rhea

you sat in your room looking through the old books dragonstone inhabited , it was really the only thing you could do at such moments as your betrothed , jacaerys , wouldn’t let you out for any reason . ‘ there’s a coming war upon us , you need to be here , where it is safe ’ . of course you understood his worry for you , not just because you’re his future wife but rather because you’re his best friend . you two have known each other since you were about five years of age , inseparable from the start that it seemed only fitting to marry in the future . after his brother and your grace , you’re all he has . it’s only nature to be protective after what he’s been through

‘ i’m leaving , my love , i have duties to attend to ’ you knew what those duties were , the battle that was just arising in the seas , you quickly stood up as he rummaged through belongings and blocked the door . ‘ you can’t go , you will not go ’ . he looked up and grinned at you before making his way toward you , he takes your face into his hands ‘ i’ll be alright , you don’t have to be worried for me , i know what i’m doing ’

‘ but do you ? ’ you looked in his eyes , those soft eyes that always made you feel calm , but now they made you feel uncertain ‘ how can i be calm ? how can i sit here while you go and prove yourself to your mother despite her clear orders ? ’ he dropped his hands and paced around the room

‘ my mother doesn’t think i can do it ! she wants me here studying books and listening to her council ! that’s stupid , i should be helping ’

‘ sounds familiar ’

‘ it’s different with you , my love ’

‘ how so ? because i am no targaryen or velaryon ? because i don’t ride a dragon ? it is the same jace , the way you order me to stay here for my protection . your mother loves you ! she’s protecting you ’

‘ well i never asked for protection ! ’

‘ as heir to the iron throne , you don’t need to ask jacaerys ! ’ he stayed quiet for a while , staring at you with sudden fear in his eyes but he snapped back into his own reality and immediately composed himself ‘ i can do this ’ once again he walked towards you , now caressing your cheeks and your hair

‘ i can win this , baela and i will be the only dragon riders there , we can do this and we will do this ! for the queen ! and for luke ! ’ the fire burned restlessly in jace’s eyes

you moved away from his touch , from the door , the barrier that you blocked now open for him ‘ and what happens when you don’t win ? you’ll leave everyone behind , you’ll leave me behind ! you’re everything i have , everything i need and you’re ready to let it go just like that ? ’

‘ i’m not leaving you my love , you’re not getting rid of me that easily , i promise you ’ in that moment baela came around ‘ the dragons are ready jace ’ he simply nodded and she went off without a word , just a smile of sympathy directed towards you . jace kissed your cheek and was about to kiss you on your mouth but you darted away

‘ i love you and i’ll be back before you know it ’ he stood there while your back was to him for a good minute and when he turned to leave , strange words spilled out your mouth

‘ if you take one more step , jacaerys , this is over ’ he stopped in his tracks but didn’t look back , his shoulders hunched and you watched him as he chose his decision . his duties . his dragon and his priorities

. . .

‘ has there been any word ? ’ you finally left the room after the tears flowed from your bright eyes . you walked to the balcony of the castle , where the sea met the dragon’s sanctuary for lookout . ‘ nothing , my princess ’ the guard that jace assigned to you followed suit ‘ i shall like to be alone out here . if there is any word of the battle , i shall like to be alerted at once , especially if it regards the prince ’

your guard nodded and left you to your solitude , the breeze calmed you down a bit but it wasn’t enough to make all your worries go away . battles are long , yes but when the love of your life is out there it seems longer . too much to bear especially when you just fought over this . you didn’t mean it , no , you regretted it when the words spilled out . it was against your will . . . but he did leave . you don’t blame him , all his life he has wanted to show the land that he’s strong , that he’s capable of such things but your gut tells you otherwise

it’s not that you don’t believe in him , it’s quite the opposite . you know he’s capable , too capable . he will do anything to keep his family safe , to make sure the throne stays in his bloodline , anything . even if it leads to his death . and as if the gods are against you , your gut was right

baela’s dragon shows up on the coast , your heart races at the arrival , waiting vermax to follow pursuit . but as moondancer approached the castle rapidly , there was no other dragon in sight . your heart sank and wasting no time you ran down the steps of the castle to the dragons cave . you didn’t want to believe it to be true , that he was somehow hurt but when you arrived at the cave and saw baela with dried up tears , guards carrying a lifeless body you broke . ‘ no , no , no ! ’ you started to shake at the sight of them walking in defeat with his body ‘ p - put him down ’

‘ princess - ’

‘ put him down ! ’ the guards wasted no time and placed his body on the crossing of the cave , you kneeled before jace and caressed his face ‘ please , please , please , you said you’d come back ’ faint whispers and pleads turned into guttural screaming and loud cries as you mourned jace . your body was flung over him as you cried out loud , so loud it felt like dragonstone shook in its wake . when the maester arrived you wouldn’t let go of him no matter how much they pleaded , it wasn’t until baela kneeled beside you and begged for you to let go , to help them save him if there was a chance . you looked at her through your wet eyelashes and let go of him

you covered your mouth as they carried him upstairs and followed but the maester shut his door in your face and no amount of pounding could make them open it up . baela and your guard helped you up and brought you to the grand room where rhaenyra was , you were afraid of being near her in moments like these but she stood up and walked towards you with open arms . you cried together , something you’d never done but the queen knew the bond you and her son had and it was only right to grieve together . at least now she had someone to grieve with

. . .

it was late now when the maester finished his work and when he walked into the grand room you stood up from your seat , hand on your heart and one steadying yourself on the table ‘ jacaerys velaryon , prince of dragonstone and heir to the iron throne . . . was pronounced dead one and ten minutes ago ’ you knew he wouldn’t make it but hearing those words hurt your soul , your heart was crushed and your body started to falter . the tears were flowing out once more but your voice was long gone that no screams came out , not even the soft sounds of your sobbing could make it . you walked up to your room , stumbling as your guard followed but you wouldn’t allow him to help you

when you arrived the door was closed and you couldn’t bear to walk in , the memories of you two still embedded in that room . the essence of the room , the bed you shared , the books you two touched , everything in there was haunting you and you couldn’t walk in . ‘ i want to see him ’ your guard nodded and lead the way to maester’s quarters , he opened the door for you and it took you a while to get the courage to walk in . ‘ i’ll be outside , take your time ’ you nodded and he closed the door behind you

there he was , still handsome even in death , you pushed back his hair and kissed his forehead , whispering something to him . there was blood almost everywhere on the table , it looked like they tried to give him some after he presumably lost a lot of it . you took hold of his lifeless hand and smiled at him , ‘ it’ll soon be all okay my love , i promise you that ’

you looked around the room in search for something , you don’t know exactly what but really anything would suffice . you looked through cupboards full of elixirs but nothing poisonous was found be found ‘ don’t maesters carry poison these days ? ’ at some point you got frustrated that you started to throw things around and your guard called out to you but there was no answer . and the door was locked too , he left in search for help

. . .

the maester , rhenerya , baela , and your guard all barged into the room once they were able to unlock it . there you stood with jace’s sword in your hand , blood trickling down your forearms with deep gashes . you looked scared but not because of your blood , rather because of them ‘ put the sword down at once ! ’ the queen’s voice filled the room but you just put the sword up as they approached you . ‘ i can’t ! he needs me ’ the light in your eyes was gone , filled with craziness and torture , something darker . ‘ i have to be with him ! i promised - we promised ! ’

‘ my son wouldn’t want you to hurt himself , neither do i , please i beg of you put the sword down ’ but you just smiled , an expression that scared the quartet in front of you . your guard got closer to you , his hand out to clam you down but you just stepped back even more ‘ no ! i no longer belong here , i belong with jace ! with him only i need to be with him ! now ! ’

‘ princess - ’

‘ you don’t get it do you ? did you ever wonder why we were so close ? it’s the gods telling us we’re meant to be together , in every universe , in every life ’ your smile only got bigger and more frightening, your eyes more haunting and the sword more closer to your stomach . the blood was dripping everywhere from your arms , the goal was to loose as much blood as jace did ‘ don’t be afraid for me ! don’t be sad for me if you care ! i will be fine , it’ll be alright because we’ll be together again ’

‘ it’s what he would want ’

. . .

for those who remember the day the prince and princess of dragonstone died paint the story that the princess died in her sleep due to a broken heart . the queen wouldn’t let anyone know , or tell of the true story . that she killed herself in the same room where her son lay . it was a pity to see it happen , to see a girl she saw as her daughter die before her after she lost two of her sons in less than a year . but somehow it gave her some sort of comfort that they would all be together again , her heir and his princess watching over her second son . at least they were all together again.

You stand again, taking a few more steps down. Your mind drifts as you fall into a rhythm of checking these nets, pocketing pretty shells and scraps of metal. Wonder pricks at the back of your neck as you imagine the war. As the lone tenant of this pier, you had never had to consider the rites of the Targaryen rulers. Most of your neighbors had already chosen their sides, even if it did not really matter in the scheme of things—neither of those fighting for the throne cared for their subjects, especially not those at the bottom, like you.

Rulers like these bled the common man dry while claiming it to be an act of love.

You move a little rougher with the next net. Nothing but rocks and debris in this one. You imagine it will be a while until you find a worthy treat. The Gods are usually not as generous on solemn days like these. War makes monsters out of men, and the Gods scorn those who partake.

When you stand again, your eyes drift a little further down the bank. At the edge of the shore, a clump of trees catch your gaze. The water is darker there, cloaked in shadow. The shrubbery bends so far, it almost touches the water. You draw closer, eyebrows furrowed.

A dark lump sits entangled by brush, barely concealed by the cluster of foliage. You draw closer, hesitantly. As your eyes adjust, you realize it is not a lump of debris, but a body. Your breaths quicken.

If the person is alive, would it hurt you? Never trust a soldier, your father had once told you.

You bend your knee just as if you are checking a fish net. Your hands unfurl from your sides, reaching out hesitantly. You can only see his body. It is clothed in thick leather, a quality of which you’ve never seen before. Several arrows stick out of his torso. A pool of blood stains the sand maroon beneath him.

You pull back the shrubbery to see his face. You startle at the sight, falling back onto your bum.

His eyes—they were open—albeit, he did not seem to see much of anything. His skin was not grey and placid like the bodies that you had seen before. Worse, you’d heard something when you held yourself over him. A breath, shuddering through his parted lips.

“Alive,” you whisper in awe. To survive so many arrows, then the tumultuous sea… it would take more than just courage. It would take something otherworldly. You know then that your decision has been made.

A huge piece of driftwood sits beneath him in the sand. You push it aside to straddle him. Gently, you grab his arm and sling it around your neck.

The rest of your journey back to the cabin passes in a frenzied blur. You move quickly, trying to spend as little time as possible forcing the grievously hurt man onto his feet. He lets out little grumbles as you move, head lolling this way and that like a puppet cut from its strings. You make it inside and push open the door that your father used to live, laying him onto his back on the bed.

Blood immediately infiltrates the off-white of the duvet, crimson floating before your vision. He groans continuously as you break the ends off of the arrows—serving as a reminder to the heart that still valiantly pumped beneath his ribs. Once they are off, you are able to slide the armor off. 

The tunic comes easily. It seems to be made of a material that deflects water, so when you drop it onto the floor, a puddle of liquid forms in its spot. You struggle a little with his breeches—though, those too come easily with a little pull.

After he is naked, you stare at his body in silence for a moment. You have helped men with injuries before. Arrow injuries just like these, even. But you’d never helped a man with this many. 

You reach out to touch his cold cheek. He is so young—had to be your own age. Too young for the cruel, unflinching hold of war. Gently, you close his eyelids, shutting away the dark brown of his unseeing gaze. He did not need to be witness to this.

You steel your nerves and clench your fists a few times to breathe life back into your numb fingers. Reaching into the bedside table, you grab your supplies—bandages, a bottle of rum, a couple cloths, and several blunt blades.

“I’m sorry, if you are awake,” you tell him, poising the knife along the edge of one of the arrow heads. “This will hurt a lot.”

Hours pass quickly under your blade. Each of the five arrows is cut away, sewn with fishing line, disinfected with rum, and bandaged tightly. Sweat falls into your eyes as you step away triumphantly, and you lift a hand to brush it off. As they are levelled with your eyes, you realize your hands are a bloody mess. Your stomach churns and you force the appendages away.

You hover over him a moment longer. You study the shallow rise and fall of his chest, the fluttering of his eyelids. He had a strong nose and jaw, thick dark eyelashes and a head of water-matted brunet hair. By all appearances, he was quite common-looking. He had the complexion and hair of any man you’d pass on the way to town. But something about him—the quality of his armor, the blemishlessness of his skin, it screamed something ethereal.

But even Gods can be killed. 

Your mystery man is not out of the woods yet. The chances of any of those arrows not nicking anything inside him is next to none. He’s also lost a lot of blood. The sheets are covered in it, not to mention the amount he was sure to have lost at sea.

You draw the hair sea-slicked to his head away from his forehead. Your hand slides to cup his cheek. He might never wake again. Your kind hand may be the last he knows. You wonder how many people missed him—if they were sitting with baited breaths, waiting for him to write. If only you could ease their worries.

You pull away and leave the room before your eyes can fill with traitorous saltwater tears.

There are few certainties in life. Ever since you were but a child, you had recognized this. Life is tumultuous and unfair. It takes and it takes, until you can give no longer. 

The sea is a comfort. She does not take, she gives. Usually, she gives you more valuable things than a body, but you try not to question her motives.

It’s been a day since you patched him and he still has not woken. His chest continues to move despite this disconcerting sign, and that remains your only comfort. You stood near-vigil at his beside for most of the hours following. Anticipatory nerves fill your every waking second, even at night when you lay awake trying to sleep.

You recognize that the danger has not fully passed for him. He had not had water in who knows how long. Eventually, his organs would fail due to dehydration and blood loss. That is, if the internal bleeding didn’t kill him first.

You also cannot help the hope that blooms in your chest as you gaze upon his face. Perhaps it is the fact that his skin seems more alive as of late. The fact that you have seen his eyes move behind his eyelids more and more often. The fact that you were quite insufferably lonely, and therefore latched onto any individual who came your way—alive or barely, as in the case of this man in your cabin.

You want him to survive because you want to know him. It is a thought that scares you as much as it invigorates you.

By his bedside, after a long morrow of scavenging by the tide, you dump your satchel of goodies on the now-clean duvet. (Now that had been annoying to do—having to move his admittedly quite heavy body over to remove the sheets). You begin to sort through them, cataloging them.

The silence is unsettling, so you begin to speak.

“The sea has been kind this morrow,” you say softly. You pick up a smooth rainbow shell, twisting it this way and that in the light. “These will sell for a couple of silvers.”

You put the shell down and then grab your cloth, gently stroking away sand and debris.

“My father taught me to do this,” you tell the man, “he taught me everything I know.”

Satisfied with its shimmer, you trade the shell for a clam. You pop it open forcefully—apologizing profusely to the creature as you did—and stick your fingers into the dark crevice you created.

“No pearl,” you report when your fingers come up empty. You bring the clam up to your eyes, stroking its now-broken shell. “I’m sorry, friend.”

The last piece had been one you were excited for. You grab the shrapnel of metal gently in your palms, categorizing the weight and feel of it with your hands. 

“Probably off a shield,” you decide. “I’m sure a blacksmith would like this.”

You put the metal down and let out a heavy sigh. You stare at the man, worrying your lip between your teeth. Perhaps some foolish part of you had hoped he would wake up to the sound of your voice, like the stories you had read as a girl.

But life is no story, as you had to continually remind yourself. Things like that just didn’t happen.

You go through a few other bits and bobs in silence, mood dampened by reality. A couple of small shells, a nail, and a scrap of maroon fabric. You aren’t sure why you grabbed the fabric—perhaps you’d wanted to try and sew something. It is quite pretty, you decide. It had belonged to someone once.

Once you finish polishing the items, you lift your head up to look at the man. Thoughts and images flash through your mind. What was he like? You wonder. He seems strong, based on his broad shoulders and defined stomach. But he also didn’t have the worn skin of a common man. He didn’t have callouses on his hands or fading scars upon his torso. He had to be a prince, you decide. A prince of a faraway land, hoping to bargain peace between the two feuding Targaryen houses.

You nod, satisfied with that recreation of events. Yes, a prince. A just, altruistic one. Perhaps he knew of the war and wished to come and save the small-folk.

You look down at his pale hand resting lifelessly upon the duvet. You swallow thickly. 

“You must wake soon,” you whisper, “the kingdom needs you.”

He does not stir. You sigh and gather your things into your satchel. If he is still not awake by the morrow, you decide, you will return his body to the sea.

That evening, you sit at the table with a plate of roasted fish and a glass of water. The fish is one of two meals you eat regularly. The other was for special occasions, depending on if you were able to procure bread and potatoes at the markets. 

You always eat the eye of the fish first. You do not like it looking at you as you eat its flesh. It feels wrong. The eye is not very tasty, though. The odd texture always makes you vaguely nauseous–the gooey, chewy ball. Your father had always laughed at you when you ate fish. He was not of an imaginative mind. He did not see the fish as being once alive, like you did. He did not imagine it swimming beneath the tide, with all its other fishy friends–before it was snared by ruthless hands and suffocated by the open air.

You stare at the vacant chair across from you with an empty feeling in your chest. It had been so long since you had a companion at supper time. Your father had not spoken much, but his presence alone was always enough to keep you happy. He is gone now, like with the ebbing of the tide, and all that is left is the shadow of the person he used to be.

His fishing pole, next to the door. His journal, where he kept extensive notes about what he found out on the sea during the day. His bed that now had a new, warm body sleeping in it.

You wonder what your father would have done, had he found the man. You take another bite of the fish, forcing it down with a thick swallow. Would he have left him? You had never thought of him as being cruel, but you also know he loathed unwelcome responsibility. He had enough of an imagination to conjure horrible images of betrayal and hurt, and so you decide he probably wouldn’t have brought him home to you. He had too much to lose to do so. Everyone did.

And so why did you? Perhaps, you think, you have lost everything that matters most to you already.

You stare down at the limp skeleton of the fish on your plate. You had never seen a person die of dehydration. Your father had once told you a story about a man he knew that had, and it sounded awful. 

You pick up your dinner knife, a sharp, clean-edged blade, and hold it in the candlelight. The silver edge catches the light, highlighting the sharp point. Your hand trembles as you study it.

Would it be quick, painless—slitting the sleeping prince’s throat? Or would it be messy and painful? Would it draw him out of sleep and would he gaze upon you with hurting eyes as he clutched the gaping hole in his neck?

Regret gnaws at you. As time draws on, you begin to think that the mercy you had granted your prince had been nothing but a farce. That by saving him for one moment had only just prolonged his suffering.

You put the knife in your satchel and stand. It is cruel, keeping a person alive only to die in a violent manner like this–it is inhumane. 

You take quick steps to the bedroom. 

You have never killed a person before. Your father had plenty. He always said the eyes, you can hear his voice in your mind now, the eyes are always the worst part. 

You can’t eat the prince’s eyes like you can the fish’s. No matter what you did, you would have to see those eyes. And with it, the betrayal. You stand over his prone body now. 

A sliver of moonlight streams in from the open window behind you, casting cool light across the heaving chest. He remains impassive, completely unaware of what you were about to do. You do not realize you are crying until you bring the knife up to your eyes and catch a glimpse of your face in the silver.

“I…I am sorry, friend,” you repeat the same mantra you had told so many clams before as you pried your fingers in their mouths, looking for a pearl. “But this is a mercy.”

Your hands tremble like windblown seagrass as you lift the knife against his skin. A moment of hesitation prevents you from acting. And it is just enough for a pale hand to wrap around your own and for dark eyes to snap open.

“Waaa-ter.”

You let out a sharp gasp and yank your hand away. The man watches you, his visage crumpled with pain.

He repeats himself, voice quieter than the first time. “Water, please…”

You move into action. You dart out of the room, hands fumbling with the metal bucket by your door. You run across the moonlit shore to the well that sits on the edge of the woods. Quickly, you fill the bucket. You curse yourself all the while–mind racing in what-ifs and guilt-ridden condemnations. 

You heave the bucket back into the house and grab the same goblet you had used with your own water. You take a huge scoop and shuffle back into the bedroom like a child caught with their hand on the sweets plate.

The man is still awake when you re-enter, his eyes wide and eyebrows furrowed. You drop next to him on the bed and angle his head and neck up onto the pillows behind him. Finally, you fulfill his request. He drinks like a man in Essos who has wandered the Red Waste for weeks; heavy, desperate gulps of the liquid. Some fall and drip down his side, which you dab away with a nearby cloth.

When he finally drinks it all, he pulls back, his breaths labored and eyes half-lidded.

“W…Where am I?” he finally says once he has caught his breath. You notice him scanning the room as if trying to find the answer written in the stone.

You decide not to answer honestly. You fear what his reaction will be if he forces himself to recall the battle. Instead you say, “you are safe.”

He stares at you as if only just noticing you. His dark eyes are swallowed almost completely by night, exhausted and ridden with heavy bags. He lifts a hand, as if to touch you, but it falls short. His eyes flutter, and then shut.

He falls unconscious. You touch two hands to his chest to confirm his heart still beats steadily. You let out a breath you had not realized you captured when you find his pulse.

Shame hits you like a tidal wave. You were going to… you were going to kill him. You are shocked at the tears that swim in your eyes. You stand in a hurry–not without remembering to pull the duvet back up to his chest–and stumble out of the room. 

The adrenaline has all but worn away now. Tears clog your eyes, slipping down your cheeks. You allow yourself to feel the emotions–all of them. Relief, shame, exhaustion, and fear overwhelm you completely and you can do nothing but sob. On the table in front of you, the skeleton of the fish and the silver knife mock you without having to say a word.

Waking feels like drowning. Fighting against the wave ahead of you, trying to get your head above water. Then when you finally surface, you fall behind the waves again.

Jacaerys wakes to the sun in his eyes and a warmth around his waist. He thinks for a moment, perhaps, he is in a dream. Another barrier between him and wakefulness. Then, the pain hits him. No, dreams don’t feel like this.

The groan stumbles past his lips before he can stop it and his eyes shoot open. Everything is pain. It surrounds him like dragonfire and steals his breath. He trembles as he uses all his strength to cradle his side.

“Gods,” he murmurs. He feels beneath his fingers the familiar texture of a bandage. Someone helped him.

Helped him. Helped him from what? He gasps as memory rolls over him. Drowning. Arrows piercing through skin and muscle. A dragon’s roar of pain. No, not just any dragon—

“Vermax,” he cries out, tears springing to his eyes. No, no, no…

But it was true. His mind had never failed him before. His dragon. His beautiful dragon. Falling to the bottom of the ocean like a ship’s anchor. He tries to move, to jump to his feet, but he can’t. Pain ricochets up his side, and he can literally feel the side of his chest pulling taut. 

He stares at the ceiling above him with tears fogging his eyes and coating his tongue in salt. For one long moment, he despairs. Why? Why would he be punished this way? Forced to live without Vermax? The bond between rider and dragon could not—should not be severed. Not by something as futile as war. He can’t breathe, can’t think. Everything is despair.

He should have died. Living is not a gift in this condition. His knuckles go white against the duvet. Anger sweeps over him—hot, potent fury.

He curses everyone who caused this. Aemond, Alicent, Aegon, even fucking Helaena. He doesn’t care. They’ll all pay.

But not like this. He finally shuffles himself into a seated position, cringing at the pain that shoots from every direction. Every small movement feels like another arrow tearing his skin. 

His feet are unsteady as he finds his footing. For a second, he fears he might not be able to even walk. Then, he finds himself. He grabs his breeches off the table and slowly, painfully, shrugs them on. He leaves his chest bare—unable to even think about having to lift his arms over his head. He keeps one hand on the wall and the other around his waist as he stumbles across the room. 

The place he is in is frighteningly humble. There’s nothing unnecessary here. Everything has a purpose, a function. No gilded armoires, tall candlesticks, or commissioned portraits. Bare, cobblestone walls, sparse furniture (all glaringly handmade and rustic), and cobwebs hanging in every corner. 

Jacaerys moves slowly from the room he started in to the short hallway that opens into a tiny living area. A large fireplace is the only comfort to him. A pot of a molten, unappetizing glob bubbles above the waning fire. 

There are very few personal effects here. Nothing to propose any kind of hint or insight. Out the window of the front of the ramshackle building, he sees amber light flickering across a wide sea.

His breath shudders out of his lips. He doesn't recognize this place at all. He’s hurt. He has no dragon. He’s never felt worse in his entire life.

All of what energy he summoned flees him in that moment. He practically collapses into a nearby chair and it creaks pathetically under his weight. He hangs his head and a soft sob escapes his lips. 

Tears tremble down his cheeks and onto the wood table beneath his hand. His mind races, memory and pain and fury collide in a war of its very own. Vermax, his mind strays. The perfect dragon. Gone. He digs his nails into the grain of the table beneath his hands, trying to recapture something to ground him. Short, hyperventilating breaths escape his lips—his vision fogs.

Then, everything clears. His hands unclench and he leans back in the chair. He stares at the ceiling, measuring his breaths. You are still alive, he tells himself. Therefore you are still useful.

Because perhaps that was his real fear. That he would no longer be of use—that he would no longer be worth fighting for. He’d always measured his worth in terms of what he could provide to his mother. Perhaps the truth is that his worth stretches beyond that.

He hears the sound of crunching footsteps outside. He sits up in the chair, eyes flickering toward the door. Ahead of him, he notices with a jolt, a knife lay discarded on the table. He grabs it before he can think the better of it, brandishing it like he actually could fight his way out of this mess.

He ignores the pain throbbing in his side and pushes himself to stand again. He won’t die now. He can’t.

The door creaks open slowly, and he angles the knife in front of himself protectively. 

But the figure that crosses the threshold isn’t what he’d been expecting. Wide eyes and a mouth fallen open into an oval. Hands clutching a satchel of… is that a seashell? 

She drops the satchel with immediacy, hands flying into the air. Jacaerys thinks he hears something break inside.

He keeps the arm holding the knife up despite the involuntary tremble that has begun in his arm. A cool sweat travels down his temple. His vision wanes. Despite her… figure (she hadn’t brandished a weapon a day in her life, he thinks), he knows looks can be deceiving. 

“You’re up.” She does not immediately acknowledge the weapon in his hand. She’s either brave or simply ignorant. Jace is not sure what he’s more afraid of.

“Who—“ he starts to speak, but he breaks into a coughing fit. His throat feels like it is on fire. She takes a step forward, as if to help or harm him, but he freezes her in place when he turns his gaze back onto her warningly. “Who are you?”

She tells him her name. Then she quickly adds, “you washed up on the beach in front of my cabin. I found you.”

He bends over to clutch his side. He notices her eyes widen.

“Please, I’m not sure you should be up. You sustained massive injuries,” she tells him. “Your body needs rest.”

“I cannot—“ he scoffs, then coughs again. “I cannot simply rest. I must leave. I must…” 

A pang in his side makes him gasp and hunch over. The knife falls with a clatter against the floor but he can’t seem to bring himself to retrieve it. Everything feels like it is in slow motion, out of his reach and control.

She grabs him around the waist before he tips over. He stays conscious long enough for her to lead him back to bed, but he falls within the waves again the second his head hits the pillow.

Consciousness returns to him in fragments. The sound of footsteps by his head. A burning pain spreading up his chest, to which he thinks he shouts, but cannot prevent. The feeling of a wet cloth soaking his tears and sweat. 

When his eyes finally flutter open, it is dark in the room. A candle burns to a nub on the nightstand next to him, wax coating the wood. Sorrow fills his chest again so quickly it nearly steals his breath.

He sees her slip into the room like a wraith come to haunt him. It is ridiculous, he thinks, that she should be the one to stand over him. On any other day, in any other circumstance, she would not put up much of a fight. Now, he is at her mercy.

“You tore one of your stitches.” Her voice is soft, but it reverberates in his ear drums and skull like a dragon’s final roar. He clenches his jaw and turns his head toward the moon that hangs like a silver noose in the sky. “I had to sew it back while you were resting.”

Jace doesn’t reply. He isn’t sure he would know what to say. How does he encompass all his feelings—or even one of them, into a coherent thought? It isn’t possible.

She draws closer and he tenses. She notices. “Are you going to try and hurt me again?” 

He considers her for a moment, then shakes his head.

She pauses, thinking about something, then she settles upon his side of the bed. Jace notices for the first time since she’s entered the room, that she has a bowl of that wretched-looking soup in her hands.

“Here,” she says, outstretching the bowl. He leans back. She pulls away slightly. “Sorry.” She cringes like even she realizes that the soup is nothing to write home about. “It is all I have.”

Jace swallows thickly. He reaches a trembling hand out. She smiles, relieved.

He goes to take the bowl, but his arm feels weak. He pulls back. “Perhaps…” he pauses, clears his throat. “Perhaps you could…”

Asking for help has never come easy to him. Being weak is not something he is accustomed to. His other hand clenches the sheet in his fist.

She nods. He does not have to be explicit. He untenses his hand as she leans forward, a small bit of soup in the wood spoon.

The first bite makes his face twist. She laughs.

“I truly am sorry,” she says. “I know it is probably not what you are used to.”

It takes every bit of his strength to swallow the offending liquid. It is strangely salty. It tastes like the brine that filled his mouth when he— 

He cuts the thought short. No need to ruin his own mood again.

“Something happened to you out there,” she says as if she’d read his mind, and although it should be a question, it is not, “something bad.”

He swallows another gulp of the soup. He does not reply. 

She must realize he does not want to speak on that, for she does not press the matter. She lifts the spoon again and he forces down another sip.

“The soup has fish and some potatoes—oh, and they had carrots at the market today, so I put those in too. Perhaps those are the disgusting parts. I won’t purchase them again.”

Jace does not have the energy, or perhaps the heart, to tell her it is certainly not the vegetables that have made the soup taste like what sea captains scrape off the bottom of their ships.

She scoops another bit of soup and he forces it down. His mouth had begun to retain that saltiness even when he no longer had the soup in his mouth, like a stain one can’t wash away with soap and water.

She does not speak for a long pause, but Jace suddenly feels a bit antsy. It feels too intimate an act to not be speaking.

He swallows another mouthful, then clears his throat to speak. “Did you catch the fish?” he asks, his voice hoarse.

“Oh, no, no,” she replies to him like it is a preposterous suggestion. Like killing fish is below her standards. “I just buy them.”

He frowns around the spoon in his mouth and hurriedly swallows the liquid. “Then why were you on the shore when you found me?”

She stirs the foul soup around for a moment, thinking hard about something, then she looks up at him. “I collect things. Shells, scrap metal, and fabrics. You would be surprised what comes with the morning tide, and even more what people would pay for them.”

An odd business, Jace can’t help but think. It seems like a hard thing to have to rely solely on the Narrow Sea for food and shelter. The Narrow Sea, he remembers with a sudden clarity. That is near where they fought.

“Are you going to tell your name?” Her head is tilted as she asks this, the soup bowl now empty and forgotten upon her folded legs.

He ponders the question for a moment. He could tell her his full name, but it might backfire, especially if she harbors a grudge against his family. He doesn’t think she has it in her to cause him harm, but he knows that many do not until they are cornered.

“Jace,” he finally tells her. “Just Jace.”

She smiles and her entire face lights up like nothing he’s ever seen before. Something twists in his stomach. “Nice to meet you, Jace.”

One, two, three, four. You count the shells noiselessly as you thread them onto the fishing line. They clink together softly as you pull the line taut around your wrist, measuring the width mentally. You remove the bracelet and add a few more of your little shells.

A few days had passed without much event. Jace drifted in and out of consciousness throughout the day and slept soundlessly through the night. He did not complain, but you had seen his thinly-veiled winces and his shuddering breaths. You know that he is suffering more than he lets on. 

It is an odd thing, you think, to be harboring a man in your home that you know next to nothing about, but had inexplicably formed an attachment to. You still know nothing more about Jace than his name and even that had not been an answer easily wrought.

You slide the shells all to one side and swiftly tie a knot at the end of the line, forming a perfect circular bracelet. Putting it to the side, you cut a new piece of fishing line and begin sorting through your shells again.

Just as you go to slide the first shell on, you hear something behind you. The creaking of wood as light footfalls go across.

You turn your head, body tense.

“Jace,” you say, surprised by his appearance. You stand.

He had not been up since he’d ripped that stitch a few days ago, actually heeding your pleas to rest. But a part of you knew even then that the peace would not last long. He is a restless creature, like a bird stuck behind the bars of a cage.

“Do you need something?” You clutch your fingers together across your front, as if doing so could somehow steel your nerves.

He takes a step into the room. You notice his gait seems more steady today. He looks around every bit of the room, his eyes taking in all the pieces that make up your home. You gnaw your lip between your teeth. Did he approve of what he saw?

His voice comes suddenly, a blade cutting through the silence. “What are you doing?” 

It is not accusatory nor standoffish, instead it seems almost curious. You grab the bracelet you just finished and hold it out to him.

“A bracelet.”

Jace steps closer, tilting his head. “For what purpose?”

You let out a short laugh. “It has no purpose. It is just pretty.”

“Hm.” He stares at the offending object like he’s never thought about making something just for the sake of making something before. You smile. He averts his eyes to the other side of the room.

“You said you do not fish,” he says, “and yet you have a fishing rod.”

You follow his eyes to where the thing sits near the door. It sits, forgotten, in the corner of the room—there to haunt you and the person you’d never become, you’re sure.

“My father…” you start to say, but something gets caught in your throat. You forcefully swallow past the blockage. “My father used to fish.”

Jace’s accusatory eyes soften around the edges. He hobbles closer and takes the seat across from you at the table. Your father’s seat.

“And your father—“

“He is dead,” you answer curtly, “he has been for two summers now.”

You pick up the bracelet you had only just starteda nd slide a seashell onto the line. Hurt does not fill your chest like a cavity anymore—now all you feel is numbness as it spreads from your lungs to your heart. 

Jace turns his head to look out the window at the night sky. “My father is gone too.”

Your eyes leap toward his in a flash. He does not look at you, his hand tracing repetitive shapes on the table. The deep circles beneath his eyes have all but faded now, but the weariness to his expression remains. He possesses the gaze of someone who holds more than they can carry–a gaze your father shared.

Your throat bobs as you force yourself to swallow. You feel hollow, but a bit of warmth has reentered your chest. Two children, you think, without a parent—an awful thing, certainly, but not especially rare in Westeros.

You slide another shell onto the bracelet, fingers trembling. “He went mad.” Telling the truth, those three words, stings like betrayal. “He was a knight before I was born. He never… he never forgot what he had to do. The faces of the men he killed… they haunted him.”

Jace goes pale. His dark eyebrows furrow, the line of his mouth pulling down. “I-I’m sorry. That must have been difficult.”

You nod. Put another two shells on the line. Desperately, you search for a way to change the subject. “He always wanted to teach me,” you say, gesturing to the rod, “but he never did.”

He drags a quick hand through his curly brown hair, then pauses as he gets caught in a tangle. He huffs irritably.

“Perhaps,” he says, onyx eyes catching the amber light of the candle flickering on the table, “if I could summon the strength to get dressed and brush my hair, then I could show you how.”

You swallow thickly. “You do not have to—“

“It is the least I can do,” he murmurs. “You saved my life.”

To smile feels inappropriate, so you avert your eyes and begin to tie a knot in another bracelet.

Jace stares at himself in the mirror that stands in the corner of the bedroom with solemn eyes. His eyes glaze over the bandages that wrap around his chest and lower torso, then the unfamiliar slightness to his shoulders and waist. He feels as though he looks at a person he no longer recognizes, like his mind has been transported into the body of someone much weaker than he used to be.

The old house is quiet in the morrow. Every once in a while, a soft breeze will make the house creak. One may occasionally hear a sea bird calling in the distance. Other than that, everything exists as if completely removed from reality; untouched by the war that rages just beyond the sea’s reaches.

His eyes flick back to the mirror and he sees her standing behind him with a deep green doublet wrapped in her arms. 

“It was my father’s,” she says, drawing closer. “It might be a little large on you.”

Jace nods. She hands him the doublet. The material feels like cheap linen, nothing to the quality he had worn before. He does not mind. It would be odd, he thinks, for him to expect anything better.

He lifts the top over his head and she helps guide it over. She seems to be trying not to touch his skin, like she thought he might be made of glass. He clenches his jaw when he feels the familiar tightness in one of his wounds as his arms stretch over his head.

The doublet falls over his body easily, but it does hang on him a bit like the robes a septa might wear.

He hears the sound of muffled laughter from behind him and he turns his head.

“My apologies.” She can barely get it out through her thinly-suppressed amusement. “You do look a bit funny, though.”

Jace feels his lips tug upwards in the first semblance of happiness he’d felt in days. It feels odd and out of place, and so it disappears with his next blink.

“Shall we go?” 

Jace nods. He follows her out of the bedroom and into the living area, watching as she bends to grab the fishing pole. He walks behind her as she leads the way outside, too slow to match her pace.

The brush of a briney mist against his skin feels like flying across the humid air on top of Vermax. His chest pangs and he forces the thought away. His eyes brush the swaying grasses that stand cloistered around the sea’s edge, each one caught up in a current of air drifting by. He watches the woman as she strides ahead of him.

She is quite plain. She does not have the dresses of the courts he is used to, nor the manners of a highborn lady. She moves unhindered by corsets and the plumes of expensive dresses. Her soft legs pump quickly across the sands, barefoot, like she has mapped every inch of the shore to near-perfection and knows without looking where she must go.

Seeing her slip ahead, her hair tangled in the sea’s mist, then as she turns over her shoulder with a jovial grin, it feels so different than anything he’s ever known before.

Baela is beautiful. She is poised, and gentle, but with a rough edge that assures him she could—and would—easily hurt him if pushed to it. But his stomach never flipped when she spoke. He never searched for her eyes from across the room. He never grasped her hand and wished he never had to let it go. He had known her for so long, he assumed she was all he’d ever need, that the feeling of content he felt in her presence was love. Now he isn’t so sure. 

She reaches the shore and stops when her feet hit the tide.

He meets her gaze as she turns to him. His heart pounds in his ears.

“Is it not wonderful?” She sweeps her arm in a half-arc as she speaks, eyes glimmering beneath the high morrow’s sun.

Jace draws his eyes away from her figure to the open waters. It is wonderful, he thinks. If not wrought with pain and regret.

He forces his gaze away. “Yes.”

“So,” she says, shifting on her heels, “how do we begin?”

Jace steps forward and picks up the rod. He retrieves the little scrap of maroon fabric that she had found a few days back and attaches it to the end of the hook. 

“It is always a good idea to have some kind of bait,” he explains, “fish are attracted to movement. If you can find insects or worms, those work even better. But this fabric may do. We will have to see.”

He moves close to the edge of the water and lets the rod scrape the top of the ocean. “Most fish do not swim right by the shore, so you will need to throw the line out a little ways. Make sure that you do not catch your skin with the hook.”

She nods, eyebrows drawn together in deep contemplation. Jace nearly smiles at the way she’s taking this all so seriously, before he catches himself and schools his expression.

Jace steadies his hand and propels the line out into the ocean. One of the wounds on his side complains at the movement, but he ignores it. He watches the line bob in the water with a softened expression. His memory flits between days spent under the sun at Driftmark and Dragonstone, laughing while he chases Lucerys with a wood sword; Laenor showing him how to fish among the tidepools; a fierce burn from the sun that is soothed by his mother’s affectionate hand.

“Who taught you this?” Her voice breaks through the silence that had settled between them. Her eyes keep steady on the line, lashes squinting against the harsh light.

“My father,” he replies after a moment’s hesitation. 

Another pause. 

He feels her shift to look over at the side of his face. “I’m sure he would be quite proud of the man you have become.”

Jace’s breath halts in his throat. Hands suddenly feel clammy. His heart hiccups and thuds against his skin. He had not thought of Laenor in a long time, Harwin even longer. It feels like decades had passed since he had seen either of them, a forgotten moment in his life overshadowed by tragedy after tragedy.

“Oh, look,” she says suddenly from beside him. “A conch shell.” 

She wields the massive thing toward him. Her entire face is bright with delight as she shows him the object that any normal person would completely disregard. She is anything but normal, though.

“These always sell for a few silvers at the markets,” she informs him, “the rich folk think they are good luck.”

He is not able to reply before his arm suddenly jolts and he is pulled a few inches forward. On the end of the line, something stirs in the water. 

“Come,” he orders her urgently. “Something is biting.”

She draws close, her eyes wide. The conch shell drops to the sand. “What is it?”

“I don’t know,” he says, “here, you hold the rod.”

“What? I don’t know how to catch a fish!”

He thrusts the rod into her hands. “I am too weak to reel it in. You have to.” It is a lie, but she does not seem to recognize it.

Her hands slip all over the rod as she tries to fight the beast at the end of the line. Jace, pitying her struggle, slides behind her and steadies her hands by placing his on top of hers. She freezes for a moment, then begins to pull. Jace clutches her hands gently within his own and he notices that they tremble like seagrass beneath his own. 

“Hold it steady,” he says against the shell of her ear, “pull only when you feel it stop fighting. You do not want–”

Suddenly, the pressure is removed from the end of the line and they are both sent stumbling backwards onto the sand. Jace lands on his bum, but she is able to catch herself as she tumbles beside him. The line must have broken. The fish is long gone now.

“Oh Jace, are you okay?” He looks over at her as she crouches beside him. “You did not reopen your wounds, did you?”

The laugh that tumbles out of his lips makes her jolt back. Distantly, he is not sure why he is laughing. The fish got away, he landed on back on the sand, and now one of his cuts hurts. But he had just felt so alive. So unburdened by responsibility, like any man of ten and eight without the entirety of their mother’s empire resting upon their shoulders ought to feel. 

The laughter eventually abates, and all that is left is the open sky atop him and the sun beating down on his skin.

“Do you think that the fish I cooked last night was spoiled?” she asks in response to his exuberant mood. “Once, my father caught ill from bad potatoes…”

Jace feels another chuckle escape his lips. “Sorry,” he tells her. “I have… not felt that free in a long time.”

She lets out a soft ‘oh’ and moves to lay next to him in the sand. Far enough away that there is no chance that they will touch, but close enough that Jace can smell the lavender on her skin.

Jace stares at the clear sky ahead of him until he begins to feel his body ache with exhaustion. He pulls himself into a seated position, but she does not move immediately. She looks at him with soft eyes from where she lays against the sand, a small, affectionate smile upon her lips. Her chest rises and falls slowly, hand absentmindedly drawing pictures in the sand.

His stomach churns as he turns away. He stares out at the rippling current with half-lidded eyes. 

“How far is the nearest town?” His words are nearly carried away with the next tide that pulls up the shore. She hears him all the same, sliding to sit up next to him.

“Not far,” she replies, a toothy grin on her breath, “would you like to come and help me pick out a fish for dinner tomorrow?”

Jace does not reply. The hope tinged in her words makes something inside him feel rotten. Like he is corrupting the world wherein she lives. As he takes longer and longer to reply, he notices something settle upon her face. A realization that fades into melancholy.

“Oh.” She looks to the sea in an attempt to hide the dewiness in her eyes, but Jace notices all the same. “You wish to leave.”

“My mother,” he says, “she will be looking for me. She will not stop until she finds me.”

She nods.

Something compels him to continue. “I would stay. I would, truly,” he says, “but this is bigger than me. Bigger than this–”

“I understand, Jace.” But Jace is not sure she does. Her lips purse, her eyebrows drawn to form a small wrinkle between them. 

“I would at least stay a couple more days,” he tells her, “I need to make sure I do not simply hurt myself again by leaving too soon.”

She pulls her knees to her chest and rests her head upon them. “It sounds like a good plan,” she agrees quietly. “Perhaps… Perhaps I could pack you some food as well.”

“Yes,” he says this far too enthusiastically, but he notices her brighten at the joy in his voice and so he continues to smile. “That would be wonderful.”

She nods, pulling at a frayed edge of her dress. “Then it will be done.”

The two of them watch for a few more moments as the red sun burns a hole against the sky and as the water ripples with wrath.

“I will leave on the morrow”--That is what he had told you over dinner the previous evening. 

In the morrow, the sky opens and floods them with her tears. 

You stand by the window of the cabin looking out at the frightful weather. Rain falls like daggers against the darkened, tumultuous sea. Waves crash against the shore. A crack of lightning makes you flinch.

“The Gods are angry,” you say to the still air of the cabin. 

Jace sits halfway over his plate of roasted fish as you say this. Then he straightens, his eyes flickering briefly outside. The dark brown of his irises reflect the grey of the clouds swirling above. “Or they do not grant me leave.”

You force yourself to pull away from the window. Turning your head, another flash of brilliant light comes across the floor, painting everything white. You fall into a silence as you step carefully across the cabin.

You knew that from the moment you found him, that it would not be permanent. Just like the rains that fall from above now, this momentary storm in your life will too pass. You had not even wished for him to stay, initially. You recall that first night, sewing his wounds with fishing line, as your eyes stretched across his alien visage. You had told yourself that his presence would be temporary as a comfort then, now you tell it to ground yourself in reality.

Jace had become more friendly in the past few days. Conversation came easily to him and made the thought of him leaving that much harder. Now you were the one that deflated at the sound of his voice across the hall, the one that shrunk from revealing the parts of yourself that had not seen the light in years.

You are selfish. It is a quality that had always lurked behind your eyes, but had sharpened since your father’s death. It is a survival tactic. Every animal, even humans, wish to hold onto the things they hold dear. It does not matter if it is not much. Everything you have is in some way worth keeping–including Jace.

But you could not fight logic. His mother, his family–they had a higher claim to him than you did. You could not keep him like a bird with clipped wings. It is cruel to even think it. 

You scrub the dish in your hands until your hands feel raw and achy. The only light comes from behind you in the smoldering fireplace and the flash of light that illuminates the sky. You hear the clatter of the bowl from behind you as Jace finds his footing–the screech of the chair as it rubs harshly against the floor.

You feel his warmth as he comes to stand beside you. He reaches a hand into the soapy mess over the wood bucket and fetches your hand from the fray. 

“You have made yourself bleed,” he observes quietly, a finger stroking over the cuts. 

You feel your throat bob under the weight of his probing stare. You slip your hand away from his and turn your back to dip the bowl in the bucket of soapless water.

“Have I done something to upset you?” he murmurs. His words are echoed by a rumble of thunder in the distance.

You still your movements for just a second before continuing. Your cuts throb at the feeling of the cool water cleansing the blood from your hands. “No,” you reply simply.

“Then why have you been so quiet as of late?”

You drop the bowl onto the wood surface in front of you and turn, drying your hands with a near cloth. “I just haven’t had much to say, I suppose.”

Another flash of light. Rain as it beats ceaselessly against the metal roof. You face him, clenching the towel in your fist.

“Shall we remove your stitches?” It had been suggested a few days ago as the first thing he would do before departing, so he would not have to bother with finding someone to do it for him on the road. 

Jace looks like he might say something. Then he shakes his head. “On the bed?”

You nod. “That would be easiest.” 

You slip behind him as he moves toward the bedroom. On your way, you light the spill near the fireplace and bring it with you. Your eyes find his figure as it slinks through the darkness. He’s healed so much better than you had ever expected he might. He should not have survived his injuries—should not have been able to heal so quickly. You think the Gods must favor his survival much more than they favored the own laws they stipulated.

He slides off his doublet and lounges back into the bed. You let the flame on the end of the spill touch the end of the wick of the candlestick and the room is bathed in a soft glow. You suffocate the flame and put the spill onto the table next to the bed.

Jace watches you as you do this quietly. When your eyes move up to his face, you notice his eyes are lidded, the tips of his ears red. You feel a warmth catch hold of your skin at his gaze and you avert your eyes to his chest.

You begin your work in silence. You lift the knot of each stitch and easily slice through it with the sharp edge of your knife. At the end of your first removal, you are happy to see that the wound has faded to a pinkish stripe.

“Who taught you this?” 

You startle at the sound of his voice after several long minutes of silence. It is a deep baritone, rough around the edges. Its unexpected richness has you shifting in your place on the edge of the bed. A flash of white light from out the window bathes his face in color. 

“My father.” You do not elaborate further. You think it self explanatory. Your father taught you everything.

“Was he hurt often?” 

You cut another knot. “There are no maesters in the far reaches,” you tell him. A hint of bitter frustration lines your words. “I have assisted several people who have needed help in the village.”

“I did not know,” he replies softly, “that is quite kind of you.”

“We all share responsibility here, no one is without duty.” You put another piece of the fishing line to the side. “It is how things function when you do not have the entire Seven Kingdoms at your disposal.”

You notice Jace’s eyebrows furrow. His stomach tenses beneath your hand. “How did you…”

“It is obvious,” you say, “your voice, your cadence, the way you were dressed when I found you… you have no scars, no callouses. You did not offer your house’s name, so I can only assume—“

“Jacaerys Velaryon,” he says, “that is my name.”

You still. Your eyes dart to his, alarm filling your chest and stealing your breath. “Velaryon,” you echo, heart racing. “That is the name of…”

“Perhaps you know of Corlys Velaryon,” he offers, “the Sea Snake. He is my grandfather. Or Rhaenyra Targaryen, my mother—“

You stand, breathing panicked. “You must leave,” you say, “why did you stay so long? The realm… your mother… the Seven Kingdoms need you.”

Jace leans forward to grasp your arm. You allow him only because you fear you may topple over without the stability.

“I am of no use to them in this condition,” he scoffs. You notice a faraway look in his eyes. The same look he sometimes got when he stared upon the ocean or recalled stories of his father to you. “My dragon is dead, my body a wreck. There is nothing left of me for them to scavenge.”

“T-That is not true,” you stutter. “You must at least find out if they are safe. You have been healed for days… you could have left—“

“I stayed for you.” You fall silent at the sincerity in his voice. His hand drifts down the bare skin of your wrist to thread between your fingers. He cups your hand between his own.

“You cannot stay,” you tell him.

“It does not matter if I stay one more day. The realm will not fall today,” he replies, “we cannot travel in this ruinous weather, anyway.”

Your eyes drift to the window, where the wind throws its tears against the pane. You nod slowly and find your seat again.

You grasp the knife from where you sat it on the duvet. You slide the other to rest upon his warm stomach. His breaths quicken beneath your hand as you drag it up to the next wound.

“I almost killed you the day after I found you,” you whisper, “I thought it would be a mercy. The fact that you are here at all… alive, breathing. It is a gift from the Gods.”

He leans forward. “What stopped you?”

Your movements pause from where you had started to cut away another knot. “You did.”

His throat bobs. His hand moves from where it clutches the sheets to where your hand rests upon his sternum. He strokes the skin of your hand gently.

You lean forward without realizing what you are doing. He does not allow you to back away. He brings his other hand to the nape of your neck and leans forward to seal your lips with his.

The kiss is languid. His tongue probes the seal of your lips and you allow it to slip inside. You bring your hand up to cup his jaw and he drags the hand cupping your neck to your hair. You let out a soft moan against his lips and he responds to the noise by pulling you forward onto his chest.

You do not lean your weight onto him in fear of hurting him, but you feel his hands crawl to settle upon your heaving ribs. You gently settle your lower half onto his hips, settling your hand down on a part of his chest that had no injuries.

You and Jace continue to kiss for what feels like hours. It is exhilarating. It feels like flying. Your stomach feels warm and fluttery, and your lips are throbbing.

You shift your hips and Jace lets out a groan. You pull away from the kiss, concerned. His hand moves to grab the flesh of your hip, sliding you back some. There is a hardness beneath you that makes a pleasant chill slide down your spine.

“Are you alright, Jace?” 

“Unless you wish for us to have sex,” he grumbles, “you should move off my hips.”

You swallow thickly at the insinuation. Sex. A novel thing. A thing that should be saved for marriage. But marriage seems so far from your mind now, drifting away like a current.

“And what do you wish for us to do?” you murmur. You slide forward an inch and he throws his head back onto the pillows. His chest heaves.

“You know what I wish,” he groans. “Is it not obvious?”

You lean forward so that your lips barely brush his own. “Then take it.”

Sunlight streams through the window ahead of you, branding the side of your face with heat, and your eyelids flutter against the intrusion. You fist your fingers in the sheets and twist your legs close to your body. As you shift, you feel an arm pulling you backwards.

You grasp the hand splayed across your stomach between your trembling fingers.

“Stay,” he murmurs against the shell of your ear. Tears bead in your eyes, but you keep them at bay.

Your thumb finds the pulse that thrums beneath his skin and you count his heart beats. The Gods are cruel, you think. They had kept Jace here long enough for you to miss him when he leaves.

You turn your body over to face him. You are not surprised to see him already staring back at you. His dark curls are a mess on the pillow beneath him. His lips pull upwards at the corners, but do not reach his eyes. He brings his hand up to stroke your cheek.

Your chin wobbles and he blinks away a frown.

“It will not be forever,” he tells you softly, reverently,

“I will return to you one day.”

You bring a hand up to wipe away the stubborn tears. “I suppose you do not know when that will be.”

He leans forward to give you a kiss and you know that is the only way he can possibly tell you no. 

Pulling away from the kiss feels like saying good-bye.

You stay in bed as he stands, sluggishly dressing himself as if he was still looking for reasons not to leave. You do not think he finds one. He turns his head to look back at you and his expression falters. 

A small smile curls at your lips as you mouth the word—go.

He heeds your instruction and leaves your cabin with a satchel of roasted fish, a map to the nearest town, and a bracelet strung with seashells.

ONE YEAR LATER…

The nets are full this morrow. The tide ebbs and flows, slinking across the silver sands. Birds let out cries of rejoice overhead for the plentiful bounty gifted by the sea. 

You bend the knee to heave the first net out of the water. You clutch your chest protectively as you search through the things with the other hand. 

“Hm,” you murmur, “a rainbow shell.” 

You bring the shell up to the light and small reflections bounce across your vision. Tucking it into your satchel, you search some more. A piece of metal, two scraps of fabric, and a clam.

You pocket the metal and one of the ratty pieces of fabric, but allow the clam to slide back under the tide. You bring your dry hand to rest upon the head of the babe swaddled against your breast.

“Shh,” you whisper to him as he begins to stir. “It is alright, my prince.”

He brings his head up slowly to peer at you. A splatter of sea foam settles on the side of his face, but he does not seem to mind. He gives you a gummy smile and you return it lovingly.

He watches with bleary eyes as you sort through the next net of things. You show him each individual item as you retrieve it. Your heart skips when you feel a familiar shape and weight in the palm of your hand.

“A conch shell,” you inform him with a giddy grin, “these sell for several silvers at the market.”

He stares at the shell with wide eyes. The pattern, a dark brown and white mottling, you think, must confuse or enrapture him by the way he looks at it.

The small of your back has begun to hurt. You straighten up and lift a supportive hand to rest underneath the baby’s bum.

“This will be enough for today,” you decide. “The sea has gifted us more than we need.”

The little boy smacks his lips as if agreeing with the statement. You nod and carry your satchel and the boy up the familiar path to the cabin.

However, your footsteps slow as you grow closer until you stop right before the door. Something is not right. You protectively cradle the back of your son’s head as you touch a hand to the door.

It pushes open with little resistance. You slide the knife you kept on you at all times to your hand in one swift movement as you step inside.

You take not but two steps beyond the threshold before you freeze. The knife clatters to the ground and a gasp shudders from your lips at the sight in front of you.

He stands across from you like he never left. He’s dressed in black gilded leathers, his body a tad leaner and steadier. His face looks older, more mature and shaped by circumstance, just as you imagine yours must too. His mop of dark hair curls around his ears, longer than when you saw him last.

His lips with awe. He stares at you and your face as if trying to map something with his mind. 

“Jace,” you say breathlessly. “How…”

“I saw you by the shore as I rode in from town,” he murmurs, taking a hesitant step forward. He lets out a soft laugh that sends your stomach aflutter. “I thought I might surprise you. I guess I am lucky to not have received a knife in my throat.”

Your throat bobs. Mistiness clouds your vision. “You came back for us.”

“For us?” Jace echoes, eyebrows furrowed. He comes so close he can reach out to you with his arm and you know that he has seen him then, by the shock that melts his features.

The boy turns his head to the best of his ability in your swaddle, his eyes searching for the unfamiliar voice. Jace’s mouth comes nearly unhinged, a trembling hand lifting as if to stroke his head, but it falls short.

He forces his eyes to look at you. “He… he’s mine?”

You bite your lip to suppress your smile as you nod. You reach around your neck with one arm while the other supports the baby’s bum. You unravel the swaddle easily, and the chubby baby flails his arms with relief. Never one to like a cage.

You outstretch him toward Jace and he takes him eagerly. He holds him with practiced ease. He supports the baby’s head and bum as he gazes down at him, tracing his forehead to the slope of his nose to the flutter of his lashes with only his eyes.

Jace finally breaks away from the baby long enough to look up at you. “And I just… I just left you. You and my son.”

Your heart skips a beat at the name. Son. You bite the inside of your cheek to keep from grinning like a fool.

“You had to,” you say, stepping forward to lay a gentle hand upon his upper arm. “Your family needed you.”

He clenches his jaw. “Nothing we did… nothing we accomplished… equals this.”

He strokes a featherlight touch against the boy’s cheek and he wrinkles his nose.

“Will you…” you pause. You try to steel yourself for the rejection that may very well follow, hands clammy by your sides. “Will you be staying long?”

Jace’s eyes rush to meet yours. He steps forward. The baby whimpers in his arms at the movement. 

“I would stay forever if you would have me.”

You feel your heart skip a beat. “What? What of the throne? Of your family?”

He shakes his head. Your stomach drops.

“My brother Aegon will be the next ruler. Wed to his cousin.”

“And you?”

His dark eyes soften as they consider this question carefully. He clutches the lost prince to his chest protectively.

“I am right where I want to be.”

He thinks, in some way, he must have hoped that you would fly to him, upon your dragon, because his stomach starts to settle into desolation at the sight of empty skies.

His savior, his salvation, crying out his name so he can feel the strings of your voice play the tune of his heart once more; a final call of ‘Jace!’ before he dissolves into the sea.

Perhaps, he convinces himself, his head keeps slipping beneath the surface, or perhaps he is delirious from blood loss, because his eyes keep lolling upwards and finding no trace of you.

Surely you are there, somewhere, anywhere, loving him, lacking him, dreaming him back into your vicinity. Surely you are, and that is why you cannot be here to kiss him in a sea of fire and blood, to drag him out from the tide, to resuscitate him the way you always do.

He wants to remember you again, tries to recall the lilt of your eyes in the sunlight, the tender press of your fingertips against his throat, the particular happiness love has taught him to associate with you. He can envision it in his mind; can almost hear you uttering reassurances in his ear; can feel the nestle of your fingers in his hair; can feel the swell of warmth around him, seeping into the water and consuming the edges of his form, skirting around him, until it envelopes him whole.

If he focuses long enough for a moment, on the darkness unfurling through his mind, he can acquiesce the nothingness to bleary outlines of dragons, and the cold of morning flights, and the ridges of your name traced in ink, followed by his surname.

He wants, desperately, to sink into the figures he views in the abyss, but a sudden fear grips his heart where it is still fighting, that stops him from tipping over.

No, no, no, no, no, you have to come, he has to live, he can’t die here swallowed by the sea, he doesn’t want to be left alone.

He cannot open his eyes. 

His consciousness flops uselessly, body floating along the surface of the sea docilely, accepting its fate so easily. Move, he wants to scream, wants to clutch onto his limbs and force them to move, to swim, to struggle, to take himself out of the sea, to pull out the arrows, he should not be so weak…

He cannot open his eyes.

Pain resurfaces to bite him once more, numbed only by the frigid water. But even the sea is not as cold as the chill that washes over him, spreading goosebumps and salt along his skin. The waves lap lightly at his throat, his jaw, his ears.

His mind thrashes erratically, ressurecting itself in sudden spurts of strength to despair at his utter lack of ability in the wake of death.

He is going to die here. His cognizance is descending faster than he can make closure with, and his mind is bawling, screaming in its subliminal confines, the sensation already dulling in its inconsequential defiance.

He cannot die here, he cannot die here; his body has already given up, his will to live soon tamed by physical demise.

He can still think, he can still feel, he can still remember, he cannot be dead, not if he is still narrating and conscious, he has to live, but he cannot move.

Everyone is waiting for him, you are waiting for him, you—

You…

He just has to go a bit further…

He just has to gather a bit more strength…

He will live and move and crawl his way back to you, he just has to…

rest, for a while.

(I MINUTE)

“Jacaerys is a bit of a long name,” you say. It is the first time you have spoken since you had been introduced to him the evening before.

The room is virtually empty, seating only you on the corner armchair, and him on the windowsill. 

He glances at you, jolted by your voice, “…Oh.”

You meet his gaze head-on, eyes boring into him in a way that is less confrontational and more… earnest.

“…You can call me Jace,” he proffers, after a moment.

“Alright,” you acquiesce. He watches you diffidently, lips set in a faint pout.

Your father gave you sweets, tucked beneath the fold of your hands in your lap, for you to share with the heir to the throne.

You hesitate, for a moment, before meeting his gaze once more, “Do you like sweets?”

Jace frowns, and you suppose it was an unneeded question. You doubt he would’ve rejected the sweets if you had offered them directly, but now that he has the choice, he will surely turn down your offer and leave you cradling candy beneath your fingers for the rest of the congealing silence.

“Do you have any?” He queries, instead. You turn your hand over, watching him expectantly all the while.

“Do you want them?”

He nods eagerly, a smile beginning to tug at his lips as you hold your hand out, “Yes, please.”

His fingers graze your palm briefly, as he plucks one of the sweets out, faltering for a moment before innocuously taking all of them. Your gaze dips, cursing yourself for your sudden awkwardness. You’re not normally so uncultured.

“Have you seen the gardens yet?” He asks casually, after he’s finished the sweets and you’ve sat wallowing in shame for a few minutes.

Your head raises, “I think my mother told me not to go outside the castle.”

“You’ll get away with it if you’re with me,” Jace gives a boyish grin, fitting for his age, “Come on.”

You rise from your chair, following after him. He holds the door for you, shutting behind you gently.

“Shh,” he gives a mischevious wink, before darting past the guards when their heads are turned.

He glances back periodically as he scampers into the courtyard to ensure he hasn’t lost you. You arrive shortly behind him, wide-eyed and rumpled. The sight prompts him to glance away, a strange warmth flooding his cheeks.

In the years that come, making you run around after him becomes one of his favorite hobbies.

He coughs awkwardly, quickly turning towards the greenery before you can think too much of it.

You shuffle next to him, peering at the flowers, “They’re beautiful.”

You lean down to indulge in the fragrance of the flowers, noticing Jace watching you intently in your periphery.

You glance over at him, inquisitively.

“You’re beautiful,” he blurts out.

“Oh,” you utter faintly, paralyzed for a moment as he flushes heavily and runs off.

Your arm shoots out, trying to grasp onto his retreating form leaving you, the way he did in the end, but falling short.

You’re frozen for a few moments, unsure of how to feel now that the giddiness of the moment was so quickly disrupted by his departure.

Those must have been some very special sweets, you decide finally, to have wreaked such a phenomenon upon a boy you’ve only just talked to once. Such odd behavior, odd even for someone you’ve only just met, because surely that cannot be normal for anyone. 

It must be the sweets, you affirm in your mind. You cannot think of any other reason for his behavior.

(II MINUTES)

It is difficult to avoid someone when they have spent a month in the same castle as you, and Jace is inevitably brought before you once more.

He stands next to you, inching his way closer until your sleeves are brushing.

You glance over at him. His head ducks once more, but he does not run away this time.

“…Do you have any more sweets?” 

So it was the sweets. You muster a wan smile, “I can ask my father for more.”

“It’s fine,” he answers quickly, “I don’t really need them.” And then he’s off once more, departing quickly before you can prolong the conversation.

Such exchanges populate the majority of your interactions with him, until enough time passes that he realizes he will likely not be rid of you anytime soon. Even he understands that it would do him well to dispel the uncomfortable feeling he feels in his stomach when he’s around you.

You find him rather peculiar, and you do not understand why he despises you to the point that he tries to avoid you at every turn. Have you done anything wrong, you wonder?

You cannot fathom why he detests you so, and you eventually gain the conviction to deliver a peace offering.

Sweets seem to be the source of every exchange you’ve had with him, so you decide upon them.

You decide to pluck a few flowers from the garden and stash the sweets inside a bouquet, slithering out into the courtyard. 

Your hand is moments away from the stem when you glance back, freezing when you notice one of the guards watching you impassively.

Your lips part to protest, to implore your innocence and sulk back to your chambers, but the guard watches you for a few moments without any true reaction.

Then, slowly, the guard nods, to which you beam brightly, and turns away.

You do not pause to waste the guard’s lenience, gathering the flowers systemically. As you return, you stop before the guard and offer one of the flowers. The guard hesitates, for a moment, before accepting it.

Unbeknownst to you, Jace has been crouched in the bushes all the while, having dived into the foliage upon seeing you enter the garden. 

His eyes narrow when he sees you pause before the guard, chest churning in a way that he does not like at all. A familiar petulance settles over him, and he straightens out of the bushes swiftly, dusting himself off and pointedly trudging in the other direction.

When he returns to his chambers, however, all the discontent he has been carefully curating vanished with a gasp that escapes before he can stop it.

Against his door, lay flowers tied neatly with a ribbon. He recognizes it as the kind you use in your hair, after numerous times spent watching you in passing. The sweets are wrapped up inside, with what seems to be a shawl holding it all together. Your initials are inscribed choppily on one of the sweets.

It is beautiful, daresay even more so than you. Sweeter than sweets, and it makes his teeth rot. His heart feels seized in his chest for some reason, and he wants to throw the bouquet into the fire and also hunt you down and share the sweets with you.

He decides on a middle ground, and runs all over the castle with a frenzied urgency until he finds you, in the drawing room with your parents.

“Take it back!” He shoves the bouquet into your arms roughly, eyes wide and panicked. 

Then, after a brief hesitation, he hugs you roughly as well, withdrawing almost immediately and running out of the room.

Silence lapses over the room, and you are left in a state of profound confusion.

“…Is that my shawl?” Your mother asks, finally.

“I thought it’d suit the bouquet,” is all you defend yourself with, picking gingerly at the petals and still staring numbly at the doorway.

From Jace’s end, he dashes through the corridors and up the stairs until he is safely stashed away in his room. Despite himself, he cannot suppress the annoyance that sprouts, blooms like flowers, when you do not come after him you never did, not until it was too late. 

It is unfair, he knows that, but most of his attitude towards you is. It’s not your fault he feels all anxious and his stomach goes in knots whenever he’s around you, although he wouldn’t completely rule out food poisoning as a possibility considering the many people that would probably want to take him out.

He spends the rest of the afternoon tucked away tightly in his room, until a knock resounds on his door.

“Come in,” he says sullenly.

His mother steps in with the same stolidness in her eyes that has preceded all her lectures of him. Your mother must’ve spoken with her, or perhaps you did.

“I have been told you have run into a conflict with your young friend.”

“[Name]’s not my friend,” he cuts in sharply, prompting a reproving glance from Rhaenyra.

“Apologize, Jacaerys,” Rhaenyra reproaches. You must be awfully important to her, for her to undertake such a measure of harshness in curtness and his full name.

“I have nothing to apologize for,” he fires back, the fire churning in his chest stopping him from swallowing his pride.

He blames his mother, when you are seated next to him for supper.

“I’m sorry you didn’t like the flowers,” you start, after he has spent enough time peering into the pit of his bowl for you to feel bad.

“The flowers were fine,” he answers tersely.

You frown.

“Was it the cakes?”

“I didn’t eat them,” he reminds you, “but they were good last time.”

“Was the shawl ugly?” You try a final time.

He seems to lose his patience at that, “I don’t want the bouquet, can you not accept that?”

You pause, gaze dipping from his face, “…Oh.”

His heart sinks into the pit of his stomach at that, and his lips are parting to speak, to voice the longing that has been tugging at him for weeks, nearly months now, but already your gaze has returned to bore into his.

“Why do you hate me?”

You slide off the chair, pushing past him once the words have been uttered, and within the span of a few seconds you have disappeared from his perception.

The hall is crowded enough that no one seems to notice your departure, individuals flowing in and out in a way that drowns out all semblance of presence and absence. 

He tries to look for his mother, to implore her into placing you with him for tomorrow’s breakfast so he can at least resolve things after a night of rest, but she has been swept away by the sea like him of people and he realizes that he must confront his own wrongdoings, for once.

He gives a heavy sigh, exhaling all the tension that has been tying up his heart since the first day you spoke to him. And then he’s chasing after you, darting into the halls like you’re following him into the garden again.

The halls are restless with his presence but absent of yours, and despite how unsurprising it is, he still feels personally disappointed in some way.

The guard peers at him for a few moments, before gesturing at the general direction of the courtyard, “Go.”

And the very guard he had felt such resentment for this morning becomes a source of much gratitude and he thanks the guard in a string of rapid words as he dashes into where every one of his learning moments seem to start.

He finds you in the orchard, tearing apart the bouquet. You must’ve kept it, he supposes, after he gave it back to you.

He stops before you tentatively, hovering over you for a few moments before reaching down to pry the shreds of the bouquet from your hands.

Your head raises. You have not cried yet, but there is an incipient gleam in your eyes. Still, his interruption seems to cease your outburst.

“I’m sorry,” you say once more, but it’s far more sincere this time, “I was being immature.”

He is quiet, for a spell.

“I liked the bouquet,” he admits, finally, “a lot.”

Your brows furrow, “You don’t have to lie to make me feel better.”

“I’m not lying,” he pronounces, “I thought the bouquet was beautiful.”

After a moment, “I think you’re beautiful.”

You watch him for a long moment, before glancing away, “Save that for your courtiers.”

“I mean it, I promise!” He rushes to his feet when you move to leave once more, gathering the scraps of the bouquet and holding them against him.

It’s a last ditch effort, caution to the wind. 

“I adore you!”

He does not truly believe what he says until the words escape. It is the only thing that can make sense, he realizes with a sudden bout of fear; the pattering of his heart, the tension coiling in his stomach, the sudden urge he had to hug you boiling over from all the times he tried to touch you impulsively.

He watches you with wide eyes, like a frightened deer before a dragon.

“You—“ You turn towards him, eyes flaring accusatorily, but they falter in face of his fearful earnestness.

“I adore you,” he says once more, with conviction.

You watch him for a long moment, gradually approaching him. He has the impression that you’re trying to decipher every line of his irises, because you come close enough that he thinks he could kiss you, if he truly dared.

But he has never brave in matters of the heart. It is the only aspect that his courage falls short in, and his heart stutters when you take his hands in yours.

“I suppose I have no choice but to accept your declaration of affection,” you declare, “it would be rather awkward if I were to turn you down.”

He pouts at you, when the lilt in your eyes assures him you are being facetious.

“…I like you too,” you tell him. 

The frenzied battering of his chest returns, but this time he is a willing victim now that he understands why.

(III MINUTES)

“What do you think you’ll name your dragon?”

You glance at him, “What makes you so sure I’ll have one?”

Jace shrugs, “They seem to like you.”

Your gaze returns to the skies, watching the dragons circling overhead.

“Some type of food, probably,” you say, after the silence spills over.

“You can’t name your dragon after something you want to eat,” he huffs a laugh.

“Your brother did that,” you counter.

“He wanted to,” Jace concedes, “but of course he wasn’t allowed to. I think he uses that name in his mind, though.”

“I’ll do that then,” you insist.

“What food, then?” He plays along, unable to help the fondness that seeps into his tone.

“I’m not sure yet,” you proclaim, “I’ll have to take inspiration from today’s meals.”

“My mother will not be happy to hear that,” he chides.

“She won’t be nearly as unhappy if Apple Pie is fierce.”

He quirks a brow, “Apple Pie?”

“First name that came to mind.”

He sits there with you, watching the dragons for a while. He can see Vermax descending beneath the sea, thrashing and drowning, already thinking and hoping for days that will soon be spent flying alongside you until the end of your lives.

Ultimately, you do not name your dragon Apple Pie, but he is indeed fierce, the only one brave enough to retaliate against Vermax. Your dragon reminds him of himself. He supposes, in that sense, that Vermax should remind him of you.

They are rarely well-behaved together, but every once in a while they enter an idyllic epoch and his mornings are spent racing with you. You are not much speedier than him on foot (rarely, do you manage to best him), but you fly much faster not fast enough on dragonback.

He has never minded losing, however, because you always do good on your promise of kissing him should he fall behind. That, he often thinks, is a reason to fly in itself.

(IV MINUTES)

When the news first comes that you are to be betrothed to Jace, he is ecstatic. 

“I cannot believe, we are to be wed!” He declares, hands gesturing excitedly as he lays in your lap.

“There will be quite a few years until then,” you remind him.

“Indeed, but we’ll be together throughout, won’t we?” He peers up at you imploringly, “That is already a source of much joy.”

Your fingers card through his locks, running through the knots, “You’re very easy to please.”

He scowls, although its effectiveness is dulled by the way he is very clearly pleased by his current position, head a familiar weight in your lap.

The fields are abundant with flowers, an ocean of color enveloping Jace. You tug at his locks absentmindedly, already considering which ones would suit his hair.

His eyes round on you from beneath, reaching up so that his fingertips graze your cheek. Your breath hitches, gaze dipping to find his. Your back rounds, in way that is likely detrimental to your posture, but it brings you closer to him.

His hand cups your cheek softly, and you reach down to muss up his hair once more. He pulls you down into a kiss, lips sweet against yours.

“Why are your eyes open?” You laugh, unable to kiss him seriously.

He pouts, “Our faces aren’t exactly aligned the same way currently. I had to aim.”

You suppress the urge to make fun of him, knowing your kissing privileges will be suspended for a week if you do, “Close your eyes, Jace. I’ll do the aiming.”

He complies, eyes slipping shut. You take a few moments to compose yourself and swallow your mirth.

Your hand reaches down to cradle his cheek, closing your own eyes beforehand and successfully finding his lips with yours.

A certain warmth expands in his chest when you kiss him, the grass tickling your fingers and the sides of your face. He reaches up blindly, clumsily finding your face as well, and pulling you down, closer.

The sea of flowers flows with the wind around the two of you, nestled in the depths of love and life. He envisions the paysage in his mind as he kisses you, and it does not seem as ridiculous as it does in books to want a moment to last forever.

(V MINUTES)

You pull away for air for a few moments, and Jace is already whining, fingers pressing into your nape in an attempt to coax you back.

“Jace…” you exhale shakily. Your eyes are dark with devotion as you press your forehead to his, panting heavily.

“Kiss me,” he murmurs, “I have never wanted to feel another’s touch as much as yours. I will die if you do not kiss me again, my love.”

Normally you would scoff at such frivolities, but instead you kiss him immediately, lips pressing against his sensually. 

His cheeks warm, and he has to bite back a sigh, kissing you back sloppily. His tongue maps out your mouth sensually. 

You let your teeth catch over his bottom lip as he pulls you closer, hands cradling his face closer to yours. It is a culmination of longing, and he thinks in that moment that he would very much like to never let you go.

(VI MINUTES)

It becomes a tradition, of sorts, to exchange bouquets every year between the two of you, reminiscent of the initial offering that started it all.

He still remembers hiding in that bush, seething with the jealousy seeing you smile at a guard all those years ago. He used to be so dramatic, he muses fondly. He is no longer sure where that guard is, but in their place another guard stands; one, who no longer needs to care about his ventures now that he is less of a child than he was before.

He meanders into the garden, this place of immense connotation. Where he used to play as a boy with Luke, where he tried his best to garden with his mother, where he confessed to you. He supposes, in a way, all of his most profound attachments were formed here. 

He gathers the flowers, arranges them cozily in a shawl his mother reluctantly allowed him to borrow after hearing his reasoning behind it. There is only one part missing.

From your end, you have decided to try your hand at pottery. Rhaenyra takes pity on your efforts after a while, and decides to oversee you as you pinch at the clay.

“Does this look like you?” You hold up the mini-Rhaenyra for the real counterpart to see, a winning smile of defeat on your face.

She tries to conceal her wince, “…I think he’ll know it’s me.”

You fumble your way through the rest, placing the general shapes of the two of you and various figures in the castle inside the bouquet.

When he receives it, he feels it is “evocative of diligence and a lack of talent in the pottery department”. He finds it adorable.

As for his, he decides to adorn it with something more this year. 

“Jace, is that—“

You scoff when he kneels with the bouquet, although it comes out far softer than you intend.

A ring is nestled between the flowers, and he watches you all doe-eyed and smiley in a way that renders it very difficult to say no to him.

“Do you take me as your husband?”

“I’m supposed to, yes,” you quip, “We’re already betrothed, Jace. You’re my husband in the makings.”

“But what if I wish to be your husband sooner?”

“Jace…”

“Marry me,” he whispers.

The next morning he flies to the Gullet.

(VII MINUTES)

Happy moments, spliced with imminent despair.

The waves seem to follow the melody of your voice, rising higher and higher until he thinks, in the last moments that he can, that he must be drowning now, as well.

“Jace,” the waves beckon to him, morphing the way water always has into your voice. He wants to reach out, to blindly follow its source, to find you again, but his lips can barely part to breathe.

His lashes fan over his cheeks, clinging wetly and sealing shut. 

His fingers go lax around the arrowhead, slipping beneath the waves. 

The nihility behind his eyelids dilates, promises him, soothes him as he curls into it the way he used to curl into you.

“Come home,” you murmur. 

Jacaerys tries to smile, heart stuttering in its coda. 

Yes, home…

Lying in the sea, the water cradling him, preserving him, until the morning comes—

At last,

he is home.

tagged. — @omgsuperstarg, @reus-ut-peccatum, @minaminallc, @claerysa

Before the war the two of you could pretend. Believe that Jacaerys would ask his mother to take your hand, and she would say yes. Bask in the idea of being wed in the Sept. That the two of you could have children, legitimate children, and raise them to be the apples of the Seven Kingdoms eye. You would call him Jace – the name that feels most like him, not tacking on the traditional Targaryen name ending and allowing him to be free of the weight on his shoulders if only for a moment.

Now there was no room for childish dreams. People were dying; suffering at the hands of Aegon the Usurper, and you would be foolish to still wander the halls of Dragonstone as if the two of you were lovers instead of Prince and his shield. 

Jacaerys, however, seemed to not get the memo. 

Sure – in front of the council, he was brash and angered at the state of the Seven Kingdoms. Yet, as soon as he stormed off with you hot on his tail he tried to revert back to old ways.

He attempted to slow his stride and fall into step with you. It never worked, you being so focused on him that every miniscule change was noticed before Jacaerys knew he was doing it.

He spoke to you as if you were his dear friend of nineteen rotations around the sun. You responded in polite, practiced answers.

He tried to take meals with you. Often asking to eat alone in his chambers, with a warm feeling of hope in his chest that you would walk in with two plates.

You only ever brought his plate.

There weren't many opportunities to ride on dragonback anymore, but Jacaerys would stalk his way out to the greener, mossier parts of Dragonstone – you would be in tow, of course. And like before the war, he would plop down in such an unprincely manner. Thumping a hand on the ground beside him as he waited for you to do the same. Instead of sitting you would scan the perimeter. A hand secured over the hilt of your sword, prepared to draw at any moment. Your eyes would never meet his, not once, for you knew seeing him silently begging you to sit would be enough to crumble your resolve. Because how can a shield block an attack if it is lying on the ground?

Sometimes, after a long day, he seeks physical comfort. A brush of the back of his hand against yours. Arms extending to wrap around your waist in a hug. You'd allow these; they were friendly gestures, he was simply seeking human warmth that he did not want to bother his mother with.

But on the really rough days, Jacaerys would grasp your hand in his. Then slowly, he'd caress up your arm, over your shoulder, up your neck, until his palm found the curve of your jaw and his thumb could caress your cheekbone. He'd whisper some plea,

just one, my heart, please

i only want to be close to you

it would be equivalent to the light at the end of this dreary, dim, cavern

And similar to the way the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, you would remind him of his betrothal. That Baela could quell the ache in his chest. It was Baela's responsibility to give him comfort now. 

You always said it softly, reminding him with a tenderness that he rarely felt anymore. But the words still only served as a chisel, adding another inch into the chasm between you.

The past few moons had been brutal for Rhaenyra’s claim. 

Houses pulled away from their sworn allegiance to her. Her allies in King’s Landing had been slain for upholding their loyalties. Daemon made moves that allowed the citizens of the realm to name her as cruel. 

All because some old, wrinkled, codgers could not stomach a woman sitting upon the Iron Throne. But it wasn’t simply Rhaenyra they were contesting. By attempting to uproot Rhaenyra, they also uproot Jacaerys. 

You would kill them if the opportunity arose. As his sworn sword it was in your rights to do so. Seven Hells any disrespect towards him allowed for you to rightfully draw your sword. 

But you cannot leave your prince for days to discreetly row your way to the mainland, it would leave an opportunity for an assasination attempt. Cannot quickly fly into Kings Landing on dragonback, because that means Jacaerys would be with you, putting him at risk. 

You are unwed though. A woman in very high standing. A Valyrian. The Crown Prince’s closest companion and his most trusted ally. 

Your hand could be used to turn the tides. All men need wives; someone to produce them an heir, to warm their bed, to run the inner workings of their house, or sometimes to simply complete the image of normalcy. 

But who?

Who had what Rhaenyra needed to win?

Who had land? Or money? Or men?

You’d leave Jacaerys as he began to change to his sleep cloths, bidding him a restful night and pleasant dreams. It was your job to retire too, change into comfortable garb and find as much of a break as you could. Instead you would be hunched over a desk, writing out who you knew that sided with the greens, what their standing was, how they could help Rhaenyra’s cause. 

Afterwards cross referencing with the books they had in the library. How did they operate in the past? Who would desire this type of uptick in status? 

It took a toll. A deep hue began to settle under your eyes. Steps that lagged for a fraction of a second. Yawns that were disguised as deep breaths. Eventually, you found it. A crack, something to exploit – a viable opening. 

Naturally, only one person's opinion mattered – unnaturally, it was not Jacaerys’.

You follow the normal routine; Wish Jacaerys pleasant dreams, move down the hall towards your chambers, sit at your desk and ponder. You let the castle quiet, allow the servants and maids to find their quarters, and the cooks to finish their preparations for tomorrow's meals. 

When you begin to hear the rats skittering and the sound of a sword falling would echo through the entire castle, you head to Rhaenyra’s chambers. Your fist is heavy when you knock. The sound could easily be mistaken as rageful, but you know that Rhaenyra will hear the certainty in it.

You walk in at her call with a confidence that most would not have. Most would consider that their idea may be thrown out, that the Queen will disregard it because she did not come up with it herself. But you are not most people, you were born and raised to be stronger, smarter, and just overall better than everyone else. You speak without a waver in your tone, not a quiver in your lips, or a glance away when the Queen keeps eye contact.

“We are losing support quicker than we can gain allies, My Queen.”

Rhaenyra sighs. You’ve stated the obvious as if it matters. Bringing up a problem while not producing a solution. “I suppose you have an idea to quell this issue?”

She watches you realize that she is listening; realize that they truly are desperate enough to listen to every idea. Watches you weighing the benefits against consequences. Then finally coming to terms with the words that are about to leave your mouth. 

“Marry me off.” You speak it so fast, as if speaking them hurts you and you want to suffer as little as possible, “To Jason Lannister.” 

The idea is preposterous. Vile in nature. He is nearly seventeen years your senior, a grown man before you were even a thought. They are not that desperate, and there are many routes they can journey across before even toeing across the threshold of this one.

The Lannisters are a green house at that. They fly the Hightower banner when needed. They have, and will, fight in the name of Aegon. 

“Tyland is more sworn to the greens than Jason.” While Rhaenyra’s eyes have strayed, losing herself in thought as you had moments ago, yours stay steady. A calm in them that brings a sense of unease to her. “As head of the house, what Jason says goes and Tyland will be forced to resign if he wishes to still be the next heir of Casterly Rock.”

“If he does not accept we will be seen as fools. Grasping at strands that are not there.”

“He will accept. A Valyrian wife, lavish apartments in the Red keep, someone to produce legitimate heirs with, and a chance at those heirs wedding someone in the royal family due to my status with the crown prince.”

The thought process was thorough. You must have spent hours scanning and searching for cracks in the greens numbers. And this was the most viable one. The Baratheons had been sealed over a betrothal – what’s to say the Lannisters cannot be switched over one?

A tight grimace rests on Rhaenyra’s features as she tells you she’ll bring the idea to the council. You request to be absent, for one of the King’s Guard to watch over Jacaerys while you ‘prepare for the inevitable’. She allows it because she knows you're lying; she’s watched you grow up along with her son and she knows you’re more worried about his reaction than you would be standing alone on the battlefield. 

The walk back to your chambers left you content. This was your purpose. You protected Jacaerys. Took a fatal blow simply so you could have the opportunity to see him succeed to the throne. But you would see it through – as his dedicated sword and shield you would ensure he would rule the Seven Kingdoms as King one day.  

If you were being honest, your day had been smooth. 

You woke early enough to dress and leave on horseback before breakfast was being served. Meaning you avoided Jacaerys.

Dragonstone had many small alcoves worn into the cliffside. They were too narrow for a dragon to even consider putting a claw into, but just wide enough for a human to comfortably lounge. So you rode out to one of those, allowed your horse to roam free while you climbed into one and attempted to rest despite the deep pit of concern that took root in your sternum. 

When you heard the familiar screech of a dragon, you had retreated as far back into the alcove as you could. The shadow passed over the space in front of you and a breath of relief entered your lungs because you had managed to avoid Jacaerys again. 

You came back late, when the castle would be in between periods and you could easily slip through the bustling help. Making haste directly back to your room where you could comfortably reside for the rest of the day. Most would still think you were out, resting somewhere in the wet grasses of the hills, leaving you to comfortably live out the rest of your day before dealing with the hellscape that the morrow would be. 

Thankfully, if Jacaerys was upset you hadn’t heard it. You don’t know why it concerned you, why you had believed that he would cause a riot over you wedding a Lannister. It was childish –  hope from the fizzled out flame the two of you used to have. 

Him being content makes you content. That is how it has always been; he has a way that he is supposed to act – calm, composed, and thoughtful – but you could be the opposite, the beast simply waiting to pounce as long as Jacaerys felt it fit. 

You’re tucked into bed when a knock resounds through your room. A maid. Stating something about knowing you were on leave for the day, but the Prince needed you.

As you approach there’s muffled voices that can be heard through the walls. 

‘My Prince, we can have Ser Roland –’

‘I do not want Ser Roland, I want my sword and shield.’

Whoever is in there has likely been suffering for a while. And you feel for them – your prince has been growing more fiery lately, and it isn’t fun to be on the receiving side of a Targaryen’s rage. So you push the door open, rougher than intended, and allow it to land against the wall to announce your presence.

Both heads whip in your direction. One face flashes relief. The other allows their eyes to narrow and lips to purse.

“What is wrong, My Prince?”

“You, are what is wrong! How dare you propose a betrothal to Jason Lannister of all people?”

The question was not one that required an answer. Jacaerys would only be more angered if you did respond. You allow his rant to continue. 

“Why would you ever think something so stupid would work? He is already sworn to the greens! We know where his loyalties lie!”

The knight who was in here before has quietly excused himself. Jacaerys paces as if his anger is charging with every step.

“You’re sworn to me! Sworn to defend me until my or your dying breath! And you wish to marry the head of Casterly rock? What am I to do? Vacation in Casterly Rock so you may see your in-laws, so his heirs will see what they are to inherit?”

You’ve assumed a position leaning against his desk. Eyes tracking his movement, and you wait for the turn. For him to pivot on his foot and before he can take the first stride in the opposite direction your voice softly drifts into the space. “It was to strengthen your chances of sitting on the Iron Throne.”

It halts his movements like you expected. He needs to process, needs to weigh the positives and the negatives. Seemingly doesn’t believe that you would offer yourself on a platter to a man you’d loathe, just to see him on the Iron Throne. Like it was not your life's purpose to help him achieve his dreams.

It’s all he’s ever wanted – the throne. And his heart hurts, it pulses and a deep ache settles. But it doesn’t ruminate, it begins to pull and tug, as if his heart is trying to climb out of his chest. He wants to give it to you, the only person who has treasured him as much as his mother. 

The physical impossibility of it is what stops him. Instead he resigns to reigning himself in. A simple, “Thank you.” It’s gruff, tearing from his throat as if it pains him to say. 

He can do this for you; chain up the dragon inside himself and allow you to have this. He can suffer this small injustice so long as you stay by his side. Lie to himself that he can handle it before it eventually morphs itself into truth.

Jacaerys was wrong. He could not lie to himself.

He tried, Gods did he try. But the claws that sunk themselves into his heart only dug deeper anytime he thought of you being with anyone but him. He could allow it if you were trying to wed someone you cared for. Or maybe even if you were trying to wed one of the unclaimed houses, not one already sworn to the greens. 

The two of you are sat in Dragonstones library, folded over books when the idea hits him. To wed two was not unseen in Westeros. Aegon the Conqueror took two wives. Maegor the Cruel took two wives. There was no reason he could not do the same. 

One out of duty, one for love.

The book he is holding is closed with a loud, resounding thud. Your head rises at the disturbance, one of your eyebrows raising in a silent question.

“When I am King I will change the law. So I am able to take two wives.”

The words are heavy. Spoken as if the Gods will move to place Jacaerys atop the Iron Throne tomorrow so that he can instill this law.

Your heart flutters. Warmth filling your chest, roving up your neck to bring a flush to your cheeks. The edges of your lips upturn; small, nearly imperceivable smile. Jacaerys is willing to write a new law into order, just for you. 

Willing to face scrutiny in the eyes of the commonfolk. To have his small council disagree, and still go through with the decision. 

But he wouldn't need to write the law into order if his mother had not betrothed him to Baela. Sweet Baela. Who did nothing wrong. Who would feel betrayed that Jacaerys felt her love was not enough, and he had to take another wife.

How would he navigate that? 

Allow both wives apartments and move between them each night? Allow you and Baela to switch sides at dinner every night so you both equally sit on his right side? Have the two of you in an unspoken competition to bear his heir first so your child could sit upon the Iron Throne?

The warmth that was sitting behind your ribs and on your face begins to boil. The blood no longer holds a pleasant, appeased form. It's changed, molded into something that cannot hold shape. The blood rushes, splashing against the vessels that hold it in increasing irateness. It leaves your skin buzzing, a new steady hum that only angers you more.

“Do tell, My Prince, you expected me to stay unwed, unloved, unseen for a few decades? Because unless you intend to usurp your mother or see to it that she is slain, it will be years before you sit upon the throne. And not to mention you've said it yourself, your ruler is your mother, and you do not wish to see it otherwise.”

Jacaerys stops, gnawing his bottom lip as he weighs his choices. He could lie, but that would only anger you more, “Well, yes. Everyone must endure their duties before they can indulge in what they've always wanted.”

“Indulging would be us wedding after both of our spouses have died – as your mother and Daemon have. This is just you being cruel. A dragon unwilling to see what he believes is his, even slightly removed from him.”

“You are mine.”

Tragic. In a sense you were his; sworn to him in an oath that you took by blood. But in reality, he was yours. Yours to defend, yours to kill for, yours to keep alive, yours to see prosper no matter the cost.

The selfishness. The audacity. It's a new face for Jacaerys, one you don't care for, “I am your sword and shield. I cut down your enemies and defend your honor, my relations are not for you to decide.”

Your brows are furrowed, prominent frown adorning your lips. Jacaerys is in a similar state, his bottom lip being gnawed raw by his teeth as he thinks of his next retort.

But you do not wish to hear it. If allowed, the two of you would go in circles about this topic for days and days. So you take the reins from him, swinging open the doors to the library and loudly huffing through the hall, “Ser Bywin will see to your safety for the rest of the night, My Prince.”

Before Jacaerys can react, can mutter a disbelieved ‘what?’, the door has been shut again. As is the argument. Tomorrow you would wake, and put your duty above all else. You'd forget the way that he spoke of you. Forget the insult of being a second wife, while his first was still alive. 

You could only hope he would do the same.

Two weeks pass with your ‘relationship' stuck in limbo. 

Despite the way your heart aches for how it once was, you do not try to mend it either. Jacaerys is finally accepting what is, and it's good for him. Healthy that he stops living in a delusion that will never be true.

Tonight had been another where he dismissed you early. At first you considered it to be because it hurt too much to be in your presence; that reality was tearing him apart as it was you. But the help is never quiet, and you were soon graced with murmurs and stammers that Princess Baela had been joining him in his chambers often. 

You want to cry, to allow your emotions to express themselves in a visual way. Instead you pray to the seven – a prayer of thanks, for Jacaerys’ ability to adapt. It's what you're supposed to do, and you can fool yourself into believing that prayer brings you a sense of comfort. 

Ever since the revelation came you've slept early. Not retired. Not laid in bed. But truly slept. 

Why would you lie awake if Jacaerys had someone to comfort him, and a protector right outside the door?

You fear the worst when a maid knocks on your door. Storming in before you can give her allowance, she pleads for you to see the Prince. That he's just not right and she feels so awfully for him because he won't call on you, but he needs you. 

Upon entering his chambers your gaze softens. He's simply drunk. A blush upon his cheeks, hazy glaze over his eyes, and a golden goblet in his hand.

“Mayhaps you've had enough for the night, My Prince.”

His face lifts with his eyes, and from this new position you can easily see his brows pinch. “You're not real.”

If the maid's words were to be expanded on, perhaps he's hallucinated you in his drunken stupor. Missed you so much his brain resorted to tricking himself for a moment of peace.

“I assure you I am real. How can I prove it to you?”

Jacaerys does not speak. Instead he rises and moves to the small table next to his window. He picks up a second goblet and fills it with a very hearty portion of wine.

The goblet is placed in front of you. A loud resounding thud echoes as its placed – Jacaerys is allowing some of his Strong qualities to slip through his carefully crafted Velaryon shell. “Drink.”

“I cannot, My Prince.” Your fingers move to push the goblet away from you. A few inches give way before Jacaerys' hand stops the goblet again. “You know it goes against my oath to become inebriated.”

He sighs, a loud nearly thunderous sound of all the air in his lungs expelling in complete and utter exhaustion. “It is one bit of wine. It is the sweet one at that, the one made with cherries?”

Of course he picked that wine. The only one you've ever succumbed to. One night when you were too young and innocent to realize the dangers that could have befallen your Prince had an attack taken place. The two of you had indulged, more than was reasonable, and there had been no one there to spectate – because who would? A Targaryen and their sword and shield were to be seen together at all times, even behind closed doors, even despite gender differences.

Your hesitation causes Jacaerys to speak up again, “Is it not in your oath to follow my commands?”

“If they do not put you at risk, My Prince.” 

His hand begins steadily adding more pressure against the goblet, millimeter by millimeter pushing it closer to you. “Then I command you to drink.”

A light laugh leaves your lips, some hair falling to frame your face as your head shakes in disbelief, “It would put your safety at risk, My Prince. How about we get you to bed instead?”

“Drink one goblet with me and I will sleep.” Petulant like a child, Jacaerys resorts to bargaining. “It is not nearly strong enough for you to become inebriated from one goblet.”

And you bend, because this is your prince, Jacaerys, the first of his name, a strong Targaryen name that many down the line would love to have; and even if you'd never call him it again, simple, and most like himself, Jace, the name that didn’t dishonor his mother and still let the weight of his family lift a little from his shoulders. 

You drink it slowly, hoping that there might be a moment where Jacaerys is distracted enough for you to escort him to bed without having to finish the whole thing. He doesn't, of course, too engrossed in watching you drink the wine he specifically had imported for you.

As you drain the last bit of wine from the goblet you can feel his eyes on you. Watching the hollowing of your cheek as you drink as deep as possible to finish it as quickly as possible. Watching your throat as you swallow the liquid. Watching your chest as you heave a breath afterwards.

Then you stare at him, divert your eyes pointedly towards his bed, then back at him. Jacaerys rises, turns his head towards his bed, then steps in your direction.

His left hand comes to cradle your face. Your own hand is on his wrist in a blink, tired of him delaying the inevitable. But before you can drag him to bed, his thumb traces your bottom lip. He pushes slightly at the seam where your lips meet – testing the limit, will you bend here too?

And you're stuck. Shocked at the turn that has occurred. But your lips are stuck shut, thank the seven. 

Jacaerys leans in when he gets nowhere with his thumb. His lips sealing over yours with a weight to them that you don't want to think about. They move despite your own remaining still, tongue poking out and licking your bottom lip periodically. 

You should kiss him back. You've missed him after all. It couldn't hurt more than the past few weeks have.

So you do. Part your lips and allow him to lick into your mouth like a man starved. He's remapping a place he's been to hundreds of times, acting like something has changed even though you have been in no fight that may have altered the shape of your mouth.

When his tongue slides against yours you taste it. The wine. Remnants of however much he had, how much did he have?

You let your eyes blink open, briefly. They scan the desk where the bottle rests and try to see how much of the bottle is missing. The light must be playing a trick on you though – there's nothing in the bottle. 

Had he poured you the last cup? Think. Think. It had dripped at the end of the pour but you had thought it to be because he was lifting the bottle from its pouring position.

Oh the seven help you.

He's drunk.

Drunk.

He doesn't know what he's doing and he'll regret it in the morning. Seven hells and you were really sitting here considering how bad one last night could be.

Your lips still and one of your hands raises to push him away. The other grabs his doublet and drags him to the bed. The coverlet is tossed back, Jacaerys is placed into his bed, and the coverlet is thrown back over him.

His reactions are slowed by the alcohol, but he still trashes out from under the covers, “Wait — wait! You cannot just leave after that!”

“We can discuss it when you are more yourself – not emboldened from cherry wine.”

“Tomorrow then?”

“Yes, yes tomorrow. Now back into bed.”

You usher him as you would a child, a hand between his shoulder blades, then atop his shoulder as you nudge him into a laying position. 

“Do you promise?” He's staring at you with wide eyes. A shimmer of uncertainty swimming in them. 

“Yes Jacaerys, I promise.”

The promise settles him. You watch as he shifts and begins to get comfortable before finally allowing his eyes to close. And yet, even after his breathing settles you don't leave. You watch. 

Some may label it odd, creepy even that you would stand watch when there was no threat. But you love him past your station, and you want to ensure he doesn't wake in a fit.

You do leave before the sun can begin to peek in through the silk curtains. If you were lucky, he would forget the entire previous night happened. He would forget the promise and you would be able to go on about your life as you had. With a stable ache in your sternum that clawed for attention only on long days.

The day could not have gone smoother.

Jacaerys’ opinions were taken into consideration at the small council. 

You'd accompanied him on a walk with Baela, which led to them flying their dragons together. 

He took his dinner from you with a smile, but forwent the playful ‘where's yours?’ that usually came along when the smile began to fade.

You thought yourself to be free. That all you needed to do was see Jacaerys off to bed. No risk of complicated conversation. No reason to deceive him for his own good. Just peace.

But as you turn to bid him goodnight, early as was usual of late, he grabs onto your wrist like a vice.

“But we have to talk.” His voice begins steady but wavers as he reaches the end of his sentence. It quivers, raising just a pitch, as if he’s questioning if you remembered instead of declaring it.

Panic swells your senses. He was supposed to forget. This conversation was never supposed to happen and you were going to serve out your oath in peace. You consider lying to him – feeding into the hallucinations you believe he's had. 

However, Jacaerys is stubborn. You know he will comb over every detail in his memory of last night. Replay every second searching for a crack, one that will prove it true or fake. It would be a waste of time to walk back to your chambers only to be summoned back mere minutes later.

“What do you wish to speak of, My Prince?” 

His hand loosens its grip a fraction, “Of our relations.”

“It is simple, we should not have them.” Your tone is firm, attempting to leave no room for further debate.

Jacaerys stands and lifts both of his hands to rest on your face. Thumbs resting upon your cheekbones. “You kissed me last night.”

“No, Jacaerys. You kissed me.”

A breathy laugh leaves his lips, “Well, you kissed me back. I felt it, and believe me, I’ve spent days attempting to recreate the feeling.”

“I am your sword and shield,” your tongue darts out to wet your lips, “My Prince. That does not mean I give in to your every whim.”

Jacareys’ hands stay firmly planted on either side of your face, thumbs beginning to caress your cheekbones.

“Before – before was a mistake,” you huff, eyes staying firmly locked on the chipped brick behind Jacaerys’ head, “a lapse in judgement, from us both, My Prince.”

You think he has given up. That your words struck whatever chord inside him that they were supposed to and he will finally drop what was and accept what is. 

“I declare that the air is attacking me. And you must save me by sharing your breath.”

He leans in, slow enough that you can dodge, pull away and reject him fully. But still fast enough that you don't have time to think about how this must go against your sworn oath; the few seconds only allow you to process that you want this, you have wanted this since Rhaenyra announced his betrothal to Baela, it would seem that Jacaerys has as well.

It’s not a pretty kiss. One that you would see young maidens reading about in their books. It begins rough; teeth clashing, saliva coating the corners of your mouths, noses shoved so deeply into the other's face that breathing becomes difficult. 

You believe it’s a fight for dominance. Your tongue pushes his out of your mouth, your lips glide against anothers for a moment before you force your tongue into his mouth. If he wanted a battle, you would win it. 

Despite the fact that he’s no longer in control, Jacaerys doesn’t pull away. His body presses into you – chest to chest, hips to hips, his legs are nearly bracketing yours. His hands are tilting your head up, into a position that would give him better access if he was the one leading. 

You pull away from him, chest heaving in search of oxygen. You bring your bottom lip into your mouth to gnaw on it, but Jacaerys is there – like he is everywhere else – his thumb pulling it out before his mouth seals over the flesh to suck and pull on it. 

Now you push him, hands on his shoulders. There’s just enough force in it to separate him from your lip but he still refuses to allow the rest of your body to separate. And you look at him, just look. He looks devastated; eyes glistening with unshed tears, lips slick with spit and swollen from the ‘fight’ for dominance. 

It’s undeniable that he wants this. That he’s willing to sacrifice the sanctity of his betrothal because his desire for you is too insatiable. And Gods do you want it too. The urge forces you to lean back in, to steal the breath Jace demanded you give him. 

He lets you walk him back, shuffling until the backs of his knees hit his bed. You think he’s going to stop you there – that the reality will finally sink into his bones. Instead he leans back into the cushion, dragging you with him. 

A laugh tumbles out of your lips and breaks the kiss. Jace has let his hands fall to your hips, slipping under your top to caress at your skin. You allow your gaze to fall to them, then rise back to his face. His pupils are dilated, swimming with an undeniable amount of adoration while his lips have broken into a wide grin.

You’ve already come to terms with the fact that you want this, and that Jacaerys wants this. Keeping eye contact, you move to remove your shirt from your chest. Halfway up Jacaerys moves his hands to halt your movement.

“You - you have to promise me.” 

Your eyebrows crease. Every physical sign led to Jacaerys wanting this, a very prominent one was between your legs at that. Why would he stop you now? After months of both of you wanting this. What promise could he possibly want?

“Promise you what?”

“Promise me that you’ll wait.” A huff of breath leaves him, “That you won't ever leave me, especially not for some green cunt.”

“Please Jace.” You hope your pleading, that you calling out to him plainly will make him change his mind. That it will shock him into compliance. Instead you get another unwavering command.

“Promise me.”

You ponder it for a moment. Sit atop him and gaze at the only man you’ve ever loved. The man who has owned you – body, mind, heart, and soul – since the day you were one and ten. The man you’d give up your life for. 

Seven forgive you.

You’d melt into his embrace tonight. Kiss his lips until they’d be imprinted in your memory forever. Feel the planes of his chest under your palms and memorize how the muscles beneath his skin felt. Rub the strands of his hair between your fingertips and vow to find something similar and have pillows made of it. 

So you agreed. Nodded before sealing your lips back to his. That you'd suffer in the background, in the shadows, until your time came.

Jace needn't know that Rhaenyra had told you of Jason Lannister's acceptance of the betrothal that morn. 

That your waiting would include warming another man's bed, and bearing his heir and back-up before you have heirs to uphold your own legacy. 

You'd see him on that throne. 

Even if he hated you for it.

︵‿︵‿♡

Dividers by @cafekitsune

His eyes glared at the water as if he could command the fish to bite by sheer noble decree.

“They won’t bite if you keep scowling at them,” a bright voice chimed from behind him.

Aerion stiffened, his jaw tightening. He turned his head sharply, expecting a person sent by his father to drag him back to his lessons.

Instead, he saw you.

You were the daughter of Maekar’s most trusted ally, having arrived only an hour ago.

While the adults spoke of their business, you had wandered out into the sun, your heavy skirts already trailing in the damp grass.

You looked entirely out of place among the solemn guards, a little burst of warmth against the grey stones of summerhall.

“Go away,” Aerion snapped, turning back to the water, “You’ll frighten them.”

“You’re the one frightening them,” you retorted easily, completely unbothered by the venom in his tone.

You marched right up to his rock, your slippers squelching in the mud, and plopped down beside him without asking. “My father says that fishes can sense when someone is angry. They don’t like the energy.”

“Your father is a fool, and so are you,” he hissed, expecting you to cry or perhaps run back to the castle.

But you didn’t seem bothered as you tilted your head, watching the bobber dance on the ripples. “You’re doing it wrong anyway. The bait is too high.”

Aerion opened his mouth to deliver a cutting remark—something about how a dragon did not take lessons from a silly girl—but before the words could leave his lips, your smaller, warmer hands brushed against his.

You reached out, bypassing his defensive posture, and gently adjusted his grip on the handle, lowering the tip of the rod so the bait sank properly into the water.

The prince froze. No one touched him without permission. No one dared.

Yet, as the silence stretched between you, the bobber suddenly dipped aggressively. A heavy tug yanked the line down, nearly pulling the rod from his hands.

“See!” you gasped, your face lighting up with a blinding grin. “Pull, Aerion! Pull!”

Forgetting his pride, Aerion yanked the rod back with all his boyhood strength. A massive trout broke the surface, thrashing wildly and splashing mud and lakewater directly across his pristine tunic, and right into your face.

Aerion braced himself for the screaming. Noble girls and boys always screamed when they got dirty.

But then a bright laughter echoed across the banks. “Look at the size of it! We caught it!”

Aerion looked from the wiggling fish to your mud splattered face. His lips twitched, fighting a smile before he forced his features back into a proud mask.

“I caught it,” he corrected, though his voice lacked any real bite. “You merely watched.”

“We caught it,” you insisted, bending down to take a closer look at the trout.

Your father’s visit ended shortly after, and the brief, strange kinship evaporated into memory as the years pulled you both down separate paths.

Years slipped by like water through fingers, and when you finally returned to court as a young woman, the boy by the lake had become a man feared by the entire realm.

Aerion was breathtakingly beautiful, and notoriously cruel. He walked through court with a sharp tongue and a sharper temper, but that did not faze you.

From afar, Aerion watched you navigate the treacherous nature of court. You were a vision of light, offering warm smiles to the guards, listening patiently to the older women, and showing unfaltering kindness to everyone you crossed.

To him, it was grating. All noble ladies were trained to be sweet, performing acts of grace to secure a good match or win the favour of higher lords.

He waited for you to finally lose your cool.

But the day never came. No, the reality of your kindness crashed directly into him one afternoon near the small council chamber.

You were walking down the corridor with a butterfly that had landed on your arm when the doors of the chamber burst open.

A flurry of lords tumbled out into the hall, fleeing in terror. Among them was the master of coin, frantically wiping dark ink from his doublet with his bleeding hands, his face pale as death.

“Seven hells,” one of the other lords whispered hoarsely, scurrying past you. “The prince has lost his mind entirely!”

You stopped, watching the chaotic retreat. Instead of turning back like any sensible person would, you set the butterfly on a nearby branch and stepped through the heavy doors.

An iron candelabra laid overturned on the floor, dark wax spilling across the polished wood, and an inkwell had been shattered against the wall.

Aerion stood by the high window, his back to you. His shoulders were incredibly tense, and his chest was rising and falling with heavy, angry breaths.

“I thought I made it clear,” Aerion growled without turning, “The next soul to disturb me will lose their tongue.”

“Then it is a good thing I am capable of writing. I do not need my tongue.” you responded lightly, closing the heavy door behind you.

Aerion went still. He turned slowly, his stormy eyes dark with lingering rage. When his gaze landed on you, he let out a harsh, bitter scoff.

“Come to play the saint for me too?” he sneered, maintaining his distance. “Save your sweet smiles for the lords in the hall. I have no patience for your endless charity.”

You took a few measured steps into the room, keeping a respectful distance yourself.

“I don't think they don’t understand how stressful it can be,” you said softly, ignoring his cruel words. “they whisper and push, expecting you to sit quietly while they try to manage your family’s rights. It makes sense that you’d lose your patience when they refuse to listen.”

He stared at you from across the room, his mind struggling to process what he was hearing. He had expected an admonishment, or at the very least, fear.

“They are parasites,” Aerion muttered, his posture unlocking just a fraction. “They look at me as if I am mad because I refuse to let them dictate my bloodline’s terms.”

“I can see that,” you replied gently, giving a small smile. “They may be stressed as well, but no one should have to bend to their whim.”

The room went silent before you spoke again.

“Whenever the court gets too loud for me, I find that walking around the gardens helps. The fresh air is always calming.. maybe it would help you too. It’s quiet out there.”

The fire in his eyes flickered, clearly caught off guard by the suggestion. He stared at your face, the lines of his memory remembering the specific curve of your smile.

A breathless laugh escaped him.

“The gardens?” Aerion repeated, his voice dropping the edge it possessed just moments ago.

He took a step forward, assessing your form. “You haven’t changed at all, have you? Years ago at Summerhall, you told me the fish wouldn’t bite because of my ‘anger.' Now you’re trying to herd me into the bushes to calm down.”

Your eyes widened slightly in surprise, a soft laugh bubbling up. “You remember that?”

“I remember a girl pushing my hands around and getting me covered in mud,” he murmured.

He then let out a soft click of his tongue, turning to look at the doorway. “Fine. We will walk the gardens. But only because your previous method somehow worked.”

“Of course,” you smiled.

As the weeks progressed, a unique friendship blossomed between you.

Aerion still remained difficult as ever to the rest of the world, but your presence seemed to simmer that down.

The shift did not go unnoticed by the ladies of the court, leading to an afternoon that they wouldn’t stop gossiping about for days.

You were walking through the outer courtyard with a small retinue of noble ladies, the daughters of prominent lords from the Reach. They were talking endlessly, giggling as they spoke of whatever irrelevant topics crossed their minds.

“You must be careful, my dear,” one of the ladies said, leaning in closer to you. “Prince Aerion may be amused by your novelty but once he grows bored of playing with his new toy, you will be left with nothing but yourself.”

“He is a prince of the blood,” another lady chimed in, her voice tight. “They take what pleases them for a moment and cast it aside. Do not mistake a tyrant’s passing curiosity for actual regard.”

“Aerion simply values sincerity,” you replied, offering an unbothered smile. “There is no game being played.”

“You are far too gullible–” the former lady was cut when Aerion walked out from the room beside.

The ladies instantly adjusted their posture, immediately dropping to curtsies as he approached, each of them desperately hoping to catch the prince’s favour despite their previous warnings to you.

Aerion ignored them, his eyes locking firmly onto you.

Without a word of greeting, and completely disregarding decorum, he walked into the center of the group and stepped right into your space, his frame towering over you.

“You’re late,” his voice was low—meant strictly for you, though it carried across the hall.

“Late for what, my Prince?” you asked, tilting your head up to meet his gaze with your beaming expression.

“I am going to the cliffs, and you are coming with me,” he stated flatly.

Behind you, a collective intake of breath echoed from the ladies. Here he was, actively seeking you out, his attention consuming you and utterly shattering their spiteful claims that you were just a passing game.

You looked back at the girls, giving one last smile before parting from them. “Very well, my Prince, if you insist.”

“I do,” Aerion tilted his head, turning on his heel to fall into step right beside you, his side brushing against yours as he guided you out of the yard.

That would not be the first or last time the court would witness the two of you separating from the rest of the world.

During one evening, after failing in your search for Aerion through the whole castle, you found him alone in the secluded parts of the library.

He was sitting alone, staring dead at a massive volume of ancient Valyrian history.

“I am not in the mood for company,” he hissed out, “leave.”

Your eyebrows furrowed in worry before approaching and setting down a small plate of pastries on the corner of the table. You pulled out the empty chair beside him and sat down despite his request.

Reaching over the plate, you picked up a small pastry and held it right in front of his face, completely disregarding his brooding glare.

“Eat,” you insisted gently as Aerion still refused to acknowledge you. “You always go for these specific ones. I know you like them.”

His fingers that had been gripping the edge of the book twitched, and he finally turned his head to look at you.

The weight on his shoulders gradually disappeared as he looked at the pastry, then up at your fond expression.

Aerion didn’t move to take it from your hand. Keeping his intense gaze locked firmly onto yours, he leaned slightly forward.

Then, totally unprompted, he took a bite right out of the pastry while it was still held between your fingers.

A tiny giggle slipped past your lips, a bright warmth blooming all the way to the tips of your ears at the sheer intimacy of it.

You tried to bite your lip to hide your surprise, but your shoulders shook with quiet amusement as you looked into his smug face.

Aerion chewed slowly, the corners of his lips twitching at your giddy reaction.

“You are ridiculous,” he murmured as he swallowed.

“Maybe,” you agreed, your heart fluttering as you set the remaining half down onto the plate. “But it worked. You feel better already, don’t you?”

Aerion stared at you for a moment, drinking in your presence. He did feel better—the tight, suffocating knot in his chest had already unraveled. But it was certainly not because of the pastry.

Slowly, he hesitantly reached out across the small space between your chairs. With one deliberate movement, he dragged your chair until it hit his.

Then, his hand moved to flip over on the table with his palm facing up, his fingers sprawling open in a silent, stubborn invitation.

You, on the other hand, did not hesitate. You slid your hand into his palm, your fingers easily weaving through his.

Aerion squeezed your hand, his rings pressing firmly against your skin, though his touch was surprisingly careful.

However, the true demonstration of expanse that you two had built played out before the entire court during a grand feast, where Aerion’s attempt to maintain his reputation crumbled.

The feast was deafeningly loud.

You were seated next to Aerion by Prince Maekar.

Aerion had spent the first half of the feast interacting with other lords while you conversed with other ladies.

He was glaring at a group of lesser lords when he noticed your sudden silence. Just then, some of the lords he had been talking to earlier called out to him and he tried to force his eyes back on them.

Aerion was aware that you two were the topic of conversation as of late. He couldn’t let the people of court think he had gone soft. At least that was what his pride told him.

But the sight of your fragile form pulled at him like a physical anchor, shattering his resolve. His demeanor instantly changed.

He turned fully in his seat toward you, his cold stare evaporating.

“You’re pale,” Aerion murmured, voice stripped away of anything harsh. “What is it?”

“Just… a headache, Aerion,” you whispered softly, giving him a tired smile. “The noise is particularly loud tonight.”

Aerion didn’t waste a second as he gently used his hand to cradle the back of your head.

His fingers began combing through the loose parts of your hair, his thumb tracing circles down your temple to ease the pressure.

The chatter around the surrounding tables died down, dozens of eyes tracking his movements, yet no one dared to disrupt. They watched as Aerion paid no mind to everything else the moment you showed discomfort.

You leaned into his touch, a smile returning to your face. “Aerion… everyone is watching.”

Aerion let out a defeated sigh as he grinned. “Let them stare,” he concluded, his fingers tucking in a strand of hair behind your ear. “You’ve broken me anyway.”

Shifting his broad shoulders, he blocked the rest of the room from view, shielding you from prying eyes.

“You are tired,” he paused, “if anyone breathes a word about that, I will have their heads.”

“You can’t murder the entire court,” you teased, lifting your head up for a moment.

Fate was something you would never be able to truly understand. It was something so complex, yet at the same time so astoundingly simple.

When you were younger, you always believed fate to be a benign concept that could only lead to happiness. The day you lost sight of your string, you belatedly realized that all your preconceived notions were nothing more than delusions born from the idealized world the people around you had constructed.

Perhaps the cognizance would’ve been easier to deal with had you not been forced to move to a city that was constantly embraced by a daunting aura, one that didn’t allow you to properly heal from your internal wounds. Looking back on it, the trepidation might’ve had something to do with the fact that Seoul was the city where you would be forced to confront your destiny—the same fate that had disappointed you time and time again.

And therein lied the reason why being back felt like a surreal dream.

Every memory that came with walking down the busy streets overwhelmed you. After all this time, you still found yourself powerless to the retention of the time in your life where you felt the most miserable. Years had passed since then, but being back at the start of it all had you faltering in a way you thought would be impossible after your treatment.

There was a sudden heaviness in your chest and feet as you neared your destination. You allowed yourself to stare at the large building with muted dejection. This was the last place you were willing to revisit, but you were aware that never returning wasn’t a viable option. Not after you agreed to work through your condition without any restraint.

You instinctually forced yourself to shove all of your unwanted emotions into the dark place of your mind that was rarely visited before heading into the large building. By this point, you’ve become overly familiar with the place; a token of your dedication to get better. In spite of the fact that you were no stranger to the setting, an unbearable feeling of discomfort overcame you in that moment. You were undeterred by this sudden shift in your emotions and forced your feet to carry you to the elevator.

You pressed the button to the top floor, briefly recalling the days when you only had to go to the fifth floor. How time flies.

The second you stepped off the elevator, you noticed a young woman waiting to greet you. She led you to the large office, knocking once before letting her boss know you had arrived. You heard a familiar voice urging her to let you in.

The doctor’s new office was twice the size of his old one—a luxury he never would’ve had without your help. Being in his office reminded you of the point in time when you were adamant about not helping him with his research. Now, helping Dr. Kwon study the enigmatic soulmate bond was the very thing you had dedicated your life to. A true irony, really.

“Y/N.” Your name was spoken fondly and with a friendly smile. “It’s been a long time since we’ve met like this. How does it feel to be back in Seoul?”

Dr. Kwon’s words made you think about how long it had been despite the fact that it felt like you left the city only yesterday. You hadn’t been able to visit him personally since you left the rehabilitation center and started working with other patients to further his research, but you never imagined that being in front of him after all this time would feel as harrowing as it did. Deep down, you knew it was only because of the torturous memories you subconsciously associated with him. Luckily for you, those memories no longer forced you into a debilitating state—a development you had worked hard to achieve.

With that thought in mind, you set the report on the doctor’s desk while murmuring a noncommittal response to his inquiry. “There aren’t any new side effects.”

Your distant response made Dr. Kwon frown. Many years had passed since you two met, yet that did nothing to help erase the line you drew all those years ago. It wasn’t unusual for his patients (you, in particular) to unconsciously project their internalized trauma onto the people in their lives, but he couldn’t help but be slightly disappointed with your behavior.

“Tell me about what’s been going on with you.” Dr. Kwon prodded gently. “Have you been seeing anyone?”

The doctor’s biggest hope was to successfully help you get past your philophobia so you could finally start living normally. However, even after all these years you still didn’t allow yourself to get close to anyone romantically in spite of knowing no one could ever hurt you as badly as your soulmate had.

“I’ve lessened my dose like you suggested.” You told him even though you knew he would read it in the report after you left.

“That…” Dr. Kwon’s smile faltered, but only for a second. “That’s great. If you aren’t experiencing any side effects or withdrawal-like symptoms, I think we can start drafting a plan for you to stop taking the suppressants altogether.”

Those words caught your interest. To be able to live normally without the help of the suppressants was something you had longed for since you started your treatment back when you were a teenager.

“Will I really be able to?”

Dr. Kwon didn’t miss the spark in your eyes as you gazed at him. It made him confident that he could potentially help you live happily like you always wanted. He would never give up his mission to help you get better, and this was the first step to achieve that goal.

“If you don’t mind staying in Seoul a bit longer.” He said simply. “This way, I’ll be able to monitor you more closely and decide how soon you can stop taking the suppressants.”

You had no intentions of extending your stay, but you would do anything to be free from the chains that came in the form of medicine. And so, you eagerly agreed.

Often times, you were thrown into situations before you realized it.

When you coincidentally ran into Soo-ah, you didn’t expect her to invite you to come out with her and a handful of your former classmates. You had meant to politely decline her invitation, but instead you found yourself asking her who would be in attendance before you could stop yourself. She listed off names you could vaguely recall, but just barely. There was no mention of him.

And so, you ended up drinking with people who you didn’t know that well and vice versa. You weren’t uncomfortable per se, but there was a pressure building in your chest that you couldn’t make sense of. Luckily, the alcohol helped you forget about the foreign sensation as well as the other strident thoughts that had been on your mind.

It wasn’t until you stumbled out of the place that the real trouble began.

You had taken all of two steps, but came to an abrupt stop after you heard a quiet yet forceful call of your name. Han Seojun was walking toward you with a strange look in his eyes. In that instant, you knew that whatever was coming next wouldn’t be pleasant.

“How long are you planning on staying in Seoul?”

His question threw you off. Seojun was someone you could hardly call a friend, and you were certain that wouldn’t change with time. Despite not liking the premonition that came along with his words, you answered him anyway.

“Not long.” You told him truthfully. “I have some work related things to take care of, then I’m leaving.”

Seojun remained silent as if in deep thought, and you assumed he was done with the conversation. But as you turned on your heel to walk away, he called out to you again. This time, the tension in his tone made the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.

“About Lee Suho…”

You tensed instantly. Just the simple mention of his name awoke feelings in you that you thought you’d gotten rid of a long time ago. Instead of reacting in a way that would give away your true emotions, you turned your head slightly to look at him. Seojun could only see half of your face, but it was enough for him to hope that you might still care about his friend.

“He’s missed you. Even though he’s living abroad right now, he still—”

“I have to go.” You interrupted him, unwilling to hear the rest of his tirade. “I’ll see you around.”

Back then, you had no idea it was only the beginning of fate’s cruel plan.

People often said fate was something that you made yourself—something that wasn’t predetermined but something that was subject to change depending on the course of action taken. You weren’t so sure if that was true because more often than not, you found that the course of your life was filled with trials and tribulations that were completely out of your control. These painful events (as your mother and countless therapists said) were meant to build character. In your case, they just hurt.

However, now that you were older, you were starting to understand what people meant.

After all, it was you who decided to remove yourself from the situation and distance yourself from your soulmate. It was you who made the effort to get better and build a new life for yourself. That had to count for something.

You had come this far, and that in itself was a notable achievement. Soon enough, you would no longer be dependent on the supplements Dr. Kwon developed soon after you came into his care. It wouldn’t be long before you would be free to live your life without any restraints.

That thought alone made you appreciate the view that much more. Snow was falling lightly, but it didn’t take away from the calmness you felt. Nothing could kill the high you were on. Finally, everything seemed to be falling into place. The peaceful life you always yearned for was within your reach, ready to be taken.

“Y/N.”

There was a sudden heaviness in your chest and feet after you heard your name. Every single hair on your body stood up at the sound of an eerily familiar voice calling your name, a voice that you wouldn’t be able to forget in a million years. Hesitantly and very slowly, you turned around only to come face-to-face with the one person you hoped to never see again.

The mere sight of him evoked a jagged feeling from your chest that you were very familiar with. It was no longer as intense as it once was—a curtesy of the supplements you were taking. However, you weren’t numb to the dull ache seeing your soulmate caused.

Suho’s face crumpled instantly at the sight of your watery eyes. The glistening tears in your eyes could’ve easily been mistaken for previous crystals from how brightly they were shining. He reached forward and cupped your frozen face, barely able to contain the emotions swirling in his chest.

You flinched away from his touch, realizing that all the effort you made up until this point was in vain. The ache in your pounding heart reminded you that no drug in the world could be strong enough to completely detach you from all the emotions your soulmate provoked.

“I’ve missed you.”

There was a sincerity to his words that might’ve moved you at one point in time, but now his words only left a sick feeling in your stomach. This could have been due to the suppressants, or perhaps the result of being away from him for so long. Either way, the affection Suho was displaying was something you no longer wanted or needed.

“Why?” Your voice was quiet as a single tear fell from your eye. “You rejected me.”

Unlike before, Suho’s expressions were completely transparent. His wounded eyes almost had you regretting your blunt words. Almost.

Not being able to withstand the sight of his pained expression any longer, you turned around and ran.

It was a well-known fact that the string of fate pulled soulmates closer and closer until the two souls were eventually brought together. Trying to resist the tug was practically impossible and, in most cases, futile. You were no exception to this natural contingency despite taking every possible measure you could to fight it. Eventually, you learned that fate wasn’t something that could actively or easily be avoided.

That’s why it wasn’t too surprising when you crossed paths with Suho so soon after you saw him the other night at the bridge. Whether it was coincidental or not, the strength of the bond was enough to soothe the initial irritation you felt at seeing your soulmate. Perhaps the power of the pull was what made you accept the invitation to have a meal with him, or maybe it was out of the need to prove to yourself that Suho could no longer affect you in the intense way that he used to.

The restaurant wasn’t anything grand, but they did serve alcohol which was perfect for you because you weren’t sure you could sit through a meal with the person who broke your heart while being completely sober. You didn’t hesitate to start drinking before the waiter brought your food out.

“So,” Suho cleared his throat as he saw you down a shot with concern. “How have you been?”

It was a loaded question that almost made you angry because how did he think you had been? Undergoing treatment wasn’t anything easy, and it definitely wasn’t pleasant. But you couldn’t bring yourself to spit out your poisonous thoughts. If you agreed to join him it was because you were better now (and to potentially expand on your research). You couldn’t let all your hard work go to waste because of his sudden reappearance and your petty need to make him feel the same way you had all those years ago.

Suho saw you hesitate, and for a moment he was worried that the resentment you seemed to feel for him would keep him from getting closer to you. He felt extremely relieved when you answered him politely, seemingly not too caught up with rehashing the past.

“You actually worked with the Dr. Kwon?” Suho was in awe.

“I still do.” You told with a nod. “I’m the one who helped him develop the suppressant for the soulmate bond.”

Your comment wasn’t malicious, but Suho felt his chest tighten uncomfortably. The drug you helped develop was worldwide famous as it was the first of its kind. He had read about all of its effects and how it was life changing for people who had been rejected by their soulmates. People like you.

When you saw the look on Suho’s face, you let out a dry, humorless laugh. “I’m taking them, if that’s what you wanted to know.”

There was an awkward pause, and you weren’t sure why everything had become so tense all of a sudden. Suho should’ve guessed that you were taking the suppressants because of the fact that you were still alive. Without those drugs, you would’ve died a long time ago. It would’ve been easy enough to tell him that, but something restrained you from doing so.

“So… you don’t feel anything now that you’re with me?”

That wasn’t exactly true. A suppressant was different from a blocker, and even modern medicine wasn’t advanced enough to stop all the effects caused by the soulmate bond. However, you didn’t tell Suho any of that. It was petty, but there was still that part of you that was unwilling to let him off so easily.

“Not really. I feel the like I’m spending time with any other person.” You lied.

Suho felt a sharp pain strike his chest. The throbbing was painful, but all he could focus on was your cold expression. There was no trace of resentment or love or anything. Just a blank canvas that he was unable to fill.

After a beat of silence, you spoke up, unable to stand the discomfort that suddenly consumed you. “I’m sorry about your dad. It must’ve been hard for you.”

Your words caught Suho by surprise. He wasn’t sure how you knew that his dad had been in the hospital while he was abroad, but it hardly mattered. The knot in his chest loosened when he saw your earnest expression. Your empathy was just that, but to Suho it meant the world. It touched him deeply that despite all the pain he had put you through, you didn’t hate him enough to rejoice in his misfortune.

“He’s better now. That’s part of the reason why I came back.”

You didn’t need to hear the other part because you knew what it was, and you weren’t ready for him to vocalize it. Dr. Kwon would be proud.

Suho seemed to realize you were uncomfortable and quickly changed the subject. “How has it been helping Dr. Kwon with his research?”

“Healing.” You told him without thinking. “It helped me get better, and now I’m one step closer to living a normal life like everyone else.”

A sudden pain struck Suho in the chest. Your smiling face managed to soothe some of the sting, but not fully. He would never be able to truly forgive himself for what he did to you. It was his fault you hadn’t been able to finish off high school like everyone else. He was the reason you hadn’t been able to live like any other person who found their soulmate. But somehow Suho pushed down those feelings of painful regret and smiled back at you.

“That’s great, Y/N.” He managed to say through the pain he felt. “I’m… I’m really happy for you.”

Seeing Suho was starting to become a regular occurrence. He was insistent on spending time with you even though you weren’t always welcoming of his company. Recently, he had started to walk you to work. There were times where his actions moved you and times where his actions irritated you. It was usually the latter, but this time you couldn’t be angry or annoyed. Not when it was clear that something was wrong. The moment you laid eyes on Suho, an uncomfortable feeling pinched at your stomach only for it to die down and completely disappear within the next second.

“Hey, are you okay?” You asked, unable to hide the worry in your voice.

Suho caught the emotion in your tone and faintly smiled. “Are you worried about me?”

The contrast in his behavior always threw you off. He wasn’t acting like the person you remembered, and you never knew what to make of his perplexing behavior. Was this really the person you met back in high school? It didn’t seem like it. There was a subtle jerk in your chest, almost as if the emotions being repressed by your medicine were clawing to get out. You frowned at the feeling.

“Have you looked in the mirror today?” You ignored his question. “You don’t look okay.”

Suho shrugged off your words. Instead he told you to have a good day and to not overwork yourself. That was another thing you couldn’t understand. Suho followed you everywhere, except your workplace. You weren’t sure why he had an apparent aversion to the building you currently worked in, but you didn’t dwell on it. Having a place you were able to escape to made you forget all about his abnormal behavior. Well, not entirely.

It was difficult not to think about the situation you had found yourself in. You didn’t know exactly what to call this… relationship between you two, but it felt like you were in a sort of limbo state. It was alarming and potentially problematic because recovery was something that was well within your grasp, and you weren’t sure if Suho was hindering you from finally grabbing what you worked so hard to achieve.

“There’s something you’re not telling me.”

Perhaps not telling Dr. Kwon that your soulmate was back and regularly seeing you wasn’t the wisest decision, but you were sure he would have canceled his plan to take you off the suppressants if you had told him the truth. You kept your cool expression in tact, not willing to give yourself away.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Dr. Kwon frowned. You hadn’t so much as looked up from the paperwork in front of you, but he wouldn’t let you get away from his question so easily. Not when it was about life or death.

“I’m talking about the fact that a man named Han Seojun came in here asking about a consultation for his friend, Lee Suho.”

The shift in your eyes was immediate. You couldn’t hide the emotion on your face as you looked over at Dr. Kwon. He was looking at you with a somber expression, waiting for your explanation. But you couldn’t be concerned with that because there was a sinking feeling in your stomach that wasn’t allowing you to think straight.

“Han Seojun managed to get him in here for a check up.” The doctor continued after realizing that you weren’t going to provide him with the answers he was looking for. “I’ve haven’t seen so much strain on a heart in a long time. His results look almost like yours did all those years ago.”

Blood rushed to your ears, partially muting all the noise in the room. The feel of your heart pounding painfully against your chest was foreign now, yet familiar all at the same time. It was almost entirely painful, but not quite. No. This couldn’t be happening. There had to be some sort of mistake. But you knew there wasn’t. The signs had been there, and you had purposely ignored them because you hadn’t wanted to entertain the possibility of Suho going through what you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy.

“You’re rejecting the soulmate bond.” Dr. Kwon said simply, not knowing he was voicing your greatest fear. “If he doesn’t undergo treatment soon, he will die.”

There was a moment where you could only hear your heartbeat. It’s unsteady rhythm was the only thing you could focus on in order to hold back your tears. It was true that you didn’t want Suho in your life, but to think he was experiencing the same pain you had made you feel sick to your stomach. No one, not even Suho, deserved to experience that type of pain. You could only press your lips together, afraid that a sob might break through at any moment.

“Y/N?”

You lifted your distant eyes, as if snapping out of some sort of trance. “Sharing a person’s medical information is a crime.”

Dr. Kwon frowned, but wasn’t all that fazed by your threatening reminder because he was aware that your reaction was nothing more than a byproduct of the trauma caused by your soulmate. Still, he had expected more from you. The treatment you received at the facility he founded was meant to help you (which it had—physically), but it had also inadvertently morphed your philophobia into something more grave that didn’t allow you to be emotionally vulnerable.

The doctor let out a deep sigh. “Y/N—”

“If you’re going to treat him, then do it.” You said as you put down the paperwork. “Just don’t expect me to care about what happens to him.”

With that cold statement, you stood up and grabbed your things. You hurried to the door, not willing to be in the office any longer. Just as you reached the door, you were stopped by the doctor’s voice.

“He won’t take the supplements.” Dr. Kwon said. “I don’t know why, but he’s unwilling to undergo any sort of treatment.”

You swallowed thickly, unable to keep the tears in your eyes. It was difficult, but you swallowed the lump in your throat and walked out of the large office without looking back.

Suho never thought you would ask to see him first. It was something that went beyond his all of his wildest dreams, and for the first time he felt the pressure in his chest loosen. You had asked to meet him at the bridge where he first encountered you after returning, and he didn’t hesitate to clear his schedule in order to meet you. He didn’t have time to think about why you wanted to see him. It didn’t matter, either. Not when you willingly wanted to see him and spend time with him.

Suho made it to the bridge in record time. His eyes immediately spotted you, able to distinguish you almost immediately. Even from afar you looked as stunning as ever. The bright city lights managed to give you an ethereal glow that took his breath away. Not wanting to keep you wait any longer, Suho was quick to go over to where you were standing.

“Y/N.”

You turned around, expression as blank as usual. It was a bit disappointing, but Suho wouldn’t let that deter his mood. When he finally got close enough, he could see traces of concern in your eyes. It made him wonder what was wrong while thinking of ways he could ease your discomfort.

“Suho.”

He hadn’t heard you say his name in years despite all the time you two had spent together. It was like music to his ears, and it made him hopeful that you two were finally moving in the right direction. Maybe earning your forgiveness wouldn’t be impossible like he originally thought.

“You’re dying.” You said shakily. “Because of me.”

Suho felt his heart sink into his stomach. He didn’t have any time to think about how you found out, but he couldn’t stand to see at the wounded look in your eyes. The last thing he had wanted to do was hurt you, yet that was the very thing he did.

His silence made the sickening feeling amplify. It was true. You had known it was since Dr. Kwon had told you, but part of you had hoped it was a mistake or a flat out lie. To think that you were doing the same thing Suho did to you was reprehensible. All your years of helping people and your own recovery didn’t seem to mean anything because it felt like you were right back at where you started. Except now it was you who was causing the pain.

You swallowed thickly, not believing this was happening. “Why… Why wouldn’t you agree to take the suppressants?”

The stoic expression that was imprinted in your mind made an appearance for the first time since you two met again. It made you feel sick and like you were trapped in the middle of a bizarre nightmare.

“Don’t you realize what you’re doing?” Your voice rose slightly. “How could you be reckless enough to disregard your own health?”

Suho’s eyes gleamed with regret and something else you couldn’t identify. “You did the same thing back then. You risked your life for my happiness.”

The suppressants weren’t perfect, and still left room for error. Often times, the emotions people didn’t want to feel passed through and consumed them. But now it felt like you weren’t taking the medicine at all because in the next instant, you were bursting with emotions, the most prominent one being anger. How could he compare your situations? How could he think that this was what you wanted?

There was a tense pause, one that didn’t last very long but felt like an eternity.

“Don’t act like you’re doing some selfless deed.” You hissed, feeling angry tears pinch the back of your eyes. “What I did back when we met isn’t the same as what you’re doing now, and you fucking know it.”

For a moment, you two only stared at each other fiercely. Similar emotions were building inside both of you, ready to burst at the seams. Neither of you were willing to speak the truth, but expected the other to understand.

“You chose to do that for me back then.” Suho forced himself to say. “It was your choice, and what I’m doing now is mine.”

And it was his choice. Suho would never forgive himself for everything he did to you, and he was certain there was nothing he could ever do to make it up to you. Except this. Only going through the same pain would he be able to truly repent his mistakes. The only problem was that you didn’t take his words in the way he meant them.

“It was never my choice!” You yelled angrily, feeling like you could explode from the rage. “Why would I ever choose to feel the pain you put me through?”

Everything was happening too quickly, but it was too late to backtrack. The misunderstandings and the misuse of words didn’t matter anymore because you were finally letting your true feelings spill out of you like a waterfall.

“You were the one who rejected the bond that we have without caring about how it would effect me!”

The sight of your tears came as another blow to Suho’s chest, one that was much stronger than all the others. Everything was falling apart so quickly. Too quickly to stop it. Suho took a step toward you but you stepped back. The anger and pain you were feeling was evident now.

“When are you going to stop hurting me?”

Suho sucked in a sharp breath. Your words made him feel as terrible as he did when he found out you couldn’t see your string. A single tear slid down his face as he looked at your pain-filled expression. The bond between you was completely damaged, and for the first time he could feel it.

“Wasn’t it enough for you when you almost killed me because you loved Lim Jugyeong?” You wondered, feeling like your throat was closing in on itself. “I didn’t know about our bond, but you willingly ignored it. When I found out, you didn’t hesitate to tell me you didn’t want me as your soulmate. I accepted all of that, so why… why do you keep doing this to me?”

Subconsciously rejecting or accepting the soulmate bond was something every human did as soon as they recognized their soulmate, and it had a stronger effect than most people would ever understand. It might’ve occurred to you that this is exactly what you were doing, but thinking logically wasn’t possible with all the emotions that were overpowering your thoughts. It no longer mattered that you never intended for any of this to happen because it had. Because it was fate.

Suho couldn’t stand it anymore. All the pain he caused you was suffocating, and he couldn’t do anything to stop it. He reached for you, only to be stopped by the blinding pain his chest. Tiny black dots clouded his vision before they completely engulfed it.

You could only watch in horror as Suho collapsed on the ground just as you had all those years ago.

At times, you wondered if your entire life was nothing more than a terrible dream. Some of the things that happened to you felt too surreal and distorted to be an actual part of reality. However, there was always certain moments that managed to remind you that your life was far from a dream. Seeing Suho’s pale form laying in a hospital bed was one of those moments.

You watched him carefully, gasping quietly when his eyes slowly opened.

When Suho saw you by his bedside, it immediately eased some of the pain he was feeling. You tearfully whispered his name, no longer hiding behind the stoic mask he had grown used to. It almost made him feel like all the pain was worth it.

“I’ll go get the doctor.”

You stood to leave, but Suho immediately caught you by your wrist. He gently caressed it, looking like he might cry. “Stay. Please.”

And you did. You slowly sat back down, feeling the enigmatic pull take over your actions. You hadn’t felt it in years, and you wondered if it would be a good idea to take more of the suppressants before your feelings became too intense to control.

“I’m sorry.” You apologized through the tears. “I shouldn’t have said all those things to you knowing that your health is in a delicate state.”

Your apology meant the world to Suho, but it also managed to make him feel horrible. Just like back then, you were putting his feelings before your own, and he couldn’t stand it. He didn’t deserve the consideration you gave him back then, and he definitely didn’t deserve it now.

Suho shook his head. “Everything you said is the truth. I deserve that and much more.”

You pressed your lips together before letting out a shaky sigh. None of that mattered anymore. The only thing you were concerned about was helping him get better. “Take the suppressants.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?” You demanded, feeling your heart clench painfully. “The pain is only going to get worse.”

“It’s nothing compared to what I did to you.”

His words made your heart ache. At one point in your life you wanted him to suffer in the same way you had, but now it was the last thing you wanted. Two wrongs don’t make a right, but Suho didn’t seem to realize that. Seeing him in this state wasn’t what you wanted at all. Didn’t he understand that?

“If you don’t agree to undergo the treatment, you’ll die.” You told him, your voice was an apparent mixture of fear and guilt. “How could you think that would make me happy?”

“You haven’t forgiven me for what I did, and neither have I.” Suho said. The tears in his eyes spilled over as he looked at you. “I don’t deserve it either.”

You couldn’t stop your tears own from falling. He had it all wrong, and you weren’t sure that you could ease his pain despite having done it so many times before.

“It’s not that I don’t forgive you.” You whimpered as you took ahold of his hand.

This next part was going to be difficult for you to express, but it needed to be done. It was the only way you were going to be able to truly heal from all the pain that you went through.

“It’s that I don’t forgive myself.” Your confession came out in a shaky sigh. “I didn’t love myself enough to put my health first. Even back then, I had the option to get treated before the pain became unbearable, but I didn’t because I loved you more than I loved myself.”

You let out a quiet sob. “And I’ve never been able to forgive myself for that.”

If anyone understood that feeling, it was Suho. He didn’t hesitate to pull you into his arms, caging you against him. It felt warm and comforting—an unexpected safe place. It made you feel completely protected, like nothing and no one could ever hurt you.

“It’s not your fault.” He whispered. “None of it.”

Suho couldn’t have known it, but his words set you free. Finally, you accepted that your father’s death wasn’t you fault, neither was the resentment your mother felt, not even the fact that Suho had rejected you. None of it was your fault. You were only a victim of the circumstances.

The road to recovery wouldn’t be an easy path, but it was one that you were both willing to take.

Fate was a strange concept, indeed.

Even now, you couldn’t tell if destiny was something that was predetermined or something that could be made, but it didn’t matter. You walked the path that you were meant to take despite not being ready for it. In the end, it had led you to the place that you were meant to be at.

“Y/N!”

You looked over your shoulder with a smile, seeing Suho excitedly wave at you from the other end of the street. He jogged over to you with a giant grin on his face before engulfing you in a tight hug. His warm embrace gave you a sense of security that you had grown to love.

“Did you have fun with Seojun?” You asked, feeling like you were in the middle of a blissful trance.

“The guy thinks he’s all that because he’s famous now.” Suho said jokingly, emitting a laugh from you.

An entire year had passed since that day in the hospital, and now you could proudly say that you had successfully worked past your philophobia. It hadn’t been easy, but with help from Dr. Kwon and even Suho you managed to overcome all the trauma you had been unconsciously clinging on to. Now, you were living happily without the help of suppressants.

Suho pulled back, looking at you with shining eyes. He cupped your face before he swooped down and pressed his lips against your own. You melted into the kiss instantly, feeling a fiery passion consume you. The movement of his lips was sweet yet strong. It managed to make your head swim with euphoria. Suho gently caressed your cheek before he slowly drew back.

“I love you.”

You couldn’t contain your smile. “I love you, too.”

Suho let you go and swiftly grabbed your hand. He swung it happily as you two walked down the street. “Where should we go?”

“There’s a new comic store that opened down the street.” You told him with a grin. “Let’s check it out.”

Suho gave you another smile and gave your hand a gentle squeeze. The sheer joy you felt in that moment seemed unreal. It was hard to believe that you managed to get to this point where happiness was a regular part of your life. You never imagined that it would be a part of fate’s plan for you. There was only one thing that made you realize it was all real and not part of some blissful dream.

The upside down is nothing like you’d expected. It’s simultaneously worse and better than you’d expected.

It smells damp, the air is thick like smog, and you can’t bring yourself to look down to where you’re walking, the sound of your converse dragging through the sludge is enough to have you feeling nauseous.

Everyone else seems to be handling it much better than you—probably because they’ve done this before. It’s hard not to feel somewhat resentful that Steve had only brought all of this up to you by pure chance.

You knew he’d been hiding something. He was secretive, holding that goddamn walkie-talkie with him like it was the second coming of Christ and most obviously, never let you meet his friends.

Besides Robin, you liked Robin. Though it had been practically unbearable to sit politely and smile as they both regaled you of stories of Dustin, or any of the rest of The Party. It all festered underneath your skin, why did he never bring you around them?

Until the night you’d just happened to be over at his house when Dustin had attempted to recruit Steve to help find Eddie Munson. Eddie, drug dealer Eddie, who was now accused of murder.

“Steve he didn’t do it, it’s the upside down—” Dustin babbles incoherently, you can barely keep up. None of the words coming out of his mouth make sense to you.

The upside down?

“Steve?” you whisper to your boyfriend, who’s staring at the highschooler before you in dawning horror and grim acceptance.

“I’ll drive. Get in the car—I have to—” Steve waves over to you in a vague gesture and Dustin’s eyes grow wide as his jaw slackens.

“You haven’t told her?” He sounds horrified by the idea of it. Told you what.

“Car Henderson. Now.” Steve states firmly, throwing the curly haired teen his keys as he turns to you with a solemn expression.

˚₊‧꒰ა ✦ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

You’d like to think you’d taken the news of a sadistic other-worldly demonic creature hellbent on killing pretty well, considering the fact that you were currently in his…world? Plain? Planet?

You had been rightfully angry with Steve for not telling you but given that there were bigger stakes than your feelings involved, you’d decided to lay your argument to rest.

Only for you to subsequently discover that Nancy Wheeler knew. Nancy Wheeler that Steve had fallen in love with. The same Nancy you watched Steve grow glassy eyed when talking about.

The same Nancy you tried to measure yourself up against and fell short on all aspects no matter how hard you seemed to try. You watched him with her, as much as it pained you.

He looked so happy, like the fate of the world wasn’t resting on his shoulders. Granted, Nancy was in a relationship, that was a point of contention amongst the two. You assumed some sort of shared history.

Nancy was sweet to you, checking in on you, asking if you needed anything. You couldn’t fault her for your own feelings. Hell, if you were in Steve shoes, you’d probably also have fallen in love with her.

You heard them talking in the van on the drive back from the hardware store, huddled in the back with Eddie and Dustin. It doesn’t feel like a conversation you should be listening in on, but you can’t help it.

“It’s—it’s silly but I—I’ve actually um—I always had this dream that I’d always have this really big family. I’m talkin like full brood of Harringtons, like 5, 6 kids” Steve confesses, laughing alongside her.

Your heart thumps louder in your chest. He’s never told you that. Why wouldn’t he tell you that? It’s not like you’ve been dating long enough for that to have been a conversation but—just why wouldn’t he have said something to you?

Why would you have to listen to this from the backseat of a stolen van as he confesses his hopes and dreams to a girl who he claims he “used” to love?

“Six?” Nancy asks incredulously. You crack a smile; you can’t help it. She’s funny, you think to yourself. Funnier than you’ve ever been.

“Yeah, six little nuggets. Three girls—” you drown out Steve’s voice as you watch their silhouettes.

They would make pretty babies, you think. Beautiful babies, full of Nancy’s intelligence and Steve’s smile. They’d play basketball or do ballet. Steve would be their coach—and Nancy would be working at some big corporate office and they’d be—they’d be so happy.

Bile rises in your throat. You can’t even compete with her. She’s perfect, pretty, smart, witty—what do you have? You have the boy, plus one for that—but what good does that do when he looks at a her like she’s hung the moon and the stars.

You wonder if he’s ever looked at you like that.

You think you might be better off not knowing.

˚₊‧꒰ა ✦ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

You’re embarrassed to admit that overhearing their conversation makes you distance yourself from the both of them.

You find yourself flocking to Eddie’s side,  joking and laughing with each other.

“You’re a good guy Munson.” You murmur softly as you both watch as Dustin and Mike duel with fake swords and shields, yelping each time they catch each other.

“You’d be the first to think so.” Eddie replies to your left, humour masking the insecurity in his tone.

“I highly doubt that.” You contest, smiling up at the older boy. “Dustin certainly thinks so.”

“Yeah well the munchkin’s biased,” He scoffs with a smirk, leaning back against the stump of wood behind the both of you.

You snort, “He thinks you’re the greatest. He talks about you all the time.” You insist.

Eddie’s expression melts softly, something adoring taking place of what was once anxiety and manufactured aloofness. “He’s a good kid. Don’t know why he likes me so much, but I’m lucky to have him.” He admits.

“You treat him like he’s a person. He’s always going on about how you ask him about his opinion, how you actually listen.”

Eddie blows out a breath, nodding slowly as he digests your words. He turns to you slightly, “You’re a sweet girl,” he tells you seriously and you look up at him in slight shock.

“Don’t lose that, would be a damn shame if we didn’t have you around.” He smiles, slinging an arm over your shoulder as he calls out for Dustin to fix his posture.

You snort with a smile, leaning into him.

˚₊‧꒰ა ✦ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

Steve watches the two of you from higher on the hill with a scowl on his face.

“Scared Munson’s gonna steal your girl?” Robin teases, huffing as she tugs a rope from the backdoor of the van.

Steve scoffs, irritation bleeding into his tone. “No,” he replies shortly “Munson wouldn’t stand a chance.”

Robin hums suspiciously high, “Seems to me like he’s doing pretty well for himself.” She mentions, gesturing back over to the two of you.

Steve’s glare grows as he catches sight of Eddie’s arm slung over your shoulder. His irritation rising as he spins to glower at Robin, “Who’s side are you on?” he growls.

Robin holds her hand up in surrender, “Just saying. You two haven’t spoken since you arrived—you’ve spent more time with me and Nancy than you have with her.” She says conversationally.

Steve frowns. Has he actually? Sure, he’s been pretty focused on getting things ready to go into the upside down, so he didn’t really have the time to be checking in on you.

It was purely coincidence that he, Robin and Nancy ended up working together considering they were carrying the bulk of the ammunition and knew how to work them.

“She’s fine.” Steve mutters uncertainly. “We’ll talk after.” He insists.

Robin frowns, saying nothing but glances between the two of you in concern.

˚₊‧꒰ა ✦ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

The tension between you and Steve as you enter the upside down is undeniable. The growing distance seemingly seems to stretch between the two of you the longer that you walk.

You’re side by side, walking in silence as Nancy, Jonathan and Robin walk slightly ahead of everyone whilst Eddie and Dustin remain slightly behind.

“Okay,” Nancy starts firmly, stopping in front of the group in a small expanse of land. The small group forms a circle in front of her, all watching her in rapt attention.

“You all know the plan yes? No deviations, we can’t take any risk that this doesn’t work.” 

You’re all nodding, you listen as she goes over the plan for Max to bait Vecna, the Creel House and the demobats. It’s perfectly planned out, Nancy Wheeler style.

When you all break off, you grab hold of Steve’s arm, who turns to look at you in confusion, “I uh—I’m going to go with Dustin and Eddie alright?” you say softly, avoiding eye contact with him.

Steve frowns, watching your face closely before scoffing, making you look towards him in perplexion, “Yeah, sure. Fine.” He says sarcastically, shrugging your arm off of him.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Steve’s voice is hard and angry, “It means that if you wanna go run off with Munson while the rest of us are trying to save the world—be my guest.”

You blink, staring at Steve with your mouth agape, “You think—Eddie?”

Steve snorts, rolling his eyes, “Yes, Eddie. I see the way the two of you have been…canoodling,” he offers weakly.

You scoff, “Real mature Steve.”

Nancy and Robin stop in front of the two of you when the notice you’ve both stopped following them. They’re far away enough to not being able to hear but close enough to notice the start of an argument between you both.

“What? You have a problem?”

Your expression morphs into hurt, “Six little nuggets?” you ask him accusingly as he stares at you, unflinching.

“You weren’t supposed to hear that.”

It’s the weakest argument you’ve heard from him yet, “Why?” you push. “Because it involved Nancy, that it? I didn’t fit into your white picket fence suburban dream?”

Steve flinches, his expression turning uncertain and dread fills your very being.

He doesn’t see you there.

“Can we—can we not do this now?” he asks, pleadingly.

You shake your head, “No, Steve. I want to know.”

“Know what?” He argues, throwing his arms up in the air.

“If you love me Steve!” you burst out, your voice echoing lightly through the vast expanse of the Upside Down.

“Guys—” Eddie calls hesitantly, but you both pay him no mind.

You shove your finger into Steve’s chest hard enough to make him flinch, “I want to know if you see a future with me! Do you? Do you see me in that big old family picture? Because—” your voice breaks, tugging at Steve’s heart strings.

“Because I love you, and if you don’t—if you don’t see that future with me, then maybe we’re not meant to be together,” you whimper, lifting your hand to your mouth to try and muffle your cries.

Steve slumps in shock, looking as if you’ve just torn his heart out from his chest.

“You’re breaking up with me?” he whispers desperately, scanning your face like he’s searching for something, anything.

You shake your head, your teary gaze meeting his shocked one. “I’m asking you if you’d choose me Steve, if given the chance.” You whisper.

“Baby, of course I—"

“You can’t even say you love me Steve.” You scoff with a laugh, self-deprecation coating your tone.

He stands in shock, like he’s not sure what to do.

“Steve!” Nancy calls from the back, frustration in her voice from being held up.

Steve watches you pleadingly as you school your expression, taking a step back when he turns to look back at her.

Always her, you think bitterly.

“I—” Steve pleads, panic in his tone.

“Just go Steve.” You reply tonelessly, turning to walk towards Eddie and Dustin who have been watching the both of you in concern.

“Baby—” You hear him call after you, desperation in his voice as you walk away. You shake your head, sniffling before looking towards the two boys in front of you.

“Are you okay?—” Dustin asks hesitantly.

You force a smile, “Fine.”

˚₊‧꒰ა ✦ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

If you thought you knew pain before, the sting of walking away from Steve was worse. Every bone if your body wants to turn around and run back into his arms, but you refuse to subject yourself to any more humiliation.

You walk with Eddie and Dustin in silence, setting up the amp and Eddie’s guitar with little fanfare.

When the time comes, Eddie plays like a man possessed. You think he was made for this, a true metal rockstar. He looks almost godlike in view.

The bats swarm the trailer with almost no time to spare. Eddie, Dustin and you rush into the trailer as it rocks with the force and sound of flapping wings.

You almost think you’ve done it before they start flooding in. One after another they come through the vents, met with your handcrafted weaponry.

Dustin grabs the rope leading back into the real world, but when you catch Eddie’s gaze watching him, you already know what’s going to happen. What’s more rockstar than saving the world.

He looks at you and then back to the bedsheets, offering you a way out. You see the determined look on his face, and with a shared nod, he cuts the rope.

“What are you doing?!” Dustin screams to the both of you, watching as you both grab your weapons and Eddie’s shield.

“Buying more time.” The two of you chorus, launching yourselves out of the trailer in tandem as Eddie rides the bike with you running behind him.

The bats follow you like a moth to a flame, swarming around the two of you within minutes. You feel it before you see it, the sound of your flesh tearing and ripping open as the bats latch onto your skin.

You feel the warmth of your blood pool around you as you swing and crush the bats that fly towards you. You find Eddie doing the same in your peripheral vision. You watch as the bats sink their teeth into him, drawing a guttural scream from his chest.

Your wounds start to get the better of you as you stagger on your feet, slumping over onto the ground as you crash to your knees. You can hear Eddie calling your name and you turn to see him slumped a few meters behind you.

You crawl over to him, mindless of the bats still latched to the two of you. Your eyes meet and you share a bloody smile.

It’s then that you notice the silence, the bats that fall around the two of you. “They did it,” you croak, blood bubbling through your throat.

Eddie groans, “We did good,” he affirms, turning his head to look at you.

You hear footsteps rushing your way, and a small part of you hopes that its Steve. The curly hair however in unmistakable.

“Henderson,” Eddie coos, coughing slightly as blood stains his lips.

“Eddie—Y/N, no no no.” he chants, falling to his knees.

“Hey,” you whisper dazedly. “We’re okay,” you reassure him.

“You’re bleeding—” he chokes out.

“Can either of you stand?” he asks Eddie abruptly, turning to look at him. Eddie frowns, looking down on his leg before looking at you, “Dustin, buddy you can’t take both of us—"

“I don’t care,” he bursts out. “I need to know if you can stand, if I can get you back to the trailer, we can alert the rest of them that Y/N is down and—” he babbles.

“I—” Eddie blows out a breath, looking hesitant. You both knew when you’d left that trailer than you’d had no intention of coming back, it was a suicide mission.

“Please,” Dustin begs. Eddie hesitates before nodding abruptly, “Okay,” he concedes. “Okay—we’re coming back.” He tells you seriously.

You smile, nodding softly. Your clothes are starting to stick to your skin with the amount of blood pooling from your wounds.

It’s too dark for them to see, they can’t possibly know how bad your injuries are. Eddie looks by far worse than you, his wounds uncovered by his clothes.

“Okay,” you say.

They leave, Eddie hobbling beside Dustin as they walk towards the trailer. You’re not sure how long you spend staring at the sky before rushing footsteps are coming back to you.

You think you might already be dead when you see Steve rushing to your side instead of Dustin. “St’ve?” you slur, your eyelids drooping from exhaustion.

“Oh baby,” he moans desperately as he drops down next to you, his hands hovering uncertainly as if he’s too scared to touch you.

I’m sorry. I don’t mean to scare you.

“You’re gonna be okay, you’re gonna be okay,” he chants to himself as he lifts you into his arms despite your loud groaning in complaint of being jostled.

“You gotta keep your eyes open for me honey, c’mon look at me—look at me baby.” He pleads with you, rushing towards the trailer as yo9ur blood starts to soak his own clothes.

“I’m getting’ y’u d’rty.” You complain breathlessly as your head lolls to the side. Steve whimpers, reply wetly, “That’s okay baby—I—I don’t mind, I’ll put it in the wash when we get home okay?” he says consolingly, sounding panicked.

“’kay,” you agree mindlessly, your eyes drooping.

“Think ‘m gonna sleep now—”

Steve shakes you awake, making you cough as the feeling of the liquid filling your throat.

“Sorry—sorry honey, you can’t—fuck, baby you can’t sleep. Haven’t even got to tell you how much I love you yet sweetheart, you don’t even know,” He says, simultaneously awestruck and horrified.

“You don’t even know how much I love you baby, God, I—I was so dumb earlier, I shoulda run after you, I’m sorry, I’m sorry—never gonna make that mistake again. But you’ve gotta stay awake for me okay? Because I’ve got a lot of making up to do huh?” He chokes up, muffling his sobs.

“Cause you can’t die—I, we have so many things left to do—can’t leave me alone—I can’t do this alone, you—you have to stay,” he sobs.

He almost chokes on the relief he feels when he sees the trailer, stumbling as he runs as fast as his feet can carry him towards the silver home.

Your breathing is shallow in his arms, and he would think you were already dead if not for the slow rise of your chest.

“Please,” he chokes out the paramedic he sees when he gets back to the real world. He holds you out, begging for them to take you. “You—you have to help her. She—she’s lost so much blood—oh god, please help her.” He begs desperately, succumbing to his own tears.

They take you immediately, transferring you to a stretcher as they rush you to an ambulance whilst Steve follows behind them, refusing to let you out of his sight for another second.

Whilst they load you, Steve pleads with them, “Please let me go with her—I’m the only one she knows, she’ll be so scared I need to be there—”

“You can ride with her, but we need to go now.” The paramedic rushes him in, letting him take the seat next to you as the strap you to a heart rate monitor and place a breathing mask over you.

He clenches his hands around your own as you blink slowly at him, “Hey,” he whispers into the silence of the ambulance, the paramedic watching the two of you in concern.

“I love you,” he blurts out again, frantically hoping you hear him. Your small smile calms a small portion of his fear, and he feels you shakily trace a pattern on his palm.

You were everything to Valarr, every bit of good in this world, every bit of sunshine and moonlight and every hope. You were every wish he’d ever had come to startling fruition. You were the world and the sun and the stars and everything in the universe. You were, simply, everything.

            You had been everything and his for years, since the moment he met you as a child, since he asked you at five years old to marry him—not because he knew what marriage was, only that he never wanted to lose you. You are everything to him and yet here you are, dying. 

            You are dying bringing forth your child, his child. You are his everything, his sun and moon and stars and yet you are dying. You are withering. 

            The one person who has always held him upright is dying, the one who was calm and gentle, who weathered every storm of his mind. The one who cared for him, not a crown or a legacy but him. Him entire and yet the world was trying to take you from him. 

            The world was trying to take you, the Stranger trying to steal you from him, your blood leaching out onto the mattress as a baby tried to leave you. The proof of your love was taking you from him. He did not want you to leave, he could not handle if you left. 

            He knew when he was five. He knew when he was six, seven, eight, nine, ten. He knew that all his life. 

            He knows that now—there is no him without you. 

            And there never was. 

***

            Valarr is tired of the festival, the tourney, the rowdy shouts and cheers of the people. He wants quiet and solitude. He wants to disappear and just be allowed to be a child, but he cannot because he is a prince. The heir of the heir and that means something to these men. These men who set the rules on his life, rules he doesn’t yet understand. 

            Rules of duty and piety and propriety. Things that are strange, things that his mother tells him not to think too much on, that it matters not, not yet. And yet they haunt the young prince as he wanders, a small toy dragon held tightly in one hand, tiny little fingers curled around the carved wood. 

            He heard the men whisper of betrothals and brides and alliances, his father answering back in an angry whisper, words harsh, “my boy will marry for love before we ever choose one of your houses!” Valarr didn’t understand quite what was going on, just that it was about him. As it always is. 

            Which is why he is running. Not forever of course, he’ll need to be back by dinnertime or else his mother will panic and panic isn’t good for the baby in her belly—or so his father tells him. But he is running now, running from the weight of the crown which he doesn’t even want. 

            “Why do you run, little prince?” calls a soft voice, one light and airy and it startles Valarr, the sound so unlike what he has heard all his life. The sound is that of peace and innocence and things Valarr doesn’t understand. 

            Yet.

            “I’m tired of the court,” he answers, his head swivelling around, eyes scanning every inch of the forest, the glade just behind the tourney fields looking for whoever spoke, whoever spoke in that perfect voice that seems like something that he needs even if he doesn’t understand it yet. 

            “Courts are very tiring, aren’t they?” the voice continues, the words seeming to come from everywhere in the forest all at once. “But something being tiring is not a reason to run. My father says there is never a reason to run—Baratheon’s are the storm and storms flee for no man.” 

            “Where are you, voice?” Valarr asks, his head still spinning, sight only that of tree trunks and leaves and foliage on the grassy ground. 

            “Look up,” the voice says and he does, glimpses of clear blue sky visible through the shadowed stretches of tree branches. 

            “I do not see you, forest sprite,” he says and he can hear the voice laugh, the sound perfect and precious and like the sound of silver bells pealing and yet at the same time like the rumble of thunder during a storm before the first crash of lightening. 

            “I sit in a tree, little prince. I am not the sky nor no forest sprite,” the voice says and Valarr looks, peering at every tree until he finds the owner of the voice—until he finds you. You are as young as he, resting on a tree branch, halfway up a tall, towering oak, a dagger spinning in your two small hands, large eyes glimmering with mischief and focused solely on him, looking every inch the forest sprite he believed you were. 

            “Then what are you? A fairy or a nymph, perhaps?” he calls out, running towards your tree, jumping and catching a branch in his two hands, hauling himself up and towards you, his dragon resting at the base of trunk. 

            “I am but a girl,” you reply as he reaches you, climbing onto the branch beside you, his back against the trunk, head twisted to you—taking in every inch of you, this forest spirit complaining of the tiring nature of court. 

            “My father is talking with the court about marriage and betrothals for me,” he tells you, unsure why he tells you this, yet not choosing to think so much on it. That is the nature of children after all. “But I am just a boy! What do I know of marriage and love and alliances?”

            “My father is the same,” you reply, your voice light, carrying through the woods, ringing and echoing. “He says the Storm needs a match. Someone proper and strong; someone who will not try to bottle the power. Whatever that means.”

            “You do not want the marriages?” he asks you and you turn to him, exasperation in those forest sprite eyes and you shake your head. 

            “I do not want to be caged!” you cry, standing now, tucking the dagger into a makeshift belt at your waist, jumping once on the branch, Valarr’s heart rushing into his throat, a strange and foreign feeling constricting his throat and his chest, making breathing difficult as he watches you hop up and down on that thin branch. 

            Fear, that’s what he’s feeling. Fear. 

            Fear that you will fall and die. Fear that you will die and he will be alone again and just when you were becoming friends. He told you of his fears and now you court death?! That’s hardly fair!

            “Stop that!” he demands, his voice every inch the spoiled prince he is. 

            “Why? I am a storm beholden to no man and I do what I want,” you answer, not rude simply plain. The words simply facts to you. 

            “Because I do not want you dying!” Valarr cries and he can feel tears welling in his eyes, the same feeling as when his cousin mocks him for his dark hair, saying he’s not Targaryen, not truly—just a bastard in noble garb. “You are my friend and I do not want you leaving me!” He watches you sigh and stop bouncing on the branch, simply sitting down, legs dangling off the edge, eyes wide as they look at him. 

            “Fine. But the you cannot leave me either since I have no friends either,” you tell him and he can feel the fear abate, a smile growing on his face as the tears dry up, disappear. 

            “Since both of our fathers speak of marriage…” he muses, lips curving up in a mischievous smile, “why don’t we marry each other and then we never leave each other and are married to our friend?!” He’s excited, very much so and even more so when you nod, once, assent to the arrangement. 

            “Very well,” you reply, “have you a ring? To marry someone you need a ring?” And Valarr looks down at his hands where the signet ring his father gave him when he was born rests as it always has. He likes the little ring but he doesn’t want to lose you, the first friend he’s ever had, the forest sprite made of storms. 

            “I have this,” he says, pulling it off his hand and holding it out to you in his palm. “Will it do?”

            “Very much so,” you tell him, lips curving in a smile. “Now you have to put it on my finger and then we’re married…Or I think so…that’s what all the Storm’s End ladies tell me makes a marriage and they shouldn’t lie.” He takes the ring and slides it onto your small, chubby finger, the left ring one that you indicate. 

            “Now we’re married!” he cries and you smile at him once, a pleased sort of smile before you slide off your branch, hopping down until your feet rest on the forest floor and you look up at him, cupping your hands around your mouth and yelling up at him: “Come on, little husband! We must inform our parents of the matters!”

            And Valarr follows you, his only friend, the storm in girl’s skin. He doesn’t understand it yet, but he thinks he would follow you forever, no matter where you went. 

            He did not want to lose you.

            Not ever. 

***

            You were a storm in a human body, a storm wrapped up in beauty and grace and perfection but a storm nonetheless. And storms are strong, they are not supposed to die like this. Die in agony and pain and blood. 

            Storms are supposed last for a long time, slowly slowly slowly going out, fading away so perfectly, so painlessly. Not like this. 

            Never…like this. 

            Never with hands clutching and squeezing, voice screaming and blood seeping and body just…stopping. Storms are supposed to fade not just stop. There must be an end not a sudden disappearance. Storms reshape lands, they don’t just disappear, just stop. 

            Storms are infinite. 

            You are infinite. There should be no end to you. Not yet. Not yet. You’re still so young, there is more life to live. More life to live with him. He can’t lose you, he could never lose you. You have been everything to him since the moment he heard you call him little prince, a nickname you have never let go of. 

            “Just…just hold on, my storm…please, just hang on!” he cries, falling to his knees by your bed, both of his hands clutching yours like lifelines, holding onto you, trying to anchor both you and him here, in this world. He wants his touch to prevent the Stranger from taking you, he wants to be like his ancestors of old. 

            He wants to be strong enough to keep you here. 

            “I…love…you,” you wheeze, breaths constricted as the midwives pull the baby, its cry shattering through the room, so strong, so full of life. 

            The life it stole from you. The life it took from you, the life it takes from you. It is the reason you are dying when there is still so much to live, so much to do, so much to see. 

            You promised him you would never leave. 

            And you cannot break a promise. 

***

            He watches as you step from the carriage, dressed in pure gold, spun through with threads of black, every inch the Baratheon daughter. Every inch the Young Prince’s promised bride. 

            “Lord Lyonel,” Baelor calls and Valarr turns, orienting unconsciously to his father like always, still ever the boy who wanted to be a man like his father, who wanted nothing more than his father to tell him he loved him. That he was proud. “Wonderful to see you again.”

            “And you, Prince Baelor,” your father responds in kind, face splitting in a wide grin, the one that is whispered about by the women of the court as they plot and plan to become the second Lady Baratheon, your mother having passed when giving birth to you, the only Baratheon heir. 

            “Little prince!” you call out as soon as you see him, those forest sprite eyes glimmering with mischief, lighting up like lightening cutting through the darkness of a stormy night, the stars and sun cutting through the dark clouds. “I did not expect to see you so soon! Is it not bad luck for the groom to see his bride before the wedding?”

            Valarr cannot take his eyes from you, wanting nothing more than to take you in his arms and run away with you, ceremonies and propriety be damned. You are his and he is yours and that is the most basic truth of his existence. He exists for you and you alone. 

            He discovered that when he met you at five, placed the signet ring on your finger—the one still sitting there, glimmering the sunlight, catching off the three-headed dragon. 

            “You have never cared for luck before, my forest sprite,” he answers, stepping towards you, crossing the distance in two bounds, catching up to you, his hands taking yours, pulling them up to his chest, forehead resting against yours, your breaths his air. 

            “I am no forest sprite, little prince,” you counter, voice teasing but a thread of iron, hardened and unbreakable, running through it. “I am a storm. One infinite and powerful that cannot be bottled, caged or broken. Ours is the fury, after all.” He watches as you smile, that mischievous smile that you have always had, the one that makes you seem more fairy kin than storm—not that you listen. 

            “Infinite, hmm?” he asks you and you nod once, the movement echoing through him. It would even if his forehead were not pressed to yours because he would feel every movement of your body always. You are his and he is yours. 

            “That is the nature of a storm,” you whisper, tone lilting and falling and rising and soaring. “You think it has broken, but it is never really gone, simply biding its time before returning.”

            “Then if you are an infinite storm,” he muses, “that must mean you’ll never leave me.” The two of you are all that exist in the moment, every around you having faded to nothing more than blurs on the side, focus on each other and each other alone. 

            “I promise, little prince,” you whisper and the teasing tone is gone, the words not a continuation of a jest, but a vow. An informal one, but one just as powerful nonetheless. 

            “I shall hold you to that, my…storm.”

***

            “Stay! Just stay with me goddammit!” he cries, his head falling to the mattress, pressing against your joined hands, pulse stuttering and slowing to a stop beneath his fingers. “You need to stay! You promised!” His words are not truly words, not truly screams or cries or yells, no they are roars. They are animal and primal because he needs you. 

            He has always needed you and even more so now. 

            “We…cannot—always…maintain…that which…we need…to…little prince,” you whisper, the words ragged and wheezing and he lifts his head, looking at you through eyes that cannot truly see, so lined with tears that the world is barely more than blurs, smudges. 

            “But…you promised me,” he whispers, the fire inside of him dwindling in the face of you, of your love, of your dying eyes still faintly glimmering with the shine of mischief, of fairy troubles. 

            “And…I never…shall,” you breathe out. “Am always…in…here,” your one hand presses against your chest, above your heart, the one that’s slowing slowing slowing, dying dying dying. “Never…gone.”

            “But I need you here,” he cries, the tears falling too fast to truly try to stop. They fall and burn like fire, like the nature of his blood has only truly come alive in the wake of losing you. “I need you with me!”

            “I…love…you,” you breathe, your hand rising, shaking and quivering from your breast to fall upon his head, sliding to rest upon his cheek, thumb rubbing back and forth, the gesture like that of a butterfly kiss, barely there and quivering all the while. “Always…will.”

            “Please,” he begs but you are gone, hand slipping from his face, body going lax and eyes now glassy and dead, the glimmer of fairy kin gone. 

            Stolen.

            “COME BACK TO ME!” he roars, crawling up the bed, crawling to you, pulling you against him and shaking you. 

            Begging you, to just come back and be with him.

            To maintain your promise. 

***

            He watches you as you approach, mismatched eyes glimmering as you twirl, dancing around the dancers on the stone floor of the Keep, exasperation glimmering in those perfect, fairy kin eyes. 

            “Why do weddings take so damn long?” you cry, falling into his arms, his body reacting, twirling you just slightly as he lifts you up, managing to somehow pull you closer against him, yet it is not enough. Will never be enough.

            “People love us, my storm,” he whispers, voice happy and relaxed, tone full of love and amusement. Amusement that only grows when you place your feet back on the floor and look up at him, exasperation growing, fairy kin eyes narrowing at him, the storm of your nature shining through. 

            “They could love us a little less,” you mutter, glaring at the people around you, lips, those perfect, plush lips, pressing into a line at the sight of the courtiers dancing and laughing and talking, drinking deeply from their cups. “Or you could love me a little more.”

            And that is when Valarr realizes what you want, what you are waiting for. You were waiting for him, possibly for a long time and he had been too dense to understand. To notice. 

            And so he remedies his mistake, guiding you from the hall, up the stairs to the chambers you shall share, the ones which will be the walls of your future, the walls that protect and guard the two of you, shelter you and your love, watch as they grow. 

            He shuts the door behind you, his gaze falling to you, hands careful and gentle as he undoes the laces which hold your gown upon you, slipping the dark red and gold gown from your body, guiding you out of it, of your small clothes, letting you strip him, his body coming alight under your touch. 

            And then his lips find yours, the kiss sweet and innocent before deepening, a collision of tongue and teeth, hands roaming over each other’s bodies, naked form to naked form, the two of you walking to the bed, him pressing you down, his body entirely too hard and rigid, but he ignores. 

            He ignores it, taking to you, to your body, your pleasure. He worships you as you were always meant to be, delighting in the way you unravel around him. Delighting in the way you cry for him. Not his touch, but him in you. The joining.

            And he obliges, sliding inside of you, the feeling too much and yet not enough, strange and all too perfect. He would happily remain like this for all his life, but desire surges and he finds the rhythm of snapping his hips forwards, driving up into you, his tongue still covered in your flavour, the taste of perfection, of storms and dreams and wishes and sins. 

            And when he comes undone, you coming undone around him at the same time, he collapses beside you, pulling you close against him, your chest to his, delighting the way he can feel your heartbeat in his chest, knowing you have the same. 

            Knowing you can feel the evidence of his life as clearly as he can feel yours. And for a moment it is enough, more than enough with the way your lips are pressing against his, lazy kisses, soft kisses, deep kisses. But it’s not enough. 

            “Did you mean your promise that you would never leave me?” he asks now, his voice surprisingly quiet and you look at him with surprise, those fairy kin, storm-bred eyes glimmering with surprise and hurt and fear and love. 

            “Yes, of course,” you whisper, voice fierce, tone fiercer. “I meant every promise I have ever made to you.” And he holds you closer, the feeling of more than enough spreading through him, calming at your words. 

            “I just cannot lose you,” he whispers, watching as your perfect eyes widen in knowing, understanding. 

            “I promise I shall never leave. Never.”

            “I shall hold you to that, my storm.”

***

            “Your Grace,” one of the midwives calls out, her voice cutting through his cries, his desperate pleas of come back to me, just come back. “What about your son?” He glances over, eyes still so full of tears and pain and loss, betrayal anger and inevitability that he cannot see, not truly, not clearly, but at the same enough because he can see the colour of your eyes in the bundle that the midwife holds. 

            And it is too much—and not in the right way. 

            He knows that there are two ways having a child and losing a wife in the same breath can go, knows because your father chose when you were born to love you and because his chose to love Matarys, but he cannot. 

            He cannot love the child that took you because if it had never been born, you would still be here, alive and vibrant and warm in his arms, laughing and dancing and twirling, causing mischief as every inch the storm. 

            He cannot love the thief of your life. 

            “GET HIM OUT OF HERE!” he screams and the midwife is startled, taking a step back and away, the child held loosely in her hands and Valarr wishes she would drop it, that it would die as punishment for taking yours. 

            “But he is your son!” she argues and he only pulls your body, pulls you, closer to him, tears still streaming, sight now impossible and he thanks the tears for he cannot see your eyes in that thief. 

            “GET IT OUT OF MY SIGHT!” he roars and the midwife runs, the Maester following behind until the room is empty, empty of all but you and him. 

            And he pulls you against him, catching the scent of you, cutting through the metallic smell of blood and the sour scent of death. He can smell you, can feel you, can almost pretend that you are warm and alive, blood pumping through your body, that it has not seeped and dried into sheets. 

            No. No, you are alive. You are. He is holding you and you are breathing and your heart is pumping. You must be because you promised. 

            “Come back,” he whispers against your skin, voice cracking and breaking and shattering, throat thick with both shed and unshed tears. “Come back to me. Come back and love me. Please. You promised me!”

            And that is what he whispers into your body’s skin over and over and over, you promised me. 

***

            “I thought I would find you here,” he calls out to you, watching as you stand with your arms spread wide, spinning and twirling in the rain as if you are embracing the storm, dancing with it. 

            “Where else would I be, Valarr?” you reply, your voice sounding like heaven, calm and quiet and joyful, the sound of laughter in a voice and he loves it, loves you. “When the sky opens up, it is because it calls me home!”

            “Home is underneath the rain?” he asks, stepping out into the yard, feeling the droplets land warm and light upon his skin, his hair, plastering it down onto his forehead as he walks to you, his hands coming to rest on your waist, holding lightly as he begins to sway with you, your arms wrapping around his neck in response. 

            “I am a storm, little prince,” you tell him, lips curving up into your fairy kin smile—the one that matches the gleam in your perfect eyes. “And a storm should find peace in the chaos of itself.”

            “Why are you more poetic when you speak of storms then of me?” he asks and is delighted by hearing your laughter, the sound still that of thunder in a lightning storm and silver bells cutting through stillness and silence. The sound so perfect that he wants to bottle it up and save it for whenever you are apart. 

            Which is never, but it could happen. One day. Maybe. 

            “Because I need not be poetic of you,” you answer when your laughter has quieted, one hand coming to cup his cheek, the rain still falling on the two of you, faster and heavier than before. “I love you and I am yours and you are mine and no poetry could ever express that. We,” you lean forwards, pressing your lips to his, the kiss turning deep and hungry, tasting of love and fire and spring rain, “are infinite,” you finish when you pull away, storm and fairy kin eyes turning black as pupils spread. 

            “That we are, my storm,” he replies, leaning forwards, capturing your lips in another kiss. And another and another and another because one is never enough. “That we are.”

***

            Valarr knows not how long he stays there, holding your body to his, only that it has been long enough for the sun to set and rise again, for the moon to sleep and wake again, for night to eat away at day and for day to grow stronger, defeating night for time again. 

            He knows not how long he stays there, holding you close, only that it is long enough for your body to grow rigid in his arms, stiff and unyielding. Only that it is long enough for you to truly disappear, soul disappearing with the Stranger, the body in his arms no longer you and yet still you.

            He knows not how long he stays there only that it is long enough for his tears to turn to memories, images of you and only you dancing through the room. He can see you as a teenager on your visits to the Keep, climbing trees and swearing and teasing. He can see you dancing in Baratheon gold and the Targaryen red. He can see you, you, you, you—a thousand different iterations, but always still you.

            He can see you and where else would he want to be? He is surrounded by every you that you have ever been. He can see you at five, ten, fifteen, twenty. He can see you as you were weeks ago and years ago and it is enough. 

            It has to be. 

            Because you are all there has ever been. All there ever will be and he wants you and only you and yet you are not here. Not truly at all, no. No, he’s surrounded by memories of you, hearing your voice, but not being with you. 

            Your warmth is gone, your tender touches are now just ghostly skims of memories against his skin and it is not enough but it has to be because he can never get you back. 

            But this? These memories, as much as he wants to stay here, he cannot because this is no life. This is a half-life and he promised you a life, not one half-lived. He promised you life and death. Sickness and health. 

            Life…and death.

            And it is then that the memory he needed surfaces, the sight of you smiling, a Queen piece in your hand sitting at the edge of the bed. 

            And he lets himself fall into memory one last time. 

***

            “What would you do if I ever died?” he asks you, eyes on you, not the chessboard as they should be because he is, after all, losing. And losing badly. 

            “Depends,” you answer, your bishop taking his final pawn. “Do we have children in this hypothetical or no?”

            “Children,” he answers and you shrug, watching as he moves his knight forwards, scoffing at the location on the board. 

            “I would mourn you and wear black for the rest of my life and never marry another,” you tell him and he looks at you, confusion in his eyes, confusion warring with happiness, knowing that even if he were gone, he would be the only one for you.

            “And without children?”

            “I’d hurl myself off the balcony,” you tell him, tone thoughtful as you move a pawn to the left, taking the knight he’d just moved. “I wouldn’t want to live without you in either hypothetical but children need a mother. No children…well, I’m free to follow you into the Stranger’s hold. And personally, I like the idea of meeting my end and seeing it happen and watching it as my soul takes the Stranger’s hand and my body smashes into the ground.” To punctuate the statement, you clap your hands together, a giggle escaping from your lips as he moves his rook forwards two spaces. 

            “Very graphic,” he tells you, watching as you lift your queen, twirling it between your fingers. 

            “What about you? What would you do if I died?” you ask, slamming your queen on top of his rook, the chess piece ricocheting off the board and landing on the stone floor with a clatter. 

            “Children or no?” he asks you, noting that he only has one more rook and his king—at this point, you’re just toying with him. 

            “Both, humour me,” you tell him as he slides his rook to the side. 

            “If we have children…I’d have to stay because that’s what’s necessary but no children? I’d follow you to death…just not sure how,” he answers, watching as in one move, you take his rook and place him into checkmate, the game done. 

            “The balcony is a solid choice, my love,” you tell him, giggles leaving your lips as you take in your win, but the giggles don’t last long because he pulls you to him, across the board, pressing his lips to yours. 

            And then he follows you down to the bed. 

***

            Valarr stands, knowing that when he joins you in the After, you will be angry, but also, that you will get over it. You must. Because he promised you life and death and so he must follow you. 

            He has to. 

            There is no him without you, you know this. He’s told you this and you promised him you’d stay. That you would never leave him and he cannot let you break that promise. He must follow you so that you are not a liar. 

            He is doing this for you, for him because he only exists with you. He is Valarr and he is a prince and he is yours. Above all else, he is yours and he only knows how to be yours. How can he live without you?

            The truth is, he cannot. 

            And it is that truth which pulls him from the bed, his arms still holding onto your body, unwilling to let you go, unwilling to be parted from any form of you. Instead, they will find his broken, dead body with yours. 

            Life and death shared. 

            He rises and crosses to the balcony, holding tight to you and looking down at the grassy knoll far below, the one that will soon plummet up to meet him and he looks at the body in his arms, the one that is you but not and he nods. 

            And then he steps forwards, falling off the ledge, gravity taking its toll. He watches as the ground comes rushing up at him, not a single scream leaving his lips because this is what is needed. What he promised you and what you promised him. 

            And he will not see the two of you made liars. 

            It is when the ground is oh so close that he sees you standing there, your hand outstretched and he reaches forwards, taking it and stepping towards you and away from what once was. 

            He is gone before his body hits the ground, before it shatters with yours, before his blood mingles with yours upon the ground. He is gone, with you. 

            To the After. 

            He is not there when his father, holding the bundle of child made of him and you, finds the corpses, the silent screams of a strong man echoing. He is not there to see his father break, to see his brother break. To see a strong family shatter.

            To see his father cry and his brother curse. No, he is gone, blissful and unaware, knowing only the after, knowing only you. 

            Because it is there, in the After, when he is able to tell you why he followed. Why he will always follow you, through all the lives there could ever be. 

            “There is no me without you,” is what he told you but he needn’t have because you knew. You had always known. 

When Queen Dowager Myriah began to miss Dorne in earnest, the whole Red Keep felt it.

It came upon her in the mornings first, when the sea wind off Blackwater Bay blew damp and chill through the carved stone screens of Maegor’s Holdfast, and she would sit wrapped in saffron silk with her hands held out over a brazier as if the coals might remember a kinder sun. Then it came at supper, when she picked at river trout and barley and sighed for blood oranges split open with a dagger, for peppers fried in oil, for figs so ripe they stained the fingers.

Sometimes it took her when the court musicians played for her. They would pluck their harps and scrape their fiddles, and the Queen Dowager would close her eyes and say, in a voice tired enough to make old men look away, “It is not the music. It is only noise. Bring me a Dornishman with a lute, and then I shall tell you if you play.”

King’s Landing laughed at much and remembered little, but it remembered that Myriah Martell had once been a princess beneath a hotter sky. In the first years she had been beautiful in the way a bright blade is beautiful. Age gentled nothing essential in her. It only made her quiet. A quiet Queen Dowager was a dangerous thing. People lowered their voices around her without knowing why.

In the ninth year after her husband’s death, she sent for you.

Your mother kissed your brow at Sunspear and called you a comfort sent to the capital in her stead. Your brothers argued over which of them ought to accompany you and who ought to kill whichever lordling first made you cry. Your grandmother muttered that the capital was a nest of rats in velvet. But Queen Dowager Myriah had written in her own hand, and when the Queen Dowager of the realm asked for blood, blood went.

So they wrapped you in soft orange silk and pearls from the Greenblood, set you in a litter beneath a canopy to keep off the sun, and carried you from the only world you had known.

You were eight years old when you first saw the Red Keep, all red stone and black shadow, crouched above the city like some old beast with its paws dug into the hill. The air smelled wrong. King’s Landing had no clean heat to it. It smelled of smoke, salt, horse piss, fish, and people packed so close together that the city seemed to sweat.

You shrank behind your Septa Elia’s skirts when they led you through the outer yards. Men shouted. Wheels shrieked against stone. Armor flashed. Somewhere high above, gulls screamed like angry women.

And then a boy’s voice said, “That cannot be her.”

You looked up.

He was all dark-hair and solemn mismatched purple and brown eyes, standing in the sunlight with one hand on the pommel of a practice sword. He was older than you by some years, long-limbed already, though youth had not yet left his face. There was a bruise darkening one cheekbone and a rent in his sleeve. Even then he carried himself as if people stepped aside for him as naturally as water flows downhill.

Prince Valarr Targaryen. The first time you saw him, he looked at you as if disappointed that the living thing before him did not match the tale.

Queen Dowager Myriah, seated beneath a shaded gallery, snorted softly. “And what were you expecting, grandson? A full-grown lady with golden cups for breasts and a train of singers at her heels?”

Valarr went red beneath the bruise. “I was not.”

“No?” Your great-aunt crooked a finger at you. “Come here, my sweet summer child.”

You came, though the prince was still staring.

Queen Dowager Myriah took your chin and turned your face toward the light. “There. Do you see her now? Your father’s cousin’s daughter. Brought all the way from Sunspear because I grew weary of all your pale northern faces.”

He looked. His expression changed.

You never forgot that change.

One instant he was a prince annoyed at being made to wait in the yard. The next he was a boy quite struck dumb by what he had found where he had expected a child. Later, when you were older, women would say that men first looked at beauty as if it were a gift, and only after that as if it were a thing they might take. Prince Valarr did not look at you that second way then. Not yet. He only looked as if some part of him had shifted in its place.

Your great-aunt laughed beneath her breath. “Well?”

Prince Valarr came forward with all the grave importance of eleven. “She looks like a water lily.”

You blinked at him.

“A what?” said Queen Dowager Myriah.

“A water lily.” He said it stubbornly now, because children once challenged will sooner bite than retreat. “One of the white ones in the pools. Only prettier.”

Queen Dowager Myriah’s gaze flicked from him to you and back again, and something old and knowing stirred in her eyes. “Does she?”

You ought to have curtsied. Septa Elia had hissed it into your ear all the way from Dorne. Instead you said, because children in Dorne were not bred to still their tongues as carefully as those at court, “You look as if someone struck you.”

The bruise on his face had gone almost black at the edges. One corner of his mouth twitched.

“He did,” said Queen Dowager Myriah dryly. “Your cousin Aerion. Valarr believed himself faster. He was wrong.”

Prince Valarr lifted his chin. “I knocked him down first.”

You considered that with all the fierce seriousness of eight. Then you fished in the folds of your sleeve for the sugared orange peel you had been saving and held it out to him. “For the bruise.”

The prince of Dragonstone stared at the small sticky curl in your palm as if no one had ever offered him anything so ridiculous in all his life.

Then he took it.

That was how it began.

//

After that, Prince Valarr was everywhere.

He came to the Queen Dowager’s quarter under one pretext and another; to ask Queen Dowager Myriah about Dornish spear-work, to return a book he had not borrowed, to complain of his tutors, to escape his mother’s ladies, to sit and listen while old men played cyvasse with the Queen Dowager and pretended not to be losing. If Queen Dowager Myriah was amused, she would hide it badly.

“Again?” she would say when he arrived.

“I am fond of your company, grandmother.”

“You are fond of pestering my household.”

“I can be fond of both things.”

He always had something for you. A carved horse from the toy market, though one of its legs was slightly crooked. A ribbon the color of pomegranate seeds. A smooth black shell he had found beside the river and cleaned with his own sleeve. Once, a white lily from the pool in the godswood gardens, its stem wrapped in wet cloth so it would not droop before he reached you.

“For the water lily,” he said, holding it out.

You took it as carefully as if it had been made of glass.

He watched your face as you smiled, and the looking on his own face made Queen Dowager Myriah say, in a voice like silk drawn over steel, “Careful, prince. Such names become dangerous if spoken too often.”

Prince Valarr looked at her. “How can a flower be dangerous?”

“Flowers are never dangerous,” said Queen Dowager Myriah. “Only the promises men make when handing them over.”

He was too young then to understand, and perhaps too proud ever to admit confusion. He only glanced at you again, stubborn and bright. “I make none I do not mean.”

Queen Dowager Myriah drank her wine and said no more.

//

You grew in the Red Keep the way a greenhouse flower might, protected from harsh weather by other people’s hands. Your great-aunt kept you close. Septa Elia watched you like a hawk. Men-at-arms escorted you to lessons, to the gardens, to the Queen Dowager’s private sept. You did not ride wild across the sands as your brothers did. You did not run the roofs at dusk with a knife in your teeth the way the Sand girls were said to do. In King’s Landing you learned other things; how to sit still for hours while needlewomen fitted gowns to your changing body, how to dance the stately court dances, how to hear insults hidden inside flattery and answer with a smile sharp enough to draw blood.

But some softness survived the city.

Prince Valarr saw to that.

He taught you the secret ways through the Red Keep no septa knew, the postern stairs that turned twice and opened behind old tapestries, the place where the wall over the sea had crumbled just enough that a slim child might squeeze through and sit with her feet dangling over the drop while the gulls wheeled below. He let you touch the warm velvet nose of a young dragon-horse mare though the stablemaster had forbidden it. He brought you to the rookery once to watch the ravens fed, and laughed when one hopped up on your wrist and stole the fig from your hand.

“You are too gentle,” he told you.

“You are too proud,” you told him back.

He grinned. “So? I am a prince.”

“And I am a princess.”

“A little one.”

“So are you. You are only a little prince.”

That sent him lunging for you. You fled shrieking through the rookery while ravens beat their wings above your heads. When he caught you at last in the turn of a stair, both of you breathless and laughing, his hands circled your waist. It should have been nothing, only a boy’s game. But even then his hold was strangely sure, as if your shape belonged there. His laughter faded first. You looked up and found him looking down.

For an instant neither of you moved.

Then Septa Elia called your name from the yard below, furious as judgment, and Prince Valarr let you go so quickly it was almost a shove.

“Go on,” he muttered.

You ran, though you looked back twice before the stairs turned.

That night Queen Dowager Myriah brushed your hair with a silver brush and asked, lightly, “And what mischief did my prince lead you into today?”

You, half asleep already beneath the brush’s rhythm, told her about the ravens and the fig and the chase up the stairs.

Queen Dowager Myriah’s hand slowed.

When she spoke again her voice was very quiet. “You must take care with my grandson, my summer child.”

“He would never hurt me.”

Your great-aunt set the brush aside. In the polished bronze mirror you could see her face behind yours, lined and beautiful still, hard with the kind of tenderness that had lived too long beside power.

“Men rarely mean to do the worst hurts,” she said. “That is what makes them so dangerous.”

You did not understand her then.

If you had, perhaps some part of you would have hardened in time.

But children who are cherished too carefully grow up believing love can be trusted. It is a costly belief.

//

By the time you flowered into girlhood, the court had begun to speak.

Not loudly, not where kings or queens might hear, but in alcoves and behind painted fans and along the edges of feast halls where ladies sat with their cups and measured other people’s futures. Prince Valarr and the Dornish princess. The Queen Dowager’s lovely dornish niece and the heir’s son. What prettier match could the realm desire, people asked, as if pretty things had ever once guided kings. Dorne would smile on it. The Queen Dowager would bless it. And everyone knew how the prince looked at her.

You heard it first from a serving girl pinning your sleeve.

“He will wed you one day,” she blurted, unable to keep such sweetness behind her teeth.

Septa Elia sent her away, white with fury.

But the words had gone in.

You watched Prince Valarr after that with new eyes.

He had grown handsome in a way that made older women looked twice and younger girls clumsy with their hands. He was tall now, his shoulders broader, his face losing the last softness of childhood. Purple and brown eyes beneath dark lashes; a mouth made for pride and cruelty, though you had known it gentled by laughter. When he came from the yard damp with sweat and sun, stripped to linen and leather, the kitchen maids forgot their work. When he wore black velvet at court, lords twice his age watched him and thought of crowns.

Yet with you he could still become the boy on the stairs.

He mocked your singing and then sat silent when you truly sang. He stole slices of pear from your plate and complained that Dornish cooks drowned everything in spice, only to take second helpings when your great-aunt served peppered lamb. He brought you stories from his lessons and listened, half smiling, while you read to him from old Rhoynish romances.

When you pricked your finger on a needle once and hissed, he took your hand without asking and pressed your fingertip to his lips to stop the bead of blood.

The two young serving girls by the washstand froze with a folded length of linen between them, each staring openly before remembering themselves and dropping their eyes. One of the older slave women, who had been pouring wine for the Queen Dowager, halted with the flagon suspended in midair, red wine trembling at the lip but not falling. Near the carved screen, a pair of eunuch attendants went motionless as statues, their careful court faces emptied of all expression save for that flicker—brief, dangerous, human—of astonishment. Even the old nurse who had been sorting sewing silks in the corner stopped with thread wound round her fingers, her mouth parting as if she had witnessed an obscenity or a prayer.

No one spoke.

No one dared.

But you felt their seeing as sharply as if every gaze had laid a hand upon your skin.

You could not breathe.

His mouth against your finger was no more than the briefest touch, a princely courtesy if named aloud, but it did not feel courteous. It felt intimate in a way that made your pulse falter. There was nothing mocking in it, nothing careless. He held your hand as though it mattered to him. As though the tiny wound had struck him too. As though he had forgotten every eye watching in the room and remembered only you.

That was the most dangerous part.

Not that he touched you.

That he touched you like a man who had wanted to do so for longer than he ought.

You could not breathe.

Prince Valarr seemed not to notice what he had done until he looked up and found your face.

For one ruinous instant, he was no prince at all. Not the heir, not the polished darling of the court, not the boy trained from infancy never to reveal more than he chose. He was only Valarr—young, unguarded, and caught bare before you, with your blood at his mouth and something like hunger in his eyes.

Then, as if waking, he saw the room.

Saw the stillness of the servants. Saw the bowed heads that had been too slow in bowing. Saw the older slave woman standing with the wine as if she had turned to carved salt. Saw the heat rising in your face. Saw what he had made plain without meaning to.

For the first time in your life, the prince was speechless.

Color climbed his throat.

Then Queen Dowager Myriah spoke from her chair by the window, where she had plainly seen everything and enjoyed it far too much.

“If you mean to court my niece, grandson,” she said, with murderous sweetness, “do try to do it where old women may nap in peace.”

He straightened as if she had struck him. “I was not—”

“Weren’t you?” Queen Dowager Myriah’s eyes were wicked over the rim of her cup. “Then perhaps I am losing my sight with age. I thought I saw a boy worshipping.”

You fled the room in shame and delight so sharp they were almost pain.

That night, under embroidered coverlets, you pressed your still-throbbing fingertip to your lips and smiled into the dark.

You were foolish enough to think that such things meant one thing only.

Perhaps they did, at first.

The trouble with young princes is not that they feel nothing. It is that they feel too much and mistake hunger for love, pride for devotion, possession for tenderness. And because the world opens for them wherever they put a hand, they seldom learn the difference until something precious has already broken.

//

Prince Valarr grew older. So did the court around him.

The king began to bring him into councils. Lords watched him more carefully. Ladies smiled longer. Songs were sung with his name worked cleverly into the refrain. And with every year, the women who looked at him looked at you too, measuring, tallying, wondering.

At fourteen, you were all softness still, though beauty had sharpened you. Your hair fell heavy as dark honey. Your eyes had the sleepy depth of the Greenblood at dusk. Men said you were as fair as the water lily of Sunspear, and women said it more often, which meant the words had begun to stick. You did not yet know how to use beauty as armor. You wore it like innocence wears white; without knowing how quickly it stains.

At sixteen, Valarr kissed you for the first time.

Not on the lips.

You had been in the Queen Dowager’s gardens at twilight, the two of you walking among the lemon trees where lanterns had just been lit. Court music drifted from the hall beyond, and the air was sweet with crushed mint and orange blossom. You had told him that a lord from the Reach had asked the Queen Dowager’s leave to send you poems.

Prince Valarr stopped walking.

“Who?”

“Lord Rowan’s second son.” You tried for lightness. “He writes very poorly. In one verse my eyes changed color thrice.”

“I shall have his hand cut off.”

You laughed, because that was what he always said when men admired you too openly. But there was something strange in him that night, some bright hard thing beneath the jest.

“You cannot cut off every hand in the Seven Kingdoms.”

“No,” he said. “Only the ones that reach.”

The lemon leaves whispered above you. Somewhere beyond them people laughed. You looked at him and found no smile at all.

“Valarr,” you said softly.

He took a step nearer. “Did you like the poem?”

“It was dreadful.”

“But you smiled when you spoke of it.”

“I smile at dreadful things often in this city.”

“You smiled at him.”

You had. Only once. Court taught girls to smile before it taught them anything else.

He reached up as if to move a strand of hair from your face, then hesitated. The hesitation shook you more than boldness would have. Prince Valarr never hesitated. Not with swords, not with horses, not with argument.

“Do you know,” he said, very low, “what it does to me when other men look at you?”

The garden seemed suddenly too close, all perfume and heat.

Your throat felt dry. “No.”

He made a sound that might have been a laugh, if laughter could bleed. Then he bent and pressed his mouth to your brow.

Nothing more. Only that.

Yet the touch lingered like a brand. His lips were warm. His hand came to rest, careful and fierce, at the side of your throat, his thumb just beneath your ear where your pulse ran wild. He breathed once against your skin, as if the nearness of you itself had made him unsteady.

“When you come of age,” he said, not quite against your forehead and not quite to the air, “there will be no poems.”

You looked up into his face. “What will there be?”

His gaze dropped to your mouth and held there long enough that your knees weakened.

“Something truer.”

Then he stepped back.

You ought to have asked what he meant. You ought to have demanded plain words, the sort men cannot wriggle free of after the fact. Instead you went to bed floating on the memory of his mouth against your skin and the dark promise in his voice.

When you come of age.

What could that mean, save what everyone already believed?

You were innocent enough to call it love and wise enough only in your body, which knew that something had changed forever.

After that, your heart lived in expectation.

Every feast, every hunt, every nameday, every council where great men gathered and women whispered of betrothals and alliances—you waited for the turn. For the moment some king, some queen, the Queen Dowager would speak what had long been growing between you. You waited when Prince Valarr brought you rubies from a merchant ship and fastened the chain himself at your throat. You waited when he stood behind your chair at supper and poured your wine before his own. You waited when he danced with you at midsummer so long that musicians grew tired and had to change instruments. You waited because he looked at you as if you were already his.

And because you were loved too carefully, no one taught you how men might still break what they think belongs to them.

//

She came to court in the autumn.

Lady Serenei of Lys arrived on a ship with purple sails and a wake of stories longer than the gangplank. She was the widowed daughter of a merchant prince, or the cast-off mistress of an archon, or a cousin to the Rogares through some branch perfumed and rotten as old fruit. The truth changed with the mouth that told it. What stayed constant was this; she was beautiful in the way flame is beautiful.

Not innocent. Not sweet. Not the sort of beauty poets lay lilies beside.

Serenei was older than you by some years, though not so many that she seemed a woman from another age. Her hair shone pale as beaten gold with Lysene silver in it. Her eyes were dark blue, her mouth full and knowing. She wore gowns cut lower than King’s Landing approved and moved as if clothes had never once in her life taught her shame. She laughed with her head tilted back, showing her throat. Men leaned nearer when she spoke and farther still when she was silent, trying to coax the next word from her lips.

Women hated her at once.

Men called that hatred envy, because men find envy flattering where they would find intelligence insulting.

You saw her first in the throne room, all blue silk and pearls, kneeling before the king with a petition regarding some customs dispute involving her late husband’s ships. You were beside the Queen Dowager, half hidden in the shadow of her chair. Serenei spoke in the Common Tongue with a soft Lysene lilt that turned even accountings into seduction.

King Baelor smiled more than the matter warranted.

Prince Matarys laughed aloud at something she said.

Prince Valarr did not laugh. He only watched.

You felt it before you understood it. His stillness. The sharpened attention in him. The same slight change that had come over him once, years before, when Queen Dowager Myriah turned your face to the light and made him look.

Only now you were old enough to know what it meant.

Your stomach dropped.

Queen Dowager Myriah, who had spent half a lifetime reading men who believed themselves unreadable, tapped her finger once against the arm of her chair.

“Ah,” she murmured.

You made yourself ask, “Ah what?”

“Trouble.”

“From her?”

Queen Dowager Myriah did not take her eyes from Prince Valarr. “No. From him.”

You wanted to say she was mistaken. Prince Valarr had looked at many women. Men always looked. He was a prince and handsome and seventeen besides. It meant nothing. Less than nothing. He would glance, and the court would sigh, and tomorrow he would be in the gardens asking why you had not finished the tale of Nymeria.

But the court did not sigh and move on.

It watched.

Serenei remained after her petition was heard. Then after the feast. Then after three more suppers and an evening of music in the queen’s quarters. She was invited hawking with the royal party. She sat beside the king’s nieces at a mummer’s show and wore green velvet that made half the hall forget the players’ lines. She danced with Prince Matarys, then with Lord Redwyne’s heir, then with Prince Valarr.

When Prince Valarr’s hand settled at her waist, something hot and sharp slid between your ribs.

You told yourself it was only surprise. She was very lovely. He was a prince. Princes danced.

Then Serenei laughed up at him under the candlelight, and Prince Valarr bent his head to hear her better, and the look on his face was not courtly boredom or pleasant obligation or anything else you had trained yourself to endure.

It was interest.

No, worse. Delight.

He looked entertained. Alive. Slightly dangerous in the way men become when a woman has made them feel older, bolder, more worshipped than they were five moments before.

You stood so still that your maid had to murmur your name twice before you heard.

“Princess?”

You smiled because all girls at court learned early that smiles are cheaper than screams. “Yes?”

“The Queen Dowager asked if you are unwell.”

You turned. Queen Dowager Myriah’s eyes were on you, dark and exacting.

“I am well,” you said.

You were not. You were only beginning to learn the shape of a new kind of pain.

That night Prince Valarr did come to the Queen Dowager’s quarters, but not for you.

He came flushed from dancing and wine, careless with happiness, and stood at Queen Dowager Myriah’s fire asking if she remembered the old Lysene banking wars. Had she ever met the Rogares? Was it true Lys prized wit above birth? Had she heard that Lady Serenei’s first husband had bought her a summer palace with walls made of green-veined marble?

You sat silent with your embroidery in your lap and watched him talk of another woman.

It was not the facts that hurt. It was the shine in him. The eagerness. The absence of caution. Men do not speak so when they are guarding themselves.

Queen Dowager Myriah, wise enough to hear the bruise forming beneath your stillness, answered coolly. “Lys prizes pleasure above all and calls the rest wit to make itself feel noble.”

Valarr smiled. “You mislike her.”

“I mislike nothing so much as a fire in dry weather.”

He laughed, took your unfinished embroidery from your lap without asking, and studied the tangled silk threads. “This is a flower?”

“A lily,” you said.

He looked at the half-made shape, then at you. “It needs more work.”

You thought, ‘So do I’, but only bent to retrieve it from his hand.

His fingers held the cloth a moment longer than they must. “Will you walk tomorrow?”

“In the gardens?”

“By the river.”

Your heart, traitorous and hopeful even then, stirred. “If my great-aunt allows it.”

Queen Dowager Myriah said, “I allow nothing so easily as my own boredom. Take her. And remember, grandson—rivers carry away all kinds of things. Even princes who think themselves too grand to drown.”

Prince Valarr only laughed again.

The next day he did not come.

A messenger brought apologies; Prince Valarr had been detained at arms practice, then in council, then by the king. By evening everyone knew he had ridden out with Lady Serenei to see a shipment of glass lamps newly arrived from Lys.

You sat by the window until the candles guttered and told yourself you had no right to feel betrayed.

It was only a ride.

It was only a missed walk.

It was only that something once so constant had failed to arrive where your foolish heart had expected it.

When he came two days later full of stories about colored flame in glass bowls and a singer Serenei had sworn was famous in the Free Cities, you answered politely enough that he frowned.

“What ails you?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing makes you look so cast down?”

You smoothed the fold of your sleeve. “Should something ail me?”

He stared. Prince Valarr had always understood you too quickly. That was part of the cruelty of what came after; you could never tell yourself he had not known.

He lowered himself into the chair opposite yours. “You are cold.”

“How can I be, my prince? I am Dornish. The city makes ice of me.”

“That is not it.”

“No?”

“No.” He leaned forward, elbows on knees, dark hair falling loose over one brow. “You are angry.”

It would have been easy then. Easy enough to say, ‘You were to walk with me’. Easy enough to say, ‘You looked for me once and do not anymore’. Easy enough, perhaps, to say the thing crouched behind all the rest; who is she to take from me what I thought had long been mine?

But no woman at court survived by naming her wounds too plainly, and no innocent girl wished to look ridiculous before the man who had caused them.

So you smiled. “Then perhaps I am.”

“At what?”

“At being forgotten.”

Prince Valarr’s face changed. “I did not forget you.”

“No?” You lifted one shoulder. “Then I was set aside. Is that better?”

His jaw tightened. “You know it is not.”

“Do I?”

The question sat between you.

He was too proud to answer honestly. You were too hurt to help him.

At last he rose. “You are being unfair.”

You could not help it. The laugh came out thin. “A prince lecturing a girl on fairness. That is sweet.”

He looked at you as if he wanted to seize your wrists. For a moment you thought he might. Instead he said, clipped and cold, “Princess, I had thought you are above pouting.”

The words struck harder because they were so mild.

You sat very straight. “And I had thought myself remembered.”

He left without bowing.

Only after the door shut did your hands begin to shake.

From the chair by the hearth, Queen Dowager Myriah said, “There. He has drawn first blood.”

You pressed your nails into your palms. “He did not mean—”

“Do not defend him to me.” Her voice cut. “I have known dragon princes since before he was born. They are never so dangerous as when they are certain a thing will wait for them.”

You looked at her helplessly. “Am I a thing?”

Her face softened, which was worse somehow. “To you, no. To him…” She exhaled through her nose. “Perhaps not. But men may still break what they love if they think it cannot leave.”

//

The winter feasts began, and with them came the slow bright torture of being young and graceful and forced always into the same room as the woman who had made a prince forget his own hands.

Lady Serenei was not cruel to you.

Serenei was charming.

She called you sweet princess in that low warm voice and admired your gowns and asked after Dorne as if the sands and palaces there were places from a song she had long hoped to hear completed. Once she touched the ruby at your throat—the one Prince Valarr had given you two years before—and smiled.

“A gift?”

“Yes.”

“From someone who knows your coloring very well.”

You could not think what to say. It was Prince Valarr who answered, coming up just then with a cup in hand.

“I chose it.”

Serenei turned her face to him, all velvet amusement. “Did you? Then you have an eye for beauty, my prince.”

His smile at her was quick and unguarded. “I am discovering I do.”

The room seemed to tilt.

Serenei’s fingers fell away from your ruby. She did not miss the way your breath caught. Women like her missed nothing. Her gaze moved once between your face and Prince Valarr’s and away again, smooth as silk over a blade.

“Then perhaps,” she said, “you are becoming wise.”

Valarr answered, “Only perhaps?”

They laughed together.

That night, in the privacy of your chamber, you took off the ruby necklace and put it away.

You did not wear it again.

Court went on. It always does. That is one of its ugliest talents.

//

Prince Valarr hunted with Serenei. He played cyvasse with her till midnight. He escorted her through galleries lit with a thousand candles, bent his head to her whispers, smiled at her from across crowded halls with that quick private curve of mouth you had thought yours to know best. Rumors spread like spilled wine. Lady Serenei had bewitched the prince. Lady Serenei meant to secure a marriage. Lady Serenei meant only to amuse herself. Lady Serenei had a talent for making boys think themselves men.

You tried not to listen. You listened to every word.

And because the gods are cruel, because they love symmetry in the suffering of young hearts, Prince Valarr began at the same time to grow jealous of the men around you.

If a lord’s son danced with you, Prince Valarr appeared before the second song ended. If a knight praised your singing, Prince Valarr laughed too coldly and asked whether the man was deaf as well as lustful. If flowers came to your chamber from some hopeful fool, Prince Valarr found them and had them sent to the Queen Dowager’s kitchens for garnishing trout.

“You cannot do that,” you said when you learned of it.

“I can.”

“They were not yours.”

His eyes flashed. “No?”

The word landed between you both like a slap. You went still. He seemed to hear himself only after he had spoken. Something dark and raw crossed his face.

“Do not look at me so, princess.” He said.

“How should I look at you, my prince?”

“As if I have offended you.”

You stared. “Have you not?”

He moved a pace nearer, then another. There was winter in him and fever besides. “You smile at any man who throws a flower.”

“I smile because court demands it.”

“You smiled at Ser Daeron Dayne longer than court demanded.”

You laughed then, a sound edged enough to cut. “And you count the beats? Is that how dearly idle you have grown?”

His nostrils flared. “I saw him touch your hand.”

“And I saw Lady Serenei touch much more than that, but I had the grace not to make a scene.”

His face went white, then hard.

For one mad instant you thought he might strike the wall beside your head or crush the flowers in his fist or seize you and do something reckless enough to satisfy the rage in his throat. Instead he said, in a voice gone frighteningly calm, “You are not Serenei.”

There are blows that bruise flesh and blows that bruise pride. The latter linger longer.

“No,” you said, and your own voice surprised you with how small it sounded. “I am not.”

You moved to go around him. He caught your wrist.

His hand was hot. Yours felt nothing but coldness.

“I did not mean—”

“What did you mean?” You looked down at his fingers. “Release me.”

He let go at once, as if burned.

The silence afterward was terrible.

At last you said, not looking at him, “You need not fear, my prince. I have no wish to resemble your lady.”

She was not his lady. You both knew that. Yet the title stung him.

“Do not call her that.”

“Then what shall I call her? The woman you choose before the court?”

Color rose in his face. “You speak as though—”

“As though what?” Your heart was beating so hard you could barely hear yourself. “As though I had some claim? I know very well I do not.”

Something naked flashed through his eyes then, so swift you almost thought it imagined. Hurt, perhaps. Or guilt. Or some uglier likeness to love.

But Prince Valarr had always been strongest where he ought most to have yielded. Instead of softening, he hardened.

“You are being childish.”

The word split you open.

Childish.

As if all those years had been nothing but a fond prince indulging a little girl’s fancy. As if the brow-kiss in the lemon grove, the lilies, the promises half-spoken and never denied, the possessive tenderness, the look in his eyes when other men stared—all of it had belonged to your imagination alone.

He saw your face and knew at once he had gone too far.

You could tell because for the first time in your life Prince Valarr looked afraid.

“Listen to me,” he began.

But the dignity of women is a strange stubborn thing. It may survive where tenderness does not.

You curtsied to him with all the grace Queen Dowager Myriah’s stern ladies had ever beaten into your spine.

“As you command, my prince.”

Then you walked away before he could see that the world had blurred.

//

For three days you did not weep.

You sat with your great-aunt. You listened to music. You read in the afternoons. You smiled when spoken to and answered when required. The court remarked that the Dornish princess had grown quieter, which is interesting only because quiet women are harder to read and therefore more amusing to speculate about.

On the fourth day, Serenei came to the Queen Dowager’s quarters alone.

Queen Dowager Myriah received her by the fire with perfect courtesy and left you both beneath the pretense of a headache, though not before giving Serenei a look so dry it might have turned wine back to grapes. When the door shut, Serenei turned to you.

She had come in dark blue samite with silver threading, severe by her standards. Even so, there was something about her that made every room she entered feel softer and more dangerous.

“You do not like me,” she said.

You had expected many openings. Not honesty.

“It would be discourteous to say so.”

“Discourtesy has never yet killed me.” She smiled a little. “Though I admit it has often improved my day.”

You folded your hands in your lap. “What do you want of me, my lady?”

Serenei watched you for a long moment. When she spoke, her voice had changed. Less playful. More woman to woman.

“Something I should not be kind enough to give.”

You said nothing.

She moved to the window and touched the carved stone screen with one finger. “You were raised too carefully.”

The words stung because they were true, and because they came from a stranger.

“I do not think Lady Serenei came to discuss my upbringing.”

“No.” She looked back. “I came because your prince bores me.”

You stared at her.

“My prince?”

She laughed softly. “There. That hurt you, so it must be true.” Her gaze went almost pitying, which you could not bear. “He wants me because I am a mirror that flatters him. Men often do when they are young. I let him feel bold. Older. Desired. He thinks that means he wants me.”

“And do you?”

“Want him?” She shrugged one lovely bare shoulder. “He is beautiful. He is vain enough to be amusing and proud enough to be difficult. There are worse toys.”

Toys.

The room seemed to tighten around your lungs.

Serenei saw it and, to her credit, did not soften the word.

“I thought at first he was merely another prince with a warm mouth and too much confidence. Then I saw the way he watched doors when you had not yet entered a room. The way he listened for your laugh even while I was speaking. The way his face changed when some other man stood too near you.” Her mouth curved, but there was no real mirth in it. “It is a tiresome thing, to flirt with one person while another haunts the blood beneath his skin.”

You could hear your own heartbeat. “Why tell me this?”

“Because I dislike being mistaken for a victor when I have only interrupted a child’s dream.”

“I am not a child.”

“No.” Serenei’s eyes traveled over your face with a frankness almost tender. “That is the misfortune.”

She turned away from the window.

“If he wanted me truly,” she said, “I might keep him a while. I am not noble enough to refuse a prince merely because it would wound another woman. But he does not want me truly. He wants what I let him feel when he has forgotten himself. It is not the same thing. And soon enough, if he has any sense at all, he will learn where his ruin lies.”

You rose to your feet, trembling. “You speak as if this is some game.”

Serenei’s expression flickered. “For men like him, at first, it often is.”

“And for women?”

“For women,” she said, “it is usually misfortune.”

When she had gone, you stood in the empty chamber for a long while without moving.

Part of you wanted to hate her. Another part, more frightened, wanted to believe her.

But belief would have required hope, and hope by then had become a blade you no longer knew how to touch safely.

//

That evening Prince Valarr came to the gardens where you sat alone beneath a bare pear tree.

The sky was iron-grey. Wind moved through the branches with the sound of distant skirts. He looked as if he had not slept. There were hollows beneath his eyes and something unresolved in the set of his mouth, as though pride and urgency had fought there all day and neither had won cleanly.

“You have avoided me.”

You kept your gaze on the pond. The winter lilies were gone. Only black water remained. “Have I?”

“Yes.”

“And yet you found me.”

He came to stand beside the bench. “Do not do this.”

At that you looked up. “Do what?”

“Speak as if I am a stranger.”

“Aren’t you?”

His jaw worked. “No.”

It was the wrong answer and the only one he had.

You rose because sitting beneath him felt too much like yielding. “Then tell me what I am to you.”

The question froze him.

You had never asked it so plainly. Perhaps because you had always thought you would not need to.

Prince Valarr looked at you, and in his face you saw every dear and terrible thing you had loved; the pride, the heat, the possessive tenderness, the quickness to jealousy, the inborn expectation that the world would wait while he chose among its gifts. You saw too that he knew the truth and did not know how to speak it without giving away more of himself than he had meant to.

“You know,” he said at last.

“No,” you whispered. “I do not. I knew a boy who brought me lilies and told me there would be something truer when I came of age. I knew a prince who could not bear other men’s eyes on me. I knew someone who made me think—” Your voice broke. You swallowed hard. “But perhaps I was childish after all.”

He took a step toward you. “Do not say that.”

“Why not? You did.”

“I was angry.”

“You are often angry.”

“With cause.”

The laugh escaped before you could stop it, sharp as broken glass. “And I? Have I none?”

He stared at you. For one moment, all the arrogance dropped away and he was only a young man who had blundered into the wreckage of something precious.

“I do not know how to answer you,” he said.

There it was. Not denial. Not cruelty. Something perhaps even worse.

The truth, or part of it.

You looked at him until your eyes stung.

Then you said, “That is answer enough.”

You brushed past him. He caught your sleeve, not hard, but with desperation in it now.

“Listen to me.”

“I have listened all my life.”

He moved in front of you, forcing you to stop. “You think because I have taken pleasure in another woman—”

The words themselves were a knife.

You flinched.

Prince Valarr saw and stopped short, horror flashing across his face at what he had laid bare.

“Gods,” he muttered. “I did not mean it thus.”

“Then how did you mean it?”

His hand lifted and fell helplessly. “I do not know.”

That, more than anything, truly hurt you.

Not that he had desired someone else. Men did. Princes most of all. Even you, cloistered and protected, knew that much of the world. It was that he had not known himself. Had not known the value of what he held while he reached elsewhere for heat and vanity and proof of his own power.

You stepped back. “Then learn, my prince. Only do it away from me.”

He said your name.

You did not stop.

Behind you, the wind troubled the dark water where the lilies would bloom again in spring, indifferent to the hearts they had once been compared to.

//

The thing about heartbreak is that it makes every rumor monstrous.

Before Serenei, if someone had said Prince Valarr had kissed a woman in a gallery or laid his head in some widow’s lap while she sang, it would have embarrassed you faintly and drifted by. Princes were princes. The court was rotten. Such things were weather.

After Serenei, every whisper was a raven pecking at your ribs.

He had walked her to her chambers after midnight.

He had wagered against Lord Darklyn over a strip of Volantene silk she admired.

He had torn a singer’s ballad in half because it likened Serenei’s eyes to sapphires rather than the Summer Sea.

He had laughed when Serenei spilled wine on his hand and bent to lick it away before half the hall.

That last one was false. Perhaps. You heard it from three different mouths, which at court meant only that the lie pleased people too much not to repeat.

Then came the masque.

The king had ordered it for the turn of the year, a great glittering thing with dancers from Braavos, torches in the yard, masks of beaten gold and feathers, mulled wine flowing from painted casks. Women wore pearls in their hair and little enough else. Men wore velvet and arrogance. The Red Keep glittered like a dragon’s hoard.

Queen Dowager Myriah made you wear pale gold and ivory, with tiny seed pearls sewn along the sleeves so they caught the light when you moved. “If men are to be fools tonight,” she said, “let them at least be struck blind while doing it.”

You smiled because she wished it, though your heart had felt hollow for days.

Valarr, masked in black and silver, found you before the first dance and stood too close.

“You are beautiful,” he said.

You lowered your eyes because if you met his then, you feared your composure might split. “You need not tell me so. Half the hall has already done it.”

“I am not half the hall.”

No, you thought. You are only the one whose voice still matters when it should not.

He held out his hand. “Dance with me.”

Across the room Serenei leaned against a pillar in dark blue silk that clung like water, a silver mask lifted carelessly to her hair. She was watching you both.

“I think,” you said, “you are engaged elsewhere.”

His mouth hardened. “Must we do this always?”

“Do what?”

“Speak as if every word between us hides a knife.”

You looked up then. “Does it not?”

For a heartbeat you thought he might say something reckless and true.

Instead Prince Matarys crashed into him laughing, already half drunk, and dragged him away to witness some foolery involving a Braavosi acrobat and a frightened spaniel dressed in ribbons. The moment broke.

Later, Lord Daeron Dayne asked you to dance.

He was beautiful in the way Daynes often were, all dusk-dark elegance and pale eyes bright as morning steel. In another life, had you met him beside the Greenblood or at some wedding in Sunspear, you might have liked him. That night you liked only that he made no false promises and did not look at other women over your shoulder.

“You are very grave for a girl dressed like dawn,” he murmured as you turned through the steps.

“I am thinking wicked thoughts.”

“About me? I am honored.”

“About princes.”

Daeron’s mouth twitched. “Ah. Then I am safer than I hoped.”

From across the hall, you felt Valarr’s gaze hit like thrown heat.

You should have stepped away after one dance.

Instead, you stayed for two.

Perhaps you wanted to hurt him. Perhaps you wanted proof that he could be hurt. Perhaps some part of you was still young enough to believe jealousy could wring love from a man who had forgotten to name it.

When the second dance ended, Prince Valarr was waiting at the edge of the floor.

“My lord Dayne,” he said with perfect courtesy that fooled no one.

Lord Dayne bowed. “My prince.”

“That will be all.”

It was not phrased as a request. Lord Dayne’s brow lifted, but he stepped back. He was no fool.

Prince Valarr took your hand and led you from the hall.

You should have resisted. His grip was not rough, but it was iron with fury. Yet some older instinct in you still answered him too quickly. You went with him through a side door onto a balcony above the sea.

The night air cut cold and clean after the heat within. Torches burned below in the yard. Music drifted out muffled through the carved stone.

Prince Valarr let go only when the door shut behind you.

“What were you doing?”

You stared. “Dancing.”

“With him.”

“Yes.”

His laugh had no mirth in it. “Do not play stupid.”

Something in you rose then, something exhausted and wounded and tired of being made answerable to a man who gave no account of himself.

“And you?” You asked. “What were you doing with Lady Serenei all these months?”

His face tightened. “This is different.”

“Of course it is. When princes wound, it is sport. When childish girls try not to drown, it is insolence.”

He took a step closer. “I did not say that.”

“You need not. Everything in this city says it for you.”

“I saw the way he touched you.”

“And I have seen much worse.”

The color struck his cheekbones. “You provoke me.”

“Oh, I should be sorry.” Your voice shook and only grew sharper for it. “Have I interrupted your pleasure?”

His hands closed into fists.

“For seven hells,” he said, “must you speak of her?”

“Why? Are you ashamed now?”

The door behind him opened then, just enough to spill a ribbon of gold light across the stone.

Serenei stood there.

For one suspended instant, all three of you were still.

Then Serenei’s gaze flicked from your face to Prince Valarr’s and settled into something weary and almost cruelly amused.

“I see,” she said softly.

Prince Valarr turned half toward her. “Serenei—”

“You need not explain.” She smiled, and this time the smile was for you. There was no triumph in it. That somehow made it far worse. “Good evening, princess.”

You wanted the floor to open.

Wanted the sea to rise and take you.

Wanted, most humiliatingly, for Prince Valarr to say something that would put you before her in any way that could be borne.

He said nothing.

Only stood there, trapped by pride and the knowledge of his own guilt and the catastrophic timing of the gods.

Serenei inclined her head and withdrew, shutting the door softly behind her.

The silence she left behind was unbearable.

You looked at Valarr. At the prince who had taught you, through years and lilies and touches too tender to be brotherly, to believe your heart had a place in his hands. At the young man who had then offered those same hands elsewhere and seemed surprised to find you bleeding.

“What a fool I have been,” you said.

He caught your arm as you turned.

“Do not go.”

The plea in it stopped you more surely than force would have.

Slowly, you looked down at his hand on your sleeve. Then back at his face.

“Why?” you asked.

He opened his mouth.

Nothing came.

Not because there was nothing to say. Because all the things true enough to matter required an honesty he had not yet become brave enough for.

Your vision blurred.

You removed his hand from your arm finger by finger.

“I think,” you whispered, “that I hate you.”

His face changed as if you had struck him.

It was a lie, of course. That was the cruelest part. You did not hate him. You still loved him so much that every breath felt like treason against your own dignity. But love denied a language often borrows hate’s sharper tongue.

You left him on the balcony with the sea below and the masque raging on behind the door, and that was the night something ended.

//

The letter from Dorne arrived three days later.

Your eldest brother wrote that your mother missed you sorely; that Sunspear had grown too quiet without your singing in the evenings; that great-aunt Myriah had stolen you long enough and ought not grudge the blood of Dorne its own. The words were light, but beneath them you heard the truth: they had heard enough. Rumors traveled south as swiftly as trade ships, and Dorne loved fiercely where its daughters were concerned.

Queen Dowager Myriah read the letter in silence and handed it back.

“Well?” she asked.

You held the parchment in a hand that would not quite steady. “If I say I want to go, will you think me cowardly?”

“No.” Queen Dowager Myriah’s face gave little away. “I will think you wise.”

That almost made you cry.

You sat very still beside the brazier. Outside, rain whispered against the lattice. “I thought I would marry here.”

Your great-aunt’s expression softened, though sorrow sharpened it too. “I know.”

“I thought everyone knew.”

“Everyone did. That was the trouble.” She leaned back in her chair, old gold rings glinting on the fingers folded in her lap. “A thing spoken of too often begins to feel inevitable, and men raised among crowns are especially prone to mistaking their desires for certainties. He believed you would be here whenever he chose to turn and find you. So, he let himself be distracted. He wanted to feel his youth in his own hands and another woman’s mouth, and he told himself the deeper thing could wait.”

You swallowed. “Did he love me?”

Queen Dowager Myriah looked at you for a long time.

“Yes,” she said at last. “In the way boys become men by hurting what they most cannot bear to lose.”

The answer did not comfort.

Perhaps because it sounded too much like doom.

“And now?”

“Now he will learn true loss.”

You turned the letter over once, twice. “If I go, I may never come back.”

“Perhaps.” Queen Dowager Myriah’s voice was gentle. “But if you stay, you may become a ghost in your own life.”

With that, the decision was made.

You would return to Dorne.

The arrangements were made quietly, which in a court means not quietly at all. Within a day the queen was sighing over how the Queen Dowager’s poor little niece had grown homesick for the suns of the south. By evening, ladies were already pitying your fragility and wondering if the prince would miss so pretty a toy. Men grew thoughtful in that way men do when they sense a story turning and wish to place their wagers before the last card falls.

Prince Valarr learned of it from someone else.

He came to you in the Queen Dowager’s private sept just before dusk, finding you alone before a bank of candles.

For a moment he only stood in the doorway, breathless from haste. He had come without cloak or ceremony, hair wind-tossed, boots muddied. A prince stripped to urgency.

“You are leaving.”

The candles trembled before the Mother’s face.

You kept your gaze on the flames. “Yes.”

“When?”

“Three days.”

“No.”

The word echoed softly off stone.

You turned then. “No?”

“No.” He crossed the little sept in four strides. “You cannot.”

The absurdity of it nearly made you laugh. Even at the end, some part of him still believed command might mend what carelessness had broken.

“Cannot?” you repeated. “And why is that?”

His face was pale with something fiercer than anger. “Because I forbid it.”

“You forget yourself, my prince.” You looked at him steadily. “I am a princess of Dorne. You cannot command me. Just speak frankly and say what this is. You do not want me because you choose me, Valarr. You want me because you cannot bear not to have me.”

His name on your lips struck him silent.

Then he said, lower, “You speak as if those are different.”

“They are.”

His eyes searched your face with a kind of desperate concentration, as if the right look might still change this. “Come with me.”

“To where?”

“Anywhere.” He reached for your hand. “Out. Away from this cursed place. I need to speak where walls do not listen.”

You let him take your hand because you had wanted those fingers around yours for so long that refusal felt like tearing skin from bone. He led you out through a side passage to the old bridge over the dry moat, where the evening wind smelled of rain and sea and smoke from the city below.

There he turned on you all at once, the force of him barely contained.

“I was wrong.”

The words should have satisfied. Instead, they only made you tired.

“Yes.”

He closed his eyes briefly, as if the simplicity of your agreement pained him. “Do not mock me.”

“I am not.” You folded your arms against the chill. “I am only no longer willing to lie for your comfort.”

He looked at you then, properly looked, and whatever he saw in your face made his own alter.

The fury left it. The pride too, a little. What remained was younger and far more dangerous because it was unguarded.

“I thought…” He stopped. Began again. “When Serenei came, everything with her was easy. She laughed, and I felt clever. She looked, and I felt older. She touched me and wanted nothing from me that I did not already know how to give.”

The wind snapped at his hair.

You stood very still because every word was salt in an open wound.

“With you,” he said, “I never knew what I was.”

You almost smiled. It came out nearer pain. “A prince, perhaps.”

“No.” His voice roughened. “Not that. When I was with you I forgot it. And because I forgot it, I…” He gave a bitter huff of breath. “I thought I could go and be someone simpler for a while. Someone less… exposed.”

The honesty of it shocked you more than any lie could have.

“You chose her because she made you feel strong.”

“I chose her because with her I did not fear.”

“And with me?”

He stared at you as if the question itself were the wound. “With you I feared everything.”

That should have been enough. It should have justified years. It should have called all your love back from where it had crawled to die.

Instead tears stung your eyes.

“Do you hear yourself?” you whispered. “You feared loving me, so you taught me to love you and then made me watch while you were love elsewhere.”

His face flinched as if struck.

“I did not know—”

“No. You did not know. That is the misery of it. A cruel man I might have hated. A faithless one I could have forgotten. But you…” Your breath shook. “You are only a prince. Only a boy taught from birth that anything worth having will wait while you turn your head.”

He took a step toward you.

You stepped back.

That hurt him. You saw it.

“I am not asking you to wait now,” he said.

“No? Then what are you asking?”

His mouth opened. Shut. The wind keened faintly through the bridge arch below.

At last he said the truth, though too late and too raw and not at all in the shape a woman might safely trust.

“I am asking you not to leave me.”

The words ran through you like grief.

Not ‘I love you’.

Not ‘Stay’, and ‘I will make you my wife before gods and men’.

Not even ‘Forgive me’.

Only the naked plea of a young man who had not understood what he was losing until it had begun to go.

You closed your eyes.

When you opened them again, the city beyond seemed very far away.

“I have already been left,” you said.

He made a sound, low and broken.

Then he crossed the distance between you and caught your face in both hands.

The touch was reverent enough to ruin you.

“You are unforgiving,” he murmured.

“You made me so.”

His thumbs trembled at your jaw. He looked at your mouth as if dying of thirst. For one terrible, suspended heartbeat, you thought: If he kisses me now, I will stay. I will despise myself and stay.

Perhaps he thought the same.

Because he bent toward you, then stopped with only breath between your lips.

“Stay,” he said.

Instead you whispered, “You never ask when it matters.”

Something fierce and stricken flashed through him.

Then he kissed you.

It was not gentle. It was not ungentle either. It was the kiss of years gone wrong all at once—childhood tenderness, jealousy, grief, hunger, apology, possession, longing so old it had roots. His mouth shook on yours at first, then steadied, then deepened as if he meant to drink all the silence you had both let grow between you. His hand slid into your hair. The other came to your waist. You clutched his shoulders because the world had become too narrow to stand in unaided.

There was salt on your lips. Perhaps tears. Perhaps sea wind. Perhaps both.

When he lifted his head, you were both breathing hard.

His forehead rested against yours. “Do not go.”

It would have been so easy then. Easier than honor. Easier than pride. Easier than living with the empty ache of having loved him and left.

You put your hand against his chest and felt his heart pound beneath your palm like something trapped.

Then you pushed him away.

“No,” you said.

He stared as if he had never in his life been denied and did not know how to survive it.

You stepped back before he could catch you again.

“If I stay now,” you said, and your voice was shaking but did not break, “I will become the sort of woman who takes scraps and mistake them for feast. I will wait while you grow into the man you ought already to be. I will let your wanting undo me because it is easier than asking for the whole of you.” You swallowed. “I love you too much to become that woman.”

His face went still.

It was the stillness of a prince receiving a wound before witnesses and refusing to bleed where anyone could see. But you were not anyone. You saw.

“You love me,” he said, so quietly the wind nearly stole it.

You gave him the one honesty left.

“Yes.”

For an instant all the world seemed to hang on what he might say next.

He closed his eyes.

When they opened again, there was something like devastation in them, deep and young and terrible.

Then he nodded once.

“Go, then,” he said.

The words were proud. The voice beneath them was not.

You turned because if you did not, you would run back into his arms and ruin yourself completely.

You got as far as the archway before he spoke again.

“When the lilies bloom in the Water Garden,” he said, “will you think of me?”

You did not turn around.

“Yes,” you said.

Then you left.

//

At the harbor three mornings later, the sky was the color of old pewter.

Queen Dowager Myriah embraced you longer than she had allowed herself any right to. Against your ear she murmured, “Do not let southern mercy make you foolish if he follows.”

You drew back in surprise. “Will he?”

Queen Dowager Myriah’s mouth thinned. “Gods help us all, I think he may.”

Septa Elia wept openly. Your maids sniffled and clutched bundles. Men carried your chests up the gangplank beneath a drizzle that darkened cloaks and made the harbor ropes smell of wet hemp and tar.

Prince Valarr did not come.

You had told yourself he would not. A prince does not bare hurt twice. Not where sailors and guards and queens’ women might whisper of it. Even so, each time the crowd shifted on the quay your heart betrayed you with one last leap.

He did not come.

When the ship finally cast off, you stood at the stern beneath a dark cloak and watched the Red Keep rise above the city like a fresh bruise against the sky. Rain freckled the river. The harbor bells tolled once, then again.

You did not cry.

Not until the walls had shrunk enough to look unreal.

Then, hidden by the hood and the weather, you wept quietly into the salt wind while the ship turned south.

//

Dorne smelled of sun when you returned.

Even in winter the air there held warmth inside it, the promise of heat. The stones of Sunspear glowed honey-gold by day and ember-red by dusk. The sea was bluer, the fruit sweeter, the shadows kinder. Your brothers rode out to meet you before your litter reached the gates, and your mother held you so fiercely you laughed and sobbed at once with your face buried against her shoulder.

Everyone welcomed you home.

No one asked at first why you had come back with that new stillness in you.

That mercy lasted only a little while. Dorne was loving, not blind.

You walked the Water Gardens in the evenings and saw your own reflection in the pools; lovelier than when you had gone to King’s Landing, perhaps, but changed. There was a gravity in your face now that had not lived there before. The maids whispered that the capital had turned the princess into a woman. Your mother said nothing, only watched you from time to time with eyes too wise to push where grief had not yet scarred over.

Letters came from King’s Landing.

Not from Prince Valarr at first. Those began later, and only after other people’s tidings had already wounded you.

A lady at court wrote to ask after your health and mentioned in passing that Lady Serenei had departed for Pentos on some merchant matter, leaving half the city talking and Prince Valarr in a temper so black even the king had remarked upon it. Another letter said the prince had bloodied a man in the yard for repeating some jest about Lysene perfumes. Another claimed he had refused every woman presented to him that winter and spent too long staring south from the sea wall.

You should not have hoarded such scraps.

You did.

At last, a raven came bearing his own seal.

You held the letter for an hour before breaking it.

Inside, the writing was brief and blotted once, as if his hand had pressed too hard.

The pools in the godswood have flowered. I thought you should know the lilies came early this year.

Nothing more.

No apology. No plea. No falsehood.

You read the line until the ink blurred.

Then you folded the letter and hid it beneath your pillow like a girl of twelve.

After that, they came rarely but steadily. A page on a tournament won and made tasteless because some Reach boy had praised your hair. A line about a singer from Lys whose voice made him think unexpectedly of a song you had once half-sung and forgotten. A note from Dragonstone describing sea mist and black stone and ending only with, ‘There are no flowers here worth naming after you’.

You never answered.

Yet you kept every letter.

Suitors came to Dorne, as they always would for a princess grown more beautiful with sorrow.

A Dayne cousin. A Yronwood grandson. A widowed lord with kind eyes and daughters old enough to pour your wine. You smiled and sent them away. Politely at first. Then less so. Your brothers approved. Your mother worried. The old women in the Water Gardens began to mutter that perhaps your years in the capital had turned your heart cold.

If only they knew.

There were nights when you lay awake beneath carved cedar screens and felt that bridge again beneath your feet, the wind in your hair, Prince Valarr’s hands on your face as if he had finally realized too late that you were mortal and could leave him.

There were worse nights still when you imagined him with other women and despised yourself for imagining it.

Love, once made helpless, often curdles into obsession to save itself from dying of shame. You thought of him when you braided your hair. When white lilies opened on the water. When some court singer’s note broke sweetly into grief. When men stood too close and you turned your head because none of them smelled of cold stone and leather and the first rain over Blackwater.

Once, in spring, a trader newly come from King’s Landing bowed low before you in your mother’s hall and said, not knowing what he touched, “The prince asked after whether Sunspear’s lilies bloom larger than those in the Red Keep pools.”

Your wine tasted of copper after that.

“Did he?” you said.

The trader nodded eagerly, delighted by gossip he thought harmless. “He spoke of them as if they were women, Your Grace. I had not known princes kept botany so dear.”

You smiled with all the sweetness Dorne taught its daughters. “Princes keep many strange devotions.”

That night you took out every letter he had sent and read them by lamplight until dawn.

By then you knew the truth of it, and the knowing brought you no peace.

He had loved you.

Not cleanly. Not wisely. Not soon enough. But truly, in that fierce proud ruinous way men like Prince Valarr did everything once the thing had got past their armor and into the blood.

And because he had loved you badly before he had learned to love you well, both of you were condemned to carry it like a wound no maester could sew.

//

In King’s Landing, they said Prince Valarr changed after the Dornish princess left.

He smiled less. He hunted harder. Men who crossed him in the yard found no mercy in him. Women found, to their annoyance, that he had grown more beautiful in grief and ten times less tractable. King Baelor spoke of marriages and Valarr listened with his jaw set like stone. Serenei returned once for a fortnight and departed again after a private quarrel that ended with the smashing of a wine cup and the prince not seen at court for two days.

“Does he still speak of her?” someone asked Serenei before she boarded.

She had laughed. “Speak? No. Men like him are never so doomed as when they fall silent.”

In Sunspear, you learned these things slowly, by letter and rumor and the glances of men who brought news from court. Each tale should have fed bitterness. Instead, they fed something uglier and more alive. The knowledge that you had not imagined him. That he had not simply played at tenderness until some brighter toy appeared.

That he, too, was caught now in the old net he had once torn without seeing.

Mutual suffering is not the same as healing. It is only a crueler form of intimacy.

A year passed. Then another.

On the second anniversary of your return, the Water Gardens bloomed white with lilies.

You went there at dusk alone.

The water held the last gold of the sun. Children’s laughter drifted faintly from farther pools where noble babes splashed under nursemaids’ watchful eyes. The scent of orange trees and warm stone rose around you. You knelt at the edge of the pool and touched one open lily with two fingers.

Its petals were cool as skin just before dawn.

You thought of the first flower he had ever brought you wrapped in wet cloth. Of a boy with a bruise on his cheek and sugared orange peel sticky on his fingers. Of a prince on a bridge, breaking and too proud to fall to pieces where you might see.

Behind you, footsteps sounded on stone.

Your heart lurched so violently it hurt.

You turned.

It was only your great-aunt’s old steward, grown stouter since leaving King’s Landing, bearing a sealed letter on a silver tray. He bowed low.

“From the capital, princess.”

Your fingers shook as you took it.

The seal was Prince Valarr’s.

You should have waited. You should have brought it back unopened to your chamber like a dignified woman of rank and read it by lamp with a composed face.

Instead, you broke the seal there beside the pool.

Inside was one sheet only.

I dreamed of Dorne last night though I have never seen it through your eyes. There were white flowers on still water and you standing beyond them in orange silk. I called for you and you looked at me as if I were already a ghost. I woke hating the dawn.

Below that, after a pause you could almost see, he had written:

If I came south, would you send me away?

The evening seemed suddenly too bright.

You read the line again. Again.

A dragonfly skimmed the pool. Somewhere behind the palms, a child shrieked with laughter and was hushed.

At length you folded the letter.

You did not answer that night.

Perhaps because you did not know whether you hoped the answer was yes or no.

Perhaps because some old injured part of you wanted him to suffer uncertainty as you had.

Perhaps because, even now, even after years and letters and the shaping ache of mutual longing, you knew that wanting was not yet enough. Not unless it had ripened into something braver than hunger and more faithful than regret.

The next morning you went again to the pool.

A single white lily had drifted free of its stem in the night and floated near the edge, turning slowly on the water.

You lifted it out.

Its petals lay against your palm like a memory too delicate to survive the heat.

Far away to the capital, where the Red Keep crouched above its smoke and salt and all the ghosts of your girlhood, a prince waited beneath another sky and called your name by no voice but his own heart. And far in the south, beneath the sun of Dorne, you stood with a flower in your hand and understood at last that some loves were never granted the mercy of being simple.

They did not end.

They did not heal.

They ripened into obsession, into prayer, into the sort of longing that taught itself to live on distance and jealousy and the ache of almost.

You closed your fingers carefully around the lily.

When you were younger, your family left Winterfell and went to King’s Landing for matters that your father needed to handle. Nothing about the trip seemed pleasant or anything that you were interested in, but you had to go. Your father and mother wouldn’t accept any other answer.

It was absolutely dreadful to you and you couldn’t bring your direwolf, Greywind either. He’d be tended to by staff, but without you for a few moons.

Once you reached the city, you could see a few of the dragons flying overhead. The big, God-like creatures that you’d heard tales of. You often wondered if they had ever heard about the Direwolves that you and your family had.

Most of the time while you were there, you tried keeping to yourself. You weren’t interested in making friends, needlepoint, or walking around the gardens. You wanted to go home to Greywind and a place that didn’t smell like shit.

It wasn't long before you were no longer able to secretly hide. Jena Dondarrion set her sights on you and the two of you became friends rather quickly— quicker than you expected. Jena was funny, shared similar sentiments to you, and was very outspoken. She was just the kind of person that you needed to keep yourself busy and from sitting in your chambers everyday.

Jena introduced you to her betrothed, Baelor. A sweet young man with eyes that you could get lost in. He didn’t have the traditional Targaryen looks, he looked more like the queen than his father. With Baelor was his brother, Maekar. Maekar was tall, his face scarred, bright silver hair, and deep violet eyes.

He was not welcoming like his brother, instead he had very few words for you at first— just merely grunts. Despite the two of you having such little conversation, he often found himself near you and Jena. If Baelor was around, then so was he. You didn’t mind as he was very handsome and interesting in some ways.

Eventually, he started to talk to you more often and wanted to spend time with you alone. You had started to smile more often with him and experience flutters in your stomach at the sight of him, feelings that you couldn’t explain. When you told Jena, she laughed and said that she had seen it coming. She mentioned that she had never seen Maekar smile until he had gotten close with you.

He introduced you to his dragon, Vermithor. The two of you took a night ride on him and enjoyed being high in the night sky. After the ride, the two of you shared your first kiss together and you knew that you were smitten.

Over the course of the time that you were in King’s landing, you had fallen in love with Maekar as he had with you. He was not hard with you or dismissive, he was the exact opposite. There was a softness to him that most wouldn’t know existed. Maekar had serious conversations with you about a marriage betrothal, bringing the north and royal family closer together.

As your time had winded down, you lost your maiden hood to Maekar. You loved him so much that it was such a small thing to you, especially with the two of you wanting to marry each other.

He pressed kisses onto your back as his hands gripped your hips, his cock snapping into you.

“You are so perfect.” He groaned.

Your fingers gripped the silk sheets on the bed, your moans muffled into them.

His cock was so deep inside you, the head dragging along your sensitive spot.

“Maekar.” You whined.

He smacked your ass, completely captivated by the view of you taking every inch of him.

“That’s it, my love.” He murmured.

You buried your face in the sheets as your moans and pleasure intensified. Your peak fastly approaching.

“You are so close, my love. I can feel it.” He growled.

“Please, Maekar.” You whimpered.

You weren’t even sure what exactly you were begging for, but the words fell out of your mouth with ease and he loved hearing you beg.

“Fuck.” You rasped.

Maekar’s name spilled from your mouth repeatedly as you reached your peak.

His thrusts got faster and harder as he got close, your cunt still clenching around him.

“You are so fucking tight.”

Within a few more thrusts, the grip on your hips tightened as he threw his head back in bliss — filling you with his warm seed.

“I love you.” He mumbled.

“I love you too, so much.” You replied.

He pulled out of you, trying to catch his breath and got a towel to clean you with.

The two of you cuddled up with each other, the moonlight shining on the sheets.

“I’m so glad to have met you, you have brightened my life in so many ways that I didn’t think possible.” Maekar confessed.

He made you smile, made you feel warm inside, and just made you feel seen. He was the best thing that had happened to you.

You looked up at him, into his beautiful eyes.

“You make me so happy, Maekar.”

He pressed a soft kiss to your lips, the kind you give when you want to savor the moment as you know it’ll never happen again.

His eyes looked sad after the kiss, a sadness that you had never seen before.

“I need to talk to you.” He spoke softly.

“Is something wrong?” You asked as you got out of bed to pour yourself some water.

“I..”

“I cannot marry you.” He confessed.

Your movements stopped as if your heart had stilled in your chest.

“What are you talking about, Maekar?” You questioned.

He struggled to look at you, your nervousness all over your face.

“I will be marrying Dyanna, from House Dayne.”

You stood there silently, blinking your eyes and almost unable to formulate a sentence or complete thought. Your mind took you elsewhere, flashes of your memories with him filling your mind.

He called out to you, his voice bringing you back into the moment.

Your eyes were glassy, a single tear streaming down your cheek.

“What about us?” You asked, your voice shaky.

“There cannot be an us anymore. It is not what I wanted—“

You didn’t bother to listen to anything else that he had to say. You frantically grabbed your clothes and began to put them on.

“Please.. talk to me.” He begged.

You stood up, facing him after lacing your boots.

“I shall bid you goodnight, my prince—“

“Congratulations on your betrothal. I hope that it goes well.”

He sighed, getting out of the bed and walking over to you.

“Don’t be like that, not with me.”

You looked at him, your face wet from the tears that fell.

“You are not who I thought that you were. All of those words meant nothing—just something to get me into your bed, hmm?”

He grabbed your hand with a scowl on his face.

“Don’t say that, because it is not true.”

You scoffed. “You knew that you were betrothed to her before you slept with me tonight, didn’t you?”

He hesitated, his excuse caught in his throat.

“Exactly what I thought.” You replied, yanking your hand from him and leaving his chambers.

You felt like a complete fool, falling in love with a prince and allowing yourself to be bedded. You never saw any signs that would have given you the notion that you wouldn’t get married to Maekar. You embarrassed yourself and your house, you knew better.

After that night, you counted down the days until your departure and avoided him. You had basically turned into a shell of yourself, you just stayed in your chambers.

The one day that you did find the courage to leave and get fresh air, you saw Maekar with Dyanna walking around the gardens. He saw you and left her side to get to you, but he could not catch up.

Jena came to you and apologized as if she’d done something wrong, but you reassured her that there was nothing to apologize for. It just simply was not meant to be, is what you said and those words were bitter in your mouth.

You promised her that you’d stay in touch and wished her the best.

When you finally left, you felt a sense of relief— a weight off of your chest. You could put all of this behind you and act like it didn’t happen.

Once you were back at home, things for you had returned to normal. You spent a bunch of time with Greywind and tried to clear your mind,

Three moons later, Maekar flew Vermithor to winterfell a few days before his wedding.

“What are you doing here?” You snapped.

He looked anxious as if he’d seen a ghost, struggling to look you in the eye.

“I needed to see you.”

“Maekar, I am trying to move on with my life. I cannot deal with this.. with you.”

He grabbed your hands, his violet eyes scanning your face.

“I made a mistake.” He blurted.

Your brows furrowed as you pulled your hand from his grasp.

“What?”

“I don’t want to marry her, I —“

“You should not have come here. It is not a good look for me or you.” You reminded him.

“I don’t care! I want you and I cannot stop thinking about you or what we had.. I just miss you.”

You scoffed, in disbelief at his audacity. Greywind came to your side and began to growl at Maekar.

“I do not know what it is that you wish for me to say. Our time is over, it was a lesson learned. I do not wish to revisit it.”

Maekar stepped forward and so did Greywind. You rubbed Greywind’s head.

“Easy, boy.”

“Just tell me not to and I won’t do it. I’ll do whatever I can to make it up to you, I only want to marry you.”

Your lips were pursed and facial expression unchanged as you listened to him. His words did make you feel weak, but you couldn’t accept them. He had caused far too much damage.

“You need to fly back to King’s Landing and do us both a favor, forget about me.” You spoke plainly.

His facial expression softened, on the cusp of a frown.

“I love you.” He mentioned.

Your lips instinctively started to curl into a smile, listening to the words that you had missed hearing.

“I wish you the best of luck on your marriage to Dyanna.” You replied as you began to walk away, signaling for Greywind to follow you.

You left Maekar standing in that spot alone with the snow falling around him. There were so many things that you could’ve said, but you decided not to. He chose someone else over you and that was his right, as was yours to not accept his feeble apology.

Maekar so badly wanted to run after you and beg for your forgiveness, even though he didn’t deserve it. He never wanted to hurt you or lose you, but he did just that. Dyanna was a good woman and would make a fine wife, but she wasn’t you.

Him flying to you was unfair and a terrible idea, but he had to try. He couldn’t live with himself if he didn’t and even though he did, he’d still struggle to live with himself.

His stupidity cost him a great deal and maybe it hadn’t completely sank in yet, but it would.

Your house had been preparing to host the royal family. They were going to be arriving at any moment and would be visiting for an undecided amount of time. There would be two noble families joining as well, more visitors than you liked.

They were visiting to discuss issues with the wall, the wildlings, debts, and other matters. Ultimately, things that you did not plan on concerning yourself with.

You planned on keeping yourself out of sight while they were visiting as it just seemed like the easier option. The servants were working extraordinarily hard to prepare food, chambers, and everything that was needed. They were informed that at least two dragons would be present, so they had to make sure that there was an abundance of meat available to feed them.

While you were in your chambers preparing for a nap — you could hear the sound of dragons flying above. A sound that you hadn’t heard in years.

The horn sounded as the carriages and horses arrived below.

You shut the shutters to your window and lit a candle, giving the room a flicker of light.

You laid on the bed and allowed yourself to drift off, Greywind asleep on the floor. Your nap lasted a few hours and it felt completely necessary, you felt better rested than you were earlier.

The flame on the candle had begun to flicker, so you blew it out and opened your shutters. There was noise bustling below and the sun had begun to set, but no sign of the royal family— which meant you were in the clear.

You put on your boots and walked with Greywind to the kennel master. Once you visited him, you grabbed the two large buckets of fresh and raw meat.

Snow and ice crunched under your boots as you approached them in the empty field— Vermithor and the beautiful Meleys. Meleys watched as you approached, meanwhile Vermithor continued to sleep. Most people would be terrified to approach them, but you weren’t and neither was Greywind. You had been around them plenty of times and figured that they would both remember you from years ago. If not, then it would no longer be your problem.

Vermithor opened one of his eyes as you got closer, scanning your every move. Meleys moved closer as they could smell the meat and you.

“I know, both of you are probably starving.” You mumbled.

You walked up to Vermithor and rubbed his nose, big breaths of air leaving his nostrils.

“It’s been a long time, old friend.”

Meleys nudged you, slightly pushing you back onto your heels.

“I brought both of something to eat.” You mentioned.

Greywind moved with your every move, watching the dragons and wanting to protect you from any incoming threat.

You poured the meat out of the buckets and onto the snow in front of them. Vermithor hesitated to eat, while Meleys began to lightly char her meat. While waiting on Vermithor to eat and watching him, you absentmindedly picked up a few chunks and fed them to Greywind as he stood beside you.

“I’m not sure why you’re being picky today.” You groaned.

Beside you, Greywinds ears turned to the sound of footsteps approaching. He turned to face behind you and began to growl.

“You are the only person outside of ourselves and the dragon keepers who can safely feed them this way.” A voice spoke.

A voice that you hadn’t heard in years, but you recognized it all the same. You didn’t bother to turn around, you only continued to watch Vermithor as he had started to show interest in the meat.

“I must be lucky then.” You responded.

The footsteps inched closer, but Greywind was not agreeable as his growling intensified.

“Greywind, enough!” You spoke, causing him to whine.

You slowly turned around and your eyes met his. He looked the same, just older with a few more scars. A face that you hadn’t dreamt of or thought about in years. It was an odd feeling to see him after such a long time.

“Wow, you look—“ the words caught in his throat like a dry piece of bread.

“It’s been so long.” He stammered.

You nodded your head, your grip on the bucket handle tightening.

“Aye, it has.”

He seemed nervous which was unusual as Maekar was never nervous. He slowly stepped a bit closer to you.

“How have you been?”

“I’ve been alright, nothing worth complaining about.” You replied.

He looked as if he wanted to ask so many questions— as if things were plaguing his mind, but he couldn’t say them.

The conversation was interrupted with his son Aegon, Daeron, and Dyanna approaching.

Dyanna walked up to Maekar’s side, a smile on her face as she acknowledged him.

“My love, what are you doing out here?”

He seemed defeated like he didn’t know how to honestly respond.

Aegon waved at you, an excited smile on his little face as he and Daeron stared at Greywind.

“Is he friendly?” Daeron asked.

You nodded your head slightly. “He won’t bite, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Aegon looked at Maekar, “can I?”

You commanded Greywind in High Valyrian to stay calm and be still as Aegon approached. Maekar’s brow raised, he was surprised that you were still fluent after the lessons from years ago.

Dyanna tilted her head in confusion—because she knew it was High Valyrian, but she did not understand what was being said. It was not lost on her that you and Maekar once shared something special, but she was his wife now. None of that mattered.

Aegon giggled as he tried playing with Greywind.

“Father, she looks like the woman.. the woman that you have the portrait of.” Daeron blurted, causing Maekar to scowl.

Dyanna laughed, looking at her husband.

“What is he talking about?”

Maekar rubbed her arm, “I don’t have the faintest notion.”

You waved at Aegon and signaled for Greywind to follow you.

“It was lovely seeing you, my prince and princess.” You spoke.

Maekar watched as you walked away, the feelings from years ago creeping up into his stomach and twisting in his chest. He needed to talk to you and get to know you again, he could not lose the opportunity.

Once you got back into your chambers, you had to take a deep breath. You felt confused for the first time in years, as if you suddenly didn’t remember your own feelings. Your stomach knotted at the sight of him, his wife, and his children that looked exactly like him.

He had the family that you had once dreamt of yourself, putting actual details to things that you had envisioned. Although, things did not go that way— you were happy for him.

He got everything he wanted.

Time for supper was fastly approaching, which meant that you needed to change. You had a hot bath prepared, so that you could relax beforehand.

This dinner with the royal family wasn’t exactly what you were looking forward to. It would be awkward and you had nothing to contribute, but your father insisted.

Once you were finished, you took your time and got dressed. You hated this, seeing him again and having your sad feelings come back to the surface.

You left your chambers and made your way to the dining hall with a pit in your stomach.

Your family along with the royal family gathered in the dining hall, the candles lit and illuminating everything perfectly. Jena ran over to you and pulled you into a big hug.

“You liar! You did not keep in touch as you promised.” She taunted.

You hugged her back, internally overjoyed to see your old friend again.

She held your hands in hers, her eyes glassy.

“I suppose the north has not turned you cold, has it?”

You both shared an in sync laugh. “You know that it hasn’t,”

King Daeron and Queen Myriah approached you with smiles on their faces.

“Daughter!” The king laughed, pulling you into a hug.

“It is wonderful to see you again.” He added.

Despite the fact that you never married his son, he still always called you daughter. He loved Dyanna, but he hated Maekar’s decision to not marry you.

“It is wonderful to see you too, your grace.” You replied.

He waved you off, “no need for such formalities!”

You hugged Queen Myriah, her warmth and touch reminding you of your own late mother.

“I suppose there are no children for me to meet?” She asked softly.

You shook your head and tried to hide the flicker of embarrassment that brewed inside you. Even though the realm demanded it of young women— you did not marry nor did you have any children. It was of little interest to you and your father spoiling you the way that he did, meant that he wouldn’t force you.

Besides, you had five other brothers along with several nieces and nephews— you being wed was not necessary. Your father allowed you to continue to live at Winterfell, helping him with certain political duties and keeping to yourself.

Everyone took their seats at the table, you were seated beside Daeron with your father on the other side of you.

The hall buzzed with small conversations, eating, and laughter. You did not engage much as you were uninterested and ready to return to your chambers.

Maekar stared at you from his seat across the table, a stare which you paid no attention to— but Dyanna noticed.

She called your name, bringing your attention from the vegetables on your plate.

“It is so wonderful to finally meet you and put a face to the name. I couldn’t recall meeting you all those years ago.” She spoke.

You awkwardly smiled back, setting down your fork.

“It is nice to meet you as well, Princess.”

She raised her brow, glancing around the table.

“Are your husband and children around? I’d love to meet them.”

Your spit was caught in your throat as she feigned ignorance. She knew bloody well that you were not married, but she asked anyway— a weird jape.

Your brows furrowed, even though you tried to hide your reaction. Her question caught the attention of everyone at the table, including her husband right beside her.

“Forgive me, but you must have someone else in mind, princess. I am not married and I do not have children.”

She was shocked by your statement, her hand clutching her chest.

“Apologies! I meant no offense..”

“It’s just not often that I see a woman of your stature and beauty being unwed.”

Baelor glanced at Maekar, signaling for him to stop Dyanna from potentially insulting you.

Maekar placed his hand on her thigh, grabbing her attention.

You pursed your lips, picking up your goblet.

“That is quite alright, no need to apologize.”

Before the conversations at the table could resume again, she kept speaking.

“Why is it that you are unwed, my lady?—“

“I know plenty of young noblemen who’d be honored and lucky to have you as their wife.”

Maekar leaned closer to Dyanna’s ear, his patience gone.

“Stop it, now.”

You hesitated, drinking some of your wine and embarrassment filling your body.

“I had no interest in that kind of duty and lucky for me, my father understood and did not force me.”

Your father smiled, raising his goblet.

“Yes! My daughter is a fine woman, but her help and focus was needed here. I’m grateful to have her here as she is happy to be here.”

You nodded your head.

“Thank you father.” You muttered.

She smiled, her hand touching Maekar’s.

“That is lovely!—“

“I just hope that if you do change your mind that you experience a love match like I did.”

King Daeron and Queen Myriah exchanged looks.

You looked at Maekar, the embarrassment all on your face.

“I’d like to thank this family for allowing us to convene here, taking us into their home for political matters.” Baelor stood, raising his goblet and trying to redirect the conversation.

All of you raised your cups in the air.

The conversations around you continued as they were, no one thinking about the words from Dyanna.

Daeron sat beside you on his fifth goblet of wine and barely able to hold his head up.

“I dreamt of you..” He slurred.

You leaned closer, hoping to hear him properly.

“What did you say?”

He wiped the spit that pooled at the corner of his mouth.

“I dreamt of you.. you and the small child.”

You were completely confused as you didn’t have a small child and how could Daeron possibly dream of you when he’d never met you before? The entire family confused you, more than you’d like to admit.

While the dinner continued with no end in sight, you asked your father to be excused as you had grown tired.

You got up from the table and made your way out of the dining hall. The wind blew against your cheeks as you walked outside, taking the long way to your chambers.

Maekar was following behind you.

“Wait—“

You turned around with a frown on your face and rolled your eyes.

“Why are you following me?” You questioned.

He seemed as if he struggled to come up with the right answer to your question, because there was truly not just a single answer.

“I’m sorry for what Dyanna said—“

You held your hand out, stopping him mid sentence.

“I do not need apologies for your wife, Maekar. I am fine.”

“Well, she shouldn’t have said those things.” He replied.

You let out a small chuckle. “You’re right, she shouldn’t have but she did. I’m unsure as to why she wanted to embarrass me, though.”

Maekar pulled his shoulders back, seeming offended.

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“No, you don’t be naive. She knew the answers to those questions, everyone in the fucking realm knows that I’m unwed—“

“Her pointing out that the two of you have a love match, it was all a jab.” You chided.

“I don’t know why she would think it necessary to do that.” He mumbled.

You scoffed, almost bordering a laugh.

“I’m glad we’re confused together, but I am retiring to my chambers. Please, inform the princess that I will be out of her way for the duration of her stay.”

You walked away from Maekar, leaving him cold and speechless.

Later that night, as Maekar and Dyanna prepared for bed— he was silent. He didn’t have much to say as he’d thought of what you said and he realized that there was probably more truth to it than he wanted to give.

He did not want his wife being rude to you or to anyone in Winterfell for that matter, as it would reflect poorly on the royal family.

“Husband?” Dyanna spoke, shutting the shutters on the window.

Maekar just stared at the fireplace, his mind elsewhere— thinking of things that he shouldn’t as a married man.

“Husband, do you ignore me?” She giggled.

Maekar scowled.

“Why did you have to act that way in front of everyone?”

She glanced at him as he sat in the bed, a look of confusion on her face.

“I did not act in a particular way to my understanding.”

He gritted his teeth, his patience thinning.

“Please, give me the dignity of being honest, wife!”

She was startled at his reaction, not expecting him to be upset over her reasonable questions.

“Is there a reason for your behavior tonight? Something I missed?”

“You meant to humiliate her tonight and you did not have to do it, it was cruel!” He spat.

Her frown became prevalent on her face.

“Why are you defending her?”

His brows furrowed, the lines on his forehead deepening.

“Defend her?—“

“It is about respect, Dyanna! We are the royal family and in their home. How do you think her father would respond, if he sniffed out your disrespect?”

She rolled her eyes, walking towards the fireplace.

“She should be married, it is odd that she is not.”

He rubbed his hand against his face. “Her marital status is not of your concern.”

“I don’t want her to get the wrong idea.. or any ideas at all while we’re here.” She confessed.

“Ideas?—“

“Dyanna, what are you on about?”

“Everyone knows about the two of you, how much you two loved each other—“ she mumbled.

“For fucks sake!” He growled, interrupting her.

“You are the only one with your mind on that petty gossip from ages ago, let it go and do not embarrass me!”

He felt a sting in the back of his throat calling your love petty, minimizing the impact of your relationship. He needed to stop Dyanna, but he could never admit to his wife that he still loved you.

What kind of man would that make him if he admitted that he made a mistake?

Dyanna waves her hand in front of her face, creating a small amount of wind to stop from crying.

“I will not have your whore from years ago ruin my family!” She yelled.

“My what?—“

“Have you lost your senses?” Maekar inquired.

The royal family had only been present for a few hours, yet Dyanna was losing her mind about you. You hadn’t even done anything or said anything of note, but she had come to the conclusion that you would ruin her family.

Maekar did not want his wife to cry as she had nothing to worry about, nothing would happen between the two of you— whether he wanted it to or not.

His rash decision to not choose you had tormented him since that day— remembering how you cried, how you withdrew from, how those were the worst words to ever leave his mouth.

Dyanna crawled into bed beside him, her face wet from crying. Maekar held out his open arm to embrace her and have her come close to him.

She laid her head on his chest.

“I love you, Maekar. I just get beside myself sometimes.”

“I love you too.” He muttered.

As the days had passed by, you had avoided the royal family at all costs. You hadn’t even attended the first three meetings, prompting your father’s worry. In order to ease his mind, you told him that you were feeling unwell— and that you’d be at the next meeting.

Dyanna’s eyes scanned the halls for you, every time she left her chambers. Even when Jena told her to quit worrying as she was Maekar’s wife and not you— but she could not ease her mind.

She hated you, she hated that you had him first, that he defended you a few nights prior. She didn’t understand why her heart towards you was so cold, why jealousy would overtake her.

It was starting to snow again and the light was fading, so you decided to go visit the weirwood tree before it got too dark. Greywind stayed in your room where it was warm, near your fireplace.

The snow and ice crunched under your boots, but there was still a loud silence as everyone was inside.

You sat at the weirwood tree, your mother’s favorite place. You’d find yourself coming to the tree to talk to her as if she was still here, like she’d respond back.

Amidst the silence, you saw a tall looming shadow out of the corner of your eye. 

It was Maekar.

“Must you find me everywhere I go?” You grumbled.

“I did not mean to intrude.. I was on my way to take Vermithor out.” He admitted.

You rubbed your gloves against the tree, not paying him any attention.

He stood there, watching you— not sure if you needed company or if he should leave.

You stood up and walked towards him, almost walking past him.

“Have a good night, my prince.” 

He grabbed your hand, which shocked you.

“Stop it!—“

“Stop that. You don’t have to be that way.”

You yanked your hand away from his grasp, a scowl on your face.

“What are you on about?”

He sighed.

“You don’t have to give me the cold shoulder, treat me as if I’m some prince and that’s all.”

Your head instinctively tilted, amusement on your face.

“That is all you are, a prince of the realm.”

“You know what I meant.” He remarked.

You scoffed. 

“I don’t actually, I’m unsure of how you want me to treat you.”

He threw his hands up in defeat and began to get annoyed.

“Don’t act like we’re strangers, avoid me like I’m a plague.”

You took a deep breath, your emotions starting to get the best of you. Feelings that you had hidden for so long were starting to creep to the surface.

“Your wife would have my head, if she saw me close with you! She does not like me and with your behavior, I don’t much blame her.” You growled.

He looked at you with his deep violet eyes, giving you the look that  he’d always give you years ago.

“I would never allow her the satisfaction of harming you.” He murmured.

You stood there in disbelief at this conversation. You never thought that you’d see him again, let alone have this conversation with him years later.

“You should stop while you’re ahead.” You spoke.

“I can’t.. I cannot.” He conceded.

“I think about you all the time, about what we could’ve been, that this could have been our family.” 

You walked over to him, rage burning in your veins.

“How dare you?—“

“You made your choice years ago. Why would you come here and rob me of my peace and my choice?”

“Because you feel the same way.” He stammered.

His response got under your skin more than it should’ve, more than it would’ve if it weren’t true.

“I don’t! I am happy here with my life, I do not wish for anything else.”

He snickered in disbelief.

“You are a terrible liar. You are not happy here.”

“I am!” You protested.

“Why didn’t you get married? Why didn’t you have kids?—“

“Why didn’t you move on?” He asked.

His questions immediately cooled your anger, bringing a punch to your stomach. You hadn’t moved on, you were still stuck in that moment years ago when he chose Dyanna. 

His world ending words left you unable to move on, you could not seek happiness with another.

“Fuck off.” You bit back at his question.

“That’s not an answer.” He spoke softly.

Tears began to well in your eyes, because he just had to come to your home and speak his stupid words. Add his regret to your shoulders.

“What more do you want, Maekar? Hmm?—“

“You got everything that you wanted! The wife, the kids, the happy home.”

He looked at your face, your eyes glassy and skin probably hot to the touch as it always would be when you were overwhelmed.

“I was wrong.” He admitted.

His words stopped you dead in your tracks, making you lose your focus.

“What?”

“I was wrong! I made a mistake!” He argued.

“You were supposed to be my wife and I have thought about that everyday of my life. I thought about it when Daeron was born, when I’d have sex with her, when I’d lay down in bed.”

He walked closer to you, closer than he should be to you.

“You are disgusting!” You hissed.

“I know.”

“She deserves better.” You pointed out.

He took another step closer. “She’s not as innocent as you perceive, but she does deserve someone who looks at her the way I do you.”

A tear fell down your cheek, your mind screaming at you to walk away from him— but somehow you were stuck there letting him get close.

“I ruined us and for that I’ll always be sorry.”

“I hate you.” You mumbled.

He closed the gap between the two of you, pushing your hair out of your face. 

“No, you don’t.”

He leaned in—pressing his lips to yours in a deep kiss, a kiss full of passion and old feelings. A kiss that you almost completely welcomed, but you stopped yourself.

You pushed him away from you, wiping your mouth.

“What we had is over! It’s a dream that faded years ago—“

“Stay the fuck away from me, Maekar.”

Baelor who had been standing there the entire time, cleared his throat— catching the attention of both of you.

˗ˏˋ ♡ ˎˊ˗

Additional tags: fem!read; no use of Y/N

A/N: i hope you love it, anon! 💕

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The Red Keep has never felt this silent. Not even during winter. Not even during mourning. The silence now is worse, because it is filled with whispers.

Baelor hears them everywhere — in the corridors, in the courtyards, in the council chamber. The Hand’s wife has left him. She returned to the Stormlands. They say she refuses his ravens. Each word is another blade.

Baelor stands alone in the Tower of the Hand, staring down into the training yard below. Knights clash in the dust, steel striking steel. The sound usually steadies him. Today it does nothing. Because you are not there, sitting on the stone bench like you always used to, watching him train with that quiet smile that once made the whole world disappear.

His jaw tightens. Three months. Three months since the night everything shattered. The argument still echoes in his mind.

“You love the throne more than you love me!” Your voice had been raw with anger, with hurt.

Baelor had been exhausted, fresh from a council session that stretched late into the night. “I serve the realm,” he had snapped.

“And what about me?” you demanded.

“You are my wife!”

The answer had been wrong the moment it left his mouth.

Your eyes had filled with tears: “I am not a duty, Baelor.” You had turned away, voice breaking, “I am supposed to be your choice.”

He had reached for you then, but you were already walking toward the door: “You made yours.”

You left that night. Not dramatically, not loudly, just gone. Back to the Stormlands. You refuse his ravens, every single one.

Baelor has tried everything: jewels from Lys, silks from Myr, rare books from Oldtown. They are all returned, or worse — sold. One of his informants reports that you gave the gold to the smallfolk.

Baelor crushes the letter in his fist. “Seven hells,” he mutters.

Another raven sits unanswered on the table beside him. Another letter he knows you will never read. He pours himself wine. The door opens.

“Your Grace.”

Baelor does not turn.

“Not now.”

His father, King Daeron II, ignores him and steps inside: “You have missed council again.”

Baelor drinks. The wine burns. “I sent Bloodraven.”

“That is not the point.”

Silence stretches between them. Daeron studies his son — the realm sees Baelor Breakspear as unbreakable, the greatest knight of his generation, the future of the Targaryen dynasty. But Daeron sees the truth — the exhaustion, the fury, the quiet devastation.

“You must let her go,” the king says softly.

Baelor laughs. It is not a pleasant sound.

“I will bring her back.”

“You cannot command love like you command armies.”

Baelor finally turns. His eyes burn.

“Then I will show her something she cannot ignore.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The idea begins as madness and slowly becomes a plan.

House Baratheon has long resented the crown. Their pride bruised. Their ambitions unchecked. Lord Orys Baratheon is easy to provoke and easy to manipulate.

Baelor sends a message. A private meeting, a quiet promise. The rebellion begins with whispers, then banners. Storm's End rises in open defiance of the crown, the realm erupts in shock. The Hand of the King has betrayed the thrown — or so it seems. Armies march, villages burn, and Baelor rides south at the head of the royal ost.

You hear the news in your father’s hall. The room spins.

“Impossible,” you whisper.

Your brother sets the letter down slowly: “The Hand has joined the rebellion.”

“No,” you shake your head. “No. Baelor would never betray the king.”

Your brother watches you carefully. “He marches on Storm’s End.”

Your stomach twists. Because suddenly you understand something terrible: Baelor would never betray the realm, but he would burn it for you.

The Battle of Storm’s End is chaos. Rain turns the ground to mud, men scream, arrows darken the sky. Baelor rides at the front of the charge, black armor streaked with blood and rain. His sword rises and falls, relentless, unstoppable. A storm made flesh. All the while his mind burns with one thought — you.

The castle gates finally break. The fighting spill into the courtyard. And there, descending the stone steps in full armor, waits Lord Orys Baratheon, warhammer in hand.

“You promised me a crown,” Orys snarls.

Baelor dismounts slowly. “And you will have your battle.”

The duel begins with thunder. Orys swings first. The hammer crashes into the ground where Baelor stood a heartbeat earlier, shattering stone. Baelor moves like lightning. His sword slices across Orys’s side. Steel bites through plate. Blood spills.

Orys roars and swings again. The hammer catches Baelor’s shoulder. Pain explodes through his arm, bone cracks, but Baelor does not fall. He steps forward, again and again. Each strike harder, faster, fury blazing in his eyes. Finally he knocks the hammer from Orys’s grip. The courtyard falls silent.

Baelor presses the blade to Orys’s throat. “For the realm,” he says quietly. Then he drives the sword through his chest.

The rebellion ends that day. The realm sings of Baelor Breakspear the Hero. The man who crushed the traitor Baratheon. The savior of the crown.

But Baelor does not return to King’s Landing. Instead, wounded and bleeding, he rides to the Stormlands. To you. You find him in the great hall, mud-streaked, blood-soaked, and barely standing.

The room is silent. Baelor walks toward you slowly, then drops to his knees. Gasps echo around the hall. The greatest knight in Westeros kneels before you.

His voice is rough: “I started a war.”

Your heart pounds. “Baelor—”

“I killed for you,” he continues. His hand trembles as he reaches for yours. “I burned the world so you would look at me again.”

The hall fades away. There is only him, broken, bleeding, desperate.

“You fool,” you whisper. Your fingers close around his. “But you came back.”

Or maybe the problem was something else entirely, something that smelled like Chanel No.5 and worked the front desk on the forty-second floor of Targaryen Group and had absolutely no business being the reason your three year marriage was falling apart.

You had tried for longer than you wanted to admit, not to believe it. Had told yourself it was nothing, that you were merely just being foolish, that Baelor Targaryen was many things but he was not that, he had never been that. You tried telling yourself that he was just busy, that the acquisition was demanding, that the late nights were the industry and not the woman, that the business trips were exactly what he said they were. You had told yourself that story so many times it had almost started to sound true.

And then there was the office party.

He had wanted you there, had said it was expected, had kissed the top of your head and said he didn't want to go alone, and you had gone because you loved him and because saying no to Baelor when he looked at you like that had never been something you were particularly good at. 

The venue was the kind of place that made you very aware of your own posture, all clean lines and open bars and people who wore their money, and you had been standing beside him, his hand at the small of your back, feeling almost like yourself, until she appeared. 

She had smiled at you first, which was the thing you remembered most. That smile, bright and deliberate, her red lipstick immaculate, her eyes moving over you with an assessment so quick and so thorough you almost missed it. “You wouldn’t mind if I steal your husband for a few quick minutes,” she had said, and her hand had gone to his upper arm as she said it, her red nails against his sleeve, easy and familiar, the touch of someone who had done it before. “Something just needs to be checked in the office, urgently.”

Baelor had given nothing away. He had looked at you, said he’d be right back, and followed her, while you stood there with your drink and your smile, and your very well-practiced composure and told yourself it was nothing.

Seconds became minutes, minutes became an hour.

You had found daeron at the bar, Baelor’s nephew, who was good company in the uncomplicated way of someone who wasn’t trying to be anything other than he was, and you had drunk more than you intended to and not questioned out loud why an hour was somehow still a few minutes, but when Baelor eventually reappeared you had let him put you in the car, and take you home and you said nothing, because what were you going to say, because you had no proof, because you were his wife and you trusted him.

You told yourself that too. For months.

There were always secretes, you had come to understand, in lives like this one. Wealth like Baelor’s didn’t come clean, it never did, and you had known that when you married him, had chosen it anyways, had told yourself that the way he looked at you when it was just the two of you made up for everything else that came with his name. 

But now you weren’t sure you still believed that.

And so you sat in the dark, and you drank, rethinking the choice of getting married to a guy who was a widow for years, and waited for the sound you had gotten very good at waiting for.

His key in the door. 

It came at two forty-seven am, because you had been watching the clock the way you had started watching everything lately, tracking the evidence, and the lock turned and the door opened, the light from the hallway came in first, a rectangle of it falling across the floor, and then Baelor, still in his suit blazer, his tie loosened, looking down at his phone as he came in, the way he always looked down at his phone.

He reachedd for the light switch without looking up.

The lamp came on. 

He saw you.

“What–” He stopped. Looked at you properly for the first time, at the glass in your hand and the bottle on the coffee table and whatever was on your face, and something shifted in his expression, the phone coming down to his side. “What’s going on?”

You looked at him from across the room, this many you had married, this man whose shirts you wore on a regular basis, whose coffee order you could recite in your sleep, whose laugh you had not heard properly in months, and felt the words that you had been repeating sitting in your chest like stones.

“Where have you been,” you said, and your voice came out softer than you intended, the kind of soft that wasn’t calm at all, the kind that came from trying very hard to hold something together.

He heard it. You could tell he heard it by the way something in his face settled into a careful expression, the one he put on when he was deciding how to manage a situation.

“Work,” he said. “I told you I had a late meeting, I sent you a–”

“You sent me a text at seven saying you’d be home by nine.” You kept your eyes on him, and kept your face as still as you could make it, “It’s nearly three in the morning, Baelor.”

He set his phone down on the console table by the door with quiet deliberateness, and came further into the room, loosening his tie the rest of the way, and you watched him move through your home like a man with nothing to answer for and felt something tighten in your chest.

“How much have you had,” he said, glancing at the bottle.

“That’s not what I asked you.”

“I’m asking you something first.” He said it the way you said things to children, patiently, reasonably, and you felt your jaw tighten. “How much wine have you had tonight?”

“Enough,” you said.

“Clearly,” he said, the word landed with a lightness that was worse than if he had shouted it, and he draped his jacket over the back of the chair and turned to look at you with a patient expression, one that made you feel like a problem he was calculating how to solve. “Come to bed.”

You felt something flicker across your face that you couldn’t quite stop– something between disbelief and the exhaustion of a woman who had been having this conversation in her head for months and was only now having it out loud. “I don't want to go to bed.”

"You've been sitting in the dark drinking by yourself," he said, evenly, "which means you've been in your head all evening, which means whatever you've decided to pick a fight about is going to seem considerably less significant in the morning." He said it like he was being reasonable. He said it like he was doing you a favour. "Come to bed."

"The phone calls," you said. Your voice was steady. You were proud of that, how steady your voice was. "The ones where you leave the room."

He looked at you and said nothing, and you looked back at him and kept going.

"Every time," you said. "You look at the screen, you get up, you go to the kitchen or the hallway or wherever it is that you go, then you come back, kissing me like nothing happened and sometimes you say you need to go back into the office and you leave. Every time." You swallowed. "Who are you talking to."

"Work," he said, simply, like the word was self-evident, like you were being slow.

"At ten o'clock at night."

"I'm the CEO of a private equity firm with holdings across three continents," he said, still in that patient voice that was going to make you lose your mind, "yes, sometimes at ten o'clock at night. You know this."

"The business trips." You pressed on because if you stopped you would lose your nerve. "Four in the last two months. You used to go twice a year."

"The Essos acquisition–"

"The dinners." Something in your face shifted, something you couldn't help, the particular look of a person trying very hard not to feel what they were feeling. "Date night, three weeks ago, you cancelled an hour before. Our anniversary dinner, you were two hours late and you smelled like–" your voice caught on the word and you pushed past it, "you came home and you kissed me and you smelled like her perfume, Baelor, and you said you needed to go back in, there was something you forgot, and you left, and I sat here–"

"The wine," he said, "is clearly getting to you."

You stopped.

You looked at him, at the calm of his face, at the patient set of his mouth, and felt something that had been soft in you go very quiet and very cold.

"I'm serious," he said, and his voice had gone gentle in the way that made it worse, the way that said I am the reasonable one and you are not, "you've been sitting here alone for hours working yourself up into something and I understand that you're–"

"Don't," you said.

"I understand the last few months haven't been easy, I know I've been distracted, I'm not dismissing that–"

"You're doing it right now." Your voice came out harder than you planned. "You're making it about how I'm feeling instead of what I'm asking you. You're making me the problem."

“Because how you’re feeling is relevant,” he said, and glanced at the bottle, “when you’ve had most of that by yourself and you’re sitting in the dark waiting to–”

"I'm waiting for my husband," you said, and your voice cracked on the last word, just slightly, just enough, and you saw it land on his face, saw something move through his expression that you could not name, and you looked away from him because you were not going to cry in front of him tonight, you had promised yourself that, "who told me he'd be home hours ago."

The room was quiet.

He crossed to the coffee table and sat down in front of you, close, closer than you wanted, close enough that you could see his eyes clearly in the lamplight, one brown and one blue, both of them on you with attention that had made you fall in love with him and was now making you feel like a witness being cross-examined, and he leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and said, low and even, "I am not cheating on you—”

"I want a divorce," you said suddenly.

Something moved across his face. Raw, just for a moment, before the composure came back down like a shutter.

"No," he said.

“Baelor–”

"No." Flat, absolute, the voice of a man who had made a decision and was not interested in discussing it. "We are not doing this."

You stood up. Your legs were steadier than they had any right to be. "I'm getting a lawyer."

He stood too, and he was broader than you forgot sometimes, his bearded jaw set, something in his face that was no longer the patient composure, no longer the careful evenness, it was something that had dropped its mask, and his hand closed around your arm, not hard but firm, and he said, "Stop. Just– listen to me for one minute–"

"No." You pulled your arm away, sharply, and the sharpness of it surprised you both. "I have listened to this bullshit for months! Every single excuse, every single reasonable explanation, I am so done with listening, I'm getting a goddamn lawyer–"

“A lawyer.” He let out a short sound that wasn’t quite a laugh. “You think it’s going to be that simple.” His voice had gone low again, and he looked at you with those mismatched eyes and said, “I know every lawyer in this city. Every single one. You think one of them is going to take a case against me because my wie has had too many glasses of wine and decided I’m cheating on her.”

You went still.

You looked at him, at the cold certainty of his face, and felt something move through you that was not quite fear and not quite fury but lived somewhere between the two.

You let out a short laugh, humourless, and shook your head. "Of course," you said, quietly, more to yourself than to him.

“I’m serious–”

"So am I." You turned away from him and started toward the bedroom. "I'll find someone. I don't care how long it takes, I'll find someone who will make you sign the papers."

"You're drunk out of your mind." He was following you, his voice behind you, still with that controlled edge that was unravelling at the seams. "You're not thinking straight. I'm telling you it won't go the way you think, I'm asking you to stop and talk to me properly, we are not getting a—"

You slammed the bedroom door in his face.

The force of it shook the frame, and you turned the lock before the sound had finished echoing, and stood there with your hand still on the handle and your chest heaving and the silence on the other side pressing back against the door like something solid.

"I'm getting a lawyer, Baelor." Your voice came out steady, which was the only thing you had left. "I mean it."

Nothing came from the other side. Then, after a long moment, his footsteps, slow and deliberate, moving away down the hall.

You stood there in the dark for a long time after that. 

Eventually you lay down on the bed, still dressed, and looked at the ceiling, and did not cry, because you had been crying alone in this penthouse for months and you were finished with it. You were so finished with it.

He had started coming home early.

That was the thing you hadn't anticipated, the thing that made the week after considerably harder than it should have been, because you had built your anger on a foundation of absence and he had removed the absence, which left you standing on something that felt less solid than it had.

You avoided him at all costs. You lay in bed and listened for the sound of the front door closing, and only then, only when you were sure he was gone, did you come out. You padded around the flat in one of his shirts, which was too big for you and which you had grabbed in the dark one morning without thinking and then refused to acknowledge the irony of, and you made yourself coffee and ate whatever was in the fridge then moved through the rooms like you were the only person who lived there.

He had tried to talk to you the morning after. You had heard him outside the bedroom door, and when you opened it he had looked at you with something on his face that you didn't want to name and started to say something careful and measured and you had cut him off before he got three words in.

"I want the divorce," you said. "It's not changing."

He had looked at you for a long moment and said nothing, and you had closed the door again, and that was that.

The days that followed had their own particular shape. He came home earlier than he had in months, which you noticed and did not comment on. The late calls stopped, or became shorter, or moved somewhere you couldn't track them. He left coffee for you one morning before he left, made exactly the way you liked it, and you stood in the kitchen in his shirt looking at the cup and felt something complicated move through your chest and then put it away and went back to looking for lawyers.

Because that was what you spent your days doing. Searching, calling, being passed from one firm to the next, each one either conflicted out or quietly unwilling the moment you said the name Targaryen. He had not been exaggerating about that, which made you furious in a way you had not expected, a cold and very specific fury that had nothing to do with the perfume or the late nights and everything to do with the fact that even trying to leave him was something he could make difficult without trying.

You found one on the ninth day. His name was Gerold Hightower, a small firm, old school, the kind that had been around long enough not to be impressed by anyone, and he listened to everything you said without writing anything down and then looked at you over the top of his glasses and said he'd take it. 

You had explained everything– the trips, the calls, the hours, the perfume, the office party, the hour that was supposed to be a few minutes– and he had listened to all of it and nodded and handed you the papers and told you they needed Baelor's signature, and that if Baelor declined, they were going to court.

You had signed your name on the line and felt, for the first time in weeks, like you could breathe.

You did not go home first. You drove straight to Targaryen Group.

The building sat in the middle of the city the way everything Targaryen sat– like it had always been there and always would be, like the city had been built around it rather than the other way around. You had walked through those lobby doors on Baelor's arm more times than you could count, had smiled at the staff and taken the private elevator and sat across from him at his desk while the city spread out below the floor-to-ceiling windows and thought, more than once, that you would never entirely get used to the scale of it.

Today you walked in alone, in a baggy tracksuit, your hair barely done, the red folder under your arm, and you didn't care even slightly about the way the lobby staff clocked you and looked away. Who were you trying to impress? You were here to end a marriage, not attend a board meeting.

You pressed the button for the lift and waited, and that was when you heard it. The click of heels on marble, and underneath it, the obnoxious rhythmic sound of someone chewing gum, and you turned your head and there she was.

Elizabeth. You had learned her name somewhere along the way, in the particular grim investigative way you had learned a lot of things over the past months. She was dressed the way she always seemed to be dressed, like she had given the morning a great deal of thought, her red lipstick already immaculate, and when she saw you her jaw slowed on the gum and something moved across her face that she recovered from quickly but not quickly enough.

"Mrs Targaryen," she said, and her voice came out bright and smooth, the voice of someone who had done customer-facing work long enough to smile through anything. "What a pleasure, I wasn't expecting you–"

"Can't say the same," you said pleasantly, and watched the smile flicker.

The silence that followed had an uncomfortable quality that she tried to fill. "How have you been lately?" she asked, and she was clicking the heel of one shoe against the marble now, a small unconscious tap, her eyes moving briefly to the closed lift doors and back.

"Honestly?" You tilted your head, like you were considering it. "Really quite good. Better than I've been in a while, actually. I'm getting a divorce, which I think is going to suit me very well."

Her mouth opened then closed, then the hell stopped clicking. “You’re–”

The lift doors opened.

You stepped toward them and then stopped, and turned back to look at her, and held out the red folder. "You're going up to his office, aren't you."

"I have some paperwork to– he didn't say anything about a–"

"He wouldn't." You pressed the folder to her chest, and she grabbed it before it could fall, both hands closing around it with a startled instinct, and you looked at her very directly and said, "Be an angel. Before you get up to whatever it is you both love getting up to after everyone else goes home– tell him to sign those papers. Tonight. Or I'm dragging him to court, and I have a very good lawyer who is very much looking forward to it."

"Mrs Targaryen, I genuinely don't know what you think is–"

You left her alone as you walked back out from where you came from, and ignored the doubt that settled into your gut, as you recalled her confusion.

You did not look back, you didn’t dare to.

You came home later than him.

You knew before you even opened the front door, some animal awareness of the changed quality of the air, the particular stillness of a space that had someone in it waiting, and you turned your key slowly and pushed the door open and reached for the light.

He was sitting on the couch. Just like you had, days ago, except he had already turned the lights on, and his blazer was off, his tie was loosened all the way and he was sitting forward with his elbows on his knees, with the red folder that was open on the coffee table in front of him, the papers spread out, looking at them when you walked in.

He looked up at the sound of the door. 

"You signed them?" The surprise in your voice came out before you could stop it. Maybe Elizabeth had finally gotten what she wanted. Maybe the mistress had made her case in person and he had decided the easiest thing was to just let you go, so that he could finally be with her, without any complications.

He looked at you for a long moment, his expression giving nothing away, and then looked back at the papers.

"No," he said.

Something dropped in your chest. "Baelor–"

"I'm not signing this." He sat back, unhurried, and looked at you, the corner of his mouth moved into something that was almost a smile, small and certain, and the sight of it made your blood run hot. 

The absolute audacity of him, sitting there smiling at you like this was amusing, like you were amusing, like three years of marriage and a week of silence and a folder full of divorce papers were something he found faintly entertaining.

"Just sign the damned papers." You let your bag slide off your shoulder and drop to the floor, as you looked at him across the room and felt the desperation of it, how tired you were, how much you just needed this to be over. "Please. Sign them and let us both out of this."

"Let's talk about what happens if I don't." He tilted his head, still with that smile, and there was something in his eyes that was cold in a way you hadn't let yourself see before, or hadn't wanted to.

"You take this to court. These people, in this city, outside of this city– they kiss the ground my family walks on, the ground I walk on. You know that. You've seen it. You think a judge is going to look at you, at where you came from, at what you had before me, and side with you?" He paused, letting it land. "You leave me, you leave with nothing. Your family leaves with nothing. Everything you have, everything they have, it all came through this name. You know that's true, beautiful, so stop playing stupid."

"Sign the papers," you said, and your voice had gone flat.

"And then there's the other thing." His voice dropped into something quieter, and he picked up one of the papers and looked at it like it mildly interested him, like he was reading the weather and not dismantling your life. "The video."

You went still.

"Few months back. You came to the office after hours." His eyes came up to yours, slow and certain. 

"Security cameras in that building are thorough. Very thorough that they got a clear shot of you coming in. Got a clear shot of you going to my office. Got a very clear shot of you on your knees under my desk with your pretty mouth wrapped around my cock." He said it the way he said everything, evenly, without drama, like it was simply a fact he was presenting. "My face isn't in the frame. The angle never catches me. But yours is. Every second of it, your face, perfectly clear." He set the paper back down. 

"You want to think about what a courtroom makes of that. The Targaryen heir's wife, caught on her own husband's office security footage, on her knees for someone whose face the camera never caught." The smile returned, small and dark. "They won't know it's me. That's the part that's going to be very difficult for you to explain."

"You sick–" Your voice broke on it and you hated yourself for it, hated the burn behind your eyes, hated that he could still do this to you, that after everything he could still make your hands shake. "You would actually use that. You would stand there and threaten me with that."

"I'm not threatening you." He looked at you patient and cold and entirely focused. "I'm telling you what exists. I'm explaining the situation clearly, the way you've always said you wanted things explained." He stood up slowly, and crossed to the coffee table, and looked down at the papers spread out across it. "You walk into that courtroom and I promise you, you will walk out with nothing. No settlement, no name, no dignity, and that video somewhere it cannot be recalled. And I will be very, very sorry about all of it." The corner of his mouth moved. "Seems like a great deal of trouble for a divorce you don't actually want."

"It's blackmail!" The word tore out of you and your voice cracked on it and your tears fell and you didn't even try to stop them, because you were past that, you were so far past that. "That is blackmail, that is a threat, you are threatening me, and you have the absolute audacity to stand there and do this when you've been the one–" your voice broke again and you pressed your hands over your face, your fingers shaking against your cheeks. "When you've been cheating on me. You've been cheating on me this whole time and you're standing there threatening me with a video of me and acting like I'm the problem–"

"That," he said, and something shifted in his voice, the coldness dropping out of it entirely, replaced by something that sounded almost like frustration, like genuine frustration, like a man who had reached the end of something, "is where you are completely wrong."

You looked at him through your hands.

"I never cheated on you." He said it simply, without the performance of it, without the careful evenness, just the words. "I never did. Not once. Not even close." 

He stood and walked toward you slowly, and you watched him come and couldn't make yourself move, couldn't make yourself do anything, your hands still pressed to your face and your tears still falling and all of it, the whole terrible weight of the past weeks, sitting on your chest. "I know how it looked. I know what the late nights looked like and the calls and the trips, I know exactly how it looked, and I should have–" he stopped. His jaw tightened. "I should have seen what it was doing to you and I didn't, and that's on me. That is entirely on me."

He reached up and took your hands away from your face, gently, and held them, and then his hands moved to your face, cradling it, his thumbs moving across your cheeks and catching your tears, you looked up at him with all of it written on your face, the hatred and the hurt and the desperate exhausted want for any of this to make sense.

"I'm not lying to you," he said, low and close, his eyes on yours. "I have never lied to you. This–" he glanced briefly toward the papers on the coffee table, "this is how far I am willing to go to stop you from throwing away something real because of something that isn't. You made me come to this point. You pushed me here."

"Don't you dare," you said, and your voice came out wet and furious, "make this my fault–"

"I'm not." His hands tightened slightly on your face. "I'm saying I love you. I'm saying I am not letting you go. Those are not the same thing."

You looked at him, at those mismatched eyes close to yours, at the particular quality of his certainty that had always undone you and was undoing you now in a way you resented completely, you felt something pull in your chest that you did not want to feel, and so you reached up, pushed his hands away from your face and stepped back and shook your head, you turned and walked to the bedroom with fury carrying your feet because if you slowed down you were going to fall apart.

"Do whatever the fuck you want," you said, shoving the bedroom door open hard enough that it swung back against the wall. "I'm leaving."

You went straight to the wardrobe and grabbed the first bag you could reach and started pulling things off hangers, off shelves, underwear, shirts, whatever your hands found first, not folding anything, not thinking, just moving, because moving was the only thing that was holding you together.

"I'm talking to you." His voice from the doorway, and then his footsteps behind you.

"I'm not listening," you said, and grabbed another handful of clothes.

"Look at me."

"No."

"Look–"

His hand closed around the bag and yanked it out of your grip and threw it across the room and it hit the floor with a dull thud that landed in the silence like a full stop.

You spun to face him. He was right there, closer than you'd realised, and he looked at you with something that was past cold now, past the boardroom composure, past all of it, something that was just raw and furious and desperate all at once, the face of a man who had run out of patience and hadn't found anything calmer underneath it.

"You're not getting this," he said. "Are you? You genuinely don't understand that I am not letting you walk out of here."

"Just let me go!" Your voice came out ragged, and you meant it, you meant every word of it, and you tried to move past him but his hands found your arms and held you, not hard, just immovable, and he walked you back slowly, step by step, until the backs of your knees hit the edge of the bed and you sat down hard and looked up at him.

"Tell me what you need," he said. "Anything. You name it, it's done. You want me home every night, I'm home every night, no exceptions. You want the trips stopped, they stop. You want Elizabeth out of that building by tomorrow morning–" something moved across his face, "she's already gone, I'll call it in tonight, I don't care." His hands tightened around yours. "You want me to prove it to you, I will spend however long it takes proving it. Whatever it is. Just tell me."

You looked at him, at his face this close to yours, and felt your chin tremble and hated it.