TITIES

⭑ they told him to show you around the gardens of your future castle — so you saw everything and got used to the place. and he, naturally, refused. why would he waste his time and entertain you like a fucking servant? but under maekar’s supervision, he agreed after all.

he walked too fast. you clearly fell behind and did not intend to hurry or run after him. noticing that, he suddenly turned around. “do you have the legs of a five year old? can you walk faster?”

you did not even speed up. “i can,” you answered calmly. “but i will not. you walk like a horse and my legs are tired.”

he only looked at you for a few moments. “you are acting like a child.”

you shrugged and kept walking at your own pace. but you noticed how he slowly, almost unnoticeably, slowed down to walk next to you.

⭑ at the wedding, when the hour of the common cup came, you took the heavy silver cup from the steward's hands. you hesitated. you brought it to your face, smelled the sharp sour wine, and the corners of your lips dropped.

"i will not drink this," your voice sounded quiet but petulant. you pushed the cup away, almost spilling the wine on the white cloth.

"it is part of the rite," he answered, enough for you to understand how important it was.

you frowned. tiredness hid in the creases of your forehead, your lips were pressed tight. the candles danced in your eyes. "it is too sour," you said, like a child who did not want to take bitter medicine. "i do not like it."

aerion slowly turned his head to you. his eyes, usually feverishly bright, now looked at you with close attention. he was silent for a few heartbeats, then slowly turned his head and nodded to a servant.

"change all the wine to sweet."

and later, at the feast.

the feast was only growing stronger: the music became deafening, the laughter of neighbors too sharp, and the gazes of the drunken lords too intrusive. you felt your head start to hum from the chaos.

you touched aerion’s shoulder, interrupting his conversation with daeron. “it is too noisy here.”

aerion raised an eyebrow and looked at you as if you'd said something foolish. “this is a feast. did you expect silence like at a funeral?”

you did not answer — you just pressed your lips together and turned away, staring into emptiness. he immediately felt the change: you no longer tugged at his sleeve, no longer criticized the serving of dishes, and no longer rolled your eyes at the stupid jokes of the retinue.

aerion exhaled loudly, cutting daeron off mid-sentence. he suddenly stood up, firmly grabbed your hand, and pulled you with him, forcing you to rise.

“we are leaving.”

⭑ "i want candied flowers."

aerion raised his eyes from the scroll slowly, as if he did not hear you correctly.

"flowers," you explained, brushing your hair in front of the mirror. "the ones they make in highgarden. white, pink, in sugar glaze. they say they melt on the tongue like the first snow."

he rolled his eyes, the gesture came out almost too dramatic. "it is pointless," he dropped. "highgarden is weeks away."

you pressed your lips and turned away to the window, not saying another word. the evening passed in a heavy silence, you went to bed with your back to him.

he did not apologize. aerion targaryen never apologized, you learned that long ago.

on the fourth morning, you entered your chambers and stopped at the threshold. on the dressing table was a casket. black wood with silver inlay, too elegant to be just a box. you opened the lid.

flowers lay in rows. roses, violets, petals of plants unknown to you — each covered in the thinnest crust of hardened sugar, sparkling like frost. you breathed in the delicate scent and smiled brightly, looking at him as he stood by the fireplace.

"do not ask for more."

you took a white flower and brought it to your lips. the sugar crunched on your teeth, the petal melted — and he was right. like the first snow. "they are cold," you remarked.

your husband only raised one eyebrow. "the road is long."

"should have been faster."

he slowly walked closer, thinking about how he no longer even felt angry at such remarks of yours, only fully accepting them. "next time," he said, "go yourself. and we shall see how fast you return with flowers in your hands."

you took another one. a pink one. "you would not allow it," you answered him back, "for your wife to freeze somewhere on a distant road."

aerion closed his eyes. he was silent for a long time. and then the corner of his lips twitched. "no," he said so quietly that you barely heard. "i would not."

⭑ night fell on the castle, heavy as a blanket of lead. you did not speak for several hours — since he said: "no. i only got you the valyrian steel last moon" when you asked for a necklace of that rare blue stone.

you did not argue and did not fight, but simply went silent and lay on the very edge of the bed, turned away to the wall and did not even fix the blanket — let it be cold, let him get out to his own chambers.

aerion sat in a chair by the fireplace for a long time, drank wine, looked at the fire. he was right, and he knew it: you were unbearable, capricious, demanding the impossible with such an air as if the air around you should turn into gold. any other husband would have sent you to a family estate long ago to learn humility. but you were not just anyone. and he was not any other husband.

aerion set aside the glass, stood up, walked to the bed and looked at your back — offended, beautiful and sometimes (always) unbearable. he did not lie down at once: first he just sat on the edge, then slowly stretched out beside you.

you felt how he moved closer — the mattress sank under his weight, the warmth from his body reached your back. his hand lay on your waist.

"do not touch me," you whispered to the wall.

he did not remove his hand. on the contrary — he pulled you closer, insistently and pressed his chest to your back, buried his face in your hair and was silent for so long that you thought — he fell asleep.

"in a week," he said suddenly into the top of your head, muffled and tired. "your necklace will arrive."

⭑ well, he remembered everything about you.

he might seem busy talking to the lords, but his gaze was always on you. if you kept your hand on the fabric of someone's dress for even a second or looked with interest at an unusual brooch on a guest's shoulder, aerion noted it to himself. a week later, exactly the same thing, only more expensive and of better quality, waited for you in your chambers.

if you tried to express delight or ask how he knew, he only jerked his shoulder irritably. last moon, you kept your eyes on a silver tiara in a merchant's shop — for exactly one second, no longer. a week later, it lay in a casket on your table. you did not even remember it.

"it will suit you," he said, seeing your questioning look.

⭑ you were often capricious — sometimes because of trifles, the wrong fabric, the wrong taste, a word said at the wrong time. it would irritate anyone else to the limit. it irritated aerion too. for a second.

today was the fitting of a new dress. you turned in front of the polished steel mirror for an eternity, frowned, and pulled the lace on the sleeves. "it is terrible," you announced, pulling a ribbon off your shoulder. "the color makes me pale, and the style is baggy, as if i am a servant."

aerion raised his gaze and looked at the dress, then at you. "the dress is just a dress."

you froze, slowly turning your back to him — so proud, offended, with pressed lips and tense shoulders, as if he just insulted your entire existence.

"fine," he said more quietly, almost tiredly, and rose from his chair. he walked closer, stopped by your shoulder. "tell me how it should be."

you turned fully — still sulking, still with a stone face, but in your eyes was already that same spark which he learned to recognize since your first wedding night.

"silk, not brocade, the color lavender, not blue, lace only on the collar and take the waist in by three fingers." aerion listened, did not interrupt, and then nodded to the tailor, ordering him to begin.

he looked at you — there was no irritation in his gaze, only endless patience of a man who surrendered long ago and was even glad of it. "is that all?" he asked. you thought for a second. "and pearls along the hem." aerion closed his eyes, then opened them. "fine. pearls along the hem."

⭑ he loves when you sulk. when you cross your arms on your chest and turn away with pouting lips.

at first, of course, he ignored it — he pretended that he was busy, that it did not concern him, he even spoke to some knight louder as if on purpose, but he still looked at you out of the corner of his eye. the pause stretched, you did not move, did not even look in his direction — and he could not stand this. "again?" he said with light irritation, but he already walked closer, leaned down, and caught your gaze. "what now?"

"nothing," you stubbornly shook your head and turned away again. he exhaled, his hand laying on your chin. he turned your face to him, squinting slightly. "you do not know how to do 'nothing'," he said quietly.

you were silent and pouted your lips again, making him lean down and kiss you shortly and softly. he pulled away first and looked closely. "now?" you still frowned, but already weaker. "still nothing."

he laughed quietly — almost unnoticeably, only the corner of his lips twitched — and kissed you again, longer this time, warmer, as if he tried to fix your mood just like that. "is that better?" he asked in a low voice. you paused as if you thought about it, then nodded slightly. "perhaps."

⭑ aerion targaryen wasn't stupid. he distinguished a real tantrum from a theatrical one, a sincere offense from a fake one. he knew when you were truly tired, and when you simply wanted his attention. and still — every damn time — he gave it to you.

because the point was not whether you outplayed him or not.

the point was that he wanted to spoil you.

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Or, well, not precisely werewolf. I want a werehound. More specifically, I want this man to turn into a great hulking Pyrenean Mastiff.

​

Are people gonna be disappointed when they learn he’s not a wolf, but just some “common mutt”? Bet your ass they are, right up until they actually see him. Someone will probably clock what breed he is, and that only heightens the absurdity because that’s a guardian dog. Those guys are bred to fight wolves and make bears think twice.

​

Not to mention, what do you mean he’s big as a dire wolf?!!?!

​

Just like his human shape, he's unnaturally big even for his breed. And he’s not even fully grown. He’s gonna think his weird proportions are because he’s a werecreature man, but no. He’s just young, so he’s all legs and big paws. Give him a couple of years and a proper diet, and he’s gonna be the size of a large polar bear.

​

The burial of Ser Arlan is gonna be done by hand, half transformed into paws as he tries not to break down and start whimpering.  

​

He’s still gonna meet Egg like in canon. But Egg will be wondering about Dunk’s weird mannerisms, but not think much of it until one brisk night, when he ends up suddenly waking up overheating because he’s basically buried under a bear.  

​

Lyonel is gonna clock him as something non human almost immediately. That’s half the reason he tries to stomp on his feet. And in Dunk’s befuddlement of the situation, he accidentally flashes him with eyes that reflect weirdly under the low light, and teeth that should not belong in a human mouth. Lyonel is delighted. Here is something interesting. Something rare that should not be calling itself a hedge knight and dressed like a farmer. (He’s still not gonna join him at Storms End but now there’s another component to why not.)

​

Baelor and Maekar do not clock it when he appeals for them to vouch for him, despite the fact that they really should. Were creatures used to be a lot more commonly employed by the crown, but for some reason or another, they fell out of favour, the population got diminished, or some other reasons for them to now be rare.  

​

Ashford still goes down. He still ends up in a trial of seven, but this time the thing that stumbles up after collapsing into the mud is not a man, but a very pissed off werehound.

​

Suffice to say, the Ashford tourney goes very quiet and then very much not. The stand goes wild. The following fight is short. What is a sword against a creature with chainmail over a loose hide and a solid, double layered coat, who can move twice as fast as you, even when encumbered by the remains of armour made for a man?

​

And as soon as he gets his teeth properly in you?  

​

Aerion’s sword shoulder will never be the same.  

​

There you are, a prince in the dirt under the weight of a common mutt. Its teeth are in your face, it’s slobbering over you. You look at this creature who punctured your vambrace with its fucking teeth like it was nothing, and who’s about to clamp its jaws over your throat. A MUTT bested a dragon. The rage and embarrassment will haunt you for the rest of your life.

​

Dunk will transform back enough to grab Aerion by the throat, hand still tipped with fur and claws, through a throat made for growling, and between teeth made for rendering flesh, the demand for him to rescind his accusation still rings clear across the field.