Imagine Maekar like randomly during daily training gets hit and it doesn’t knock him out or anything but it does make him normal again..
But after seeing for true how he’s been treated he simply doesn’t tell anyone, like he remembers loving them all before and he remembers being bare min dutiful after but he can’t bring himself to let them do that to him again.
And besides, it’s been six moons since he took that blow for baelor, moons hes had to live in peace with himself.
For the first time in his life, there are no expectations he can never fulfill even while surpassing what was asked of him, and it was always asked, nay, expected, commanded, endlessly.
He had spent his whole life trying to escape the shadows they put him in, but now?
He finds that he likes the shadows, he’s lived in them his entire life, and no one has ever let him escape them, now he finds he doesn’t care to leave, he does his duty but they do not expect anything more of him anymore, knowing he will not give it, no longer a kicked dog begging for their love, he finds he enjoys the peace of no one looking at him just so they may find him wanting, for if he can never win why play?
His children are mostly grown and they had all (save Aemon, sent away by his king father, alone at the citadel, who still and had always written to him, and of course Aerion who’d been sent to the wall by baelor, though he was not allowed to write to his kin, another command of baelors, Daella and rhae though the last two were at summerhall, only able to sneak letters through Aemon) chosen baelor after ashford anyway, so it was not as if they truly missed him or wished for him, his brother is the golden heir, the people love him still, what need have he of Maekar?
He had made his wishes known at ashford, when he took up arms against his brotherwife and two of their children in a death match, for the likes of a peasant hed met the day before, and when he’d injured himself holding down that same little brother, who was only but trying to get to the son he thought was being slain, for the screams Aerion was letting out, and after?
Well, he made his dislike of Maekar known, separate rooms, cold shoulders, endless complaints of maekars conduct, ever lacking as he’d found it, had even entertained others in front of his consort, in full view of the court, the realm.
Maekar had spared him that day hoping to die, and be free of it all, finally, but alas, he’d saved baelor and the husband he’d not seen since before that gods forsaken tourney had returned, the boy he’d fallen for had been at his bedside when he woke, a man grown and stricken by his treatment of his most beloved brother, and for a choice baelor himself had made, but Maekar, it would seem, perhaps HAD died with that blow, meant for his brother, for he cared not of baelors apologies, did not have the want or the care to spare him when the man look upon him with guilt like he would have, like he had his whole life, to absolve him his wrongs and hide whatever hurt had been inflicted, like it hadn’t been given at all,
He was Maekar unchained to the love baelor had built within him for himself, that boy that would always look to his eldest brother, mayhaps yes, that boy had died, and in his place was this Maekar, grown and not in love with his brother,
near six moons gone from that day and Maekar was training, there was naught much else for him to do these days, no duties of a consort, for baelor had stripped him of those before they had even gotten back to kingslanding from ashford,
no children to look after, taken as they were by his mother to raise on baelors command, left only to himself and whatever he may choose to do, so long as it not come back on the royal family, his husband had said, their parents behind him, as Maekar stand before the throne his father sat, his mother standing proud on the side at the foot of it, the Hand of the King standing before it presiding over him as he take their children from him,
Baelor had tried to return all of them to him when he awoke but Maekar had refused him, he was right after all, they had taken on his duties well, with ease, why should he ruin the work they had done to fix his apparent inability to fulfill them? They could keep them, should keep them, they were better suited after all.
(I’m gonna add on that like days before baelors saving maybe Maekar heard him talking to someone about an annulment or setting Maekar aside so baelor could maybe wed someone else, which is part of the reason why Maekar, still in love with his brother, wanted to die)
When Maekar had woken to baelor near half draped upon his lap as he sit at his brothers bedside, he had wondered why he was there, why he was pretending that he cared for Maekar and his health, he stare at baelor in question until the man had woken to find him staring, baelor who had apologized and made promises to make this up to him, that he was sorry for what he’d done, all that he’d done,
taking the duties, the disrespect, stealing their children and giving them to be raised by the woman who had barely concerned herself with raising her youngest, bedding others, shunting Maekar out of the rooms he’d lived in since baelor had wed him at four and ten,
All Maekar could do was reply, but not for wishing an annulment? As baelors eyes widen, Maekar simply brushed him off, saying it was alright, baelor need not embarrass himself in such a way, Maekar was the fourth son, the heir need not apologize to him, and Maekar truly does not care of the treatment, the same treatment he’d gotten his whole life, just without the flowery soft way they’d fed it to him, nay they simply stated it outright, finally, and so at least he would have to pretend no longer, they all need not play pretend any more, Maekar knew his place.
Within the moon, lady Dyanna Dayne comes to court, widowed and accompanying her lord nephew who was to be betrothed to their sweet daella, who had been recalled to court the week after baelor had returned to himself, Dyanna the girl he had been promised to, before baelor had taken him to bed and ruined him, forcing their father to wed them,
As daella and her betrothed got closer, he and his once intended had gotten close, they had bonded in a way that left him wondering of the life he could have had with her, by the fourth moon they, secretly, quietly, found themselves together, and thereafter it was not odd to see the kings fourth son, walking the gardens with his lady, arms tangled, smiling sweetly upon eachother as if they were in their youth, or hear their laughter in the halls, the training yards set alight with their taunting jests to one other, the dancing at feasts, the soft way he look upon her, and she back at him,
the court watch as the fourth prince was alive and free in a way they’d never seen him before, as he took meals with his lady Dyanna and his daughters, her nephew the lord Dayne, as he trains the boy in the yard, carefree and proud, they see him stand tall in a way they’d never seen, had not know him capable of, a Maekar only baelor had known, had kept to himself, so when Maekar come back to himself six moons later, they are together, she lives within the chambers baelor had moved him to after ashford,
Everything he’s done for baelor everything he allowed and baelor cast him aside as if he were some villain, unfit for his place. And everyone allowed him to. Joined in on it with no injuries of their own. So even when he’s back to himself and has the softness for them from before ashford, he won’t let them continue it.
He calls for baelor, who comes immediately, half scared because Maekar hasn’t called upon him since he took the blow that would have killed baelor but for Maekars intervention merely righted his mind, skewing his own to do it, and tells his brother without looking at him, that that morn in the training yard, he’d taken a blow to the head, and while the maester confirmed him fine,
he’d gotten his proper memories back, that he was the boy again who loved baelor, that his mind is as it was before ashford,
but that he was not the same man he was then, that the year since has been enlightening and then he tells baelor,
who in six moons hasn’t stopped trying to get his forgiveness, to right the wrongs he’d done his beloved, who would not cease in his attempts to have his sweet brother back,
Turns finally to his once beloved, and looks into his older brothers hopeful eyes, that he wished for an annulment, that their mother and father were on their way here, and Maekar was going to beg to be set aside, so that baelor could have his freedom and Maekar could have his lady Dyanna, for he wished to wed her, he was in love with her and wanted to be with her, that he would leave the court and baelor could live as he wished, with their children and his crown, that Maekar and Dyanna could, would remain in summerhall, away from baelor, and the crown, that he could have back the company he’d taken before, when he’d himself wished to set Maekar aside,
Baelor obviously is against it, has spent the last six moons watching his brother fall for the woman baelor had stolen him from, the woman baelor had pushed him to, he wants nothing more than to keep Maekar, to have him back, to never have joined that death match and sparked all of this, but as he look into the pleading eyes of his sweetling, as much as it hurts him, he cannot deny Maekar, could not rip this too away from him, so he nods his head, and when their parents enter, and Maekar makes his case, tears in his eyes throat stinging, baelor silently nods his assent when their father looks to him in askance,
A moon later, Maekar weds his lady Dyanna the same day daella weds the sword of the morning in the great sept of baelor,
baelor cries at both but for different reasons, he never remarries, takes none to bed, lives with the crown and watches as his brother swells with more children, babes baelor hadn’t put in him, was merely the uncle of and not the sire to, and wishes he could go back to that day and not let the trial happen at all.
It was within his power to not let it happen and instead he’d joined the match, against his kin, rather than simply commanding it not happen at all and punishing the boy he’d sent to the wall anyway.
A year after his brother wed another comes the spring sickness and myriah, matarys, valarr, and Daeron ii all die, baelor is crowned,
The rebellions happen and get put down, aerys rhaegel aelor aelora and daenora all die, more rebellions, vaella dies and Daeron drinks himself to death, aerion dies at the wall drinking wildfyre, Aemon refuses to be baelors heir, stating he was a simple maester, the maester of summerhall, and he would do his duty, daella denies the crown, aegon becomes the heir, rhae is happy on Tarth,
Valarr wed a dondarrion (to make up for baelor spurning jena) that never managed to quicken,
Daeron wed Kiera who bore the sweet simple vaella,
daella wed to lord Dayne,
aegon wed his lady betha,
Maekar bore Dyanna two daughters,
shaera who would wed aegons heir jaehaerys and have the boy aerys
Rhaelle who would wed Lyonels son, and have steffon baratheon, father of Robert
and the twins Daerion and Dyanna who would wed and have the girl rhaella, who would wed aerys and have rhaegar
Damn that was long lol sorry
this is so good I don't even know what to say
we ride at dawn for Maekar's honor
it's so lovely but I also kinda cried? the thought of Baelor stripping Maekar from everything that was once his, the position of a consort, their children, insulting him in many ways, and then waking up one to see the ruins of their marriage...
you reap what you sow (still don't know if I'm using this phrase correctly)
and then Maekar finding his happiness by Dyanna's side, this is so cute
and then there's old man Baelor, alone on his throne that he thought he wanted, half of their children dead, brother-wife divorced him, probably asking himself if standing against his beloved all those years ago in Ashford was really worth it
gorgeous piece of work, really amazing, and also I love the timeline post spring sickness, adds some really nice nuisance to it all
I feel like a child of a divorce when I see baekar separating, bible 😭
