#inbox asks

it takes a lot to ruin a person.

in your experience, it happens slow. it takes many long years and betrayal behind closed doors.

you know this because you’ve been quietly watching the path the prince is on for many years.

as a child, you’d never spoken to him and had only ever seen a prince when your aunt had paraded her many sweet infants around the court. but that was when you were young, very young, back in those secure years before your aunt passed in childbirth.

back when dyanna was still alive and laughing.

you’d seen valarr nearly each day since childhood but never exchanged more than a fistful of niceties in greetings. not because he was a hard man to talk to, but because he always had his own burdens to bear. he never had time to be a child and so you’d never played together, never learned songs or ran the walls as you did with your aunt’s children.

all you’d ever watched, for years, was the slow-moving pressure begin to crush him. as a teenager, you’d finally begun to realise that men will look at women. they’ll pause to talk to noble young ladies because it’s a brief, fleeting chance to be close to such delicate beauty and power. you’d learned to dress yourself alluringly and bat lashes at young knights, to trade moonlight kisses and shy affairs.

all the while, that fine young man you’d begun to harbour a gentle desire for seemed further and further from your reach. he was fading under the growing weight. each day older another day of sacrifice.

that handsome, distant prince never looked anywhere.

so it was a slight shock to the court when he turned eighteen and was so swiftly and suddenly married, with not much fanfare at all.

it’s rather a huge going-on at court when there’s a wedding - never mind a royal wedding. people spend weeks organising new gowns and gossiping about the couple. the feasting is a matter of great import. excitement builds and yet … the prince married so quietly to a woman the courtiers have never met. despite all the listening ears and spying eyes, the loose lipped servants and drunken guardsmen, nobody actually knows the bride, and so few were present at the wedding.

afternoon conversations around the court are uttered behind fans and with subtle implications. “well, she’s,” a pause, a cough. perhaps an adjustment of a hand. “tyroshi, I hear.”

an arched brow and a sideways look. “gods, the size of that ship from the east. such splendour.”

that’s how the crushing years pass. how the closed doors and unending pressure begin to shatter those terribly composed outward walls. clustered circles of women - cousins by marriage, cousins by blood. the scattered household remains of lady dyanna and lady jena nothing but a shadow of the former women’s court. all the while, wondering, whispering at the things they’re just at the edge of.

the court obsesses over the delicious unknown of this foreign beauty taking one of the most prestigious bachelors in the realm.

there’s never any blushing or scandalous whispering about the new princess. no servants seem to have raunchy glances to pass in acknowledgement outside the prince’s chambers. it’s such a strange and rushed betrothal and nobody quite knows the fullness of it.

nobody is privy to the inner machinations of the royal house, so speculation rules.

there’s not a word of discord or a mention of unharmonious conduct … but in the years there never surface any particularly good rumours either.

there’s a muted burst of gossiping joy when the new princess makes an appearance shyly cradling her small stomach, yet the fine lady of tyrosh is almost unreadable. she’s a force unto herself and is never drawn to group discussions.

at dinners she sits stoically beside the prince and you watch them both, wondering what in seven hells they must talk about privately. together they seem so … forced.

the princess remains unreachable through the passing years, cold through both loss and prosperity. the young couple are given chance after chance after chance and yet all the marriage produces is tiredness and tears. composed outward appearances yet death and death and death again.

your distant cousin appears ever more crushed by harsh tricks of the seven. he seems older than his twenty-two years. worn down, aged, burdened.

there are crueler members of the court who float ideas of barren women and foreign conspiracies against the crown. why else would a young, fertile lady produce nothing but twisted, scaled little beasts? salacious mutterings and scandalously whispered treasons pass around the lady’s court. of course the tyroshi would want the royal line to burn out. of course eastern powers would see the lineage of the dragon collapse.

then, inevitably, the suggestions come.

how else to maintain the bloodline? how else to supply the prince with what he so desperately needs?

a paramour, an annulment, another wife, a concubine.

so many ideas arise and yet still, nothing happens to the stoic prince. he gives no satisfaction in reacting, does not admit the pain of it. valarr will not rise to what he must surely hear whispered about court, or if he does, it’s not in front of faces.

you suppose, watching your cousin’s cousin, that there’s a lot of hesitancy after the actions of his great grandfather. older lords hold fears that he simply could not resist taking mistress after mistress, abandoning the realm to suffer so many royal bastards. blackfyres and bloodraven and as many more rivers.

all dragons are flesh-eaters. what makes valarr any different from aegon the unworthy?

but the young prince does things right. in the years of his stillborn children, valarr maintained a close and rather strong relationship with the faith. persistent prayer for healthy children - living children - that turned up fruitless. wishes for prosperity and hopes for offspring. begged words to the mother to give him a babe and pleading with the stranger to leave his family alone.

through such cold and hurtful years, it’s the septons that begin to gently suggest he should set his tyroshi wife aside. while their voices may echo the many within court, it’s always so comforting to hear an unfortunate truth from a soft-spoken septon in grey.

they bring soothing words, reassurances that the seven would not take offence. such circumstances surely violate marriage vows - a barren partner is no reason for the crown to lose the male line. why, it’s almost unseemly. the crown is but an extension of the seven - each king a physical manifestation of the seven’s will made flesh.

so what the prince needs, the faith would be all too eager to facilitate.

valarr sits with it, that terrible, chewing guilt. he sits in the silence of his chambers and nurtures the shame as if it’s an absent son. he raises it and lets it grow. he feeds that nasty beast and starts to think that actually, perhaps the voices have some truth.

the fractures begin to leak through underneath. from the gossip of servants, it’s been almost a year and a half since valarr and kiera slept a full night in the same chambers. there are the regular dutiful calls and nighttime summons, but afterwards the lonely wife must always suffer the unwitnessed shame of being sent from bed in the dead of night.

your aunt’s most beloved son, daeron, provides ever more unseemly solutions. the carnal ideas that a septon would never lower himself to, the thoughts his mother’s ladies in waiting wouldn’t think to entertain.

“try a whore first, cousin.” he’d suggested, laughingly, over dinner. “see if you can earn yourself a bastard or two.”

valarr - ever patient as they come - waits with all the terrible suggestions. he lets them fester and gives each idea a guilty turn about his head.

but he can only just endure a fourth lost child before acting.

a choice of woman remains a proverbial thorn in valarr’s side, for this time he may have his own pick. it’s not something he’s used to - one wife already selected for him, so what does he know of courtship? what does he know of seduction and romance? not a speck.

it’s such a thought that has him staving off a paramour for another few weeks, because underneath he’s a coy young man afraid of beautiful women. but then, the more he thinks, he doesn’t want a family of bastards.

he’s a dragon, after all. two wives would be nothing. it’s a rather tame family tradition compared to … all the rest.

valarr takes an aching deliberation, a guilty and shameful one, a dirty one where he closes his eyes and wonders which woman would be bearable. he tests which ladies he could imagine laying with, heart pounding like a teenager again as he toys with his options.

in quiet chambers, the room darkened and shamefully hidden without candles, valarr lays in an empty bed with his hand down his breeches and concludes he will take you - a noble lady in waiting who had grown up in service of dyanna, left in court after the passing of her charge - as his second wife.

a cousin’s cousin he’d surely seen most days since childhood but had never truly taken the time to speak with. he thinks it’s the best solution to pick a face that knows the family. it makes his guilt feel lighter than the thought of daeron’s whores, even as he draws a sticky and sinful hand from his trousers.

a second noble lady to take into bed?

oh, such is the greed of princes.

•

following the tradition of his first, the prince gives a month before facilitating a quiet wedding at the sept. a sombre ceremony where each of the seven septons walks past swinging censers of smoke and muttering prayer for health and life and strength.

either the prayers are effective or you’re a terribly concupiscent woman.

in the passed years, while the prince was suffering in his chambers, you’d never been too shy about errant knights and hopeful lords. why should you? a niece of a fourth son’s late wife means less than nothing, but with your ‘last lamb in the shed’ status also came a slice of freedom. nobody watched too closely what or whom you were involved with.

fearful but informed by these fancies and rushed liaisons, you manage to match your newlywed’s smiling excitement. valarr is pleasantly enough surprised that this participant is a shade more learned than previous.

this wife brings a strange new experience altogether. a hot tongue and hands that know where to squeeze, what to stroke and when to stop entirely and let the mouth take over. it’s with curiosity, not offence, that valarr grips your hair as an order to stop.

“with whom did you discover such talent?” valarr mumbles, guiding you to eye level. sat on the edge of the bed he gathers his breath while you rest over one spread thigh. you want to move fully across his lap, truly and quite desperately, but you’re not sure where the fragile line rests.

“the knight with the swan on blue field,” you reply, mouth meeting that enticing expanse of bare chest and neck.

“such rich service to the realm,” valarr replies. his eyes drop and his thumb touches your bottom lip ever so briefly.

“how shall I thank him?” he asks, leaning back and locking a leg to roll you over.

“shout for him, princess,” valarr suggests kindly, spreading your knees and pushing forward. “perhaps he’s at the door - tell him how grateful I am for his tutelage.”

your confidence melts because for as many daring things as you have done, there is one thing your husband is definitely more practiced at. one thing you’d never found it in you to surrender entirely in some perverse sense of retained purity. something valarr holds a possessive satisfaction for.

besides, he’d been untouched when he married his first wife. there’s something about his current experience that he thinks needs testing in light of this swan knight. this mystery man who will soon receive harsher strikes in the yard and know not the reason why.

so with witnesses at the door valarr takes his second wife under a blinding confidence that he’d never had the first time round. it’s enough to spark at least a few laughing comments from the servants. perhaps a drop of passion all the realm needed.

you’re afforded the luxury of sharing his bed for a full night on the eve of your wedding. somehow, it seemed an ill omen to send his wife to her own chambers after so freshly consummating.

afterwards you’re given equal treatment to kiera. you’re provided chambers of your own and a long enough leash - sometimes valarr comes to your room for his satisfaction, other times there’s a knock on your door and a waiting escort.

it’s a harsh routine but when you’re sat together in the dusk, speaking companionably about such trifling matters as the court harpist and the not-so-secret affairs between handmaids and household guards, he’s a good man. a soft man.

a man crushed by guilt and confusion and expectation. a man that, upon seeing you at the chamber door with a saddened expression, will still choose to stay with you. if he summons you to his room only to find you do not wish to undress for him, he is pleased enough to sit with your head in his lap as he reads.

it’s hard to truly fall in love with it, when at the back of your mind you wonder if four years ago kiera had such sweet treatment. if the early days were this felicitous for her, too, when the hope was high and nobody had died yet.

in some quiet and insecure nights, you compare yourself to her. the beautiful woman sleeping down the hall that nobody truly knows. it’s only when valarr’s sleeping hands squeeze around you do you wonder if kiera is as afraid of you, as you are of her.

•

when you fall pregnant the young prince extends invites for you to move into his chambers. it’s all concern and partly, you suspect, a grand display of guilt.

you sense as a way of making up for it, valarr spends renewed time walking kiera about the gardens and dancing with her at feasts. her name isn’t spoken in your presence, just as you assume yours is never waved before her.

“a wife for daylight and a wife for dusk,” you mutter to yourself, tangling your feet up in his empty blankets as you hear feasting carry on below.

it’s a surprise to you then, that the doors open and valarr comes through, smiling. partly drunk, but smiling. he greets you with a kiss like he’s been at war for a decade, hands up by your cheeks and a depth to the embrace you can’t tell is rehearsed or not. you’ve never seen him kiss kiera like that, but then again you try never look too closely at anything they get up to.

while you stay in his chambers, there’s absolutely no way to know if he’s making his own social calls.

from all accounts, they’d always been rather rigid in their marital pursuits. you’re unsure though, if that is simply what the gossiping servants want you to hear.

through the weeks valarr keeps you close by, maintaining your comfort and finding that no true man can keep hands off his lover and soon to be child’s mother.

the sight of you, claimed and carnal and all too fertile, makes him a different man. proudly, he sleeps beside you and speaks softer than ever before. if there’s a thing you wish for, it is yours before the request is spoken. he wishes to have you, keep you, each and every night, feeling the guilt of his first wedding cold upon his shoulders. even more so on the evenings when he runs straight from council to sweep you into bed, kiss your stomach and admit the terrible, base instincts you unleash in him. even when he admits passing over his unburdened wife because the pleasure he gets from you is more than addicting.

he needs you in the way he’s never truly needed a woman before - even when the months drag out and he can no longer reasonably take his pleasure with you, there’s no whispering among staff that he’s back to seeking flesh comforts with his first and truest wife.

kiera takes all of the changes with an angered, wounded pride. she doesn’t fight with you or cause strife - not outright, not publicly - but the unhappy looks on her face burn you like you’re equally guilty.

and then, actually, her stares enrage you.

because this is not your fault. this marriage not your asking. if she had simply given the crown the child they wanted, she would have had it all. then, after the anger you feel sadness. what a woman you could have had as a friend and confidant and yet the court will set you at odds.

your presence does not undo her longstanding shortcomings, but it does make you doubt yourself.

it makes you wonder how secure you truly are, how protected you might be. you cannot help but quietly obsess over the fear of a daughter. the instinctive, maternal fear to perform and to provide colliding with the royal need to produce.

it’s with that same fear that you ask your husband one night: “who will you say this child belongs to?”

he turns to you in the bed, face plastered with shock. gentle hands cup your cheek and neck. “you, sweet love. this child is ours.”

“you would not try pass it as kiera’s?” you as with a fleck of doubt.

“near everyone at court has seen your state. the lords know, because I tell them, that you’re carrying a child of mine.” valarr replies firmly. “I would never lie about my heir - it would start war.”

“but you love kiera.” you argue, grasping at his hands and holding them in place by your cheek.

“in a way,” valarr sighs truthfully, ever the devoted man. “but I did not love watching my children come into this world already dead.”

“so if I cannot give you different, you will go back to her.”

“I have not left her,” he says, tiredly. “so I would not have to go back. things would simply… change.”

“oh, how simple.” you scoff, tears in your eyes and arms dropping to wind around your stomach. “how calming to know that if all I could provide is daughters, you may one day take a third wife.”

“my love, I would not abandon you. we are wed now for better or for worse.” valarr comforts, turning to try dry your tears. “any child would be fortunate, if only to prove I am not at fault.”

“do not give me false words to soften the blow.” you bite your inner cheek and try get a handle on the emotional ache. “you need not pretend to love me.”

“I do love you,” he pleads, hands at your cheeks. “my lady, this is a lavishly cruel life. everyone believes the prince is the one ordering others around, but truthfully …. I am the one under orders.”

“I was an order…?” you ask hesitantly.

“I was told to seek another woman.” valarr admits. “a choice under duress but you were a choice all the same, darling. I could have taken anyone at court but …”

your husband trails off and gently flexes his hand, fingers stretching thoughtfully. “each time I sat down to deliberate, I kept picturing you.”

•

for the first time in many years - not since dyanna gave her last breaths to bless the court with little daella - there come the harsh sounds of a crying infant. almost too loud after so many years without. a hollow echo, but a memory of a memory itself.

within your temporary chambers - a measure of confinement from the maesters as labour loomed - the crying is loud and strong. precious evidence of your bloody labours and months of sweating discomfort. wailing screeches that overlap in places because you were not blessed with a child.

the gods, in their tricky generosity, gifted two.

two boys as if to make up for lost time. one babe, admittedly, is smaller than the other. a somewhat weaker infant than his brother.

but two sons? that is an undeniable victory for valarr, no matter if the youngest is a little sickly, a little scrawny. it’s proof he had no need for daeron’s whores. proof he was not the one at fault, he was not defective.

because your husband is an honourable man, a dutiful one full of convicted words, he maintains kiera to prevent tyrosh from plunging the west into a squabbling trade war. but the young prince makes it clear to any and all witnesses that his boys were sired on a westerosi noble, with a dayne just like his aunt.

they’re legitimate children of the crown and both of his lady wives are pillars of fealty and duty.

in the dark when you weep over the cradle and ask if that is it - if the contract is fulfilled, if he will have no further need of you - your husband has only calm words. light words to follow this bright new era.

“I cannot let you go now,” valarr soothes, staring down at the smaller boy. everyone has hope he will grow, now he has survived the delicate hurdle of the womb.

“two more and the debt is clear. I wish to make up what the seven have taken from me.”

again, amazing ask. thank you. I hope it lived up to expectation.