#maevarr

Or at least, Valarr thinks it is. Daylight hasn't passed consistently for him ever since their return to King's Landing, the days slipping past in fits and spurts; measured by the slinking shadows creeping across the flagstones of his father's childhood rooms. He's not sure why he's retreated here, the old rooms left all but abandoned in the long years since his father had become a man wedded. It certainly holds no memory for him, Valarr's own childhood spent in the quarters in the Tower of the Hand, late nights spent pestering his father in the sleepless solar where the man worked tirelessly. His grief lives there, he thinks, with the honorable man that was his father. But Valarr is not ready to face it yet, and he's found some small measure of comfort here, in the rooms that had housed his father before the man's fate had come for him. 

Valarr was Prince of Dragonstone now, Matarys behind him. The king would arrange for a proper marriage soon, no doubt, stability in the line of succession of utmost importance. Then there was the matter of how his days would be spent, time in the yard now utterly eclipsed by duty and lessons and meetings and matters of statecraft -

But not here. Not yet. Not while he haunts these rooms like a pale ghost of their former inhabitant. Here he can wallow a while, mourning a child he would never get the chance to know, and the rest of the court would not think much of it; would figure it for the eccentricity of a Targaryen in mourning. 

With the exception, of course, of his uncle.

Maekar had accompanied them south because he was a hateful, selfish man, breaking from his own useless sons at the crossing which would have borne him home to Summerhall. Valarr supposes he ought to be grateful for that, at least. It had been good to see the backs of his cousins, the two who'd spoken out against the hedge knight, and earlier still, the man himself. Valarr knows his father would counsel forgiveness, that he'd clearly seen in the man something worth risking his life and the future of the realm for, but Valart finds such mercy beyond him now. For the knight, for his own kin…

And especially for his kinslaying uncle. 

Maekar had been beside himself with grief the whole journey home, riding far ahead of the column to be alone. The kingsguard had not known what to do about it, their positions already at risk considering they'd fought on the side that had violently slayed the Prince of Dragonstone. Maekar would not be found guilty for the events, of course, but that did nothing to assuage them. And besides, with only two princes left in the retinue, they had no excuse not to accompany him. Still, he would not let them near and indeed by the time the column had ridden through the Bloody Gate, Maekar was already safely tucked away in his own chambers - the ones he had used as a child, his grief evidently taking a similar shape to Valarr's own.

For days they'd shared a wall, stone silent in their misery. Valarr hates him, wishes the king would send him away even as he knows none hate his uncle more than himself now. He can hear him weeping at night, breathless sobs loosened by the wineskins he burns through. It does nothing but harden Valarr's heart, just as incapable of empathy for the man as he is of changing any of it. 

And then his uncle comes to him, a pale shaft of moonlight in the dark, and holds a knife to his throat. 

Valarr jolts awake at the cold bite of metal, nicking himself on the edge as he struggles to sit up. There's a heavy weight pressed over him, immovable as the Wall, and a cry for help builds in his chest, instincts calling for the king, the guards - his father.

"Scream and I'll have your tongue," a familiar voice warns. It's raspy and torn, worn thin by an endless march of grief, but Valarr knows it all the same.

"Uncle," he hisses, hands wrapping uselessly around the older man's wrist. Valarr is no untrained boy, but against the Anvil he's quickly proving no match.

"Boy," Maekar sneers, his free hand tightening in Valarr's hair, dark as an inkspill on his pillow in the moonlight. "You should not be here."

"Nor should you," Valarr challenges, meaning in the city. Maekar should be ensuring Aerion's exile, or attending to the only remaining son within his halls. Instead, he's made of himself a burden upon the whole keep, servants tiptoeing past his rooms lest they find themselves the target of his latest tantrum. As Valarr has found himself now, evidently.

"This is my home just as much as it is yours, boy," Maekar grits, his blade pressed perilously into soft flesh. Valarr kicks out, desperate, and Maekar swings a leg over his hip, thoroughly trapping him. 

"Not anymore!" Valarr protests, wriggling beneath his uncle's weight. 

Maekar seems unconcerned, shifting his grip from Valarr's hair to catch his fist when it's swung. He plants it above the boy's head, leans his considerable weight against it. The motion brings him intimately closer, the stench of stale wine following quickly. He's drunk. Of course he is. And all the more dangerous for it. 

For a moment, they simply stare at each other, chests heaving as they try to catch their breath. Valarr inspects him almost apathetically, so far beyond resentment he can no longer name how he feels. He takes in his uncle's haggard state: his limp greasy hair hanging over red-rimmed eyes, hateful eyes; his beard overgrown and verging on scraggly, unoiled for many days. His clothes are mismatched and thrown on, dressed without a steward, and the neck of his tunic hangs wide, unfastened. He looks like his son, Valarr decides, that useless drunken sot who'd started all this, misplacing his brother in the hands of some upstart hedge knight.

"It should have been you," someone hisses, and then several things happen at once.

Valarr shoves mightily against his uncle's shoulders and the man, clumsy with the wine, over balances forward to fight it, his knife cutting a line over the jut of Valarr's jaw before he can catch himself on his fist. Valarr continues to struggle, unheeding of the knife his uncle still holds. He feels the cut of it across his wrist as he flails, and then there's a clatter as it's thrown away, Maekar's hands fisting into the collar of Valarr's sleepshirt instead. Maekar sits back on his haunches, staring balefully down at the young prince from his full, impressive height. Valarr has enough time and sense to grab at his uncle's wrists, but it does no good, Maekar slamming his head down hard into Valarr's nose. He screams, agony radiating up across the pan of his skill, but not loud enough to drown out the sickening sound of delicate bones breaking.

Maekar pulls him up as he sits back, Valarr hanging limply from his grip in his shock. He tries to shove at his uncle's chest, but it's even less use now with one hand cupping the bent ridge of his nose, trying to staunch the sudden font of blood. Is gushes over Maekar's sleeves, stained black in the wan light.

"Mercy," Valarr begs, voice thick with the blood gurgling past his lips, but when he tilts his head to plead with his uncle, Maekar's eyes are dark, unfocused.

Speaking with the ghost of a child you would never know.