Where the gold grass grows.
Baelor Targaryen x female!reader
Second and last part of the one that got away.
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The transition from the mortal world to the next was not a violent wrenching, but a slow, rhythmic unspooling. For fifty long years, you had been the solemn, elegant widow of the Breakspear. You had outlived your husband, outlived your beautiful son Valarr, and endured the cruel, steady decay of a Targaryen dynasty that seemed to lose its mind the moment Baelorโs heart stopped beating in the mud of Ashford Meadow.
Down on earth, they had praised your stoicism. They called you the steady anchor of the realm. But inside your chest, your heart had remained frozen in time, permanently shattered on that afternoon when Steely Pate pulled off a broken helmet and your world collapsed into your lap.
Through every long, freezing winter night in the Red Keep, as you stared at the empty space beside you in bed, a singular, quiet refrain had become your religion. A desperate, silent bargaining with the Seven Upper Heavens that you breathed into the dark:
Dear Lord, when I get to heaven, please let me bring my man. Don't make me walk the golden fields alone. Let me have him back.
And then, the final breath left your mortal body.
There was no lingering agony of the sickness that had finally claimed your old, withered frame. Instead, a sudden, blinding warmth washed over you. The heavy, dark mourning silks you had worn for half a century dissolved into a gown of soft, ethereal white that felt like summer wind against your skin. You looked down at your handsโthe liver spots, the wrinkles, and the trembling of old age were gone. Your skin was smooth, youthful, and glowing with a vital, eternal light.
You stood in an endless expanse of rolling green hills, bathed in a perpetual, magnificent twilight. The sky above was a shifting canvas of deep violet, soft rose, and gold. The air smelled faintly of crushed mint, woodsmoke, and the clean, crisp scent of a fresh autumn morning.
It was paradise. But as you looked around the vast, empty meadow, a terrifying, suffocating panic seized your chest.
The fields were still. The silence was deafening.
"Baelor?" your voice came out clear and young, a sound you hadn't heard in decades. You took a desperate step forward, your bare feet brushing against the cool, dew-kissed grass. "Baelor! Where are you?"
No answer came. Tears prickled the edges of your eyes. Was this your punishment for surviving? An eternity of solitary beauty? If he wasn't here, this heaven was nothing more than a magnificent tomb. You had spent a lifetime waiting to find the one that got away, and the thought of being denied him now made your soul ache with a cosmic, unyielding grief.
"I have never known you to be so impatient, my love."
The voice cut through the twilight like a physical touch. It was deep, rich, and carried that distinct, gentle warmth that had once commanded the entire Seven Kingdoms but had always spoken to you in whispers.
You spun around, the breath catching violently in your throat.
Standing just a few paces away, completely untouched by the horrific wounds of his death, was Baelor. He wasn't wearing his heavy, suffocating war-gear, nor the crown prince's high-collared velvet. He wore a simple tunic of charcoal gray, his dark hair catching the golden light of the horizon. His broad shoulders were relaxed, and his striking violet eyesโthe eyes you had spent fifty years trying to reconstruct from fading memoriesโwere fixed on you with a love so fiercely consuming it felt like a physical weight.
He looked exactly as he had the night before the trial. Strong. Noble. Beautiful.
"Baelor," his name tore from your lips as a broken, breathless sob.
You didn't walk; you ran. Your white skirts billowed behind you as your bare feet flew across the grass, erasing the decades of separation in a matter of seconds.
Baelor didn't hesitate. He took two massive, sweeping strides forward and caught you as you launched your body against his. The impact was solid and breathtaking. His massive, powerful arms wrapped securely around your waist, lifting you entirely off the ground and pulling you so tightly against his broad chest that you could feel the rhythmic, steady thrum of his heartbeatโa phantom pulse of the eternity you now shared.
You buried your face into the crook of his neck, your hands gripping his shoulders as if you were a drowning person catching a lifeline. He smelled of rain, cedarwood, and the unmistakable, comforting heat of his skin. The tears you had held back through fifty years of playing the stoic, unbroken matriarch finally broke, spilling hot and fast against his collarbone.
"I have you," Baelor whispered fiercely, his voice thick with a profound, choked emotion. He pressed his face deeply into your hair, his hands trembling slightly as he held you, anchoring you to him as if he, too, had been terrified this moment wouldn't come. "I have you, my sweet. I'm here. I'm right here."
"I was so afraid," you sobbed into his skin, your fingers moving up to frame his face, frantically tracing his jaw, his cheekbones, his templesโfinding nothing but flawless, warm perfection. "I prayed to the gods every single night... I told them I didn't want a heaven if you weren't in it. I didn't want paradise without my man."
Baelor let out a soft, breathy laugh that vibrated directly against your chest. He lowered you just enough so your feet touched the grass, but he didn't loosen his grip on your waist by even a fraction. He leaned back to look down at you, his large palms coming up to gently cup your face, his thumbs wiping away the tears tracking down your cheeks.
"Do you truly think the gods could keep me from you?" he murmured, his eyes shining with a desperate, timeless hunger. "I have stood on the edge of this meadow since the day I left you, watching. I saw how bravely you carried my name. I saw how you held our family together through the dark, how you comforted our son, how you became the conscience of a crumbling realm. You were magnificent, my love. But every day you spent down there was an age to me up here. I refused to take a single step further into this light until I could hold your hand."
He leaned down, his forehead resting heavily against yours, his warm breath mingling with your own.
"The gods knew my soul belonged to you," Baelor whispered, his lips brushing against yours as he answered the very prayer you had carried in your heart for half a century. "When you got to heaven, they had no choice but to let you keep me."
Then, he kissed you.
It was a kiss that held the crushing weight of fifty years of longing, burning it all down to ash in a single, magnificent second. It was the warmth of the summer sun after a lifetime of bitter winterโdeep, thorough, and entirely consuming. Baelorโs grip on your waist tightened, pulling you so flush against his hard chest that you felt completely enveloped by his mass. There were no crowns to wear, no kingdoms to hold together, and no tragic lances waiting in the dark. The one that got away had been caught, held fast in an embrace that time itself could no longer touch.
When he finally pulled back a fraction, both of your breaths were ragged, a soft, radiant happiness lighting up his noble features.
In the distance, the soft, shifting mists of the afterlife parted more fully. From the gentle slope of a nearby hill, a familiar, youthful silhouette appeared. Valarr stood there, stripped of the pale, sickly look that the Great Spring Sickness had cruelly given him in his final hours on earth. He looked strong, vibrant, and a brilliant, boyish smile broke across his face as he raised a hand in welcome to his mother.
Baelor looked down at you, his large fingers intertwining perfectly with yours, his thumb tracing the back of your hand.
"Come," Baelor whispered gently, his violet eyes locking onto yours with absolute certainty. "Our son is waiting. Let us begin our eternity."
