smoke Daemon from the castle. It’ll be Prince Aemond’s before the next moon, no doubt.”

Your stomach dropped so harshly at the whispers that you nearly retched upon the marble. It was not Gwayne’s leaving that frightened you so, but rather what his absence would represent — he might as well throw you to the hounds himself before he goes, because you were as good as dead with him gone.

Your slippers strike the ancient stone in a frantic rhythm as you turn on your heel to storm back the way you came. The harsh echo of the soles catches the attention of surrounding servants, who flatten themselves against the walls as you hurry suddenly past. Your heartbeat pounds like thunder in your ears, far louder than the bells of the Great Sept that toll the evening hour — the combination of both feels like an ominous funeral knell.

You rush up the winding stone staircase with your crimson skirts gathering in your fists. Gwayne’s chambers sit directly opposite yours, and you find the heavy wooden door is cracked ajar. The hinges screechbeneath your palm when you shove it the rest of the way open without warning. The sight you find on the other side hollows you from the inside out — a travel satchel, laid open along the emerald sheets. Inside, a whetstone, riding gloves, a leather-bound prayer book, a sword belt, a flask. 

The careful order of it all feels almost cruel. Chaos, at the very least, would suggest some air of hesitation from the man; a faint pause at leaving you behind. This, however, feels far too final.

Gwayne stands at the head of the bed with his back facing you. His pale hands work with a quiet precision to roll a Hightower-green cloak into his bag. He did not need to turn at the sudden intrusion. He learned the sound of your footsteps long ago.

“I wondered how long it might take,” the man croons distantly. The calmness of his voice, the indifference, sets you entirely aflame.

“Why would you not tell me?” you bite in response.

Gwayne glances over his shoulder at you then. The flickering candlelight turns his hair a more golden shade of Hightower-red, and carves the soft edges of his face out in shadow. He was still every inch the striking knight that the whispers purported him to be — broad as an oak tree, handsome as a saint carved into an altar — but there’s a foreign weariness etched into his features now. It darkens the skin beneath his eyes, turns his gaze a duller shade of icy blue.

“Well, I was going to, of course.”

“When?” The sharpness in your voice could draw blood. 

“…Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Your laugh splinters the otherwise silent room, sharper than broken glass. You shut the door behind you with an aggressive hand and close the distance between you, dress skirts billowing wildly at your ankles. “When you ride at dawn? And you meant to tell me when your horses were already saddled?”

“Yes,” Gwayne sighs, lowering the folded doublet into its place. “I thought I might spare you one night’s grief—”

“You’re abandoning me,” you tell him then, as if to translate the man’s words back to himself. You linger at his side, eyes darting wildly over his profile when he fails to meet your gaze. “Just like all the rest of them. You do realize that, right?”

“The king has given orders—”

“Well, it wasn’t the king who stood beside me at Blackwater Bay not even a week ago, was it?” Your voice lowers into a faux-masculine tone, trying and failing to mock him. “If anyone comes for you, I shall stand in the doorway—”

Gwayne scoffs. “Surely, I do not sound like that.”

“—They shall first have to make a corpse of me.”

“Yes… I remember,” he answers through a slow huff of annoyance, stepping back from his travel bag to drag a pair of weary hands down his face. “I was— well into my cups by then, as you well know—”

“Oh, do not cheapen those words now,” you spit, shoving hard at his shoulder. Gwayne’s features twist in offense as his wide eyes glance down at the hand you’d pushed him with, though he doesn’t move an inch. “Don’t dishonor yourself with a coward’s excuse just to make up for the fact that you lied.”

Gwayne’s composure fractures at that. He had spent too much of his life trying to be a good knight, a good man — one that maybe his callous father could be proud of — so he refuses to stomach accusations of otherwise from you. 

His icy blue eyes harden into a glacial sort of look, more hurt than truly angry. He lays his cloak into place to face you fully.

“Do you not see that I am leaving to keep the fight from coming here?”

“Do not you see that by leaving me here that I’m as good as dead?” you retort through a jaw clenched tight. “If you do not take me with you, then—”

“Of course I’m not taking you with me!” he scoffs with a crooked smile, like it’s funny to him. “You’d be dead before we made it to the God’s Eye—”

“And I will be dead before this war is won if you leave!” you shout, voice wet and fragile with the unshed tears burning the backs of your eyes. “The fight is already here! The people who wish me dead are in these walls! They pour my wine, they wash my hair, they cook my food, they bow when I walk by and whisper when my back is turned! And if you aren’t here, then…” 

You trail off with a ragged breath. Your corset feels suddenly tight against your ribs. You choke back the sob that strangles your throat and blink rapidly to clear the haze of tears blurring at your waterline. You peer up at the man with the sternest gaze you can muster.

“I am… frightened,” you tell him, though your voice cracks into a fragile whisper halfway through.

The anger disappears from Gwayne’s face as quickly as it arrived. His shoulders deflate with a slow huff through his nose as he takes a slow step towards you. His hands release their clenched fists to reach hesitantly for your face. His palms are warm and softly calloused when they cup your cheeks, caressing you with a tenderness he hasn’t shown since your bedding ceremony six or more moons ago.

The quiet half-smile he gives you, then, is weighed down by a palpable sadness.

“To tell you the truth… I have never been more afraid than I am right now,” he confesses in a low murmur, swiping his thumb over the warm apple of your cheek. The softness in his voice threatens to undo you entirely. 

“So then don’t go,” you plead in a small voice, grasping at the front of his emerald doublet until the golden vines wrinkle under your grip. “Please.”

“If Harrenhal remains in Rhaenyra’s hold, and if Daemon rallies the Riverland armies, then the war will come here,” Gwayne continues in a painfully steady voice. “I fear I don’t have a choice in the matter.”

“Everyone has a choice,” you tell him, filled with a girlish sort of rage once more. “But, I suppose you’ve already made yours.”

The man meets your scowl with a tired, slightly heartbroken smile. “Please do not make me spend my last night with my wife quarreling with her,” Gwayne jokes quietly, swiping an eyelash from your cheek with the pad of his thumb. “At least leave me with something to hold onto until my return.”

Your tight chest deflates with a slow sigh from your nose. The rage ebbs evenly into grief. “And what shall I have, hm? Considering tonight is very likely my last one alive and all…”

Gwayne laughs. “You are being… catastrophically dramatic.”

Your chest burns with a mixture of rage and desire. He could never possibly understand you, but somehow, he is the only one with the walls of the Keep who ever has. The contrast is dizzying.

“I hate you,” you hear yourself say.

“Perhaps...” Gwayne hums, warm breath fanning across your cheek. “But not nearly as much as you love me.”

Your first instinct is to strike him for the sarcasm in his words; your second is to weep at the truth of them. He kisses you before you can do either.

He ducks down to press his lips to yours in a tender kiss, a mere brushing of your lips. The last time he had done so was beneath the glowing candles of the Sept, following the declaration of your wedding vows. But that was an obligation, a political victory of sorts.

This kiss is far sweeter in comparison. You feel the man heavying against you as he falls deeper into your touch. He opens your mouth with his and flicks the pad of his tongue against yours, like velvet brushing velvet. Your hands tremble as they leave the chest of his doublet to rake through his auburn locks, like silk between your fingers. You sigh against his open mouth at the taste of him — like wine and mint and oranges — sweet enough to get drunk on.

It takes you a long moment to realize his hands have snaked around your waist accordingly. You don’t realize his deft fingers are loosening the tie in your corset until the discomfort in your ribs disappears entirely. Your body acts before your mind, and your arms slither from their sleeves to curl once more around Gwayne’s broad shoulders.

The man folds the top of your dress down until your bare chest is revealed to him. A grumbled moan sounds in the back of his throat as he pulls you back into him with two wide palms along your bare back, pressing your breasts flush against his chest. He thinks, if he concentrated hard enough, he could feel the steady thundering of your heart like this.

“Gwayne—” you whisper against his mouth when you feel something hardening against your hip. Your hands drop from his hair to slide between your bodies, headed for the tie in his trousers to release the stiffness growing there. 

He twists you round in the meanwhile, shoes scuffing the cobbles, until the bend of your knees meets the edge of the mattress behind you. He lays you down without once taking his mouth off of yours, with one wide palm splayed along your ribcage and his other cradling the back of your neck.

He pulls off of you with a quiet smack to catch his breath. A small whimper sounds in the back of your throat when his warm body leaves yours, rising to reach down for your skirts. Your bare chest heaves as you sit up on your elbows to watch him fumble with your dress. “Gods above, how many skirts are you wearing?” you hear him complain under his breath. “I’ve faced hedge knights with fewer defenses than this.”

You giggle when he finally pushes the layers of your dress up to your hips. Your thighs spread on instinct, exposing yourself to him. Gwayne’s mouth waters at the sight of your silken folds, already glittering in anticipation. Your chest tightens when he falls to his knees before you. 

“What are you doing?” you ask on bated breath.

Gwayne flashes you a love-drunk grin and a pair of glassy blue eyes. His warm palms smooth along the velvety skin of your inner thighs to spread them further. “Call it a knight’s act of service, shall we?” he quips.

His auburn head disappears beneath your bunched-up skirts a second later. Your face twists momentarily in confusion before you feel his tongue slotting in the silk folds of your cunt. He licks a fat stripe up the length of it, until his tongue finds something that makes your hips twitch despite yourself. His mouth closes around the sensitive button, suckling at it with a grumbled moan in the back of his throat.

Your head tips back at the feeling. Your lips part as if to moan, but the electric shock in the pit of your stomach knocks all the available air from your lungs. You feel him laughing against you when your thighs clench suddenly around his head, tighter than you realize.

Gwayne pulls off of you with a quick smacking sound. He wears your slick down to his chin as he flashes you a teasing, glassy-eyed look. “I’d quite like to keep my head, dear wife—”

You say nothing in response to his quip. You just dart a head to the crown of his skull and shove his face back between your thighs.

 Gwayne complies without complaint, lapping at the honey you leak for him, until the wet sounds of his mouth fill the quiet chambers. You rock your hips against his face, bracing yourself with the auburn locks you clench in your fist.

His nose nudges the swollen bud that makes you keen, right before he takes it in his mouth again. Your skin buzzes at the foreign feeling.

“Gwayne—” you gasp. A tight feeling settles deep in your stomach, like a fraying knot about to snap. Your back arches off the mattress. Your hand tightens in his hair. Your features screw in a pain look, half-scared at the pleasure welling within you. “I can’t—”

“Mm…” he just keeps moaning against you, letting the vibrations deepen your pleasure. His wide hands smooth up and down your outer thighs when they tremble on either side of his head, clenching around him as your orgasm hits you with a pleasured whine. He laps up every ounce of honey you leak for him, and sighs hard through his nose at the salty-sweet taste of you.

Only when your legs grow finally lax around his jaw does he pull back from your thighs. A smile curls lazily at his rosier, more swollen mouth. The bottom half of his face glitters in the candlelight with a mixture of saliva and cum — you lift your head in time to watch him wipe his mouth with the back of his hand.

“If this truly is my final night alive…” you say through panted breaths, eyes still wide from the shock of your simmering pleasure. “I feel I could finally die a happy woman.”

“I’m glad I could be of service, princess…” Gwayne smiles lazily, grimacing slightly at the ache in his knees as he rises from the unforgiving cobbles. He leans down to lay his warmth back over you. You stop him with a firm hand on his chest.

“I want to be on top this time,” you confess in a breathless whisper, eyes darting back and forth between his.

Gwayne’s brows raise slowly in shock at your sudden display of dominance. The corner of his lip twitches into a smile the same way his cock twitches in his boxers. He nods until the words catch up to him. “As you wish…”

iii. CROWNS & CAGES

You did not weep when they came for you, scarcely a fortnight after your lord husband’s leaving.

Gwayne was gone by first light, perhaps already a league or more away before you stirred awake that morning to the chill of an empty bed. He parted with nothing but a folded scrap of parchment resting where his head had been the night before. In his scrawled handwriting, half-smudged from where his wrist had dragged the ink in haste, he wrote: “Write to me. Don’t die. I’ll build the form for you myself.”

You keep the note tucked safely inside the chest of your corset now, folded so many times that the edges have already begun to soften. You keep it close to your heart like a holy relic, or perhaps, a threat to whatever unlucky son of a bitch kills you first — something to discover on your corpse after they slit your throat, so they’ll know who to answer to upon your husband’s return.

Eventually, the servants ceased asking whether you needed anything, and all your meals came cold. Conversations ceased the moment you entered a room, and doors slammed shut before you could reach them. And then, when word spread that a wild dragon had taken wing not far from here, all eyes of suspicion turned to you — to whom a dragon had never belonged, though the blood in your veins wearied the courtiers all the same. Rhaenyra had already added three new riders to her fleet; she certainly did not need another.

You were no longer a bride, but a prisoner in pretty gowns — it was the Queen Dowager, and your sister by law, who confirmed as much to you.

“I had hoped…” Alicent started slowly, bathed half in sunshine and half in shadow from where she stood before the window in your quarters, watching the distant storm clouds blow in over Blackwater. “That I might never have to ask this of you.”

Her auburn curls swept over her pale shoulder when she turned to face you. Something heavy sat in her round green eyes, as if she wanted you to finish the rest of it for her. But you remained as stoic and silent as ever from where you sat at the small dining table just across from her. Your hands wrung into knots over your skirts, hidden beneath the surface, as you waited for the words of your fate to fall from her lips.

“The council believes that— Should the opportunity present itself, you would attempt to reach the wild beast. The Cannibal, I believe it’s called,” Alicent said. “And through him, Rhaenyra.”

“So…” You sighed, making no attempt to argue the subject. It did not matter whether or not it was true; the possibility was enough to make you a criminal. “The Black Cells, then?”

“No,” Alicent shook her head, half-offended by the suggestion. “Of course not. My cousin, Lord Ormund, he commands the Hightower host. He has agreed to keep you under his… protection for the time being.”

“Protection?” you echoed through a scoff. The word tasted foreign and bitter in your mouth. “What a pleasant name for captivity.”

Alicent’s face flickered with a mother’s sort of sympathy. Her hands wrang together beneath the draping sleeves of her emerald dress.“You will be treated with every courtesy your station deserves, I assure you.”

“If your council means to bargain with me, Your Grace…” you started with a sad smile. “They mistake me for something worth bartering for. Rhaenyra already abandoned e— keeping me hostage will not make her respond to your offered terms.”

“Even still… You would be far safer there than you would be here, whether or not you believe that’s true,” Alicent said. “I know what my brother would wish of me. And Gwayne would never forgive me if I didn’t do everything I could to keep you safe.”

The long journey south smells of wet earth and horse dung. By the time you reach the Hightower encampment — which sprawls across the rolling fields like a second city — your fine silk gown has long surrendered to the dust of the road, and your hands now bear the tenderness of a week spent in the saddle. 

Your broad-shouldered escort guides you through the avenue of canvas tents billowing wildly beneath snapping green banners. The air smells of woodsmoke, cooked venison, and salty sweat — the soft breeze carries with it the sound of laughter, barking hounds, clanking chainmail, and shouted commands.

A pair of guards draw back the heavy canvas of the biggest pavilion in the camp. “My lord,” one says to announce your arrival inside, right before the entrance flap closes heavily behind you.

Inside, candles burn despite the lingering daylight, filling the enclosed tent with the smell of beeswax and parchment from the large map covering the long oak table. Pieces carved from ivory and oak mark castles and armies across the whole of Westeros, waiting to be won or maybe burned. 

A strange man stands over them with his broad hands planted along the edge, visibly built beneath his ornately decorated armor, and standing several inches taller than the rest of the knights in the room.

Lord Ormund was not pretty like Gwayne, but he was his own kind of handsome, made of sharp edges and strong features. His Hightower-auburn curls are less vivid in color and sheared short. He has his family’s pair of striking blue eyes, too, which feel a little like they’re piercing you when he glances up from his map. 

“Leave us,” he commands his guards in a low, melodic voice, keeping his eyes on you as his knights filter out of the tent. Their armor clatters faintly as they go. The man doesn’t say another word until they’re gone. 

“So…” he hums, one corner of his mouth lifting upwards. “The infamous dragon bride.”

Your brows bounce at the title. It feels like another chain around your neck. “I suppose I’ve been called worse…” you sigh, studying him with the same curiosity. “You must be Lord Ormund.”

“I must,” the man nods as he rounds the war table at an unhurried pace. 

His boots sink into the woven rungs laid across the hard earth with each step. He towers several inches over your head when he plants himself in front of you. He smells of steel and sweat and strongly of incense.

“I expected someone… older.”

His brows raise in amusement. “And here I expected someone taller.”

“Well,” you deadpan, eyes narrowing up at him as your hands clasp behind your back. “I’m sorry for disappointing you, Ser.”

“Oh, I’ve endured far worse disappointments, my lady, I assure you.” A ghost of a smile graces his pink lips as his eyes soften slightly around the edges. “I give you my word. While you remain beneath my banners, no harm will come to you.”

You sigh hard through your nose. “Yes… People keep promising me that.”

“I’m sure they have… But I intend to honor it.” The certainty of the man’s words unsettles you. It’s strange, you find, to be looked at like you were something worth protecting. “And if you require anything— anything at all. You need only ask.”

You nod slowly with a deep exhale, considering the offer. “A quill,” you conclude firmly.

Ormund blinks. “A… A quill?”

“Yes,” you say. “And parchment.”

“For… What purpose?” he laughs.

You glance over your shoulder towards the tent’s fluttering entrance, where the last light of the early evening burns gold against a sea of green banners. You wonder, briefly, how many soldiers outside this pavilion would celebrate if they found you dead on the morrow — how many would mourn, how many would care enough to do anything at all. 

You think, perhaps, that in the whole of the Seven Kingdoms, there is only one person who would weep for you. And he was a hundred leagues away.

“So that I may write to my lord husband,” you answer finally. “And tell him that I was right… And that he still owes me a farm.”

Lord Ormund allows you to write to Gwayne that night, and every seventh day after. It was the only thing you could look forward to, since there was little else to do at camp. He had been gracious enough to give you your own pavilion at the edge of the command encampment, close enough for the sentries to watch but far enough away to force you into solitude. 

It was clean and moderately comfortable — with a narrow cot draped in a single wool blanket, a traveling chest for the few dresses you were allowed to bring, a wash basin, and a small writing table tucked beneath the only slit in the canvas that permitted daylight. Inside smelled of candle wax, pressed linen, and lavender soap.

Outside smelled of war — of pressed metal from the blacksmiths, of men cursing over burnt porridge, of stableboys tending to horses who fouled the earth faster than they could shovel it. It was cruel, how the world went on while you could go scarcely a step without an escort. Eventually, you became accustomed to feeling a hundred eyes upon your back — most curious, others suspicious, some outright hateful.

The letters you wrote to Gwayne, at least, gave you the illusion of escape. You tended to each with careful precision — melting the wax, stamping it shut, then tying it off with a ribbon — and watched from afar as one of Ormund’s knights carried them toward the rookery. It was not until the twentieth day at camp, when you wandered further than you were typically allowed, that you noticed that none of your messages had been sent. You watched the knight toss the letter into the fire, flinching slightly when the flames sparked beneath the fresh kindling.

It had been four days since then. 

And you haven’t eaten once in protest.

It took roughly half that time for Lord Ormund’s patience to run thin. He’s suffered the endless whispers of your attempts to starve to death with an increasing displeasure. He commands thousands of knights beneath his banners, serves as the leader of his house with grace, and yet — he still cannot seem to manage to command one lady to supper. It was absurd. Humiliating. And worse, it invited doubt. What army will follow a man whom they believe incapable of governing his own household?

On the fifth evening, after your breakfast tray went untouched that morning, Ormund opts to bring you your supper himself. He marches through the crowded camp with his jaw clenched tight like a soldier headed into battle. His chainmail clanks with every step. Avoiding the stares he gets from surrounding knights feels borderline impossible.

He throws open the entrance of your tent without ceremony. The canvas snaps sharply beneath his aggressive hand as he ducks suddenly underneath it.  The light of the golden evening pours suddenly inside around his towering silhouette before the flap falls shut behind him once more, trapping the two of you inside.

There, he finds you lying on your cot, staring upward at the slit in the pavilion where one lonely shaft of sunlight spills through. Your fingers drift lazily through the rays, as if you were trying to catch it somehow. 

Your head snaps suddenly to the side at the sudden intrusion — your hair is loose and unkempt, because no one ever taught you how to do it yourself, and all of your dresses are now wrinkled and stained with dirt. The thin white nightgown you wear makes you look more sunken, more lifeless. 

Ormund grasps your tray with one hand and reaches for your small writing desk with the other. He lectures you through the distant pang of sympathy in his chest.

“I have commanded men twice your size—” His boots are heavy on the thin rug as he carries the desk over to you. “I have started sieges, I have broken sieges. And yet—” He slams the table in front of you with a dull thump. You try not to cower under the icy blue glare he gives you. “I cannot seem to persuade one prisoner— a lady, no less— to eat her supper. And I confess, it does very little for confidence in my command. So eat.”

Ormund slams the tray onto the desk. The broth steaming in a small wooden bowl sloshes over. Next to it, strips of leftover venison and a broken loaf of stale bread. Your empty stomach twists painfully with a mixture of nausea and hunger.

“So…” you start lowly, clearing your throat when your voice comes gravelly. You rise from your supine position on weak limbs. The fabric of your nightgown rides up your thighs as you turn to place your bare feet on the ground — eyes dull when you peer up at the man from beneath your lashes. “You admit it, then? That I am your prisoner here?”

His jaw clenches tight. His nostrils flare through a sharp breath. He no longer finds amusement in your banter. “Your status here depends entirely on your pliancy,” he spits, ripping off a piece of the stale loaf. “Now eat.”

You flinch when his fist rears suddenly towards your face, holding the broken bread just in front of your mouth. You blink wildly up at him, features screwed in offense. “…Excuse me?”

“Eat.”

You swat his hand away; it moves scarcely an inch. “I’m not a child—”

“Well, at present, you are behaving remarkably like one,” Ormund argues through a tight jaw. “Now open your mouth.”

You respond with only a glare.

Fury rages through the man’s chest. He wishes wordlessly for the strength of the Mother and the Warrior engraved upon his armor as he offers bitterly, “Or shall I make you?”

You spend a long moment staring up at him with eyes cold enough to freeze wine. You hold his gaze as your mouth parts slowly to accept the chunk of bread he pinches between his thumb and forefinger. He places it upon your tongue with a surprising gentleness, considering the wrath he’d had moments ago.

“Chew,” he commands, glaring down the bridge of his nose at you. Your jaw moves slowly. Ormund nods in approval. “Swallow.” 

Your heart lurches into your throat at his order. But you do as you’re told, throat bobbing as the piece of bread goes down. Another piece follows soon after; this time, your lips part before he asks you to do so. Relief crosses over his strong features as he places the food onto your tongue. His shoulders sag with the exhaled breath that it feels like he’s been holding for days.

He looks almost worried for you; relieved, almost, to have fed you. A warm, foreign feeling settles in your chest accordingly.

“I am trying… Very hard to be kind to you,” Ormund confesses, scarred hands twitching at his sides.  “So I cannot, for the life of me, understand why you insist on making this so difficult.”

“My letters,” you tell him. “Why aren’t they being sent?”

“The rookery master feared they could be intercepted,” he answers plainly. “I could not risk one falling into enemy hands. I… meant to tell you.”

“When?” you spit.

“When I found a safer way to deliver them.”

A bitter laugh sputters from your mouth. “What curious men you Hightowers are,” you quip with narrowed eyes. “So fond of deciding what sorrows I ought to be spared.”

His brows lower in confusion. “Is that not a kindness?” 

His answer lingers between you for several long moments. There was no cleverness in his words, only an honesty that strikes you like a fist to the stomach.

“Aye. I suppose it is,” you answer, clearing your throat when your voice catches. 

A strange emotion strangles you, and burns at the back of your eyes as you look down at your dress. Your dull nails pick at a smudge of mud on the fabric that will likely never come off. An embarrassed sort of laugh tumbles from your mouth. 

“Perhaps I… I spent so long waiting for someone to hurt me that I no longer remember what kindness is supposed to feel like.”

Ormund nods through a slow exhale from his nose. He glances to the side and walks the short distance to the stool that the table had knocked over in his rage. Your wet eyes follow his form as he walks away and then back to you, setting the chair on the other side of the table. You can feel the warmth radiating from his body, even in the scarce distance between you.

“I’ll admit— A man spends enough time at war, they start to forget that mornings are not meant to begin with fear,” he says, reaching again for the loaf of bread, but this time breaking it in half. “I forget myself, at times, but… if you’ll allow me… I’d very much like to prove to you that I can be kind.”

Your weary features soften around the edges. “Well, I don’t have much of a choice in the matter, do I?” you tell him, with a more sincere smile hinting at the corners of your lips. “I am your prisoner, after all.”

“So you keep insisting,” Ormund quips with his own quiet grin. “But I should rather you thought of yourself as my… responsibility.”

Your heart stumbles a beat. Responsibility felt much safer than hostage, or bargaining piece, or burden. It felt, you’ll admit, like a kindness.

iv. SILK & SWORDS

You fall into a steady routine at the Hightower encampment by the fifth moon of your captivity.

Each morning arrives with the same mournful groan of a warhorn that rolls across the grass green hills before the sun has even broken the horizon. You wake to the distant ringing of hammers against anvils, hounds barking for gristles off the cookfires, and knights shouting for their squires. The first hours were reserved for armorers; the afternoons for drilling knights whose swords cracked together until you could feel them ringing in your skull; and the evenings for songs, laughter, and ale.

Your days, however, remained painfully empty.

Lord Ormund had been kind enough to provide you with greater comforts as the weeks went by — cushioned pillows and heavier woolen blankets for when the nights got colder; sprigs of lavender for your bedside to keep out the stench of man; more parchment and colored ink to busy your hands when the days were especially long. And all of them were especially long. He’d given you his leather-bound prayer book, too, and even though you were not an entirely pious woman, you’d read through it enough times to recite each passage from memory.

The camp has since grown accustomed to your being there, ever since Ormund slackened his metaphorical leash on you — “You’ve had more than ample opportunity to run,” he’d said beneath the scratching of his quill. “Besides, where exactly would you go? No one else would take you.” No one bats an eye when you leave your tent, after three days of relentless rain had finally broken, to pick fresh berries from the brushes along the treeline.

Your crimson silk dress scrubs the dewy evening grass as you collect wild raspberries into a small wooden bowl. The juices stain your fingertips the color of red wine. The sweet scent mixes with the smell of wet earth and mint leaves crushed beneath your slippers. You bend at the waist to parse through tangled brambles, searching for the ripest berries. For the first time in months — years, maybe — you feel almost peaceful.

“Is that a love letter—?”

The voice cuts through the quiet like a blade. Your heart lurches into your throat as you jerk to full height again. The small bowl of berries slips from your grasp and rolls through the wet clover like so many drops of scattered blood. Behind you, you find a vaguely familiar hedgeknight, scarcely ten paces away — made of broad shoulders, broken teeth, and greasy hair that falls to his shoulders.

It takes you an embarrassingly long moment to catch your breath.

“I’m sorry,” you say through a tightening chest. “You… You startled me.”

“Did I?” he hums gruffly, in a voice that borders on amusement.

You cower into the hedgerow behind you as he approaches you, reaching you quickly on much longer limbs. He looms close enough for you to smell the sweat and ale and horse piss on his chainmail, close enough for you to lift your chin to meet his gaze.

His eyes never quite reach yours. They linger, instead, on your chest. “Letter from your lord husband, is it?” he asks, motioning with his head.

Your chin ducks to follow his eyes, where the rough edges of parchment nestled against your chest peek out from your corset. Your hands lift to cover it instinctively. “Yes. It’s a… a letter. From home.”

“Mind if I take a look at it?” he asks, taking another daring step closer. You wince at the sour smell of him. “What does Ser Gwayne write his pretty wife, hm?”

“Please, don’t—”

His hand shoots out. Thick, filthy fingers hook beneath the neckline of your gown, hard enough to stretch the fine silk with an audible crack. You react on pure instinct accordingly, lifting your own hand to strike him before your mind could forbid it.

The sound of your palm colliding with his bearded jaw cracks through the hedgerow like a whip.

His head turns slightly under the blow.

Your breath catches in surprise at yourself.

The back of his hand catches you across the cheek before you can blink. A red-hot pain explodes from your ear to your jaw as your world lurches suddenly sideways. You hit the unforgiving earth below with a huff when the air rushes from your lungs. Coppery blood pools thick on your tongue from where your teeth had cut the inside of your cheek.

“You little cunt—” you hear the man say, right before he catches a fistful of your skirts to pull you back towards him. The fabric screams beneath his hand. The cool evening air strikes your legs all at once when the silk rips up to your thighs.

You kick wildly at the man. Your slipper strikes uselessly against his shoulder. Your fingernails claw muddy furrows through the soaked earth.

“I am— Gwayne Hightower’s wife—” You tell him through panted, fearful breaths. He flips you onto your back by your ankle. Your foot burns beneath his grip. Your head strikes the soaked earth. Through the lack of air in your lungs, you heave, “He will have your head for this—”

“Oh, will he?” the hedge knight laughs with a brown-tooth grin. “‘Cause he ain’t here—”

The hand not holding your squirming ankle reaches for the tie in his trousers.

Then, in a blink, steel sings with a clean rasping sound. Warm blood splashes from your right jaw up to your left temple. For a flicker of a moment, you can’t quite comprehend why — not until the hedge knight kneels suddenly before you, with open eyes that have gone strangely distant. He topples suddenly sideways with his neck bent at an awkward angle, head half cut off and spouting bright red blood.

You blink wildly through the haze of death until you find Ormund standing just behind the corpse, chest rising and falling beneath his heavy armor. His longsword drips crimson onto the grass where your raspberries lie.

Sweat from the long day clings to his dark curls, wetting them against his temples and forehead. Flecks of blood dot his jaw like crimson stars. His blue eyes burn with something fierce, but his voice remains remarkably soft.

“My lady…”

You open your mouth to answer him, but nothing comes out.

Only then do you notice how violently your body is shaking, buzzing with a white-hot fear, as you scan the scene surrounding you — your torn skirts, the blood staining your chest, the dead body at your feet. You stare at the hedge knight’s gushing throat without fully understanding the sight of it.

Ormund reaches you in three long strides. He sheaths his sword without a word before dropping carefully to one knee. He slides one arm under your leg and his other behind your back, hoisting you upward with a pair of strong arms. The scent of blood and earth gives way to the smell of leather, incense, and bathing oils as he cradles you to the broad wall of his chest.

Your trembling hands clench a fistful of the green velvet cape draped along his shoulder.

“You’re safe, my lady,” Ormund murmurs as he carries you back to camp. “You’re safe.”

Your face finds the hollow space between his jaw and collarbone. You’re not entirely sure if you believe the words he speaks, but you know now that you do believe in the man who speaks them.

v. SANCTUARY & SIN

The weeks that followed could be divided into two — the days before the attack and all the days after.

For a time, you startled far too easily. A dropped shield sent you into a panic. A knight laughing too loudly made your pulse skyrocket. And if a pair of bootsteps walked too closely behind you, you lost all your breath before your mind had time to remind your body that no one meant you any harm. 

Nights proved harder still. You dreamt of nothing but rough hands and torn silk and crushed berries that smelled so sweet the thought alone made you sick. One moment you were suffocating beneath the sweaty body of a hedge knight, and the next, your canvas door was thrown open while you were choking on a scream.

Ormund stood silhouetted before you, barefoot, with a sword in his naked hand. He’d reached you with haste, after having your pavilion packed up and pitched again not quite twenty paces from his following the attack — “It’ll be easier that way,” he assured you. “If another fool decides to trouble you, I’d rather not have to cross half of Westeros to remove his head.” 

His curls were flattened from slumber, his linen shirt unlaced to reveal his broad chest heaving with panic. His sleep-swollen eyes swept every corner of the empty pavilion before they settled finally on you. His steel lowered as he crossed the tent to settle beside you, smoothing a hand up and down your back despite the way your nightgown clung uncomfortably to your sweaty skin.

“We’ll move your bed into my tent,” he’d said. “You’ll sleep there for the time being.” 

It was concern disguised as a command. One you could not refuse if you wanted to.

Ormund’s tent was large enough to pass for a modest hall — maps and banners occupied one half, while the other had become something half-resembling living quarters. Your smaller cot was placed opposite his beneath the same sloping canvas roof, separated by little more than a table crowded with candles and books. You would wake occasionally to find Ormund already seated beside the brazier in nothing but a linen shirt, reading dispatches by firelight while occasionally glancing over to see whether you were sleeping soundly.

You pretended that you were, if only to keep on watching him.

But then the late summer storms arrived; and the unforgiving deluge washed over the camp with enough violence to shake the pavilion you slept beneath. Thunder cracked like an explosion closely overhead, and you woke with another frightened gasp before remembering where you were.

Ormund was already awake, as if stirred in knowing that you were scared.

“If you’re frightened…” he murmured from across the darkness. A flash of lightning revealed his blanketed body, and his face half-smushed into his pillow. “I imagine my bed could accommodate two people without either touching the other."

You crossed the space between your cots and climbed beneath his blankets without another word.  

You haven’t left his bed since.

The days soon settle into something almost resembling normalcy. Ormund, you find, possesses an absurd fondness for taking care of you — always making sure that you’ve eaten breakfast before he’s started his mornings; delivering his wool blankets to you before you can complain that you’re cold, warming your hands between his calloused palms when he does so; and escorting you through camp with a protective hand splayed along the small of your back.

No one ever cared for you with such deliberate attention before — even Gwayne, as gentle as he was, could only love you from a respectful distance before the war had sent him off. Your husband washed away into memory, into the note left abandoned somewhere on the forest floor. 

You did not know whether he still rode beneath banners or if his corpse had been picked clean by crows. You did know, at the very least, that Ormund was here — he was there in the mornings when you woke and each night when old fears crept back into your skin. It was a dangerous thing, you soon realized, to mistake safety for love. Or more dangerous still, to suspect that the two were any different at all.

You watch from Ormund’s bed — freshly bathed beneath your thin ivory slip, with your legs kicking lazily from where you lie on your stomach — as his squire removes pieces of his armor. A sketchbook lies open before you, alongside a collection of colored inks.

“This is what you get for tightening the straps so much,” Ormund hums as Daeron struggles with the final buckle across the man’s broad shoulders. 

“Well, you’d like them to remain attached, wouldn’t you?” the boy quips back.

The man smiles despite himself. “You complain more than any squire I've ever met, do you know that?”

“I learned everything from you, did I not?”

When the final piece of armor comes finally free, Ormund dismisses the boy back to his tent. The entrance cover opens and shuts behind the boy, letting in a rush of cool evening air before it closes again. Silence returns to the expansive pavilion, filled only by the crackling of burning candles.

Ormund, left only in his loose dark breeches and a linen undertunic, walks to the round table to pour himself a goblet of wine. “What is occupying you so completely over there?”

“I’m hard at work,” you answer vaguely.

“So I see.” He eyes you carefully over the glugging of the flagon. A faint, unreadable flicker crosses his face. “Writing to Gwayne, are you?”

“No,” you sigh. “I’m drawing you.”

You set the quill into the inkpot and lift the sketchbook to face the man with a girlish grin, which seems to be becoming more and more frequent as the days go by. Ormund’s light eyes squint to study the page. It was unmistakably him drawn in the ink, though perhaps only if one was exceedingly charitable. The proportions are all wrong: his nose is too large, his mouth is too small, one eye sits higher than the other, and he’s missing his left brow.

His eyes flick to meet yours again. “…Is that intended to be me?” he asks, motioning with the goblet in his fist.

“Of course,” you shrug like it’s obvious.

“Well,” he sighs, raising the cup to his mouth. “I had no idea that I resembled that of a rotting turnip.”

You gasp in faux-offense that’s soon overcome by a fit of laughter. “It is not that bad!”

“My lady…” Ormund huffs sympathetically, abandoning his ale to saunter slowly towards the bed. “This could be considered treason— I should confiscate this immediately."

“You shall do no such thing,” you tease.

“Oh really?” he croons, brows raised in amusement.

He lunges for you in an instant. You jerk back onto your haunches with a squeal, cradling the sketchbook to your chest. You dodge each of his attempts to take it with a girlish gracelessness, laughing harder with each of his failed attempts. Ormund smiles at the sound without realizing it, dropping the table of ink to the rug below before clambering onto the bed to follow you. 

One final tug sends the book flying across the bed, and the two of you go to reach for it at the same time. The momentum carries you forward until you land clumsily against his chest, knocking the breath out of him as his back hits the mattress, with you squarely on top of him.

It takes you a long moment to realize your precarious position — your chest brushing his beneath your thin slip, noses nearly touching, breaths nearly entwining. Your laughter fades first, but you still do not move. Ormund’s smile flickers, but his hands lift to rest lightly along the arms you use to prop up your weight on top of him.

You can feel each of his warm breaths fan against your chin. You could get drunk on the ale stained on his mouth from the proximity between you alone. Closer by an inch or two and you would taste it on his lips.

“We ought not,” Ormund murmurs lowly, as if he can read your mind.

“Ought what?”

“This,” he answers. His blue eyes flick briefly in the space separating your mouths. “You are another man’s wife. My cousin’s wife.”

You swallow hard at the mention of Gwayne. It had been far easier to forget him, in truth. “I have not seen my husband in nearly a year,” you reply in a small voice. “I do not even know whether he yet lives…”

Pain etches in Ormund's strong features before disappearing behind his usual practiced restraint. His hands tremble with the urge to smooth away the frown between your brows, but he does not allow himself the satisfaction. 

“I swore on oath to protect you,” he says. “To serve you in my cousin’s absence.”

You, without possessing a similar self-control, lift a hand to brush a wild curl from his temple. “And do you intend to keep that promise, Lord Ormund?”

He nods against the mattress. “Of course I do.”

“Okay then…” you hum as a smile tugs slowly at one corner of your mouth. “Then serve me.”

You duck down to close the distance between you without a second thought. The tip of your nose grazes the strong bridge of his as you press your lips to his chapped ones, nothing more than an experimental brushing of your mouths. You go to pull away just as quickly as you came, and whatever restraint Ormund had had before vanishes in an instant.

He lifts his head from the tousled blankets to chase your mouth, cradling your neck with a wide hide to draw you back into him again. The second kiss lands with none of the careful uncertainty of the first. This one is slower, deeper, and far more languid. His tongue licks into your mouth, tasting of wine and the mint leaves he always chews after supper. You sigh through your nose to savor it, melting further into his chest.

Your mouths move together with an awkward sort of tenderness, learning one another by the second. Ormund kisses you far rougher than Gwayne ever did — it’s all tongue and teeth and spit, as if he were committing the taste of you to memory: the meat from your supper, the berry from your tea; the guilt from your broken vows, the relief of being found after believing yourself long abandoned.

Your breath catches in your throat when Ormund suddenly takes charge, urging you onto your back with his mouth still on yours. He pulls off you with a quiet smack, wearing your spit on his rosy mouth like gloss. 

“Do you want me to stop?” he asks with heavy eyes that dart back and forth between your glassy ones.

You shake your head against the cushions beneath you, features twisting with a pained look at the thought of stopping now.

“Do you understand what will follow? What… vows both of us will be breaking?”

Your eyes glisten as they dance between his blue ones. “The war broke those vows,” you tell him, half-breathless. “Not us.”

Ormund nods wordlessly for a moment, pleased with your answer. “Then open,” he says.

Your mouth parts for him on instinct. He lifts his middle and pointer finger to your lips, wetting them on your tongue, before sliding them in between your bodies. His hand disappears beneath the skirt of your slip. Your head tips back when you feel his fingertips sliding between your velvety folds, brushing your clit before sinking into your waiting cunt.

Your sigh fills the quiet tent, accompanied by the low groan in the back of Ormund’s throat.

“You’re softer than I imagined…” he confesses, almost to himself.

“Imagining me a lot, are you?” you tease on bated breath.

“Yes,” he answers without missing a beat. “I dreamt of how your cunt would wrap around me… of how you’d soak the sheets… of what noise you’d make when I moved my fingers like this—”

A whine catches in your throat when he crooks his fingers just so, nestling the fatty part of his palm flat against your clit. Your hips buck into his hand despite yourself. Your exhaled whine is half-drowned beneath his breathy chuckle.

“There it is…” he praises.

“Fuck me,” you plead, face crumpling under the weight of your need. One hand twists in his hair, while your other fists in his thin white tunic to keep him close. You only vaguely realize how little you sound like yourself as you plead: “I need it so bad, Ormund, please, fuck me—”

The man goes dizzy at the sound of your begging, as if he brought you into his camp, his tent, his bed, to do anything other than serve you. 

His fingers glitter with your slick when he drags them out of your cunt. He brings them to his nose, nostrils flaring slightly as he inhales the scent of your musk upon them. You whine at the sight of it — half-disgusted, half-intrigued. You watch with heavy eyes when he brings the same hand into his trousers to fist his half-hard cock fully stiff for you.

It’s a mess of tangled limbs for a moment, as you drag his shirt gracefully from his torso while he attempts to free himself from his breeches. He’s made of tanned skin, toned muscles, and a dusting of auburn hair from his sternum to his stomach. It grows more dense at the root of his cock — which is not quite as long as Gwayne’s, but thicker still and adorned with more prominent veins. 

Ormund works himself hard with his fist; the reddened head of his cock leaks pearly drops every time his hand moves upwards. Your mouth waters for a taste. You let him smear it along the folds of your cunt instead.

You curl your arms under his broad arms to splay your hands along his shoulder blades. They flex slightly under your touch as he leans down over you. You tense on instinct when he pierces you with the tip of his cock. “Shh, shh, shh,” he soothes lowly, fighting back his own grunt as you spread so perfectly around him.

He sinks slowly into you, slow enough for you to feel every vein and ridge of his cock as he mounts you until his hips are flush with yours. Your mouth parts. He ducks down to kiss you before a moan tumbles out, swallowing the pretty sound with his mouth. 

He stays still against you for several long, agonizing moments. Your hips buck against his in anticipation. “Please move,” you whine, digging crescent shapes into his shoulders with your nails. “I need you so much, please—”

Ormund’s jaw clenches tight. “Do you have any idea how long it’s been since I’ve been inside another woman?”

Your face screws. “I’d rather not hear about your previous exploits at the moment—”

“Don’t,” Ormund spits, shuddering on top of you when you roll your hips into his once more. He grasps your thigh hard enough to dig bruises into the plush skin with the hand not holding himself up beside your head. His light eyes turn glacial in an instant, darting wildly between both of yours. “I won’t… I won’t last…” he confesses.

Your eyes soften around the edges with a faux innocence. “This isn’t going to be the last time you fuck me, is it?”

The crude word falls so effortlessly from your pristine mouth that it makes his cock jerk within your drooling confines. “I don’t want it to be. No,” he answers, half-shy.

“Then I don’t care how long you last,” you assure him with a lazy grin. “You have kept me hostage for nearly a year— Surely, I’m entitled to make some use of my captor while the realm delays the war, am I not?”

Ormund’s resolve crumbles under your permission. He rolls his hips forward and back again, never quite pulling all the way out of you. He groans quietly when you clench around the sensitive head of his cock; and you swallow down a whimper when the coarse hair below his stomach rubs mercilessly along your sensitive clit. 

Your head tips back. He falls to the hollow space between your neck and shoulder.

Ormund’s open-mouthed breaths fan warm along your burning skin as he stumbles into a graceless rhythm, thrusting hard enough to make the wooden frame of his bed squeak quietly beneath you. 

The pressure on your clit is relentless. You squirm underneath his sweat-slick body, chasing and running from the pleasure all at once. “I know. I know. It’s okay,” you hear him slur against your skin. “Just take it. Just fuckin’ take it— Fuck—” His voice breaks like splintered glass. 

He tenses suddenly above you, taut muscles trembling. You hear his breath catch for a moment, right before a foreign warmth pools in the very pit of your stomach. He groans in time with his release, heavying his weight further against you. 

You aren’t far behind.

He grinds his hips lazily to ride out his high, smothering your sensitive clit as the warm, wet, sticky feeling continues to bloom inside of you. “Ormund—” you gasp, tensing beneath him.

“There it is…”the man praises as you tremble underneath him, smearing his lips against your jaw until they reach your parted mouth. “There it is— Fuck, that’s it,look at me.”

Your eyes snap open at his command, bleary and heavy-lidded. You ride out the rest of your orgasm with your gaze locked with his glassy one. 

The honeyed moment doesn’t last nearly as long as either of you would’ve liked.

“My lord?”

The two of you sober in a flash as the spell between you shatters. Ormund stills suddenly above you, as if pierced by steel. The warmth flees from his features at once, replaced by the hard composure of the commander of House Hightower. You, too, freeze where you lay beneath him — pulse thrumming hard in your throat as the muffled voice drifts once more through the pavilion.

“My lord—”

“Yes, Daeron,” Ormund spits through gritted teeth, nostrils flaring as he breathes through the rage searing in his chest. “What is it?”

The squire hesitates at his uncle’s harsh tone. “Forgive me for the intrusion, my lord…” the boy says carefully, hidden behind the covered entrance. “But a messenger arrived from the river road. He bears urgent word from Ser Criston’s camp.”

You feel your stomach sink — or, perhaps, it’s only the mixture of cum seeping out of your still fluttering confines, soaking the sheets beneath you. You feel unspeakably dirty now, and the lack of regret only deepens the feeling.

Ormund remains motionless above you for a moment before sitting back on his haunches. You shiver at the absence of his warmth, and wince slightly when his softening cock slips out of you. “A letter?” he calls to the entrance, brows lowered. “What news?”

“It is sealed, my lord,” Daeron says. “The messenger said it was to be opened by our hand alone.”

Ormund’s confusion deepens. “And who sends it?”

After another brief hesitation, the voice answers solemnly: “Ser Gwayne, my lord.”

Not that he's complaining. He's winning, and damn mess in the best kind of way; tongue-tied, lashes fluttering, trying and failing to act like you don't like it as he keeps stuffing his fingers in that greedy fraggin’ hole of yours.

“Lobo, its… its too much.” You finally whine in a last-ditch attempt not to lose at the first hurdle, vision, brain, everything a blur but for those sultry eyes and his damn voice as you arch your back, pushing your chest further against him.

“Naw. Just stop fightin’ it.” He pushes back, hoisting you up until you're face-to-face, unable to escape the stale smoke on his breath and triumph that already settling into his face as he starts fucking his fingers into you faster, harder, spreading them out against your already stretched and weeping pussy. “You're gonna look so hot, grindin’ on his dick, bit first you gotta make a mess, awright babe?”

“Lord Ashford fucks his sheep!” You hurriedly pressed a hand to your mouth, hoping your rather undignified snort did not echo too loudly in the raucous aftermath. You felt Maekar’s hand on your thigh tighten, glanced over to find him smirking, looking over at you from the corner of his eye with the corners of his lips upturned and his eyes sparkling with mirth. 

You could see Baelor glance disapprovingly in your two’s direction, but despite his best efforts to remain respectful to your host, you could see the shine of humour on his face as well. You were beaming now, uninterested in hiding your amusement. Though you knew Maekar enjoyed a good tourney, jousts and all, you had no interest in the violence. There were far better things to be doing than flinging lances at each other, you thought, but you must endure. 

You gently traced your fingertips up and down the back of his hand, over his knuckles and veins, over the smooth skin and flecked scars. You sighed, sounding rather forlorn, before the idea hit you like a spark. You bit your lip, hiding a smirk, then leaned over to your husband’s chair. He tilted his head just so, ensuring you knew his ear was always open for you. Restraining yourself from kissing the beard at his cheek (like you usually loved to do), you instead whispered, “I wonder then if the horses and cows are safe from his attentions.” 

You watched his throat bob with a swallow, his lips twitching and chest going stiff as he held his breath. You knew he was attempting to ward off a laugh, you could see it written all over his face in the newly renewed seriousness he attempted to portray. But his eyes always betrayed him, so expressive, even now, so obviously shining with humour. 

“I suppose I understand the sheep,” you continued, shrugging nonchalantly, “he does look rather similar to them, you know. Like calls to like and all,” you added, an air of disinterest in your manner, as if what you were saying was mere parlour talk. Maekar’s hand tightened on your thigh and you saw the sudden movement of his shoulders. “Do you think he prefers a certain type of sheep? A particular breed or just any sheep will do?” 

Maekar turned his head to the side, attempting to hide his face against his own shoulder. You could see how harshly he clenched his jaw, how hard he was trying not to let his face split fully into a grin. His eyes screwed shut, his face pinched in his attempt, and you beamed brightly, pressing your hand to your mouth to stifle your own giggles. 

Just the sight of him so overcome with laughter filled you with infinite joy. You had often told your dear husband that he did not smile enough, that you worried that he did not find enough joy around him, but he always assured you he was alright, that though he may not be the jolliest man in Westeros, he found enough amusement between you and his children (when they were being good anyway). But even with this, it was nice to have some real assurance. 

“Enough with your jests, woman,” he finally broke out, though his voice was a tad out of breath and far too high pitched to be serious. “You will send me to an early grave,” he grumbled. But then he pressed a quick kiss against your cheek, so speedy and so fleeting that no one else would have noticed, over in the blink of an eye, and you could only look up at him with shock and awe. Your Maekar, laving you with affection in front of so many eyes? It was simply unheard of. 

You quickly threaded your fingers through his, holding his hand in your lap as your body filled with an indescribable warmth, and when you glanced back at him, happy and unable to resist looking at the man that caused you such joy, you noticed that he was offering you a small smile in return. 

You hummed softly along to the lute, chewing on the bit of cake the feast was boasting as its dessert. Your eyes traced over the great hall, the many voices echoing up to the ceiling, the heads moving as they ate or drank or spoke or did any number of things. You took a sip from your cup of wine, humming at the lovely sweetness of it as well, a perfect compliment to the cake, and then felt Maekar’s fingers brush lightly along the top of your hand that rested against the table. You turned your head to him, smiling sweetly, and shifted just slightly in your seat to be that much closer to him. Though the arms of your chair remained the distance between you, your shoulder brushed his arm where the two of you seemed to converge on the space. 

“Lord Manderley’s doublet is a punishment to the eyes,” he grumbled by your ear, sipping casually from his wine. “I fear by wearing such a thing he has given grounds for Baelor to have him arrested and sentenced to death.” 

You snorted a laugh, shaking your head and dropping it against his arm for a moment before lifting it up and looking around the hall to see if you could spot him. Maekar gave the barest nudge of his chin in the lord’s direction and you caught sight of the ghastly thing instantly. 

“Goodness,” you gasped, eyes widening a little. “I did not think such a shade of… is that green? Or rather yellow? Perhaps somewhere in between?” Your brows furrowed in puzzlement and you squinted at the man in the distance. 

“I distinctly remember something of that colour coming out of Aegon’s mouth when he was but a babe,” Maekar mumbled, and you fell into hysterics, slapping a hand over your mouth and pressing your face to his arm to hide yourself. Your entire body shook with your laughter as you clung to him, and he looked positively pompous, smirking (slightly but proudly) that he was able to tickle your humour so. Perhaps he would not openly admit it, but he took immense pride in being able to make you laugh, to know he could be your source of joy. 

When you finally caught your breath a little, you lifted your head up and said, “I thought something of that colour would come out of the other end of a person.” You raised your eyebrows, glancing down as if to emphasize, and Maekar snorted, a loud and outrageous sound for him. 

Baelor, Valarr, even King Daeron, all turned to look down the table towards the two of you, eyebrows raising and mouths turning up at the corners as they saw the laughter on your face and the precarious hold Maekar attempted to keep on his subdued expression. But his enjoyment was obvious, and all their hearts warmed with it. 

You leaned your face against Maekar’s arm once more, cheeks warm and almost pained from how much you smiled. You traced the back of his hand once more but traversed all the way up to his forearm this time. 

“Do not make me laugh so,” Maekar grumbled down to you, and though his words sounded very serious, you could hear the hidden teasing beneath them. “I cannot have these Lords thinking that I might ever be amused in their company.” But you just giggled and pressed a fleeting kiss to his arm. 

“Maekar, you would not believe the way she said it!” You exclaimed, flicking your hair over your shoulder as you turned to look back at him from your seat at the vanity. 

Your husband had already clambered into bed, not one for too much ceremony before sleep. He kept only the barest pajama trousers on and that was that, and now he lay sprawled on his side, sunk down into the pillows as he watched you. 

“How did she say it, wife?” He asked in return, eyes fluttering a little as the tiredness of the day began to seep into his bones. 

“Like this,” and then you cleared your throat, lifted your chin, put on the highest pitch of voice you could and gave it a shrill quality too, and continued, “‘well my dearie! If you want to keep that husband of yours then you must do one of two things! Either bend over or bend him over!’” 

Maekar’s eyes widened a little in shock before his chest shook as an unexpected laugh punched out of him. You looked at him with your own expression of shock and amusement, nodding quickly as you waved your hands about. 

“I know! I was as shocked as you are! I could not believe she said such a thing, during an embroidery circle no less! Who knew a woman of that age would have such things to say!” You shook your head, still laughing breathily as you applied scent to your neck before getting up and making for the bed. 

But Maekar was still laughing, loudly and uproariously, and you felt immensely triumphant as you watched him wipe at the corners of his eyes, shaking his head but unable to control his laughter.

“And, well, having met her husband, I suppose I can say that he rather should bend over for her. She is a force of a woman, you know,” you continued, but then paused to watch Maekar with twinkling eyes once more. He had gone fully red in the face, the flush spreading down to his chest and stomach, colouring him pink. 

You leant over and lightly pecked at his chest, at the warm skin there that shook with his uncontrollable laughter. He attempted to catch his breath but any time he looked at you, you put on the same sour expression the lady you spoke of had, and he fell into that deep laughter once more. 

“You truly will be the death of me,” he finally wheezed out, reaching out and cupping your cheek lightly, his eyes still wet from his laughter. “I have not known anyone to make me laugh as you do.” You beamed at that, running your fingers over his beard, snuggling down into the bed so you could press a proper kiss to his mouth. 

The guards outside Prince Maekar’s chambers, and the maids and servant boys who passed by there at such hours of the night, always stopped to stare at the door in awe. The prince and his wife had retired by this time, though candlelight still flickered just at the edges of the shadows under the door. But it was not this that gave them pause. No, it was the deep guffawing laughter that seemed to echo from within. 

They had always known the new princess to be easy to laughter. You were always ready to giggle or chuckle or bowl over in laughter at whatever new humorous thing was brought to you, but the opposite was true of the Prince. The servants could count on one hand how many times they had seen the Prince smile, let alone laugh, and one of those had been when he had gotten rather drunk with his elder brother one fateful evening. 

But since the wedding and the fixed presence of the new Lady of Summerhall, this had become a common occurrence. In the evenings you would retire together, and once the maids had been dismissed and a little time had passed, anyone passing by could hear that peculiar mixture of sounds, one higher-pitched giggle, and one deep laugh, mingling, pausing between words, renewing. 

The maids and messengerboys oft wondered if you had practiced some magic on their lord. Perhaps you had cast a spell or made a particularly strong prayer. Whatever it may be, they could not deny that they too took immense enjoyment from finally seeing their lord… happy. And if keeping this development a secret was their duty, then so be it. :)