Mati|da

No matter how many years together, he still treats you as he did when you were his betrothed. But in the sense that his chivalry knows no bounds. Only now, knowing you more. Always walking a step behind you, but with his hand raised to your lower back. Bringing flowers by hand to your solar or chambers when he returns home. Unclasping his cloak from himself to drape it around your shoulders on colder nights. It’s become second nature now.

And he secretly loves when you steal them from him, letting it fall into your hands even when his men eye him from behind. He could care less, so long as you’re the one doing it.

You’re the last person he sees before battles, if the time will allow him. It’s a ritual he has, already in his armour, tucking his helm under his arm before standing in front of you.

“Do you have to go?” You blink up at him, still fussing with the steel placed on his arm.

“You know that I must. I only want to make sure your face is the last I see.” His voice is a delicate rasp, not once tearing his eyes from you as his fingers raise you strike your cheek.

Your hand plants into the metal under your hand, nudging him as he tempts a smile, the action barely knocking him back at all. And then he leans, placing a kiss to your cheek, one longing and lasting, nudging his nose to yours as he breaths. Another one captures your lips, this time more fervent, both palms smoothing to the sides of your face as he draws you near. So that should it be the last, it’s the only thing to remember him by.

Speaking of battle and being taken from you, he brings souvenirs and gifts back with him as often as he can. Pressed flowers in his handkerchief at his breastplate, ones far from what you’re used to, summer flowers, wildflowers, and herbs in vibrant colours. Trinkets and delicate pieces of jewellery that are dainty enough to fit into his pockets. Or simply just the small letters he sends more frequently than he should by Raven.

Always signed with the signature of his name and beneath it:

Forever Yours.

The most protective in the quiet way. Because even if he can’t be beside you, his eye always is. Though jealousy isn’t something strong with him, he is weary of those around him, with full trust and care of you. He had seen how depraved men can be, how ruthless they become with a quick turn. At feasts he pulls out your chair, sliding an arm around you, or settling lowly on your knee, at ceremonies or in large crowds he’s at your side. And when others raise their voice or get too close, he’s slipping impossibly close just to put himself between you and the danger.

Gwayne doesn’t do titles, at least only for the times when duty doesn’t require it, and he introduces you as such. To him you are not just lady.. he speaks your name first, and that alone, before he continues.

“My wife..” A proud smile appearing on his face as he draws you closer to him. Though for whatever reason, he still uses ‘My Lady’ to tease in the softer moments, wrapping his arms behind you as you stand in front of your vanity, lips pursing at your neck. Because the titles and endearments are for you, no one else.

His favourite pastime is just being in the quiet with you, existing together, more so reading. Sometimes he will read with you in his lap, one hand combing gently through your hair as you listen, drifting slowly. Other times he’s the one laid behind you, your back pressed into his chest, his arms curling around you as you hold the book. Those are the rare times he truly feels like he relaxes, eyes closing, breath warm at your neck, listening to the soothing tone of your voice.

He reserves the more lighthearted sides of himself in private. Most people would describe him as plain, a chivalrous, good man, but perhaps in some people’s eyes boring. He doesn’t stand and shout amongst the other men, or become raucous in crowds, but he isn’t without humour. It’s dry, and sarcastic like he is. Like the looks he gives you from the side when a lord drones on too long, or the sly comments he makes behind someone else’s back that make you both laugh when you’re attempting to stay serious. There is more to him than most know, and he’s often mocking them at their own expense, just to see you smile.

When the weight of the realm feels impossibly heavy, he simply rests his forehead against your own, in company or without it. It’s your shared way of grounding one another, and how he vows to you silently, over and over, that he is yours. He’s here to protect, and be by your side more than any other responsibility that befalls him.

“Yours, before all else.”

“I’m not laughing at you,” you assured her - though the glare she leveled at you adequately conveyed her disbelief. 

It was true, you’d spent the morning giggling, not bothering to hide your smile as she was scrubbed and dressed and received a third - or thirtieth, you’d lost count - lecture from your father about duty. But, you weren’t laughing at her.

If anything, you were laughing at the absurdity of it all.

The King, the leader of the realm, was allowing a parade of potential suitors to offer themselves to Rhaenyra - his eldest, if only by a few moments - on a silver platter. The endless stream of lords was one she steadfastly refused to even consider, her heart already in the hands of the Rogue Prince, and you could not help but find amusement in the entire ordeal.

Viserys was going to the greatest efforts to secure a match for her, one that might leave her content - at best - while your own betrothal was not even a consideration.

Such was life.

“I do not believe you,” Rhaenyra insisted, violet eyes narrowing as she huffed. Still, she leaned into the feeling of your fingers carding through the silk strands of her silver hair. “You’re finding great joy in my misery.”

Despite herself, there was no heat to her accusation, no real belief that you found her pain amusing, but you still dutifully attempted to hide your smile.

“Believe what you’d like, sister. However, I do doubt I’ll be next,” you admitted, shrugging as you spared her a glance - somewhat grateful, somewhat incensed by the lack of consideration. “Father’s extended his best efforts to secure a match for you and you’ve succeeded in scarring half the lords in the realm,” you teased - laughing as Rhaenyra lightly pinched your forearm in mock scolding. “My own marriage is of little concern to him or anyone else. Perhaps, instead of a repeat of this spectacle, I’ll be sent away to become a septa,” you mused, only half-joking.

“What a shame that would be.”

Whatever reply lingered on Rhaenyra’s lips was swallowed as you both turned your attention to the young knight, remaining just a few steps from where you sat. Though you had not seen him in years, dressed in the rich emerald green of his house with flaming red hair, there was no question who stood before you.

Gwayne Hightower, once the very object of your girlhood affection, was a rare visitor to the Red Keep these days. 

As children, you spent a great deal of your time together, nearly every waking moment you could spare. You, Rhaenyra, Alicent, and Gwayne were never very far from one another, though you, Gwayne, and Alicent spent far more time in the library than Rhaenyra, who enjoyed nothing more than soaring through the sky atop Syrax.

The four of you were certain that you would grow into adulthood together - Rhaenyra and Gwayne riding off to battle and glory; you and Alicent, settling into gentler, happier lives as you awaited their return. 

That vision of the future brought you joy, excitement. But the vision that truly sustained you was the one in which you spent the rest of your life with Gwayne, happily married and blissfully lost inside a love you had little hope truly existed.

Unfortunately, that vision of the future disappeared in a plume of smoke.

Though his father had spent more time as the Hand of the King than Viserys had spent on the throne, after the death of their mother, only Alicent remained at court while Gwayne returned to Oldtown to live as a ward of Lord Ormund. He was nearly of age, and determined to become a knight, two prospects that meant he was well on his way to joining the City Watch - an order Otto despised, as deeply as he despised the man who occasionally commanded it.

Rather than allow Gwayne to fall into the hands of Daemon Targaryen, Otto sent his youngest son back to Oldtown.

The very moment Gwayne disappeared from your sight, auburn hair blazing in the sunlight as he began the journey to the Reach and blue eyes glittering as they met yours just before the gates shut, any hope of a shared future dissolved.

And the moment Aemma passed, any hope of peace between the Hightowers and Targaryens disappeared with her.

In the years that followed - the years that brought a union between Alicent and Viserys, babies Aegon and Helaena, and a handful of tourneys he should’ve competed in - you’d only seen Gwayne twice. And you found yourself nearly at a loss for words as you blinked at him.

“Ser Gwayne,” you greeted, offering a smile that, though tight - not the welcoming embrace of a one-time childhood companion - was more than you sister seemed capable of as she scoffed. “What brings you to King’s Landing?”

The tension in your shoulders, the tightness of your smile, the sudden weight that seemed to be pressing on your chest; each one answered the question you had no real need to ask. However, despite the discomfort you felt, you smiled politely as you awaited the obvious reply.

As the son of the Hand, a Hightower, he was a suitable match for a Targaryen princess. He would never be the first choice - the second son of a second son whose only acclaim was his lengthy turn as Hand - but everyone knew Viserys had long given up his desire for perfection and only wanted some measure of decency. He trusted Otto with his life and, if Otto put forth his youngest son, Viserys was apt to accept the offer without thought.

The parade of suitors arrived days earlier, each with a more ostentatious entrance than the last, and you knew he should’ve been among them. As ill as it made you feel, as much as you despaired the idea of Rhaenyra marrying the man you’d long dreamt of, if he’d only arrived with the others, there was little doubt Viserys and Otto would’ve been altogether too invested in making a match. And, despite his tardiness, if the King and Hand were so inclined, there was little anyone could do to prevent the pair from marrying.

No matter the damage that might do to your heart.

Seemingly unaware of your inner turmoil, Rhaenyra sat upright and frowned at Gwayne as he took a tentative step closer to where you sat. Bright eyes met yours, alight with an amusement you could not understand, as he hummed.

“My father sent for me,” he confirmed, seemingly unbothered by Rhaenyra’s narrowed violet eyes and sneer as he stated the obvious. “I’m sure it was to join the parade of suitors but I suppose I’ve arrived too late to be considered for Princess Rhaenyra’s hand,” he mused, sparing you a smile that seemed a touch too bright as he did. “How unfortunate.”

Despite his lament, Gwayne did not sound the least bit concerned, a fact both you and Rhaenyra noticed immediately. And while it struck you as both heartening and curious - you would not have to watch your sister wed a man you once dreamt of marrying, but what man in the realm did not wish to marry Rhaenyra? - it drew her annoyance, as did most things to do with House Hightower, of late.

“I can tell you’re positively beside yourself with grief, ser,” she declared, not bothering to conceal the roll of her eyes as she stood, unwilling to be in his presence any longer. “Perhaps your sister, the queen, may offer you some comfort.”

Rhaenyra, not bothering to spare either of you another glance, pushed past Gwayne - a step too close to be an accident - and retreated to the Keep in a flurry of shimmering gold and red.

Silence lingered for a long moment, something uncomfortable and heavy - something you never would’ve expected to experience with Gwayne - as you watched her disappear. Only then did Gwayne return his attention to you with a thoughtful hum. “Still a sore spot, then?”

The last time you saw Gwayne was at the wedding - both of you silently worrying - and he’d been an unfortunate witness to Rhaenyra’s misplaced anger at Alicent.

Unlike Rhaenyra, you did not blame your friend - you blamed her father, you blamed your father - but there was little you could do to mend the rift that had only seemed to grow ever wider with each day that passed. And, with a frown, you confessed as much to Gwayne.

“Alicent has tried, but Rhaenyra…” With a sigh, heavy and clearly communicating the weight on your shoulders, you moved to stand - nodding gratefully at the hand Gwayne offered. “I understand both, I think,” you confessed, retracting your hand and turning your head so he could not see the flush that lit your cheeks as you swallowed all thoughts about the warmth of his hand in your own and, instead, focused on the seriousness of the chasm you spent your days sidestepping. “I wish we could find peace, somehow,” you continued, hoping he did not hear the hitch in your voice as he took another step closer. “I mislike the tension and miss my friend.”

For just a moment, the statement lingered in the still of the garden. It was honest, as honest as you’d allowed yourself to be with anyone in a long time, and you felt a sudden pang of regret as you quickly pasted on your most polite smile.

“Enough melancholy,” you dismissed with a wave of your hand. “How was your journey?”

Blue eyes met yours, searching in a way most never seemed to be - questioning, analyzing, rather than accepting the answer at face value - and you felt an almost overwhelming sense of vulnerability beneath Gwayne’s knowing gaze. Just as he had when you were children, still growing into yourselves, he seemed able to understand you when few else did.

And, rather than push you to carry on a conversation you were obviously not looking to entertain, he allowed you to shift the line of conversation. “Long,” he lamented, though he answered with a smile. “It was uneventful, and for that, I am grateful.”

“I’m very glad you arrived safely,” you assured him, though your cheeks heated with the admission. When he dipped his head, hiding his smile for your benefit, you carried on quickly. “Though, I’m sorry you arrived after the suitors were dismissed.”

In a way he seemed amused, a thread of humor glinting in his eyes as he continued to assess you in that all-knowing way of his. “Are you?”

Gwayne’s doubt was evident, a playful skepticism that made your skin heat with something not quite strong enough to be considered embarrassment though it came close enough. Regardless of your words, of the well-plotted act you followed without deviation, he seemed to hear the truth.

Though you would never admit it, you were glad Gwayne seemed to hold no interest in marrying Rhaenyra.

“Of course,” you said, anyway - continuing to follow the script and play your part faithfully. “You’d make a fine match for my sister.”

‘An even finer match for me,’ remained unsaid, though you assumed Gwayne heard it just the same.

For a moment, Gwayne allowed the comment - and its unspoken counterpart - to linger. Instead of rushing to reply, to thank you for the compliment or brush it away with the confident, casual air only he seemed capable of wielding without causing offense, he simply stood with you in the quiet of the garden.

It was only when the clink of armor and the click of heels against stone sounded that he made an effort to reply.

“Your confidence is appreciated, princess, but I believe there are many and more, far finer matches for Princess Rhaenyra. I will lose no sleep because of it and hope that neither will you.”

As Gwayne spoke his last word, the sentiment lingering and charging the air with something so tenuous you feared the slightest breeze might destroy any shred of its existence, he met your eyes. It felt as if everything around you ceased to exist, as if nothing else mattered, as hope began to rear its ugly head.

The warmth of a long buried dream, a long dormant affection, began to simmer in your blood - only to be cooled almost immediately by the bright voice of Alicent calling out to her brother.

“Gwayne!” 

With hurried footsteps and a smile brighter, and truer, than anything you’d seen from her in longer than you cared to admit, Alicent approached the pair of you. If anything about your moment with Gwayne seemed untoward - a Targaryen princess alone with a knight, unchaperoned and standing too close for the sake of propriety - she gave no indication that she noticed and, instead, simply smiled at you both.

“Father just told me you’d arrived,” she continued, “I apologize for not being there to greet you. I was with the children.”

Alicent’s arrival seemed to shatter the glimmering bubble that enveloped you for just a brief moment - something you pretended, hoped, Gwayne felt, too, as his smile grew regretful before he turned his attention his sister. And, as you returned to yourself, you felt the need to place as much space between yourself and the youngest Hightower as possible.

“If you’ll excuse me,” you began, cutting in before they could begin their conversation or dismiss you themselves, “I’ll go see about Rhaenyra and leave you both to catch up. Welcome back to King’s Landing, Ser Gwayne.”

With a parting smile and a squeeze of Alicent’s hand - a gesture you’d taken to providing when you could - you turned and set off in search of Rhaenyra without sparing Gwayne another glance. And as you wandered through the labyrinthine halls of the Red Keep, you could only allow yourself to wonder how long Otto might permit Gwayne to remain in King’s Landing and how long you might keep yourself from dreaming of a future that could never be.

Much to your surprise, keeping away from Gwayne proved easier than you imagined.

While his mornings were spent in the tiltyard with guards and a few members of the City Watch, yours were spent with Rhaenyra as she struggled to keep Viserys from shipping her off to Casterly Rock. While your father had no desire to see Rhaenyra trapped in a situation that would leave her entirely miserable, his patience had worn thin following the parade of suitors and what he deemed her indiscretions.

And following her dalliance with Daemon - and Criston, the truth of which only you knew completely - his patience dissolved completely.

The wedding was to be a grand affair with a feast and more merriment than Viserys’ own wedding - a much larger, brighter, more exciting affair than the solemn ordeal you’d been forced to witness. And, for a brief moment, it very nearly was.

Rhaenyra and Laenor had no romantic love for one another but as they danced, you felt hope they might at least find happiness and understanding in one another.

Even as Daemon stepped in to dance with Rhaenyra, his intention clear to all, things were fine. 

Merriment descended into chaos so quickly that your mind was left reeling. Dancing gave way to shoving, lords and ladies scrambling away from the savagery of Rhaenyra’s sworn sword and the futile attempts of other guards to pull him away. Shouts of joy quickly became shouts of terror, then a stunned silence, followed by a cry of anguish as a man lay dead in the midst of the revelry.

As blood stained Criston’s white cape, Harwin Strong rushed Rhaenyra to safety - easily flinging her over his shoulder and carrying her off as Laenor watched his companion fall - and you were ushered out of the hall by another guard whose face remained hidden in the shadows and flurry of movement.

Confusion reigned for a few long moments and the entirety of the Keep seemed to settle into a stunned silence as you wandered, in something of a daze, into the gardens. 

As time passed - just a few moments or, perhaps, even hours - you settled onto a stone bench and attempted to make sense of the scene you’d just witnessed. Though you knew someone would come looking for you sooner rather than later, you savored the silence as you wondered if there was anything you could’ve done to help prevent the misfortune that befell Rhaenyra’s wedding festivities.

And, though you would never admit it, you found yourself wondering if your own wedding - should you have one, after the disaster you witnessed - would be as memorable.

Before you could think too long and hard about the future - about what changes might be made in the event of your own marriage, about who you might be forced to marry to ease now doubtlessly fractured relationships, about how miserable you may someday be - a voice cut through the still of the night.

“Princess.” 

Gwayne, auburn hair tamed and eyes shimmering in the light of the moon, approached slowly. There was a concern on his face, joined by a barely concealed hint of amusement, that struck an already frayed nerve as he joined the seemingly endless list of those who found the spectacle of your life to be the highest form of entertainment. However, despite the simmering annoyance you felt, the sight of him was something of a balm for your racing heart.

“I was hoping I might find you,” he continued, stepping closer - now fully illuminated. “Though, through all the ruckus in the hall, I feared another guard had snatched you away. Ser Strong lives up to his family name, it seems.” When you made no attempt at a reply, only exhaled heavily at his attempt at levity, Gwayne continued unbothered. “Cole, Rhaenyra’s sworn sword, is… intriguing. He is skilled but has an unquestionable temper that is easily triggered. But, perhaps -“

“Do you never tire of your own voice?”

The question, spat with a venom you hadn’t known yourself capable of, interrupted Gwayne’s soliloquy. If he took offense from, or was surprised by, the outburst, he hid it well. Instead, he simply ducked his head to hide his laughter before returning his attention to you.

“Mm, I’ve been told my voice is rather charming,” he confessed, lips curving into the ghost of a smirk as he stepped even closer. “Unfortunate that you do not seem to agree, princess.”

With a sigh, you shook your head. “My apologies,” you hummed, tone softer now. “It is not you I am frustrated by.”

Though it was a partial truth - your true frustration was caused by your father, by your sister, by your lot in life - Gwayne did play at least some small part in the unease that had settled in the pit of your stomach.

While it was not his fault that you wanted nothing more than to marry him, to disappear to Oldtown and leave behind the madness of the Red Keep and all its political misery, his presence only reminded you of what you could not have. 

Still, Gwayne seemed unruffled. “I take no offense. It has been a rather… exciting evening.”

Scoffing, you nodded. “An understatement,” you huffed, before adding, “I wish for nothing more than a little peace.”

The smile Gwayne now offered was one of understanding, something gentler, as he offered you a hand. “Shall I escort you to your chambers, then? The feast has ended, I’m afraid,” he announced, smile growing just a touch brighter as you accepted his offer.

As you stood, smoothing your gown and inhaling the last breath of cool night air, Gwayne released your hand and waited. It was only when you began to move that he did, too.

Silence had never been one of Gwayne’s strengths - as much as you regretted snapping at him, he did seem to enjoy the sound of his own voice - but he remained quiet at your side for much of the walk through the Keep. It was only as you began the ascent to your chambers that he spared you a sidelong glance.

“Oldtown is most peaceful,” he declared, unprompted, body a respectable distance from your own - though still a step too close for true propriety - as you walked in-step. “Though it is a large city, there is a serenity King’s Landing has not yet achieved.”

“I would love to visit someday.” Much of your life had been spent within the confines of King’s Landing, with only the occasional visit to Drftmark or Dragonstone, and you wished to see more of the realm. “I’ve heard of the beauty.”

“The Red Keep, for all its grandeur, does not offer one a true image of life beyond these walls. There is much to see.” Gwayne’s words, while gentle, held a sadness - a seriousness - you’d never before associated with him. He’d long been bright smiles and sharp jabs, playful taunts and swinging swords. There’d always been a boyishness to him but you were reminded that he was now a man grown as he turned to glance at you. “Do you ever imagine a life lived elsewhere?”

Had the question come from anyone else, you might’ve found offense. Had anyone else asked, you might’ve denied the dreams that often consumed you.

But because it was Gwayne, you felt yourself falter.

“Sometimes,” you began, words trickling out slowly as you attempted to make sense of your own thoughts - of his line of questioning. “I love my sister, my father, Alicent. The Keep is beautiful and King’s Landing has always been my home. But I do wonder what it’s like, what it will be like. I won’t live here forever,” you confessed, casting your gaze to your shoes as you approached your door. “Whoever I marry, surely I’ll go to live with him.”

“Have you given any thought to that?” When you frowned, Gwayne elaborated. “To who you might marry.”

Gwayne’s gaze was intense, searching - overwhelming - as he waited patiently for your answer. There was a glimmer in his eyes, the same one you saw often when you were young, and you swallowed the dreaded hope that dared bloom once more.

“Rhaenyra’s betrothal was more of a concern,” you confessed, tipping your head in an attempt to hide the confession that remained unspoken - the one that told him you often felt an afterthought to your sister.

“My father sent for me,” Gwayne began, pausing only a moment to catch your eye. “It was to be part of the parade of suitors vying for Rhaenyra’s hand but I had no interest in taking part. I have never wanted to marry Rhaenyra,” he confessed, taking a step closer - toeing the line of propriety as he did so. “Surely you know my attention has been drawn elsewhere and has been for a very long time.”

Despite the sincerity, the earnestness with which he spoke, you felt certain that the moment was a dream - or nightmare, depending on whether the person who captured his attention was someone other than you. Though you desperately wanted him to have spent years imagining you would someday be his wife, it felt impossible to believe.

“Rhaenyra is beautiful,” you reminded him, voice small and almost frightened as you waited for him to confess that it was all in jest or reconsider his options.

“No more so than you.” Gwayne stated it as a fact and you blinked.

“She is bolder,” you continued, searching desperately for any reason he might have to want you over your sister - none of which made any sense to you.

“I think you plenty bold.” He took another step closer, now foregoing any pretense of respecting propriety, and offered you a patient smile.

“She will someday be queen.” It was the last reason you could imagine, the one that seemed to draw nearly as many suitors as her beauty, but Gwayne seemed entirely unimpressed as he shrugged.

“I have no desire to be king consort. I’m content with the life I lead, save for my want of a woman who does not seem to recognize her own value,” he mused, tipping his head to meet your bewildered gaze with a questioning look of his own. “What must I do to prove to you that you are the woman I wish to marry, the one I’ve wanted since we were children?”

Without thought, you demanded, “Kiss me.”

Before you could find it within yourself to be embarrassed, Gwayne laughed. “Plenty bold,” he teased, smile soft but real. “However, you are tempting me to do something we’ll both regret.”

“Why is that?”

Gwayne’s lips curved into a smirk, blue eyes glinting with an amusement that you’d always found charming, as he hummed. “I fear if I kiss you now, I may never stop.”

There was little doubt as to what Gwayne meant, little doubt as to why he kept himself a step from you, but you cared little. Despite your upbringing, the teaching of your septa, you cared little about anything other than finally having Gwayne.

“Then don’t.”

Blue eyes flashed with something dark, something hungry, and you could see the restraint it took for him to offer you a placating smile. “I’ve spent my time here waiting for the moment to ask for your hand. When I did, it seemed the Keep erupted in chaos,” he confessed, laughing when you blinked - stunned that he’d already asked. “Neither of our fathers had a chance to answer. If I take you and they choose to deny us, the king will have another scandal on his hands. Two wayward princesses - your jest about becoming a septa may become a reality,” he reasoned, though his hand lifted to your cheek.

“And if the answer is yes?” Unable to help yourself, you leaned into his touch and allowed yourself a moment to enjoy the warmth of his palm pressed to your skin.

“Then they’ll have no choice but to allow us to marry sooner rather than later.”

Gwayne knew the risk was, nearly, entirely your own to take. With his father serving as the Hand, he would not be sent to the Wall for stealing your virtue - you both hoped, anyway - but there was still a lingering fear of the shame that might befall you both if anyone were to see. If both your father and his denied the match, you would be hard-pressed to find a husband and feared you would be left in the same position as your sister.

Despite that understanding, the choice was one you made easily. For as long as you could remember, Gwayne was all you’d wanted, the only man you’d ever considered, and there was little hesitation as you pushed open the doors to your chambers.

“Both are consequences I am willing to accept.”

There was a moment of doubt, a wonder as to whether Gwayne would follow you or if he would allow propriety to dictate his choice, but the moment you stepped into the warmth of your own room, he followed close behind.

The heavy wooden door shut with a finality that seemed to seal your fate, a confirmation that the choice you made in the moment at hand would dictate your future, and you found that there was no fear in what was to come. You would either marry Gwayne, be sent away, or be married for political gain.

At the very least, you would experience his touch before your fate was decided.

Neither of you moved for a long moment, both almost uncertain - you, with inexperience; Gwayne, with a hesitation to potentially destroy your future - before he stepped forward and silenced the endless cacophony of doubt swirling in your mind.

Gwayne’s lips pressed to yours in a kiss softer than you’d anticipated, something almost gentle, as his hands returned to your cheeks. 

Warmth bled into you, the heat of his body pressed to your own as he crowded closer - a dizzying sensation that had you clinging to his biceps in an effort to steady yourself. Everything about him overwhelmed your senses, made it difficult to remember anything other than the longing you felt for him, and you were glad of it as one hand fell from your cheek to rest at your hip.

There was no rush, no hurry, and it eased some of the nerves that still rattled you. 

So many years had passed, very few of them with contact shared between you and Gwayne, but as he stepped with you, deeper into the interior of your chambers, it felt as if no time at all had passed. He’d always been there, in the back of your mind, and you’d long held hope that he would be there in the future - though, of late, you’d hoped that he would be in front of you.

To finally have him as you’d so long dreamt was nearly as instinctual as breathing and you settled into his embrace easily.

Both of you were content to to linger for a moment, one of his hands on your cheek while the other gripped your hip as your hands held tight to his biceps, and savor the kiss. His lips, warm and chapped slightly, moved easily against your own, chasing them each time you attempted to part to catch your breath. His tongue traced the seam of your mouth, a hum of approval escaping as you parted your lips and allowed him to taste you - wine, honey, lemon.

“If I’m to live the rest of my life apart from you, knowing the feel of your lips - knowing how you taste - I may go mad,” Gwayne declared, breaking the kiss and doing nothing to hide his awe as your chest heaved with the effort of catching your breath.

“Then let us pray we will never be parted.”

It was you who surged forward then, reclaiming his lips in a desperate bid to keep him as close as he would allow, and Gwayne responded in kind.

Hands, calloused from years spent wielding a sword, fell to your hips as he continued to blindly inch you closer to the canopied bed. Though you could only feel the warmth of him, just barely, you shuddered at the thought of feeling his bare skin pressed to your own.

Mercifully, as you stepped beyond the privacy screen with only minimal impact with objects unlucky enough to reside in your path, Gwayne’s hands moved to the laces of your gown.

“As eager as I am to take whatever you will give me, we can stop,” he assured you, voice soft, lips only an inch from your own - warm breath fanning across your face as he met your eyes. There was a look of understanding in his own, a compassion few had ever shown for you, and your heart ached. “We can wait, hope that we will be given leave to marry, and save your reputation if we are not.”

“I don’t care about my reputation,” you promised, lifting your hands to rake through the soft strands of his hair. “If we are denied, I’ll at least have this memory to soothe my broken heart.”

With your blessing, Gwayne reached for the final tie - hands holding the fabric in place for only a moment before allowing it to begin falling. As the red fabric began to slip down your shoulders, those warm hands were there to explore the newly exposed skin.

Gwayne’s attention fell to your body, lips no longer chasing your own as he watched your skin be exposed inch by torturous inch with eyes blown black with a hunger you’d never before seen.

One hand lifted to your throat, fingers brushing along your collar bone and across your shoulder - down your arm, pausing only to lift your hand to his mouth where he pressed a soft kiss to the back, those eyes never leaving your own - as the other moved to continue peeling fabric from your body. 

Every inch of skin Gwayne touched, every inch he merely gazed upon, felt warm - kissed by the flames of a desperate need you’d never before felt. Though the room had been comfortable only moments before, it suddenly felt stifling, air thick with a growing want that you nearly feared, as he finally leaned in to press his mouth to your skin.

Soft kisses peppered your skin - delicate, careful things that made you feel revered, worshipped - as he walked you back, helping you step over the pile of fabric pooled around your feet.

The moment the back of your knees pressed to the mattress, Gwayne nipped at the soft skin just beneath your ear. “Lie back for me, my love,” he urged, not bothering to hide his smile as you sighed - just a little lovesick - at the term of endearment. 

As you climbed onto the bed, situating yourself amidst the pillows and fabric, Gwayne made quick work of the clothes he wore.

Unable to help yourself, you watched with unblinking eyes as he stripped beautiful green garments and tossed them into a heap beside the red fabric of your gown. He’d always been beautiful, bright hair and eyes a stunning contrast to the dark green he always wore, but he was even more beautiful than you remembered as he stood before you. The pale expanse of his skin emerged, littered with silvery scars from tourneys and training, and you longed to reach out and touch him.

Before you could, however, he settled onto his knees at the side of the bed and reached for your thighs.

“It is my hope that I can spend the rest of my life between your thighs,” he declared, eyes bright as they lifted to meet your own. “Your sister will someday be queen of the realm, but you shall always be queen of my heart.”

The teasing comment was accompanied by a wink, exaggerated and playful, and laughter escaped you immediately. Even as Gwayne worked to pull the fabric of your small clothes from your body, you shook your head. “I fear I may have changed my mind, ser,” you teased, shifting to accommodate his body as his hands stroked your warm skin. “Is it too late to find a more serious suitor?”

“Entirely, I’m afraid,” he hummed, leaning in to press a soft kiss to the inside of your knee. “Though the ladies of the realm owe you a debt of gratitude for saving them from my awful jests.”

“Well, if someone must,” you teased, voice faltering as he continued pressing his mouth to the warmth of your skin.

Gwayne seemed pleased with the beginnings of your reaction, nearly proud at the way your breath hitched and your lips parted the higher his lips ventured, and you found yourself entirely unbothered by the thought of him drawing closer and closer to your most intimate area.

Curiosity and a breathless anticipation lingered in the pit of your stomach, entirely overwhelmed by the warmth now entirely consuming you, as Gwayne inched ever closer. His fingers dug into the plush of your thighs, keeping you still and pliant, as he glanced up at you once more. “And, if someone must taste you,” he hummed, “well, I suppose I cannot refuse my princess.”

There was no time to wonder what Gwayne meant - or where he learned any of what he now used to please you - as he leaned in and began lapping at the slick gathered between your thighs.

The warmth surrounding you was now a full on blaze, a fire consuming you entirely, and you couldn’t find it in yourself to care that it could easily burn you alive as Gwayne lifted a hand to your aching cunt. Every sensation was new, overwhelming, and you could feel a tingling at the base of your spine that spread throughout your entire body as he licked at the arousal he’d caused.

Though much of the Keep was likely still making sense of the chaos, returning to rooms and inns and dealing with consequences, you kept enough of your wits about yourself to lift a hand to cover your mouth as Gwayne’s fingers joined his mouth in exploring the most intimate part of your body.

Every touch was better than the last, each one pulling sharp cries of pleasure from your throat, and you could feel Gwayne smile as he pressed a finger to your entrance.

“The next time we lie together, I want to hear you,” he declared, breath warm and sending a shiver down your spine as your skin muffled the words.

Gwayne’s bold insinuation that there would be a next time, that you would be allowed to see one another again - perhaps even have the future you’d long dreamt of - had your hand lifting to his hair. A little sharper than you intended, you tugged at the auburn locks and swallowed a moan of his name as he groaned against your skin.

It was all too much, too overwhelming, and you felt the desperate need to have him impossibly closer settle in the pit of your stomach.

With a tug at his hair, you urged Gwayne up, leaning over you - drawing him into a kiss that knocked him off balance. Laughter bubbled once more at the clumsy gesture, as he tumbled onto the plush mattress atop you, but it was quickly swallowed as you both realized the position you were in.

The warmth of his bare skin against to yours, the weight of his body pressing you into the mattress, the bulge of his cock pressed to your thigh - each realization struck you and rendered you nearly speechless as your fingers tangled in his hair. However, the pause only lasted a moment before Gwayne encouraged you to shift back onto the mattress and make room for him in your bed.

“Last chance to be rid of me, princess,” he whispered, knees pressed into the mattress and caging your hips.

“I want you closer,” you assured him, free hand reaching for his shoulder in an effort to urge him closer. “I don’t want to spend more time without you.”

Assured that your decision was resolute, that you had no doubts, Gwayne leaned in once more. With his small clothes gone and your slick coating your thighs, he pressed his mouth to yours as his hand fell to his cock.

“It’ll only sting for a moment,” he assured you, words whispered against your lips as he notched the head of his cock at your entrance. “But once it’s done, you’ll feel incredible. I’ll make sure of it,” he promised, pressing his forehead to yours as he began to inch forward.

Just as he warned, there was a stretch - a slight pain that stole your breath and made tears sting at the backs of your eyes - but he stilled above you and began pressing kisses to the heated skin of your cheeks, lips, and chin.

“Now that I’ve tasted you, felt you,” he breathed, “I’m ruined for any others. I am yours and yours alone.”

“Being sent away to become a septa would be a kinder fate than being forced to marry another,” you agreed, breathless and nearly lightheaded as you attempted to calm the beating of your heart. 

Gwayne did not allow you much of a reprieve, however, as the moment the words left your lips, his hips began to shift.

Though you both felt somewhat clumsy, inexperienced and desperate for the pleasure of the beloved you feared you may never feel again, the tingling at the base of your spine spread across your body. It needled at your nerves in the most pleasant of ways, curling your toes and sending your heart hammering against your ribcage as you focused on the feel of Gwayne pressed to you.

Every drag of his cock, every press of his hips to yours, had you seeing stars and you reveled in the pleasure.

“Gods, I don’t want to imagine a life deprived of this, of you.” Every whispered word of compliment, every grunt and groan of pleasure, chipped away at the negative emotions you’d felt for years and while it felt an awfully vulnerable thing to say - something far more serious than you intended for the moment at hand - Gwayne seemed all too pleased to hear the thought spoken aloud.

“Neither do I,” he promised, lifting his head to meet your gaze. “I suppose I’ll just have to spill inside you, then,” he decided, grin growing bright at the prospect - of what life might be like if there was no one to hand you a cup of moon tea and demand you drink it. “I don’t imagine our fathers will deny me your hand if there is a chance you’ll soon be with child.”

The earlier thoughts you’d had about the kind of match Gwayne would make - that he was not perfect for Rhaenyra - mattered little where you were concerned. Though a princess, you were the second and marriage was all that was required of you. A Hightower, the son of the Hand, would do fine for you.

“I don’t imagine they would deny us regardless,” you whispered, though it sounded far less assured than you hoped it would.

A fact he noticed. “Wouldn’t you rather be certain, princess?”

Gwayne’s hips snapped harder, pressing him even deeper, and you felt the breath disappear from your lungs with every thrust. It was more than you could handle, the heat growing impossible to withstand as it blazed across your skin, and you nodded desperately.

“If certainty means a lifetime of this, then by all means,” you urged, voice an eager rasp as you held tight to Gwayne.

Pleasure enveloped you both, then, a tidal wave dragging you under and refusing to relent for what felt like a lifetime. The edges of your vision blurred and your ears rang as you found your release with Gwayne following suit. The warmth of him settled atop you, buried inside you - spilling inside you - was more than you could bear and you bit down on his shoulder to keep from crying out as loudly as you wished.

As he promised, Gwayne filled you - his seed spilling onto the sheets with the evidence of your tainted virtue - before pulling away to lay beside you.

Strong arms wrapped around your body, pulling you tight to his chest, and Gwayne laughed quietly. “I will not accept no as an answer,” he promised, voice quiet but certain as he tipped his head to glance at you. “We will marry and you will find peace in Oldtown, with me. I think you’ll be happy there.”

“If I am with you,” you whispered, offering him a smile, “then I know I will be.”

And, true to his word, the morning after Rhaenyra married Laenor in the quiet of the hall, you found yourself joining hands with Gwayne in a similar affair. While her wedding had been a solemn occasion, the bride and groom both beside themselves with the grief of a life lost, your own seemed a touch happier.

There was the promise of a future with Gwayne, one that brought you an excitement you’d not felt in a very long time, and as you began preparing for your new life in Oldtown, you felt a sense of peace that you knew would suit your new life all too well.

________________________________________________

Author's Note: Clearly, I did not intend for this to get as long as it did. But such is life. Anyway, I have power and internet and water again (hurricanes suck) and am spending my newfound free time writing. Hoping to have a few more pieces up soon. Also first time writing for Gwayne so be gentle. He's younger in this so not quite as sassy and jaded yet. Also I usually try not to write such a specific physical reader and I may not again but this was fun. I don't look like a Targaryen but it's fun to imagine sometimes.

So thoughtful, she knew it was only a matter of time before he realized she’d spent too long putting the children to sleep, and he would leave their shared chambers with the sole purpose of finding her. She picked up the pace, pushing the side door open that led to the dragon pit. Not many knew of its location as it was out of sight of the fortress. Only the Hightower family and its few dragon keepers knew where it stood. 

It wasn’t large by any means, but Gwayne had built it for her. When they’d taken Daeron to ward, and Alyssa had claimed her dragon, he’d had the best dragon pit lords brought in to aid with the addition process. It was nothing compared to the dragon pit she’d grown up with, but it was large enough to house the three Hightower dragons, and it was perfect to her. 

She had been beyond proud when her daughter claimed her dragon, Morning, at her last family visit to King’s Landing. Alyssa had only been eight, the second youngest dragon rider after her Aunt Rhaenyra. Alyssa’s grandfather had been even prouder, hosting a celebration feast in her honor, much to the Alicent’s dismay. A deep groan echoed through the pit, Silverwing’s snout peaking from her cave. Y/N’s hand fell to her stomach, caressing it gently, before approaching her dragon. “Lyka, ñuha prūmia.” (Quiet, my heart.)

Climbing the saddle, she wrapped her arm with the reigns like she had a hundred times before. She leaned forward, laying her cheek against the dragon’s scales, humming lightly. “Īlon're jāre lenton, Silverwing.” (We're going home, Silverwing.)

Silverwing practically purred, stretching her wings beneath the light of the moon. 

“My love.” 

Y/N’s eyes widened, straightening her spine, her husband’s deep blue eyes meeting hers. Silverwing purred yet again; she had loved him husband since the day you had. 

“Gwayne.” Y/N’s tone was cold, colder than it had ever been while addressing him. 

“I heard you telling the children goodnight. When will you return?” His voice was wavering as if he was forcing himself to remain calm, but she could tell he was itching to tell her to stay. “They will-” 

“Do not bring them into this.” She looked down at the reigns. “The children will be fine.”

“And when they ask where their mother has gone? What then?” His calm facade had faded, he sounded tired, and ragged with grief. Her heart ached to hold him: he had told her the stories of his mother, how she’d left him so young. While she did not want the same for their children, she had to help her sister. “Stay, and I swear to you we will fight for your sister.” 

“When? In two years time? Gwayne, I cannot continue the way we have. I am loyal to the true heir, to my sister. Surely you can-” 

“Have you truly been so miserable? My heart lies with you, as it always has. I cannot stand that usurper king either, and yet I continue on. For your sake, for our children’s sake. You know he would not hesitate to kill us all.” 

“So you cower? You cower when Rhaenyra needs you most? When I need you most?” She tightened her pull, preparing to flee. He had always been her weakness, and she could not back out. Not this time. “You are not the man I thought you were.” 

“How-” He stumbled backward as if she had stabbed him in the heart. “I have loved you with every bit of my being-” 

“And it is not enough!” She yelled, an uncomfortable silence falling over them. 

His voice was quiet, a mere whisper that was only carried by the night’s breeze. “Then I am sorry I have let you down.” 

“Tell the children I love them.” Gwayne watched as his wife flew away, his hair flying out of his face from the force of her dragon’s wings. That had not hurt him, not sent him into shock or despair. The pain of knowing that she’d left them rang through him, and he turned away, stalking back toward the castle a broken man.

“I love you, Mother.”

“I love you, my darling.”  

Her mother was elegant, standing quickly before gently tucking her in before leaving the room. Alyssa waited until she heard her footsteps turn into nothing before rolling out of bed. She ran to her wardrobe, pulling on her flying robes with ease. Alyssa had known, as hard as her mother had tried to hide it, that she was leaving. 

The Lady Hightower was a proud woman. Of course, she was. Born a Targaryen, she had every right to be proud, everyone always said that Targaryens were closer to gods than men. Alyssa liked to think she was more Targaryen than Hightower. She loved her father, but she felt alive when she flew her dragon.

When she sat in the sept like her Aunt Alicent taught her, she felt as if she could fall asleep. 

Opening her door as quietly as she could, she tiptoed down the hallway, following the path to the dragon pit. She’d almost reached the door that led outside when her brother’s voice called after her. “Lyssa? What are you doing?” 

She sighed, throwing her head back in annoyance. “Gaemon, go to bed.” 

“Not until you tell me where you’re going.” 

She turned around, hissing. “I’m following Mother.” 

His eyes grew teary. By the gods, he was tiresome. “Is she leaving us?” 

Alyssa clenched her fists. “She doesn’t want to leave us, she wants to help her sister.” 

“Aunt Helaena?” 

Her brother needed to visit the library. “Aunt Rhaenyra. The true-born Queen.” She felt proud when she said it, but Gaemon only looked lost. “Swear you won’t tell Father I’ve gone.” 

He nodded. “I won’t tell because I am coming with you.” He puffed his chest. “I want to help.” 

She laughed. “You? With what dragon?” 

“I can claim one, just like you did.” His bottom lip jutted out, and she fought the urge to groan. 

“Fine, fine. Just promise you will stay quiet.” 

She’d always loved Oldtown at night. It was quiet, peaceful compared to how busy it was during the day. Her favorite time to fly was late, long past dusk when no one could see her or judge her for her choice of clothing. 

“My love.” 

Alyssa’s heart stopped. There stood their father, confronting their mother. Gaemon whined. “I hate it when they fight.” 

“They have not even begun to fight, Gaemon.” 

“That is why I hate it.” He squeezed her hand. “It is starting.” 

“I heard you, telling the children goodnight. When will you return?” Their father continued. Alyssa’s eyes welled, she hated seeing her father so upset. “They will-” 

“Do not bring them into this. The children will be fine.” 

“And when they ask where their mother has gone? What then?” Their father’s voice sounded upset, angry with their mother for leaving. Alyssa could feel Gaemon pulling away. 

“Stay, and I swear to you we will fight for your sister.” 

“When? In two years time? Gwayne, I cannot continue the way we have. I am loyal to the true heir, to my sister. Surely you can-” 

As much as she wanted to listen to her parents, Gaemon was young and fragile, hearing this talk would only upset him further. She grabbed his hand, pulling him further into the dragon pit. “Come, Gaemon. There is a tunnel that leads to Morning’s cave.”

“But Mother-” 

“We will see Mother soon.” 

“And Papa?” 

Her heart twisted, pretending she had not heard him. “Morning has missed you. If you behave, I will let you feed her first.” 

Dragonstone was so beautiful in the early morning, the way the sun hit the sea just so. Not long ago, she had accompanied her sister to retrieve their brother’s egg. She had even brought Gwayne mere weeks after their courtship had begun. No one inhabited Dragonstone then, and they had fully taken advantage of the fact. 

Her cheeks grew red thinking of it, that this had been the first place they’d kissed. 

Now her sister resided in their ancestral home. 

She knew that the Queen’s council would be wary of her arrival. Being the Lady Hightower, many expected her to be loyal to the new King. The lords who advised her sister had forgotten that she was a Targaryen, a Princess of royal birth, the youngest daughter of their beloved King Viserys and Queen Aemma. While she loved her husband deeply, she remained loyal to her sister, as she always had been. 

Silverwing dove, landing gracefully on the clearing adjacent to Dragonstone. Sliding off her saddle, Y/N laid her forehead against Silverwing’s cheek, whispering her thanks before approaching the soldiers that stood guard.

“Who goes there?” 

“Princess Y/N Targaryen. The Lady of Oldtown.” The guards looked at each other suspiciously. She couldn’t blame them, the Hightowers were the entire reason this war had started. She sighed. “I am the Queen’s sister.” 

“Aunt.” Her niece emerged from the shadows, dismissing the two men. “How wonderful you could join us.” 

“I sense you are less than happy to see me.” She walked past her, straight into the castle. “That will change.” The castle was dark, the candles doing little to illuminate its halls. 

“You are mistaken.” Baela laughed. “I fear we need your help now more than ever.” 

“Oh?” She frowned. “What has happened?” 

“The small council,” Baela whispered, the servants in front of them pushing the great doors open, their ancestor’s Painted Table coming into view. “They grow tired laying in wait.” 

“I see.” She allowed a faint smile to grace her face, showing her niece she had no ill will. “Then I am glad to be of help.” 

“Y/N?” 

Her eyes welled, her arms widening as her nephew ran to her. “Jaceaerys.” She hugged him tightly. “You are a man-grown.”

“I am glad you are here-” 

“My Prince.” Sir Erryk interrupted. “Another dragon has landed.” 

“Another?” Jaceaerys looked near murderous. Y/N could not blame him, her half-brothers were erratic, never stopping to think about what their actions might do to others. However, Aegon was not stupid enough to show up alone, and Aemond was too proud to let Aegon confront their sister. 

“Allow me to accompany you.” Y/N hooked her arm through her nephews. “I should like to see my dear little brother again.” 

Jaceaerys laughed. “I will enjoy you humbling my mother’s council.”

The sun had fully risen by the time they left the castle. The dragon was far back, far enough so that they could not make out the face of its rider. Even from a distance, both could tell that it was neither Vhagar nor Sunfyre. It was not small by any means, but its build was quainter than that of Vhagar or Sunfyre’s. Not to mention, its scales were pink, a color neither of the older dragons possessed. “Whose-” Y/N’s blood went cold. The only pink dragon she could name was- 

Jaceaerys looked over, tilting his head. “Is everything alright, Aunt?” 

“That dragon is my-”

“Mother!” 

“Mama!” 

She raced down the path, grabbing her children and holding them close, inspecting them for injuries. Jace just laughed, a hand covering his mouth. “Baela will enjoy this.”  

The council, as her niece had said, was power-hungry by nature. With her sister absent, they seemed to pounce at the chance to silence Jaceaerys and her aunt. She turned away from the fire, setting her hands on the table as she brazenly interrupted. “I must say, Ser Broome, you are quite comfortable interrupting the heir to the Iron Throne.” The older man sat back in his chair, silent. “Have you recently come into a title that allows you to do so?” 

He shook his head. “No, Princess.” 

“Then I suggest, in the future, you hold your tongue.” Her smile was curt, looking back to her nephew.  “As you were saying, My Prince.”

“We must send a dragon.” 

“Where?” The council stood, bowing their heads as Rhaenyra walked into the room. 

“Sister.” 

Rhaenyra’s once sullen face grew joyous as Y/N approached her. “How long have you been here?” 

“I arrived only yesterday.” Y/N leaned forward, whispering. “Where have you-” 

Jaceaerys cleared his throat. “To support the war your vassals have been fighting in your absence… Your Grace.” 

Rhaenys interjected. “Cole’s host has grown since riding abroad. He raised the levies of both Rosby and Stokeworth and with their combined strength sacked Duskendale.” 

Ser Darklyn stepped forward. “Duskendale?” 

“The city has fallen. Many Darklyn men declared for Aegon. Those who refused were put to the sword.” 

“What of my father?” 

“He kept his oath. Cole took his head for it.”

“Where have you been, these last days?” Y/N could tell her nephew was getting tired of his mother’s antics, eager to prove himself to her as they both had been with their father. “You vanished without so much as a word.” 

“Well I apologize for my absence and the secrecy, but such was necessary. I went to King’s Landing.” 

“To what possible end?” 

“To meet Queen Alicent and sue for peace.” 

“You saw Alicent?” 

“I did.” 

Y/N did not know whether to laugh or to stop her nephew.

“You could have been taken or slain!” 

“I inherited eighty years of peace from my father. Before I was to end it, I needed to know there was no other path. And now I do.” 

Y/N smiled, placing a hand on her sister’s shoulder. “He would be proud, I know it.” 

Rhaenyra looked melancholy at best. “Only one choice remains to me: either I win my claim or die.” 

“Cole’s victories have only emboldened him. He marches on Rook’s Rest.” 

“His host was just hours away when Lord Staunton’s ravens took wing.” 

“Why Rook’s Rest? After Duskendale? It is but a small coastal keep.” 

Y/N nodded. “A small coastal keep that is mere leagues from Dragonstone.” 

“Lord Staunton is a member of this council. His castle is small and vulnerable and there for the taking. Cole knows that we have no army on the mainland.” 

“He is brazen.” 

“He is daring us to act.” 

“We need to send a dragon.” Jace once again insisted.

“There are those who have mistaken my caution for weakness. Let that be their undoing. I will go.” 

“You cannot.” Jace looked tired. 

“I will not lose dragons to the war whilst I hide here in my castle.” 

“Our ally raise their banners for you, Mother. If you die, all is lost.” Jaceaerys puffed his chest. “Send me.” 

“No.” Rhaneyra laughed. Y/N laughed as well, but it had been for a different reason. It had not been long ago when Rhaenyra herself had drove her father mad, now her son did the same. 

“I will burn Cole’s lines and withdraw before King’s Landing could even raise the-” 

“You lack the experience.” 

“Then send me, sister.” Y/N interrupted. “They will be caught off guard by the Lady Hightower attacking. I am sure of it.” 

Rhaenys nodded. “Send me as well, Your Grace. Meleys is your second-largest dragon and no stranger to battle. I will meet Cole.” 

“Mother-” Alyssa whispered, pulling on her sleeve. “Please do not-” 

“Alyssa.” Y/N hissed. “What did I say?” 

“Do not interrupt,” Alyssa whined. “But Father-” 

“Alyssa.” Y/N knelt, holding her daughter’s hands in hers. “You must know I would never harm your father. Trust me, everything will be fine.” She kissed her daughter’s cheek. “Swear to me you shall stay here and look after your brother.” 

“I swear.” The young girl smiled, her eyes watering. “I swear, Mother.” 

The soldiers cowered in fear at the sight of Meleys and Silverwing flying above them. They began to scream in terror as they both rained fire on them. Y/N pat her dragon’s back, tightening her harness. “Sȳz, ñuha riña.” (Good, my girl.) Her eyes flickered to the tree line, her blood curdling when she saw her husband’s armor glimmering in the mid-day sun. Her heart beat faster as she watched her Aunt fly straight toward Aegon. 

Sunfyre had always had a sweet disposition, and it broke Y/N to know that by the end of this battle, the dragon would not be with them. It had not, however, broken her to think of her half-brother’s death. 

A deep roar echoed through the air, the hairs on her neck raising instantly. Vhagar’s head broke the clearing, heading straight for the pair of wrestling dragons. Y/N pulled the reigns, racing toward the older dragon before it could attack Meleys. “Dracarys, Silverwing, Dracarys!” A great stream of fire left her mouth, hitting Vhagar’s side. The older dragon let out a pained cry, erratically flapping her wing, desperately trying to rid herself of the pain. 

Y/N flinched, gasping as she helplessly watched the wing smack Silverwing, knocking the younger dragon out in a single moment. “Silverwing, daor! Wake bē riña, wake bē!” (Silverwing, no! Wake up girl, wake up!) 

Silverwing began to plummet, straight into the forest. She screamed, cried, anything to wake her dragon before they both met their deaths. “Sōvegon! gaomagon mirros, uēpa riña!” (Fly! Do anything, old girl!) The dragon remained gone to the world. Y/N sobbed, slapping her hands on her dragon’s side. “Wake bē!” (Wake up!) 

Silverwing’s eyes cracked open, frantically slapping her wings, fear evident in her movements. Y/N cried, reassuring her. “Mirre kessa sagon sȳrī, Silverwing. Mirre kessa-” (All will be well, Silverwing. All will-) 

Gwayne could only watch in horror at the battle that played out before him. Even during his days as a mere foot soldier, they had been civilized and honorable. There was no honor in this fight, in this war, in the men leading it. Criston Cole, who treated his soldiers with disdain, also treated his new position as Lord Hand with equal care. Now here the Dornish man stood, ordering Gwayne around as if he was just a mere foot soldier once more. Not to mention, his wife left him and had planned to leave without so much as a letter. He would have thought after their many years of blissful union, she would have thought to tell him of her plan. That had hurt more than her departure. 

In the end, he was not shocked she had gone. His wife was loyal, and he could not blame her for her actions. He would have done the same for his own sister. 

When the servants had told him his children had also left, he had truly become a wreck. He had been sitting at his place at their dining table when they’d told him. Their favorites had been already placed on their plates, now cold, while he sobbed in the dining hall. And there he stood, feeling just as empty, when he saw his wife’s dragon emerge from the clouds. 

By the gods. 

He swore then not only to his family but to himself, that he would be with her again, with his children again, even if that meant betraying his family. Not that his sister’s children or his own father had acted as a true family in the first place. Family was a system of connections to them, to the entirety of the Seven Kingdoms. He and his wife, the woman that she was, had together made it much more. 

She was, in his eyes, perfection itself. 

He remembered, not long ago, she had convinced him to fly to Dragonstone. When they had been there, laying on the lawn in front, she’d told him what she wanted for the future. She swore to him, mere weeks into their courtship, that if they married, their children would be good, instead of the spoiled nobility they’d come to know, spreading greed and hurt. 

That had made him surge forward, kissing her soundly. 

He kissed her as often as he could after that moment. That moment, that promise, had been what made him ask the King for her hand in marriage days later. 

She was too good for this world, a world that was constantly fighting. And her family, he told himself, she was too good for them too. 

The same went for his children. 

And now, as he watched his wife’s dragon fall from the sky, one thing raced through his mind. He needed her like the very air that filled his lungs. He left his men without a second thought, racing across the battlefield, his only goal to reach her. 

“Y/N” A voice rang through the clearing Silverwing had created. “Y/N?” 

She groaned, her ears ringing. Her entire body ached from the impact, her head felt pulsing as she rolled over. “Who-” Everything came rushing back, the battle, her aunt, Silverwing falling. Forcing herself up, she reached down, grabbing her dagger from her leg holster. “Whoever you are, think twice before-” 

“Y/N!” Gwayne jumped off his horse, running toward her. “I saw you falling, and I-” 

“Get back.” She glared. “I do not need your assistance.” 

He raised an eyebrow. “You just fell from-” His arms flailed toward the sky. “I thought you were dead!” 

“I am sure you would have been thrilled.” She turned her back, scanning the woods for any sign of Silverwing. She loosened her harness while she was falling, scared that Silverwing would crush her, would crush- 

“I feel sorry for you.” 

“You feel sorry for- Ah!” Her stomach twisted, and she winced, caressing it lightly. “It’s alright, darling.” 

Gwayne’s voice was a mere whisper, so close that his breath grazed her neck. “What did you say?” 

“I said-” She whipped around, glaring. “You-” 

“Are you-” He looked hopeful, excited even.

“Gwayne, do me the courtesy of not revealing my location to your precious Lord Hand.” 

“Do you truly think so little of me?” He sounded desperate. “I love you, I have for as long as I have known you, and it-” He grabbed her hand, laying it over his heart. “I have only lived for you and for our children, you must know that?” 

She ripped her hand from his hold, her eyes tearing up. “I apologize for assuming otherwise. I should have told you, but I did not, and you cannot fault me for that!” 

“I am not faulting you! I have not held it against you, even when our children flew after you! I knew in my heart, that you were right, that you were doing what your heart led you to do. It is one of your best qualities, the very thing that drew me to you in the first place.” His eyes were tearing up as well. “You- you make me-” 

“What?” She yelled. “What exactly do I make you? Angry, upset, murderous?” 

“Crazed!” He yelled back, walking up to her and grabbing her face with his hands. “I love you, desperately!” 

Tears fell from her eyes faster than ever, she could not tell what exactly had caused it. It could be the exhaustion, or the adrenaline hitting her all at once. Or perhaps it was because when her eyes met his, she felt as if she was a young girl again, being wooed by the handsome knight. “Gwayne…” She grasped his hand tightly. “Come with me. Leave this all behind. I know the loss of your seat in the Lord’s Council will hurt, but you’ve never loved the pressure it brings you. Our children…” She smiled. “Will be happy around their family, around the very people who will never judge them. My love-” She took a deep breath, her eyes full of desperation. “I need you.” 

His arm wrapped around her waist. “I-” 

“If you do not wish to come with me, just say it.” Her eyes were red by now, there was no doubt. “Perhaps we should go our seper-” 

“I will do anything you ask of me. Anything.” 

“Then come with me.” She pleaded. “Come wit-” 

Gwayne collided his lips against hers, pulling her closer than she’d ever thought possible. Her heart began to pound, harder than it ever had during a kiss, and the next thing she knew, the world was going dark, a dragon’s snout nudging her side before everything went black.

Bright orange light shone through the curtains, a warm breeze dancing through the room. Y/N’s eyes fluttered open, her heart beaming at the sight in front of her. She groaned, pushing herself to sit up in her bed. Her voice was hoarse as she spoke. “My darlings.”

“Mother!” Alyssa all but jumped out of her chair. Gaemon, her perfect boy, was peacefully asleep in the seat beside her, his little fingers reaching out for hers. Her eyes watered, grabbing his hand gently. 

Gwayne was pacing on the terrace, his auburn hair glowing in the sun. He looked like an angel, a worried angel indeed. 

Alyssa hugged her mother tightly, her face buried in her neck. “You’re awake!” 

She nodded, grinning. “Alyssa, will you please take your brother on a tour of the castle?” 

“But-” Y/N raised an eyebrow, caressing her daughter’s cheek. “Yes, Mother.” Alyssa groaned,  walking around the bed and impatiently tapping her brother’s shoulder. “Gaemon, wake up.” 

“But what if Mother-” He rubbed his eyes, jumping onto Y/N without a second thought. “Mama!” 

“My boy.” She kissed his temple delicately. “Run along with your sister. I will be here when you return, I swear it.” 

She waited until they’d left the room to stand. Walking across the cold stone floor, she stood at the threshold of the balcony, leaning her head against the archway. “Gwayne, there’s something I must tell you.” He made no effort to face her, her stomach curling. “It’s rather delicate…” 

“I know.” He stopped, staring at her, his eyes wide. “I know.” 

“How?”

“The maester.” He stepped forward, his voice steady as he gestured toward her stomach. “May I?” 

She nodded, words refusing to leave her. He knew. During the fall, she wasn’t sure the babe would survive, but with the nauseous feeling in her stomach, there was no longer a doubt. He knelt, leaning his head gently against her. “Hello, little one.” Y/N’s eyes began to water. “You are quite the brave one, going into battle with your mother so young. When you leave her womb, we shall exchange battle stories.” 

She laughed, a tear falling down her cheek. “Please, do not be upset with me.” 

He looked up, tears falling down his cheeks. “Upset? My love, another child with you is never a reason to be upset.” He stood, leaning his forehead against hers. “I am a truly blessed man. To be your husband is the closest a man can be to the heavens themselves.”

She smiled, kissing his lips gently, her heart almost breaking all over again as she pushed him toward the door. “You must leave before my sister knows you are here.” 

He laughed at her, actually laughed at her. “My darling girl, how do you believe you got here? I carried you into this room myself.” 

“So-” Her lips tickled against his as she spoke. “My sister-” 

“I pledged my support to her as soon as I knew you would survive. I am a man of my word.” He leaned down, pulling his lips to hers. “I will never leave you.” 

Y/N smiled into his kiss. “I love you.” He grinned, spinning her around. She laughed, smacking his arm playfully. “Gwayne, put me down. The babe-” 

“The babe?” The couple looked over, smiling at their children. Alyssa stepped forward. “What babe?” 

“I-” Y/N hid her face in her husband’s neck. “I’m embarrassed.”  

Gwayne laughed, shaking his head as he addressed their children. “Your mother is with child.” 

Alyssa groaned, even as she smiled widely. “Again, Mother?” 

Gaemon’s head fell to the side. “What does with child mean, Father?”

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The funeral was a somber affair, as to be expected. Alicent and Y/N stood close by to Rhaenyra, staring at the covered bodies. Syrax, the Princess’s dragon, stood at the top of the hill, waiting for its orders. They stood in silence for the better part of an hour before Prince Daemon whispered in Rhaenyra’s ear, no doubt telling her that she would have to be the one to give the order. 

A shiver ran down Y/N’s spine as her friend stepped forward, catching a sob. “D-” Rhaenyra took a deep breath, commanding her dragon. “Dracarys.” 

The yellow fury let out a great blast, effectively burning her mother and brother’s corpses. Rhaenyra turned away, unable to look at her deceased loved ones. Soon after, the crowd dissipated, leaving Rhaenyra, Y/N, and Alicent still standing by the sight. Y/N stayed back as Alicent approached their grieving friend.

“My lady.” 

Y/N turned, smiling lightly at the Hightower. “My lord.” 

“I believe last we met, I asked you to call me by my name.” He smirked. “Or am I mistaken?” 

She laughed quietly. “I believe the herb I applied made you hallucinate, my lord. You never said anything of the sort.” 

He laughed. “I’m sure you would never lie to me, so I shall take your word for it.” 

Y/N looked back at her friends, her heart aching. 

“She is an unlucky Princess,” Gwayne muttered. 

“Yes, indeed. Losing a parent is never easy.” 

“I am sorry.” Y/N turned back to the young knight, confusion etched on her face. “It is just- I assumed that with you being a ward of the crown-” 

“You would be correct. But it has been so long, I hardly remember what it was like to have parents.” 

He frowned. “That is horrible. I lost my own mother just a year ago.” He placed a comforting hand on her shoulder, and she tried to ignore the shock that rang through her body. “It is never easy.” 

She shook her head, placing a hand delicately over his. “You are, unfortunately, correct.” 

A cough broke the pair apart, Y/N practically jumping at the interruption. “I could use some company on Dragonback.” Rhaenyra practically whispered. “Would you join me?” 

“Of course.” She turned back to Gwayne, curtsying quickly. “My lord.” 

The two girls walked up the hill, arm in arm. Alicent looked curiously at her brother. “What are you doing?” 

He whipped around, laughing at his sister. “Whatever do you mean?” 

“I only meant to say, you’ve taken a recent fascination in Y/N.” 

“Yes.” He nodded. “And your point?” 

Alicent smiled, shaking her head. “Merely a statement, brother.”

The palace gardens were in full bloom this time of year, and Y/N always found comfort in the little corner with a quaint fountain and an outlook of the ocean. Rhaenyra and she frequented this spot often in their youth, and Y/N needed respite from the high tensions at court. She’d been stuck on the same page for what seemed like hours when a voice broke through her focus. “We meet again.” Gwayne bowed his head, grinning much too widely. “My lady.” 

Y/N made no effort to stand, raising her eyebrows. “I am beginning to think, my lord, that you have been following me.” 

“Not that I am…” He started, sitting at the end of the cushioned chair that she occupied. “But if I was, it might have something to do with the fact that you are still not calling me by my name.” 

She laughed. “Is it that simple?” 

He nodded. “Quite. But do not worry yourself, I’ll wait.” His eyes sparkled. “My lady.” 

Y/N welcomed the challenge; she could sit there for hours, reading and ignoring the handsome knight. She glanced down at her book, ignoring his devilishly handsome smile. “You’ve read that page three times already.” She glared over the top, and he held his hands up in surrender, laughing. “Sorry.” 

She looked back down, flipping the page to prove a point. He sighed, standing and walking over to the daisies that bordered the fountain. Picking the fullest one he could find, he stopped in front of the girl, holding it out. “May I?” 

“I will not wilt at the sight of you because you are a lord.” She stood, closing her book. “I am not a flower like the thing you hold in your hand.” 

He nodded. “You are not.” He raised the daisy, tucking it behind her ear. “You are however, as pretty as one.” 

Her cheeks turned pink, and she murmured. “You flatter me, my lord.” 

“And why shouldn’t I? One should always flatter a beautiful woman when given the chance.” He smiled. “I believe calling me by my name shall suffice as thanks.” 

She scoffed, smacking his chest lightly. “You are quite confident, Gwayne.” 

“You’ll find-” He stopped, his smile brightening ten fold. “You said my name.” 

Y/N nodded, walking away. “I did.” 

He followed after, like a lost puppy. “What shall you do with the rest of your day, I wonder?” 

She shrugged. “I do not know, but it will most certainly be out of your presence.” 

He gasped, holding his chest. “You hurt my heart when you say such things.” 

She laughed, stopping and pretending to check him over. “However will you survive?” 

“I think it is terminal my lady.” 

“And what affliction have you caught, Ser Gwayne?” Y/N forced a giggle back, trying her hardest to behave seriously. 

“Lovesickness.” He sighed. “I’m afraid there is no cure.” 

She stepped closer, a pink dusting her cheeks. “I shall mourn you then.” 

“Well, I’m sure we could-” 

“Y/N!” 

Gwayne had never hated the Princess Rhaenyra more in his life than that moment. She was a generally tolerable girl, and a good friend to his sister, but in that moment she stood between him and you, and he wanted nothing more than to tell her to leave. He stepped away from you hesitantly, bowing quickly. “Princess.” 

The Targaryen made no effort to hide her humor at the situation. “I apoligize for the intrusion. Alicent and I were about to go to the Sept, and I did not want you to think we left you behind.” 

Y/N smiled brightly, waving disapointedly to the knight. “Feel better, my lord.”

Alicent tilted her head, yelling back at her brother. “Better? Are you quite well brother?”

Y/N yet again found herself in the gardens, but this time she was here for the soul purpose of seeing Gwayne. She wore her best dress, had her maid’s put her hair up intricately, and even applied some rouge. Not too much, she wouldn’t want people to think the wrong thing. She was a lady, as Gwayne never ceased to remind her. Sitting carefully on the cushioned chair, she positioned herself towards the entrance, waiting for the familiar mop of auburn hair to peek through. She’d begun to think he wouldn’t show when his familiar tenor broke through the tranquil silence. 

“My lady, I thought I would find you here.” She lowered the book, her stomach fluttering when his eyes widened slightly. “You look-” 

“Gwayne, I-” They both stopped, laughing at their ill timed words. “It seems that we cannot find a moment of peace.” 

He nodded, breaking the distance between them. “I have wanted to tell you something for quite some time now. I cannot seem to summon the words to leave me.” He laughed, but his nerves were evident. “It is just…” 

“Yes?” Y/N smiled, hating how nauseous she felt. 

“I wanted to say that-” 

A loud sob rang through the garden, pulling them out of their haze. Gwayne drew his sword, in case the sob resulted in any trouble. Y/N tried to round the corner before him, but he shook his head, leading her carefully through the hedges. 

“Rhaenyra?” Y/N quickly left her place behind Gwayne, rushing to her friends side. “Are you alright?” 

“She’s betrayed me. I cannot- I can’t-” The princess looked up, glaring at the knight. “Can we go some place else?” 

Y/N nodded, her face visibly disappointed. She walked Rhaenyra out of the gardens, sparing Gwayne one last look, mouthing the words ‘I’m sorry.’

The castle had been throw off it’s axis by the sudden shift within it’s walls. Rhaenyra was no longer speaking to Alicent, which meant Y/N was no longer speaking to Alicent, which meant that the once close knit group of friends were no longer a trio. 

It had been that way since they were children, almost ten years ago. Y/N not speaking to Alicent meant she could not speak to Gwayne, or so she assumed. She and Rhaenyra had not talked about it much since the day it was announced, always leaving a sour taste in the Princess’s mouth. 

Y/N just wished Rhaenyra could forgive her friend for something she had no control over. The Royal Wedding was tonight, and Rhaenyra had insisted that Y/N walk in with the princess, even though she wasn’t family. When Y/N brought this up, her friend scolded her, saying that ‘My father has insisted, I’m afraid. You are his ward, and he has grown to think of you as his own.’ 

Now, she sat beside Rhaenyra while the ceremony took place, sneaking glances at the brides brother. Rhaenyra had picked out Y/N's dress herself, saying that she needed something worthy of a princess. She was not one to argue and let the Princess do whatever she wanted as long as she was distracted from the day at hand.

Arm in arm with the Princess, she dreaded when they finally reached the hall and had to congratulate the ‘happy’ couple. Poor Alicent, married at fifteen, was not something she wished on her worst enemy. Especially to a man twenty years your senior. The doors opened wide, the crowd quieting at the sight of the princess and her companion. Among that crowd was Gwayne, staring at her with desperate eyes. 

Her cheeks turned pink, quickly breaking the contact. Chatter quickly filled the hall once more as Rhaenyra reached the top of the steps, curtsying quickly. “Congratulations, step-mother. Father.” 

Y/N shivered. Rhaenyra's tone was as cold as the Wall. She wanted to curse her friend for making her go after that display. She sunk to the floor, bowing her head. “Many happy returns, My Queen, My King.” 

Viserys smiled gratefully. “Thank you Y/N. You have been a loyal friend to my daughter and wife. I shall not forget it.” 

The young girl nodded, equally disgusted and horrified at what the king had just said. Surely he realized how immoral it was. “Of course Your Grace. I live to serve and provide assistance to my Princess.” 

She released a breath she hadn’t known she was holding, sitting down beside Rhaenyra. “Could you at least have tried to be nice?” 

“I was.” The princess raised an eyebrow, and Y/N almost laughed, realizing her friend was being serious. 

“Of course. A jest, my lady.” 

Rhaenyra laughed. “So formal.” 

“We are at a wedding, Rhaenyra. It would be inappropriate for me to call you anything other than my lady, by the court's standards.” 

“Well I am the princess, and I say you call me Rhaenyra.” 

“Very well.” Y/N smiled, taking a large sip of her wine. “This will be an entertaining night.” 

Besides the occasional snide comment thrown at the obviously overwhelmed bride, the night had been otherwise peaceful. Y/N tried her best to sway Rhaenyra from attacking the queen outright, and she’d been successful. So far. She’d been in the middle of listening to Rhaenyra’s adventure of gathering the stolen dragon egg from her uncle when a cough interrupted. 

“Excuse me, Princess.” The pair turned around to see Gwayne staring at Y/N not Rhaenyra. Odd. He had addressed Rhaenyra, not her. “May I ask the Lady for a dance?” 

Y/N widened her eyes, looking in between the two. She was sure Rhaenyra would say no or burst out in flames from having to talk to Alicent’s brother, but she simply nodded her head, going back to her meal. Gwayne extended his hand, leading her to the dancefloor. He whispered as they moved, keeping in mind the intruding ears that surrounded them. “I have missed your company, my lady.” 

“I have missed yours as well.” 

“I know much has happened since we last spoke, but it has not deterred me. If anything, it has made me realize that I cannot stand to be apart from you.” Her cheeks turned pink for the second time that night. 

“You are very kind, Gwayne.” 

“Yes, well, it is not hard when you are the one I compliment.” He shook his head. “I am returning to Old Town soon. In two weeks time, after my sister settles into her new life.”

Her heart fell, eyes watering. “I hope your journey is swift.” She gulped, mumbling. “I shall miss you in truth.” 

He tilted his head, smiling. If she were not in a public place, she would admonish him for smiling at her pain. “What I mean to say is, I am infatuated with you. And I would like to seek your hand in marriage. From the king of course.” 

She gasped, her eyes widening. “I beg your pardon?” 

“I would like to marry you.” He spoke softly, now fully grinning. “If you would have me. You do not have to say yes, but I assure you, your affection for me will grow with time.”

“With time? Gwayne, I-” Y/N whispered so quietly she wasn’t even sure she’d spoken. “I have already grown to admire you. Much more than a friend should. That is no concern of mine.” 

“Ah.” The knight nodded. “Well, that settles it then.” 

“Settles what?” 

“We are to be married.” 

“Yes, well…” She sighed. “You cannot propose to me at your sister’s wedding. It would be improper.” 

“Damn impropriety.” He hissed, twirling you as the dance required. “Praytell, when would be a proper time then?” 

“Any other day, my love.” 

He stopped in the middle of the dance floor, her face growing red. “Gwayne people are looking.” 

He seemingly did not hear her. “My love.” 

“If you are going to tease me-” 

“You called me, my love.” 

“Gwayne…” She whined, gesturing to the prying eyes. “Can we please leave the floor? People will start to wonder…” 

“I desperately want to kiss you.” 

Thank the Seven the dance ended then. She bowed quickly. “Thank you for the dance, my lord.” Rushing back to her seat, she stared at the table, shock running through her veins. 

“Did he propose then?” 

Y/N whipped her head over, glaring at her friend. “You knew?” 

“Of course I knew. Y/N, I’ve known he was going to propose since I saw him approach you at my mother’s funeral.” 

“Rhaenyra, I’m so sorry.” 

“Whatever for?” 

“I don’t want you to feel betrayed. I had no intention of-” 

“Do not apoligize to me.” She placed her hand in Y/N's. “You are my friend. I am happy for you, truly. He is a good man, he will treat you well. I know it.”

“I haven’t said yes, Rhaenyra.” 

“Yet.” Her friend laughed. “You haven’t said yes, yet.”  

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Music rang from the Godswood, a man’s voice echoing throughout the halls. Strange, she’d thought. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to see who was making the noise. A young man sat by at the foot of the tree, stroking the strings of his guitar while he sang. Not far from him sat a young girl with white hair falling at her waist. Y/N grinned, approaching the princess. “Rhaenyra!” 

Her friend's head whipped, a menacing look in her eyes until she realized who had called her name. “Y/N!” She practically jumped to her feet, running to her friend. She hugged her tightly, emotion laced in her voice. “I’ve missed you.” She let her go, looking her over. “Are you well?” 

Y/N nodded, grinning so widely she thought her cheeks would explode. “Very. I feel as if it’s been decades.” 

Rhaenyra’s face looked melancholy. “It is selfish of me to say, but-” She sighed. “I wish you would have stayed.” 

Y/N’s eyebrows furrowed. “Has something happened?” 

She opened her mouth to speak but turned her head around, glaring at the man. “Did I tell you to stop playing?” 

“No, Princess.”

“Again, from the beginning.” She turned back, a faint frown on her lips. “I feel as though I am utterly alone here.” 

“I’m sure that isn’t true, Rhaenyra.” She whispered. “Have you spoken to Alicent?” 

 The princess scoffed. “I would rather fling myself off of the tallest tower.” 

Y/N glared playfully, smacking her arm. “Rhaenyra!” 

Rhaenyra giggled. “What?” 

“You mustn’t say such things.” 

“Are you going to run and tell her?” 

“You know I would never do that to you. And I know that you still hold love for Alicent." She smiled sympathetically. “You were once great friends.” 

She nodded. “Yes. Once. Before she married my father.” She turned back to the tree, retreating to her previous seat. “Come! Tell me of your adventures.” 

Y/N laughed, sitting beside her. “There’s not much to tell other than the fact that I am inexplicably happy. He’s kind to a fault and truly respects me and my opinion.” She smiled, leaning back into one of the many pillows that surrounded them. “It’s refreshing compared to the men we came to know in our youth.” Rhaenyra hummed, staring at her book, and Y/N smirked, nudging her. “And has the princess found interest in anyone as of late?” 

She laughed lightly. “The men brought before me are insulting. I want-” 

“Your Grace.” The singer stood, bowing. 

Rhaenyra didn’t bother looking up from her book. “Did I say to stop? From the beginning.” 

Y/N’s eyes widened, but she made no comment. She was severely outranked, and there was no way she could come out of this situation unscathed if she chose to speak up. The man continued yet again. 

“Rhaenyra?” 

The princess huffed. “Yes, my queen?” 

“Your presence is wanted in the outer courtyard. The royal hunt readies to depart.” 

“I’ve decided to stay here and read instead.” 

Y/N whispered, placing a hand on Rhaenyra’s shoulder. “I only accepted the invitation because I knew you would be attending.” She sighed. “Please.” 

Alicent had evidently had enough of his singing because she cut him off. “You may go, Samwell.” 

“You are to stay by order of the princess.” 

Y/N felt as if she should leave. It was uncomfortable enough being stuck in between the two when Alicent was first promised to Viserys, and the tension was practically visible between the two former friends. She began to stand, and Rhaenyra hissed, pulling her back down. “Don’t.” 

“The queen commands you to leave the Godswood at once.” Samwell nodded, leaving without another word. Y/N honestly wished to thank Alicent; his voice was quite annoying once you heard the same song three times over. “The king wishes for you to join us.” 

“The king has much to celebrate; he does not need me.” 

“He wants for us all to be together. Perhaps the hunt could be… fun.” 

Y/N nodded, looking back at Rhaenyra. “Together again.” 

The princess sighed, looking up from her book. “Is it the king’s command?” 

“Yes, but it-” 

She huffed, standing up. “Then at once, Your Grace.” 

“But it needn’t be.” Alicent looked positively miserable. “None of it needs be this way in truth, Rhaenyra.” 

The blonde girl looked at Y/N once more, nodding. “I’ll see you at the hunt.” Without sparing so much as a look at the queen, she retreated out of the Godswood, her hair swishing as she stepped. 

Y/N sighed, linking her arm through her sister-in-law’s. “Let me help you to the courtyard. I’m sure, being this far along, things have begun to hurt.” 

Alicent smiled. “It is easier the second time, but I would appreciate the company.” 

“So…” Y/N whispered. “Have you thought of any names?” 

“I must admit, I haven’t put much effort into that as I should.” 

“I’m sure you have a busy schedule.” She smiled sympathetically. “If you’d like, we can conjure some up while we attend the hunt.” 

“I’d like that.” She leaned her head on Y/N’s shoulder. “I’d like that very much.” 

The royal carriage pulled into the campsite, the courtesans gathering around to greet them. Viserys exited first, followed by Alicent and Aegon. Y/N tilted her head, leaning over and whispering in her husband's ear. “Where’s Rhaenyra?” 

He simply shrugged, clapping loudly. His uncle grinned. “Hail, hail, Aegon the Conquerer Babe, second of his name! Here’s to his grace on his second name day!” 

Viserys smiled brightly, raising his son into the air. Thunderous applause echoed through the woods, but Y/N could not bring herself to be quite as enthusiastic. It seemed as if everything was off, different than how she’d left it. Minutes later, the crowd dispersed, but Y/N stayed, approaching the royal carriage. “May I come in?” 

Rhaenyra nodded, staring at the ground. “I will never understand why father has forced me to come along.” 

She placed a comforting hand over Rhaenyra’s. “Your father has always wished for his family to be happy and together.” She laughed. “Although he has a rather odd way of showing it.” 

Rhaenyra sighed, leaning her head back against the carriage wall. “Must I really go into the lion's den and entertain these lords and ladies?” 

“It is the life of being a princess, I imagine.” She smiled sympathetically. “One day, you will be queen, and you will be able to attend things at your leisure.” 

“When I am queen, we will not have hunts like these, I can assure you.” She smirked, looking out the open door. “I suppose I should leave the carriage.” 

“It would be wise, Princess.” Y/N grinned, nudging her friend. “If you need me, send word, and I will come.” 

She stood, curtsying when Rhaenyra called out. “I need you.” 

Y/N laughed. “Shall I accompany you, Your Highness?” 

“Yes,” Rhaenyra stood, linking her arm with Y/N’s. “You shall.” 

They walked down the steps together, entering the large red tent directly in front of them. Y/N leaned over, whispering in her friend's ear. “It is quite extravagant for a second name day. I doubt your brother will remember this.” 

The princess nodded, walking further into the tent. Voices could be heard gossiping, but one, predictably, stood amongst the rest. Ceira Lannister’s proud tone interrupted Lady Redwyne’s. “Lady Johanna was reported to have been abducted when one of Lord Swann’s ships sailed through the Stepstones.” 

“What will happen to Lady Johanna?” 

“She’s to be sold to a pillow house in the Free Cities if you believe the rumors.” 

A man’s voice spoke. “I fear the gods did not make me for hunting. Might I sit with you, my ladies?” 

“But of course, please join us.” Alicent smiled. She had always been kind-hearted. “Larys Strong, youngest son of our master of laws, Lord Lyonel.” 

“My lord husband says that no king has been able to tame the Stepstones for long. It’s an inhospitable place suited only for savages.” The pair rounded the lobby, peeking in through the curtains. 

“Perhaps the Princess…” Rhaenyra’s eyes widened. “Could provide us with some insight.” 

They stepped through, smiling. Rhaenyra laughed. “I’m not sure how I could; I’ve never been to the Stepstones.” 

“Your dear uncle is the great mind behind this war. Is he not?” 

Y/N smiled condescendingly. “Are we so quick to blame family members for their relative's wrongdoings? I seem to remember, Lady Lannister, not long ago, your son Lord Jason almost burned the city’s sept to the ground.” She tilted her head. “Were you the great mind behind that exhibition?” 

Rhaenyra tensed. “I have not spoken to Daemon in years.”

The Lady Lannister’s face looked sour. “Since you supplanted him as heir, I imagine.” 

Alicent’s eyebrows raised. “Daemon made his choices, Lady Ceira. The princess was more suited to the role.” 

Lady Redwyne sighed. “He’s made a mess, and the King must put an end to it. Send fleets and men and clear out the triarchy for good.” 

Y/N murmured. “I was not aware you were the master of war.” 

Rhaenyra tilted her head. “But the crown is not at war.” 

“The crown is at war, Princess. Though your father refuses to admit it, we’ve been dragged into it by your Uncle and the Sea Snake.” 

Y/N opened her mouth to retort, but Rhaenyra beat her to it. “And how have you served the realm as of late, Lady Redwyne? By eating cake?” 

Rhaenyra waited for no response, dragging her friend outside as she laughed. “Where are we going?” 

“Anywhere but here.” She rolled her eyes. “None of those ladies have any idea what it is like to rule. What makes them think they can speak as if they do?” 

“It is just what they do, Your Highness.” She laughed. “And no one is a better gossip than the ladies we just encountered.” 

They stopped by the fire, staring into it. “I wonder, Princess-” Y/N fought the urge to groan. She was already annoyed, and now completely understood why Rhaenyra acted the way she had as of late. “Was your own second name day as grand as this?” 

 “I honestly don’t recall, and neither will Aegon.” 

The man stood, bowing before her. “Lord Jason Lannister.” Rhaenyra and Y/N smiled politely. 

“I gathered that from all the lions.” 

“I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced.” He snapped, ushering over his servant. What a pompous man, Y/N thought. She pitied the poor woman who would have to marry him. She began to pull her arm out of Rhaenyra’s when she tightened her grip, sending her a quick cry for help. Y/N would have laughed if their company was not present. 

“Your twin serves on my father’s council.” 

“Tyland is frightfully dull; Gods love him.” He handed the pair of them cups, smiling proudly. “The finest honeyed wine you’ll ever taste. Made in Lannisport, of course.” 

Rhaenyra smiled back sarcastically. “Of course.” 

“The Kingswood, it’s fine hunting ground. But the best spot is to be found at Casterly Rock, near my home.” 

Y/N fought the urge to laugh. “I beg pardon, my lord, but I believe you are mistaken. The woods surrounding Old Town have been known for centuries for its hunting grounds.” She smiled. “King Jaehaerys himself often visited for the very same purpose.” 

The Lannister man smiled politely, whispering to Rhaenyra. “Might we talk alone, Princess?” 

Rhaenyra shook her head. “Lady Hightower is a good friend, my lord. Anything you wish to say may be said in front of her as well.”

He sighed, going back to his obviously prepared speech. “Have you been to Casterly Rock?” 

“Once, on tour with my mother when I was young, and I honestly cannot recall much of that either.” 

“The Rock is thrice the high of the Hightower in Oldtown,” at this Y/N had rolled her eyes. “Taller still than the Wall in the North. It’s been said that if one were to stand in the tower on a perfect day, one could see clear across the Sunset Sea.” 

“It must be quite something.” 

“I don’t have a Dragonpit, of course, but I do have the means and resources to build one.” 

Seven Hells. Y/N’s heart dropped. He was proposing to Rhaenyra. The Princess tilted her head. “Why would you need a Dragonpit?” 

“To house Dragons, of course.” He said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “I’d do anything for my queen or lady wife.” 

Y/N whispered. “Rhaenyra, perhaps we should-” 

Rhaenyra smiled, handing him back their cups. “Thank you for the wine.” She stalked back to the tent, practically dragging Y/N. 

“I think I’ll go find Gwayne for a moment,” Y/N called out. “I would prefer not to be stuck in the screaming match between you and your father.” 

The princess simply nodded, letting go of her friend's arm. Y/N huffed, smiling as her husband came into view. “My love.” 

He kissed the back of her hand. “Having fun?” 

“I forgot how exhausting it is to be her companion.” She frowned. “It must be horrible to be put on such a high pedestal.” 

Gwayne mumbled. “Imagine being the queen.” 

She looked over at Alicent, who looked lost in a sea of vipers. “Imagine.” 

Viserys’s voice carried above the rest, and Y/N sighed, leaning her head on her husband's arm. “It’s starting.” 

He looked puzzled. “What is, my dear?” 

She gestured over to the King and Princess, who were in a heated discussion. “The reason I came to find you. I knew they’d start yelling. I cannot tell you the amount of arguments I was stuck in the middle of.” She shivered. “Targaryens have the blood of dragons in their veins, and it is evident when they are angry.” 

The tent quieted, the whole of its inhabitants looking at the royals. Rhaenyra ran off, and Gwayne leaned down, whispering in Y/N’s ear. “Aren’t you going to go after her?” 

She shook her head, smiling sadly. “She always does best when she is by herself, given time to think.” She looked up, wiggling her eyebrows. “Besides, I’d rather be here with you.” 

“Oh?” He smirked, his eyes dark. “That is nice to know.” 

“It is, isn’t it?” She stood on her tiptoes, reaching for his lips. “I live to serve you.” 

He rolled his eyes. “We both know that’s not true. Quite the opposite, really.” 

“Gwayne.” He hummed. “Stop talking and kiss me.” 

“Yes, my lady.” He leaned down, kissing her deeply. “Shall we retire early?” 

She gasped, hitting his chest indignantly. “It is only half past two.” 

“And?” 

“Y/N.” The pair broke apart, smiling at the King. “Your Grace.” 

He grinned. “How have you been, my dear?” 

“Well, my king.” She placed a hand on Gwayne’s chest, smiling up at him. “I have been very well.” 

“Shall I be hearing news of a babe anytime soon?” 

Her cheeks flushed, losing the ability to speak. She felt nauseous. Gwayne laughed. “Hopefully, Your Grace.” 

Viserys laughed along with her husband. “Perhaps you could tell Rhaenyra how rewarding marriage has been for you.” He failed to hide his annoyance. “She is quite stubborn about the idea.” 

“I’m sure she will come around in time, Your Grace.” She smiled. “Rhaenyra understands the importance, and with a kind match, she will be more than happy to fufill her duties. I am sure of it.” 

Viserys nodded. “Enjoy the hunt.” 

“We will. Thank you, Your Grace.” The king walked away, and Gwayne whispered. “Do you really believe she will be so willing?” 

“Seven Hells, no.” Y/N laughed. “I doubt she will marry willingly.” 

He smiled. "Were you once that way?"

"I remember rejecting your first proposal." She raised an eyebrow. "I never thought I would marry."

"I'm surprised."

"And why is that?"

He pulled her closer, a loving look in his eyes. "I'm surprised you didn't have a line of suitors out of the castle."

She laughed, kissing him on the cheek. "How sweet."

Gwayne laughed at the Lords who were shoving food down their throats like it was their last meal. “I thank the gods every day that I am not Lord of Hightower.” 

“And why is that husband?” 

“I would have to go on those dreadfully long and unfair hunts.” He laughed. “You know as well as I that hunting in Old Town is just that: hunting. We do not strap the beast down; we actually track the animals.”

She smiled. “What a kind man you are.” 

He glared. “Are you jesting?” 

She scoffed, acting surprised. “What would make you state such a claim? I am simply telling you how kind you are.” 

“For some reason,” He leaned down. “I do not believe you.” 

“Well, perhaps, dear husband,” She reached for his lips. “You should.” 

“We should retire.” He whispered. “They do not need us.” 

“I would love to retire.” 

He sighed. “But?” 

“But I feel horrible, leaving your sister by herself. Her husband…” She whispered. “Seems more preoccupied with his wine than her well-being.” 

He dropped in head on her shoulder, groaning. “Must you be so considerate?” 

“Yes,” she kissed his temple. “I must. Now remove your head from my shoulder. I want to sit with your sister.” 

He sat up, glaring. “You take the fun out of everything.” 

“That’s not what you said a fortnight ago.” She whispered, a chill running down his spine. “After I spend some time with her, I will be yours. I promise.” 

He smirked. “I look forward to it.” 

She stood up, curtsying in front of Alicent. “My Queen. May I?” 

She nodded eagerly. “Please.” The cupbearer came over, pouring her a glass. “Would you like some?” 

“I believe if I have any more, I will not be able to walk."

Alicent laughed. “Is my brother treating you well?” 

“He is a gracious husband," she smiled. "I wish you could have attended the wedding.” 

“I do as well.” She sighed. “I fear I have less freedom than one would think a queen is allowed.” 

“Surely Viserys understands your need to see family.” Y/N lamented. “Perhaps we could convince him of a trip to the country.” 

“Perhaps.” Alicent did not look hopeful. “He is rather preoccupied.”

“You have the ladies at court to keep you company, I hope?” 

“Yes…” She sighed. “But I find that I have few true friends at the moment.” 

“Alicent…” Y/N held her hands. “You have me.” 

Her eyes watered. “I miss when it was the three of us. Is that wrong to say?” 

Y/N shook her head. “I feel the same. Not a day goes by that I don’t wish I could go back.” 

“Does Gwayne not-” 

“I love your brother, truly.” She smiled. “But friends are important, good for the soul.” 

Alicent grinned, tears falling. “Please write to me.” 

“Of course.” She nodded. “Of course I will.” 

“Sister?” The girl turned around, smiling at her husband. “Are you alright?” 

The queen nodded. “I missed your wife’s company.” 

Gwayne grinned. "She is certainly something, isn't she?"

Y/N blushed, shoving him away. “I’m glad we made the trip.” 

“Shall I leave you two-” 

His sister shook her head. “I’m retiring.” She looked at Y/N once more. “I will miss you.” 

“I will miss you just as much.” Alicent stood, and Y/N walked into her husband's embrace. “You have made me a very happy wife, Gwayne.” 

“Well, I live to serve you.” He smirked. “You are my joy.” 

“You flatter me.” 

“It is true. I am not a liar, as you well know.” He slung an arm across her shoulders. “Let us go to bed.” 

"I'm not feeling tired." She grinned mischievously. "Are you?"

"Quite the opposite." Once they left the tent, he put his arm under her legs, sweeping her off her feet. Y/N giggled, leaning her head against his chest.

"I'm glad we understand each other."

He pushed through their tent's entrance, dropping her on the bed and hovering over her. "Have I told you how much I long for you?"

She shook her head, blushing.

He sighed, leaning down. "Let me show you."

“Rhaenyra!” Y/N called out, racing towards her friend. She hugged her quickly. “We were worried.” 

“We?” The princess smirked. “Or my father?” 

Y/N frowned. “I will miss you dearly.” 

"Have you not heard? I’m being sent on a tour to find a suitor of my choosing.” 

“That’s wonderful. I knew your father would come around.” 

She squinted. “My father said it was your words that made his mind.” 

“I-” Realization dawned on her. “I said that you would possibly be inclined to marry if you found a kind match you will be more than willing to fulfill your duties.” 

“Well, whatever you said, I am glad of it. One of the stops is Old Town.” She grinned. “I will see you in just a few short months.” 

“I am counting the days.” Gwayne waved her over, and Y/N curtsied. “Princess.” 

She ran over to her husband, and he caught her, laughing at her enthusiasm. “You are quite bubbly this morning.” 

She grinned, whispering in his ear. “I had a rather productive night.” 

“Productive?” He raised an eyebrow. “I would say romantic.” 

She nodded. “Yes, of course.” Walking towards the carriage, she gasped when he shut the door, his grin resembling that of a wolf. “Perhaps I should show you the meaning of the word.” 

Y/N blushed, biting her lip. “Yes." She leaned back. "Perhaps you should.” 

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The sun peaked through their wide-open curtains, stirring her from her otherwise peaceful sleep. She rolled over, reaching out for her husband. Her reach came up empty, his side of the bed still warm. She gasped, realizing what he had done. She sat up quickly, calling for her maid. “Help me dress.” 

The young girl nodded. “Which dress would you-” 

“It does not matter!” She snapped. “I am sorry, truly. Any dress, just do it quickly.” 

The maid threw on her frock, a simple green velvet slip that she typically wore when exploring the woods surrounding Old Town. Smiling gratefully, she raced through the halls, not caring for the looks that followed her. The doors to the courtyard burst open, and she scanned quickly for her husband. The Dowager Queen stood alone in the center, staring at the gate. Gathering herself, she approached, curtsying. “My Queen.” 

Alicent smiled lightly. “No need for such formalities. We were once friends, Y/N.” 

She ignored the request. “Has your brother-” 

The queen nodded knowingly. “He just left, I’m afraid.” She put a comforting hand on her sister-in-law’s shoulder. “He did not want to wake you.” 

“I-” Tears began to well, and she coughed. “If you’ll excuse me.” 

“Y/N, wait!” 

She had already dashed up the stairs, her tears now fully streaming down her cheeks. 

It had been over a month before she’d received word that the battle was over and the surviving soldiers would be returning home. In that month, not one letter from Gwayne had graced her room or, more accurately, her cell. The Red Keep was a prison now, though if Gwayne came back, she would not tell him. He loved his family dearly, especially his sister and learning of his wife’s distaste for them would surely cause a rift.

She closed her eyes, trying to remember what had only been twenty years ago, when she, Alicent, and Rhaenyra would sit in the gardens, jesting about tutors and gossiping about knights of the realm. When Alicent left to attend to her father, Rhaenyra would look over at Y/N, teasing her about her budding crush on Alicent’s brother. 

She had not seen Rhaenyra in years. Now, her nephew by law had usurped her throne, and there was nothing Y/N could do but watch. She had no dragon, no power of her own. Which she had been contempt of before her husband had been dragged into this whole mess. Thanks to her nephew, he might never return to her. All she could do now was count down the days until the horns blew, and she stood in the courtyard, raking over the faces in the crowd until she found Gwaynes. 

A knock rang through her chambers, her guard's voice coming through the door. “My lady, the Dowager Queen, would like to see you.” 

She sighed, taking a deep breath. “I will be out in a moment.” 

Alicent rarely called for her anymore. The last time had been when Viserys had died, a letter arrived to Old Town not for her brother, the Lord Paramount, but for you. For you to come.

You had not; after all, you had just given birth to your second child, and you were too frail to walk. Gwayne had refused to even let you entertain the notion, insisting that your health came before his sister, even if she was the queen. 

Her chamber doors were wide open, and Alicent sat at her table, tea and two glasses in front of her. The Queen smiled, waving away her servants and guard. “Leave us.” 

“But my lady…” 

“My sister-in-law is no threat, Sir Rickard.” The older man nodded, ushering the servants out of her chambers and closing the doors soundly behind him. “Are you well?” 

“As well as I can be, my lady.” Y/N smiled. “And yourself?” 

“As well as one can be, I suppose.” The two former friends sat in silence, sipping their tea. The fire crackled behind them, and Y/N began to wonder what exact moment had caused a rift in their friendship. 

“I must tell you something.” Alicent looked torn like she was fighting herself to stay silent. “You must not tell anyone, not even my brother.” 

“Of course.” She nodded quickly. “Of course, Alicent.” 

“I made a mistake.” Her face was ghostly white. “Aegon–” She gasped, a sob wrecking through her body. Y/N froze, unsure of what to do. “He was never supposed to be king. I misunderstood.” 

“Misunderstood?” 

“Viserys, he was spouting nonsense about Aegon the Conquerer, and I thought-” She scoffed. “I misunderstood.” 

Y/N sat back in her chair, staring at the fire. “You mean to tell me that this entire war started because of a misunderstanding?” Alicent remained silent. “Alicent, you must tell Rhaenyra. Before it’s too late.” 

The queen laughed. “It’s already too late. Her son is dead; my grandson was viciously murdered in his own bed. She would not see me. You remember how stubborn she is.” 

Y/N knelt in front of Alicent, taking her hands in hers. “Alicent, for the good of the realm, you must meet with Rhaenyra and come to an agreement. Atrocities have been dealt by both sides, but if you tell her this…” She shivered. “It would save thousands. It would save your brother, Helaena, your…guard.” She tightened her hold on her old friend's hands. “Please.” 

“I-” She nodded, not trusting her voice to stay collected. Y/N stood, dusting off her dress and sitting back down. 

“Have you heard any word of your brother?” 

“None.” It was Alicent’s turn to hold her hand. “He will return to you, I am sure. He is a great knight.” 

She nodded. “He is; that is what worries me.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“He would never leave his men behind. Even if that meant…” She trailed off, sighing. “You understand.” 

Alicent nodded, her heart at the bottom of her stomach. Her old friend had always been melancholy since childhood. Her parents had perished in a horrible accident, and she had been a ward of the crown ever since. She could not bear to be the cause of her further grief. 

“How are the children?” 

“Well. Daeron writes that Arthur is practically as talented at the sword as he. Emma is still just a babe, but she grows larger by the day.” She murmured. “As far as I’ve heard.” 

“You will be back with them soon; I promise you that.” Alicent smiled. “I understand what it is like to miss a child.” 

Y/N nodded, but she knew Alicent could never understand. How could she? She had never been forced to leave her children to come and serve a usurper of a king. 

The horns had blown midday only two days later. Y/N’s worry for her husband had turned into anger over the past months, anger that he did not say goodbye to her before he went off to war. She’d been sitting on her balcony when the deep sound blared through the city, rousing her out of her stupor. Even if she was angry with her husband, that did not mean her heart did not yearn to be in his arms, to be kissed like it was the last moment they would ever live. Her dress billowed behind her as she ran, again not bothering to acknowledge the prying eyes that followed. She slowed, and two guards opened the doors slowly, slower than she would have liked. 

Walking down the staircase gracefully, she tried to keep her composure when she could not find Gwayne in the crowd below. Her heart dropped, and she clenched her fists, nausea bubbling in her stomach. She was too young to be a widow, too young to raise two children on her own, too young to- 

“My lady.” She turned around, almost sobbing at the sight. There stood her lord husband, in all his glory. His hair was dirty, his skin broken, but all Y/N saw was her love before her and alive. 

She bowed, making no movement to embrace him. 

“Lord Husband. I am most grateful for your return.” 

His eyebrows raised, a smirk gracing his delicate face. “How formal of you, my dear.” 

She huffed, turning on her heels and walking back into the castle. Gwayne followed behind swiftly, entirely confused as to why he did not have her in his arms. They walked in silence to their chambers, servants stilling at the sight of Gwayne. “Leave us.” He ordered, not sparing a second glance. They scurried out, the doors shutting loudly.

He stared at her curiously. “My Love-” 

“Let me dress your wounds.” She sighed, walking over to their wardrobe. “It seems you have many.” 

He nodded but made no movement to sit or remove his armour. “Darling-” 

“Turn for me, my lord. I need to remove your armour.” 

He nodded once more, turning as requested. The tension was palpable, but neither of them made any effort to break it. She quickly removed his armour, setting it delicately on the table. “Sit.”

She stood in front of him, leaning down to dress his wounds. His hands ached to reach out and pull her into his lap, but he made no effort; he simply stared at her. “Was the battle difficult?” 

He nodded, hissing as she disinfected a cut. She mumbled apologies. “It was quite the scene. A dragon’s fight is something I hope you never witness.” Y/N simply hummed, concentrating on the cut. “Did you fare well while I was away?” 

She tensed, nodding quickly. “As well as one can do when their husband leaves without a word.” 

Ah. So that is why she had not jumped into his arms when he arrived. Gwayne had wondered why he had not been making his wife sigh and gasp from his tender touch. “I thought it was best if-” 

“You thought wrong.” She murmured, walking over to the bowl of clean water. He couldn’t fight it anymore, reaching out to grab her hips. She gasped but made no effort to look down. 

“Please forgive me.” He tightened his hold, dropping his head against her stomach. “I did not want to wake you.” 

“So I was told.” He looked up, and she sighed. “Your sister.” 

“You looked so peaceful; I did not wish to see you cry.” 

She laughed humourlessly. “Who said I would waste any tears on you?”

He sat back, clutching his chest playfully. “You wound me, wife.” 

She scoffed, squirming in his hold. “You cannot charm me into forgiving you.” 

“I made no such claim.” 

“Yes, well.” She sighed, pulling out of his arms and rinsing the rag. “You thought it. Of that, I am sure.” 

He smiled. Her spirit had always drawn him in. From the first day they had met, she had not withered at the sight of a lord. She held her ground, staying as strong as she was. “Withering is for flowers,” she told him. “I am no flower.” He laughed, placing a daisy behind her ear. “No. But you are as pretty as one.” That had made her blush. How he wished they could go back to then when everything was much simpler. When the thought of dragon fire didn’t threaten their very lives, their children’s lives. 

She stood back in front of him, but this time, he put his hands on her hips, pulling her into his lap. Her cheeks grew red, and she looked down at his neck, tending to a rather nasty bruise. “My love, please look at me.” 

“I can’t look at you.” She shook her head defiantly. “I am angry at you.” 

“Y/N-” He cupped her cheek with his hand, caressing it with his thumb.

“Don't!” She yelped like she’d been burned, jumping up. “You left me. I woke up, and you were gone. No note, no kiss goodbye. What if you had died?” She scoffed. “But no, ‘I looked too peaceful to wake.’ That is a horrid excuse. You’re a coward, Gwayne Hightower. A coward.” 

Gwayne stood up, his eyebrows furrowed. “Now, wait just a moment-” She hit his chest, tears streaming down her face. “How could you? Do you know how worried sick I was? Do you?” 

“Stop this.” 

She shook her head, continuing to beat at his chest. “Don’t ever do-” 

He grabbed her wrists delicately, stopping her. “Stop this madness.” His voice was gentle, not a trace of anger or annoyance found.

She sobbed. “You mongral. Let me-” 

“I understand that you are upset, my darling. But surely you realize this is not the solution.” He lowered his head, their lips inches apart. “I wanted to remember my happy girl. No tears.” 

“I wouldn’t have cried.” She murmured, still fighting against his hold. 

“As opposed to what you are doing now?” 

She glared at his chest. “You are without a doubt the most-” Releasing one of her wrists, he brought his hand to her chin, raising her head gently. When she still refused to look at him, he leaned down, kissing her nose, cheeks, and forehead until she finally gave in to his love.

“I have to admit, I was rather disappointed at the reception I received.” 

“If only you had left a note.” She mumbled. “Never do that to me again. Promise me, Gwayne.” 

He nodded, kissing each knuckle gently. “I swear to you.”

She wanted to take him to bed, admire his form, and thank the gods old and new that he was with her and not dead on a battlefield, but the reality was he still had many cuts that needed to be tended to, and he desperately needed get the stench of battle off his skin. 

“You need a bath.” 

“Are you insinuating that I smell?” Gwayne tilted his head, a jesting look on his face. She nodded, giggling. 

“Terribly.”

He groaned, letting her out of his hold. “Very well.” 

Y/N couldn’t help but wince as she watched him peeled off his shirt. “Let me help you.” 

“I can do it-” She glared, and he gave in immediately. “Fine, fine.” 

She nodded, carefully untying the top before lifting his shirt. Her cheeks grew bright red, his torso still as muscular as the day they were married. Throwing his shirt on the ground, her breath caught. His eyes were piercing hers once more, drawing her in. She smiled, kissing a cut on his chest gently. “Does this hurt?” 

It was his turn for his breath to catch. He shook his head, words failing. Another cut, another bruise; she followed the trail until it stopped at a cut on his lower lip. 

“My noble boy.” She kissed his lip lightly, sending shivers down the brave knight’s spine. This time, when he gave her that look, she couldn’t resist it. She placed her arms around his neck, pulling his lips down to hers. “I missed you so.” 

He groaned, wrapping his arms around her waist, pulling her flush against him. “I’m so sorry, my darling. Please forgive me.” 

“There is nothing to forgive. I was acting a fool.” She sighed as he nipped down her neck. “Gwayne, the bath…”

“I promise you I will bathe, but if I do not have you this instant, I will simply combust.” 

They stumbled over to the door, locking it haphazardly. “Take me to bed.” 

“I will, I will, but first…” He turned her around, undoing her laces quickly. He groaned. “Good god, woman, how many laces can a dress have?” 

She laughed, throwing her head back. “Woman?” 

“Forgive me. My lady, light of my life, darling, love-” 

Now she was fully cackling, and turned around, smothering his face his affection. “Let us retire, please.” 

He nodded, the laces finally coming undone. She stumbled backward, drawing him in with her spell. He tapped his chin, tilting his head. “I was about to do something.” 

She raised her eyebrows. “I believe, lord husband, you were about to ravish me.” 

He grinned, stalking towards her. “Thank you, my lady, for reminding me.” 

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You scoffed, smacking his chest playfully. “You flatter me.” 

“That is my duty.” He looked offended. “Have I not made that apparent?” 

“You have.” Since your courtship, Gods, since before your courtship, Gwayne had made it his mission to compliment you at every turn. You found it annoying, incessantly so, but he did not care. You telling him to cease his constant flattery only worsened his affliction. 

“You are quite beautiful.” He placed a finger under your chin, brushing his thumb over your lower lip. “The Maiden herself does not amount to your-” 

You slapped a hand over his mouth, glaring. “You must not say such things.” 

He peeled your hand away, smirking as he kissed the back. “I will say whatever I like.” 

You scoffed, pulling yourself out of his hold. “You will wake the babe.” 

He followed after you, sparing one last look at your newborn daughter before shutting the door. “Will I now?” 

You nodded, eyes full of love and admiration for your husband. “What have I done to deserve you?” 

He reached out, grabbing your wrist and spinning you into his arms. “I was about to mention the same thing.” In less than a second, he grabbed your waist, throwing you over his shoulder as he crossed the threshold into your shared chambers. 

You gasped, smacking his back. “Gwayne Hightower! This is unbecoming of-” 

“I do not care.” He laughed. “You are my wife, this is my estate.” 

You raised an eyebrow, finding it difficult not to completely melt from his touch. “What has gotten into you?” 

He grabbed your waist once more, lowering you onto your bed as if you were a fragile doll. “Can a man not take pleasure in the fact that he has two lovely daughters and the most beautiful wife in the seven kingdoms?” 

You felt as if you would combust into flames. “You are too good to me, my love.”

He shook his head, arms on either side of you, as he lowered his frame. “I do not believe I am good enough, for a lady such as yourself deserves all the riches, all the love, all the fame this world has to offer.” 

“Gwayne-” You reached up, wrapping your arms around his neck and closing the distance between you, giggling as he tumbled toward you. “Just kiss me.” 

“My lord?” A knock echoed through your chambers, and Gwayne’s head dropped into your neck. 

You frowned, running a hand through his auburn hair. “I believe that is for you, my love.” 

“My lord?” The servant’s voice rang out once more. “I was told this letter was urgent.” 

Gwayne groaned, peeling himself away from you. “Do not move.” 

You nodded, biting your lip. “Yes, my lord.” 

He smirked, muttering under his breath. “You are incorrigable.” Throwing open the door, he fought the intense urge to glare at the young servant before him. “What is it?” 

“I do not know, my lord.” He held the letter out. “It has the Hightower sigil.” 

Gwayne frowned. “Very well. Thank you.” 

“Good night, my lord.” 

You tilted your head as Gwayne walked back over, scanning the contents of the letter. “What does it say?” Your husband’s face dropped, his mischievous nature replaced with something far darker. “Gwayne?” 

“My father.” He crumpled the letter, throwing it into the fire. “My father is to return to Oldtown.” 

“You should be resting.” 

You raised a brow, your youngest cradled in your arms. “I am not inept.” 

“I know-” 

“Besides, I should like to be here to greet your father.” 

“I wish you would take more care.” He whispered, wrapping an arm around your waist, Daenora now settled between you. You understood his concern; his own mother had died from childbirth and its aftereffects. 

“You know I would not do anything to endanger myself or our children.” You reached up, kissing his cheek gently. “Trust me.” 

“You know I do.” He held a finger above Daenora’s face, smiling when she playfully batted it away from her. “May I hold her?” 

“Gwayne.” You sighed. “It is not prop-” 

“I do not care.” He snapped. “You are my wife; she is my daughter. The world will not crumble into ash if a man shows care for his family.” 

You knew this sudden outburst had nothing to do with your family, but entirely about his father’s return and his actions toward Gwayne and Alicent when they were children. Otto was cold, everyone knew this.

In some instances, being cold was helpful, necessary even. When it came to raising a family, it was not. The one redeeming feature Otto had was his deep and passionate love for his wife, the late Lady Hightower.

When she died, Gwayne said that the light in his father’s eyes left, that he found it difficult to look at his children, saying that they reminded them too much of her. He left for King's Landing and took Alicent with him, leaving Gwayne behind to deal with his grief alone, at a mere fourteen years of age. Who were you to deny him the joy of holding your daughter during this trying time? 

“Very well.” You nodded, passing your daughter over. “It will be alright, my love.” 

His smile did not match his eyes. “I admire your optimism.” 

Your eldest ran around the courtyard, chasing the chickens that ran amok. You fought the urge to laugh, shaking your head as you called your daughter over. “Fiona, come here, my darling!” 

The little girl, all but five years of age, scurried over, leaving a trail of dust in her wake. “Mama!” 

You spun her around as she collapsed into your arms. “My little wild one.” Setting her down, you brushed your fingers through her hair, trying to make it look somewhat presentable. “Promise me you shall be on your best behavior this weekend.” You whispered. 

“I promise.” She whispered back. “Mama?” 

“Yes, my love?” 

“Is Papa sad?” 

You frowned. “Why do you think Papa is sad?” 

“He is frowning.” She looked up at her father, who was still cooing at her younger sister. “He never frowns, Mama.” 

“Papa is nervous, that is all.” You straightened her dress, dusting off the dirt that clung to the green cloth. “He has not seen his own father in quite some time.” 

“Is he not excited to see him?” 

“He is.” You smiled, finding some solace in the fact that your children do not hate their father as much as he despises his own. Your daughter, who had been brought up in a home full of love and warmth, would never come to know the cold, harsh nature Gwayne himself had been brought up in. “He is both excited and nervous.” 

“Ah.” She stared at the ground, kicking the pebble in front of her, obviously becoming bored with this conversation. 

Gwayne cleared his throat, shoulders tensing as the ornate carriage pulled through the gates. “He is here.” You kissed Fiona’s temple quickly, taking Daenora from your husband’s hold, babbling back at the newborn. “He is here, and I wish he were not.” 

“Try your hardest to be civil, for all our sakes.” You muttered, straightening your posture. 

The carriage came to a stop before you, the valet hopping off the back and opening the door. “Ser Otto Hightower, hand to the King.” 

Daenora began to whine, and you frowned, bouncing her gently on your hip. “It’s alright, my darling, it’s alright.” 

Gwyane leaned toward you, whispering so quietly that even his father, who had now stepped out of the carriage, could not hear him. “He has upset Daenora without uttering a word.” 

Your eyes widened, elbowing him in the side. “Quiet.” 

Gwayne winced, stepping forward. “Father. Welcome home.” 

“Gwayne.” He nodded, not even bothering to hug his own son. He stood in front of you, eyeing the babe in your arms with curiosity. “Is a wet nurse not available?” 

You could feel the anger radiating off your husband in waves. “I thought you would be eager to meet your granddaughter, my lord.” 

“Another girl?” He looked over at Gwayne, not even bothering to acknowledge your presence. He had been highly against your union, even going so far as to ask the King to reject his son’s request.

Viserys had grown angry, shocked at how harsh a father could be to his own son. Otto eventually saw the advantage to this marriage; the fact that you were rumored to be a Targaryen bastard could be helpful for his family’s status. “Are you not concerned?” 

“Concerned?” Gwayne feigned innocence. “Concerned with my two healthy daughters? No, Father, I am not.” 

Otto huffed. “Very well.” He turned back to you, looking closer at Daenora. Her eyes were now wide open, staring back at her grandfather. “She has violet eyes.” 

You nodded, wanting nothing more than to curl up in a ball and hide from his harsh gaze. “She does.” 

“Interesting.” He muttered. Gwayne, sensing your discomfort, settled a hand on your lower back. You looked over, smiling gratefully.

Otto settled in front of Fiona, kneeling before her with a slight smile. “And you are Fiona.” 

“I am.” Her voice was confident, unbothered by the man before her. 

“I have a present for you.” Snapping his fingers, his valet ran over, a small rectangular box in his hands. “Do you like dolls?” 

She nodded, eager excitement brewing in her tiny body. “I love them.” 

“Well, that is good news.” Otto’s smile was bright, kind, even. You smiled at the sight, much to Gwayne’s displeasure. Placing the box before her, he pulled the bow loose, removing the lid. “I chose one based on your father’s description of you.” 

Fiona giggled, cradling the porcelain doll the very same way you held Daenora. “I love her.” 

“What do you say?” You whispered, gesturing to her grandfather. 

“Thank you.” She spoke shyly, hugging the doll tightly. “Thank you very much.” 

“Could you at the very least pretend to be happy your father is here?” You sighed, trying to reason with the man now pacing around your room. “Your daughter is noticing.” 

“I highly doubt Daenora has noticed how I look at her grandfather.” 

You crossed your arms, growing increasingly annoyed with his stubborn nature. “Do not feign ignorance, Gwayne Hightower.” You sat in front of your vanity, removing your jewelry. “He is trying.” 

“Is he?” Gwayne raised a brow. “In one fell swoop, he managed to not only insult you, but ignore and belittle you.” He practically growled, watching in fascination as you undid your hair. “I will not stand for it.” 

“Well then, by all means-” You smirked. “Take a seat.” He stuck his tongue out, remaining standing. “It is in his nature. Would you be entirely happy if Fiona brought home a suitor whose parentage was in question?” 

“That is different.” 

You laughed, turning around to face him. “How so?” 

His face was gentle, warm. “That suitor is not you.” 

You shook your head. “There is no getting through to you, is there?”

“I’m afraid not, my love. Not when it comes to you.” He took the brush from your hand. “Turn around.” 

You smiled as he carefully brushed your hair, leaning into his touch. “You must not get upset at what I am about to say.” 

“Why would I be upset?” He scoffed. “I am not upset.”

“You are much too protective of me.” 

“If that is the worst thing I have done in our marriage, I would consider our union a success.” You sighed, smiling gratefully when he extended his hand. “If I am too protective, then you are entirely too forgiving.” 

You removed your robe and settled underneath your bedding. “I am trying to ensure that our daughters do not experience the same Otto you did.” Gwayne wrapped a hand around your waist, pulling you into his side. “They deserve better than what you endured.” 

“On that much,” He kissed your temple before blowing out the candle on his bedside table. “We can agree.” 

Your day had been the very picture of peace, deciding to escape to your favorite picnic spot with your daughters, away from the bustle of Oldtown. Unfortunately, Gwayne could not accompany you, so you and your guard made the trip yourself. 

‘Trip’ was an exaggeration. For Fiona, it was a trip; for you, it was a mere five-minute horse ride. Daenora had slept soundly while on horseback, something that would never cease to amaze you. When Fiona was a babe, the slightest movement would cause tears to leave her eyes. 

“Fiona!” You yelled out, laughing to yourself as she tripped over herself. “Be careful!” 

“I am, Mama!” She was so much like her father, courageous and headstrong. You told Gwayne countless times that if women were permitted to be knights, Fiona would outrank him in a fortnight. 

Daenora, you knew in your heart as you stared at the peaceful babe, would be more like you, a reader with a wild imagination. More reserved, but fiercely loyal and deeply loving. 

“My lord.” 

So Gwayne had made it out of his day of meetings. You made no effort to turn around, gesturing to the open area beside you. “My love, how was your day?” 

“Gwayne is still otherwise occupied.” You were sure that if you could burst from embarrassment, you would have done so that very moment. 

“My lord. If you would like-” 

“No need.” Otto quickly cut you off. “I will not be staying long.” He looked wistfully at the lake before you, an island in the very center of it all. “Gwayne’s mother would take the children for picnics here as well.” 

You smiled, looking back at your youngest. “It is quite the view.” 

“Quite.” 

A comfortable silence fell over both of you before you spoke again. “He misses her terribly.” 

Otto’s voice was weak, vastly different from his normally stoic, stern tone. “As do I.” 

“I’ve found him-” You waved to Fiona from across the lake, your smile falling as you reminisced. “I’ve found him admiring her portrait from time to time. He is the spitting image of her.” 

He cleared his throat, bowing quickly. “Excuse me.” 

You nodded, watching as he practically ran away, too overwhelmed with emotions to continue. “My lord.” 

“Father is requesting a private dinner.” Gwayne groaned, shoving his face further into your neck. “Tonight.” 

You laughed, enjoying the way his voice shook against your skin. “I believe we can fulfill this one request, my love.” 

“I do not wish to.” 

You sighed, playing with the hair at the nape of his neck. “He is your father, your blood. You cannot begrudge him forever.” 

“Oh, but I can.” And you truly believed him. When someone wronged your husband, or Gods forbid, wronged you, it took him ages to forget. Ages. “And I will.” 

“You will not.” You scolded. “We will attend this dinner, whether you want to or not.” 

“Do you truly hate me so?” He whined, peaking out from his hiding place. “You made a vow-” 

“A vow I have not broken.” 

“A vow to love and cherish me.” 

“I have.” You raised an eyebrow. “Rather dutifully, I would say.” 

“And to think…” He sighed, looking wistfully out the window. “I thought you loved me.” 

“You are, without a doubt, the most dramatic man I have ever met.” You shoved him away from you, jumping out of bed and donning your robe. “If you agree to attend, I will wear your favorite gown.” 

His entire demeanor changed, eyes growing dark as he admired you from the comfort of your bed. “Consider it done, my love.”

“Men are simple creatures.” You laughed to yourself. “Rhaenyra was right after all.” 

“What was that?” 

You shook your head. “Nothing, darling.”  Opening your wardrobe doors, you pulled out the very dress Gwayne had mentioned, holding it against your frame. “This is rather ornate for a private dinner.” 

His eyes were dark as he stared. “Have I mentioned how ravishing you are?” 

“Control yourself.” You tutted, hanging the dress against your mirror.

You had yet to eat a single bite of your meal, simply watching in horror as your husband and father-in-law slung skillfully concealed insults at each other. They were now on the topic of Alicent, a touchy subject for both men. 

“Ah, yes. My dear sister.” Gwayne took a sip of his ale. “How does she fare after years of taking care of her dying husband?” 

“That husband you speak of is the King.” Otto glared. “You will do well to remember that.” 

“Perhaps-” Your voice was quiet, testing the waters. “We should retire, my love.” 

Gwayne laughed. “Nonsense. I have barely eaten.” He looked at your plate, frowning. “Neither have you. Is the food not to your liking?” 

“It-” You sighed, trying to signal to your husband that he should cease this intricate game of chess immediately. “It is fine.” The table was silent for a moment, something you found yourself grateful for. 

“Fiona is the spitting image of your sister.” 

Gwayne shrugged. “I like to think she takes after her mother-” 

“Your second daughter, however.” Otto opened his mouth before closing it again. “It is quite curious.”

You took the bait, setting your fork down. “What is curious, my lord?” 

“From whom did she receive her violet eyes?” He looked at you with a false sense of curiosity. “Your mother was known for having violet eyes, yes?” 

You had made a vow to Viserys before you left, to never speak of her. To never allude to the fact that you were a Targaryen bastard. It seemed, as you stared at the Lord Hand, that you were about to break that solemn vow. “Yes, my lord.” 

“Did your father?” Your gaze dropped to your hands, and Otto’s voice grew sinister. “Ah, I forget. You never knew the man. How could you-” 

“That is enough.” Gwayne cut his father off. “We will not speak of this any longer.” 

“I am simply asking-”

“You will not insult my wife, belittle her because of her mother’s unfortunate actions.” His tone wavered as anger dared to seep through. “I will not sit by and watch as you disrespect her.” 

“Is it disrespectful, my dear son, to point out a woman’s parentage?” Otto scoffed. “Her mother-” 

“Was a princess of the seven kingdoms. I am not sure the King would be pleased to hear that his hand so freely shames his late aunt.” He laughed, although there was no humor in his tone. “I believe you have outstayed your welcome.” 

“What-”

“You will leave. On the morrow.” 

“Gwayne-” You whispered, your hand lying over his. “Do not act in anger-” 

“This is an outrage.” Otto scoffed. “A scandal-” 

“No!” Gwayne yelled, the noise echoing through the hall. “The scandal is you insulting my wife, my family. I have let it go on for far too long, but no more.”

“Gwayne!” Your voice was sharp, shocking your husband with its lack of sweetness. “You will wake the entire estate with this nonsense.” 

“Then let me lower my tone.” 

“No.” You shook your head. “I believe it would be best if you retired for the night.” 

“My love…” He whispered. “He has just-” 

“I know what he has done.” You ripped your hand away from his, your voice stern. “I will be right behind you.” 

The older man waited until his son had left to address you. “Thank you for your support-” 

“With all due respect…” You raised your hand. “I believe I have the floor. Your admiration for your granddaughters has not gone unnoticed. It is kind and sweet, the way you have treated them during your time here.” 

He smiled. “Of course-” 

“But I will not stand idly by while you insult me. As you saw, neither can your son. While he has a peculiar way of showing it, Gwayne loves you; he will always love you, just as I love my mother, even though I did not know her. I hold a certain admiration for her bringing me into this world. I digress. If you ever-”

You stood up, straightening your dress. “And I mean ever, treat me in such a manner again, and I will not ask my husband to stop his defensive tirade. Furthermore, you will be barred from visiting your granddaughters, and you will be barred from entering the city. I will not reward your disrespectful behavior by allowing your poisonous presence around my sweet girls.” Tucking in your chair, you gave him a half smile, turning on your heels toward the door. “If you will excuse me…”

Gwayne was staring into the fire when you entered your chambers. His hair was unruly, from the many, many times he ran his hands through it in frustration. You smiled, gently shutting the door behind you. “My love-” 

“Why?” 

“Why what?” You frowned. 

“Why must you deny any help?” He turned around, eyes desperate for an answer. “I only want to protect you, my darling. My father was behaving cruelly.” 

You nodded, reaching up and caressing his cheek. “He was indeed.” 

“And I tried to defend you-” 

“Quite valiantly.” 

“And you stopped me.” He wrapped a hand around your waist. “Why?” 

“Some disagreements are better settled through means of persuasion rather than aggression.” 

“I see.” He hummed, leaning his forehead against yours. “And this disagreement was solved through means of-” 

“Persuasion.” Gwayne raised an eyebrow. “Let me reassure you that if your father does ever disrespect me again, you can do as you please.” 

“Ah.” He grinned, voice soft. “I love you.” 

“I love you more.” You smiled, kissing his lips gently. “You are a good husband, Gwayne.” 

“It is not a hard thing to achieve when one has you as a wife.” 

“Must you leave?” Fiona whined, hugging her grandfather tightly. 

“I’m afraid so, my sweet one.” He smiled, setting her back on the ground. “Do not fret, I will be back with more dolls in no time.” 

She giggled, hugging his leg for good measure. “I will miss you, Grandfather.” 

He ruffled her already wild hair, approaching you and the babe. “Thank you for your hospitality.” 

“You are welcome anytime, my lord.” You smiled. “Would you like to hold her?” 

He nodded, carefully taking her into his grasp. “She is quite the perfect babe.” 

Gwayne wrapped an arm loosely around your waist. “I would have to agree.” 

Otto put Daenora back into your arms. “Gwayne.” 

“Father.” They merely looked at each other, but a mutual understanding was there. “I look forward to your return.” You had a sneaking suspicion as you watched your father-in-law’s carriage disappear across the horizon that Gwayne actually meant it. 

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Rhaenyra smiled politely. “Ser Hightower.”  

Gwayne bowed, kissing Rhaenyra’s hand. “Princess.” 

Protocol regarding courting was odd and often confusing. With different social statuses came different rules. The Princess was the highest ranking of the two girls before him; thus, he would kiss Rhaenyra’s hand last. It was an honest mistake, a lapse in judgment, Y/N was sure. Odd, she’d thought to herself, she assumed that Gwayne was taught these sorts of things. 

Her eyes drifted back to his, holding back a gasp as he extended his hand to her, after Rhaenyra. She placed hers in his palm hesitantly. He bowed once more, his hold gentle, like he was scared to break her. His lips were soft, and her cheeks turned bright red from the touch, eyes wide with shock. 

She realized, amid her thinking, that Alicent and Rhaenyra had been taunting her, much too entertained by this simple encounter. Y/N ripped her hand away; any passerby would have thought it was on fire. 

“My lady.” 

She’d almost frowned. “I am no lady, Ser.” Entertaining the thought of him would only come back to haunt her, she told herself. The entire point of the tourney was to field potential suitors for the Princess, none were here for the ward of the crown, an orphaned bastard in her own right. He was attractive, there was no denying it. The way his eyes twinkled, or the way his hair fell over his eyes, or when his smile- 

“Oh?” The young man frowned, his voice snapping her back to life. Her cheeks were still flushed. This avoiding business would prove to be harder than she previously thought. “My mistake. You are the very picture of a lady, I must say.” 

Their spectators gasped. Y/N scoffed. “Do not think you can mock me, Ser.” She tightened her hold on Rhaenyra’s arm. “If you will excuse us…” 

Not bothering to wait for a response, she turned around, dragging the princess along with her. Rhaenyra whispered, nudging her friend. “I believe he was smitten.” 

Y/N shook her head. “And I believe it was all a game, most likely a way to make you jealous.” Her heart clenched at the thought. “Just a game.” 

Rhaenyra’s room was a disaster, but when had it not been? 

For as long as either of the Princess’s companions could remember, her suite had been covered with gowns and riding suits thrown haphazardly on the floor. 

Not that either of the other girls cared, they were happy to lay on the Princess’s plush cushions, taking in the sun as it filled the room. Y/N’s head hung off the sofa, laughing as her friend ran through her closet. “If it were any larger, you would get lost inside.” 

Rhaenyra stuck her tongue out. “I would be content with just my riding suit, thank you very much.” 

Alicent laughed. “You know you’d rather die than look simple. You live for fine silks and designs-” 

Y/N nodded, doing her best to imitate the Princess. “Oh Y/N fetch the purple dress, will you? Fetch the red dress! No, not that one. The one with the jewels. No not that one, the other-” A pillow slammed against her face, and she giggled, holding her hands up defensively. “Mercy, I beg of you!” 

“You could have had all this.” Rhaenyra sat beside the girl, whispering. “If my father simply acknowledged-” 

“That my mother gave birth to me out of wedlock? No amount of Targaryen blood can excuse that dishonor.” Y/N sat up, frowning. “It does no good to dwell, Rhaenyra. Besides, I am content with the life I lead, spending time with my favorite cousin.” 

Rhaenyra rolled her eyes. “I am your only cousin.” 

“Not true.” She laughed. “There is Daemon and-” 

“My brother seems rather taken with you, I must say.” Y/N’s heart broke at the thought of Gwayne being smitten with Rhaenyra. 

Why, she could not quite place. “Hear that ‘Nyra? I told you I was-” 

“I was talking to you, Y/N,” Alicent smirked.

Her cheeks grew hot, her hands itching to cover her face. “You must be mistaken.” 

“Do you truly think so little of him?” The auburn-haired girl reached out, grabbing Y/N’s hand comfortingly. “I assure you, he is honorable and loyal to a fault.” 

“I am sure he is.” Y/N smiled. “He must be leaving soon, now that the tournament is nearly over.”

Rhaenyra smirked. “I must say, it was not as extensive as I would have liked.” 

“Really?” Y/N laughed. “It has already been a fortnight since its beginning.” 

“And if the Princess feels it is not finished…” Rhaenyra wiggled her eyebrows. “The Princess will announce an extension.” 

Alicent giggled. “Or rather your father.” 

“My lady.” 

She’d almost escaped. Y/N sighed, turning around. “My lord.”

She had seen the man following her for quite a while, hoping that he was merely visiting the library. She bowed quickly. “How may I be of service?” Lord Frey’s scent could make a man grown faint. She felt the bile rise as he took a step closer, whispering.

“I was wondering if you could put in a word with your Princess.” 

She nodded. “What would you like me to relay?” 

“Well-” His ‘kind’ facade was cracking. If he could barely handle a simple question, she doubted Rhaenyra would enjoy him. “If you could-” 

“My lady.” Her heart fluttered at the sight of Gwyane Hightower, his hair bouncing as he walked toward her. “I’ve been waiting. We agreed to meet in the gardens.” 

“I am sorry.” She smiled, genuinely smiled. “I was simply talking to Lord Frey.” She looked back to the older man, urging him to continue. “You were saying, my lord?” 

He gritted his teeth. “It is of no consequence. I shall take my leave.” He bowed. “My lady. Ser Hightower.” 

“Lord Frey,” Gwayne replied, waiting until he had rounded the corner. “Always a pleasure.” 

Y/N fought the urge to laugh. She walked past the young knight, her heart beating faster as he diligently followed after her. “Do you not have somewhere to be, my lord?” 

“As I said, I have been waiting for you.”

She scoffed. “I must say, you are the very picture of a knight. Saving a damsel in distress? How chivalrous.” 

He smiled, bowing sarcastically. “Thank you, my lady.” 

“I am not a-”

“A lady. You have said.” He grabbed a book from the shelf, pretending to read it before throwing it over his shoulder. She rolled her eyes, walking around him to pick up the book he’d discarded. The maester would have her head if he found it lying there. “I must say, a lady has never been so-” He laughed as she opened her mouth to correct him. “So unmoved by my advances.” 

“I’m sorry to disappoint. If you’ll excuse me-” 

“What are you doing with the remainder of your day, I wonder.”

“Why?”

“I would like a proper tour of the castle, and my sister has been too busy as of late.” He looked too eager, too eager to spend time with a mere lady in waiting. “Would you care to show me?”  

“I would not.” 

“Wonderful. I will-” He stopped. “I beg your pardon?” 

“I said, I would not.” She put the last book away, climbing up the ladder. “It is quite cruel, this game you are playing.”

“I am sorry?” He tilted his head. 

“I know this is a ploy to gain Rhaenyra’s favor, to win the tourney, and possibly win your father’s approval.” She scoffed, eyes watery at the thought of yet another man using her to gain advantage. “This is by far the cruelest way, I must tell you.” 

He laughed, actually laughed at her, which only angered her further, tears falling as a result. He stopped his laughing, reaching out to comfort her, frowning when she stepped back. “Do you really think I am using you for your lady’s hand?” 

“I do.” She climbed back down from the ladder, ignoring the way he held it from wavering beneath her. “There is no reason for you to be interested in me.” 

He shook his head as if he’d misheard her. “Are you aware you are beautiful?” 

Y/N ignored that comment, facing him with pleading eyes. “Please spare me from your taunts. I understand that you may- you may find it amusing-” 

Gwayne was confused, extremely, and utterly confused. He had just complimented her, why was she asking him to spare her? “I must make this clear and simple, as you seem to get the wrong impression from me. I am not interested in your lady. I am interested in-”

“Every suitor I have encountered has gone through either myself or Alicent to gain Rhaenyra’s favor. By the gods-” She flailed her arms. “Some even go to me inquiring about your sister!”  

He practically growled, her heart leaping from the sound. “Then they are cowards.”

“Yes, well…” She had to leave before her resolve broke. “My lord.” 

“Do you let anyone other than yourself speak?” 

Y/N gasped, whipping around. “Excuse me?” 

“I have been trying to explain myself to you, to tell you that-” He stopped himself. “So far every attempt has been overpowered by you.” He crossed his arms, a smirk gracing his lips. “Now…” His voice was practically a whisper. “May I speak?” 

“I-” She swallowed, nodding. She did not trust her voice when he looked at her so… so longingly?

“The outing I suggested earlier, would simply be a tour, nothing more.” He took her hand in his. “Nothing untoward will come of it, I swear to you.” 

He looked sincere. So sincere that she began to consider it. “We will need a chaperone. The king would not allow me to go off alone, even with a knight.” 

“The king?” Gwayne was intrigued. “Exactly why would the king care?” 

“Because I am a ward of the crown. I have been since I was born. My mother was a-” She stopped herself. “She was a close friend of King Jaehaerys, and he took me in. King Viserys has been gracious enough to let me stay.” 

“Well, then I shall have to thank him.” 

“For?” 

“If it had not been for him…” He reached out, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. “We would have never met.” 

She rolled her eyes, pulling herself out of his hold. “I shall see you tomorrow, my lord.” 

He grinned, calling after her. “I look forward to it!” 

Gwayne smiled as he watched the woman in front of him. She was glowing in this light and practically skipping through the gardens with joy. It was funny, seeing a woman he had often seen as melancholy at best so energetic. “Do you often find yourself at peace here?” 

“I do.” Y/N nodded. “I was told my mother loved the gardens, I suppose I feel she is still with me when I am here.” 

“Did you know her?” Gwayne inquired. “Your mother, that is.” 

“She died when I was a babe.” She leaned forward, taking in the scent of the roses in front of her. “I have glimpses of her. She had bright eyes, bright hair. Her laugh was the most beautiful melody you could ever hear. At least…” She drifted off, staring at the ground. “From what I can remember.”  

“I have the same.” His voice was quiet. “Although, my mother died when I was eight years of age.” 

“That’s awful.” She frowned. “Alicent told me she had died, but not how old you’d been. That must have been worse, I suppose. Having known her, and then in a moment, gone.” 

He shrugged. “My mother was… less than maternal. She had always been one for court and fashion rather than her children.” 

“Ah.”

“Still, it hurt. Me more than Alicent, I suppose. She’d only been four years old.” 

She ached to reach out and hold him. “I am sorry.” 

“For?” 

“Reliving the past.” 

“If I remember correctly…” He plucked a nearby daisy, placing it behind her ear ever so delicately. “I found this topic of conversation.” 

“Yes well…” She smiled, leaning into his touch ever so slightly. “Still…” 

He leaned forward, his breath hitting her nose. “I am sure your mother would be proud.” 

To that, Y/N laughed. “She was always the adventurous sort, at least, that is what I’ve gathered from the stories. She was highly admired too, beautiful…” She looked down, picking at the skin around her thumb. “I hope to be half the woman she was.” 

“You are.” He whispered, holding her hand. He had noticed, much to his dismay, that she’d adopted the habit of picking at her skin. It hurt him, to see her do that to herself. 

His sister did the same.

Her heart stopped, looking up to meet his gaze. He was beautiful. Staring into his eyes, she began to realize how inappropriate of a position they were in. 

Where was their chaperone? She took a step back, forgetting the rose bush behind her. Yelping, she jumped forward, falling into his arms. 

Gwayne laughed, throwing his head back. “Have I startled you?” 

She scoffed, pushing him away. “Not at all. I simply remembered we have much more of the tour to get through.” She darted around him, leading the way out of the garden. “Now, come along.” 

“Yes sir,” Gwayne muttered, mockingly saluting. 

She looked behind her, a smile gracing her lips. “What was that?”

“Nothing.” His pace quickened until they were side by side. “Simply admiring your hospitality.” 

She shoved his arm, rolling her eyes. “Ever the jester.” 

The remainder of their day passed quickly, much quicker than Y/N would have liked. By the end, she came to realize that the noble knight was a near-perfect companion. Serious when required, a jester when the moment called for it, he was kind, and a good man. 

Their last moments had been silent, soaking in the dull roar around them. Every so often, their hands grazed, neither daring to reach out. The sunset with the perfect blend of orange and pink, the waves crashing against King Landing’s rocky cliffs. It made Y/N smile, the way it brought out the red in Gwayne’s hair. She whispered, the words barely leaving her. “You’re hair is the most perfect shade. Have you noticed?” His cheeks turned red, and she smirked, taking his silence as a no. “If only it were transferable.” 

That had made him laugh. “Have you just given me a compliment?” 

She laughed. “We are friends, are we not?” The night was coming to an end, her door just a few paces away. “Friends compliment each other.” 

His shoulders visibly deflated, but he smiled nonetheless. “Yes. Friends compliment each other.” Silence fell over them again, neither daring to speak until she’d reached for her door. His hand grabbed her wrist, holding her just so. 

His voice was raspy, quiet enough the breeze itself could have carried it away. “You are perfection itself.” Her cheeks were bright red, and she grew grateful he could not see her, knowing that she would surely become the subject of his jests if he saw her blush. “As your friend…” 

She nodded, smiling to herself as she pushed the door open, his hold releasing her wrist. “Goodnight, my lord.” 

“My friends do not call me my lord.” 

She turned around, curtsying ever so lightly. “Then goodnight, Gwayne.” 

He bowed, kissing the back of her hand. “Goodnight, Y/N.” 

“Are you not terribly tired of reading?”

“If I was tired of it, I would not still be doing it, now would I?” 

Gwayne groaned, rolling over on their shared blanket, staring at the sky. “One should not confine themselves to a book when the whole world is sitting in front of them.” 

Y/N rolled her eyes, setting the book down in her lap. “I will have you know I am not confining myself.” 

“Oh?” He laughed, his eyes closing. “Then what exactly are you doing?” “I was trying to relax.” She murmured. “Something I can never seem to do when you are present.” 

“What was that?” His smirk was growing increasingly mischievous, and she knew that he had heard her. 

“I will not repeat myself. You heard me.” Grabbing her book out of her lap, she opened its pages once more. “Now hush. This is the best part.” 

“Read it to me then.” He closed his eyes, laying beside her. “I would like to hear what is so interesting it has taken you away from me.” 

“It was you who suggested the picnic, Gwayne, not I.” She laughed. “They are supposed to be tranquil.” 

“Maybe in King’s Landing.” He muttered. “In Oldtown, they are supposed to be fun.” 

“Well, I am not from Oldtown, nor are we there, which could imply why I was unaware of your customs. Which could also explain how we have reached this argument.” 

His eyebrows raised. “Is this an argument?” 

She ignored him, mumbling to herself. “This is fun.” 

“Well, it would be.” He teased. “If you read to me.” 

“You jest.” She mumbled. “Now let me sit in peace.” 

He stood up, walking behind her just to sit down once more. “May I?” 

“May you what, exactly?” Her cheeks felt hot, he had this effect on her. 

“Alicent once taught me to plait hair, when she was young.” He smiled to himself. “I assume it was a self-serving act, but still.” He leaned forward, his voice causing goosebumps to run up her spine. “At least let me pass the time this way.” 

“Fine.” Y/N could never say no to him, no matter how hard she tried. “Do not make me look hideous.” 

“That…” He pulled out the pins that held her hair elegantly. “Is not possible.” Her cheeks flushed, ignoring that compliment. “Are you attending the tourney tomorrow?” 

Y/N nodded. “I must. Rhaenyra has insisted I attend as her lady-in-waiting.” She laughed. “It is quite odd.” 

“How so?” 

“She has never required that of me before.” 

Gwayne grinned. “Well, I shall enjoy knowing you are watching.” 

“Really?” She laughed again. “I thought you would enjoy it more if I had not attended. Then you could recount the story as outlandishly as you pleased.” 

“Y/N…” His voice sounded desperate, and her heart skipped. “If you do not wish to attend, I’m sure the Princess will understand.” 

“No!” She practically yelped. “I want to.”

He smiled, his blush growing darker. “Then I shall do my very best.” His fingers grazed her neck, a gasp leaving her lips before she could silence herself. Gwayne made no comment of it, simply finishing the braid and standing up, extending his hand. 

She glared playfully, standing up of her own accord. She knelt, picking up the blanket and folding it haphazardly. 

“Let me.” Gwayne took the blanket and basket from her arms, carrying them back up to the castle. “A lady should never carry such things.” 

“A basket and blanket?” She raised an eyebrow. “I am not weak.” 

“I know.” He smiled, enjoying the fire in her eyes. “You are decidedly, not weak.” 

She nodded, puffing her chest. “If we walk any slower, you shall be late.” 

He groaned. “Why must I attend this soiree?” 

“Because it is meant for you. For knights participating in the tourney, that is. Rhaenyra will be there, as will her father-” 

“And will you?” Gwayne interrupted. “Be in attendance?” 

“I shall.” She smiled brightly. “Now come along and follow after me closely.” 

He tilted his head. “Where are you taking me, exactly?” 

“Maegor’s tunnels.” She wiggled her eyebrows. “They were made as an escape plan. Now the servants use them to move around the castle unseen.” The corridor was dark, the lanterns doing little to illuminate the path. 

Gwayne felt a chill run down his spine, and he reached out, grabbing her hand. “Are you quite sure this is safe?” 

“I have used them my whole life.” She placed a hand on his cheek. “Trust me.” 

He smiled, all fears of imminent doom leaving him as her skin touched his. “Lead the way.”

“You are going to break my hand.” Rhaenyra hissed. 

Y/N smiled guiltily, releasing the Princess's hand. “My apologies, Princess.” She straightened the fabric of her dress, sitting tall. “I am simply excited. I love tourneys.” 

“You do not. You have not been to a tourney since we were ten years of age.” 

“Untrue,” Y/N muttered, looking over the edge of the box for her knight. “I am simply busy.” 

“With what?” Rhaenyra raised an eyebrow. “Who are you looking for anyhow?” 

Alicent sat on the other side of the Princess, leaning forward and wiggling her eyebrows. “I believe she is looking for my brother.” 

Rhaenyra grinned. “Has that-” Alicent elbowed the Princess, widening her eyes. 

Y/N tilted her head. “What was that?” 

“Nothing,” Rhaenyra muttered, holding her side. “Nothing.” 

A knight approached the royal box, and Y/N grinned, waiting for Rhaenyra to stand first, as was customary. Rhaenyra smirked, looking at Alicent quickly before approaching the ledge. “Ser Hightower.” Alicent and Y/N approached second, arm in arm. Curstying quickly, she smiled at Gwayne brightly. The knight nodded his head. “Your Highness.” He turned to Y/N, his eyes softening. “My lady.” 

“Ser Hightower.” Y/N greeted. “This is quite the tourney. I’m impressed.” 

He grinned. “May I-” He swallowed. “May I have the honor of wearing your favor?” 

Her cheeks grew bright red. “You-” She looked at Rhaenyra. “Do you not-” 

He laughed. “I believe it is quite obvious I do not.” 

Rhaenyra laughed, shaking her head in disbelief. She leaned over, whispering in her cousin’s ear. “This is when you give the man your favor, Y/N.” 

“But, I-” She turned back to Gwayne once more. “Are you quite sure?” 

He nodded, cheeks slightly flushed. “Yes, my lady.” 

She turned around, pulling her arm out of Alicent’s. As she was a bastard, her house colors were unknown, opting to simply decorate the ring with her favorite flowers. 

Of course, Rhaneyra and Y/N had known, but to blatantly defy the order of the king… she locked eyes with King Viserys, who was gazing at her curiously. Her eyes darted to the floor, turning back around.  “May your luck bring you to victory, Ser Hightower.” 

“As long as I have you to think of…” He looked positively giddy. “I shall never lose.” 

Y/N was sure her cheeks were bright red. She rolled her eyes, ignoring his compliment. 

Her heart twisted, knowing that they could never marry, as who would allow their firstborn son, their heir, to wed a bastard? She pushed his lance playfully, pulling herself out of her thoughts. “Go on, then.” 

“You look stunning.” Alicent smiled, placing her hands on Y/N’s shoulders. “The very picture of a lady.” 

Y/N’s cheeks flushed. “I cannot name a time I have dressed so…” She smiled. “So elegantly.” 

“It is a ball,” Rhaenyra interjected. “I will not have my dear friend in something drab.” 

Alicent glared, and Rhaenyra stuck her tongue out. “She knows I do not mean that she is drab. I was simply-” 

“It is alright, Rhaenyra.” Y/N laughed. “I was not offended in the slightest.” 

“Red is most definitely your color.” Alicent grinned, spinning her friend around.

Rhaenyra smirked. “Your knight shall not know what to do with himself.” Alicent gasped, smacking Rhaenyra’s arm. The Princess winced, glaring at her friend. “You cannot keep hitting me whenever you are disappointed.” 

Y/N tilted her head. “My knight?” 

“It is no matter.” Alicent stopped the Princess from blabbing anymore. “Shall we?” 

The ballroom was filled to the brim with nobility from all over the Seven Kingdoms, the Hightowers, the Tullys, even the Starks had come to participate in the tourney and celebrate its results. 

Y/N stepped back, watching as her friends entered. The squire stomped his cane, effectively silencing the ballroom. “The Princess of Dragonstone, Rhaenyra Targaryen, heir to the Seven Kingdoms, accompanied by the Lady Alicent Hightower.” 

They looked elegant, lighting up the room as they walked. Y/N walked up to the squire, smiling lightly. “No need to introduce me, Orvyn.” 

He nodded, smiling kindly. “As you wish, my lady.” 

The ballroom had not paid attention as she walked, not that she minded. It was better that way, she convinced herself as she glanced around the room. She smiled, waving at Gwayne, who was already staring back at her, rather intensely. His eyes… she shivered, ripping herself away from his gaze as she curtsied before the King. “Your Majesty.” 

Viserys smiled, eyeing her royal red dress with curiosity. “Y/N.” 

She rose; she could still feel Gwayne’s eyes fixed on her. Sitting beside Rhaenyra, she took a large gulp of her wine. “Is Gwayne still-” 

Rhaenyra nodded, laughing to herself. “He is walking over.” 

“What?” Y/N’s eyes widened, her heart pounding. “Why?” 

“I assume…” She whispered, Gwayne now mere inches away. “He is going to ask you to dance.” 

“He-” 

“Your Highness.” The knight bowed. “My lady.” 

Y/N avoided eye contact and took another large sip. Rhaenyra smirked. “Ser Gwayne, congratulations on your victory.” 

“Thank you, Princess.” He smiled. “Would you mind terribly if I stole your lady for a dance?” 

Rhaenyra shook her head. “Not at all, my lord.” She looked at Y/N, enjoying this situation too much. “Y/N?” 

“What?” Y/N whispered. 

“He is asking you to dance.” Rhaenyra hissed. “Now get up.” 

“I-” Y/N looked at Gwayne for the second time that night, feeling as if she could faint at any moment. “I would be delighted.” 

His hand waited for hers, as it had so many times before. He whispered, placing his arm around her waist as they stood on the dance floor, his touch shocking her to her very core. “Is something the matter?” 

She shook her head. 

“Then why, pray tell…” His voice sounded desperate. “Have you refused to meet my eyes? I have missed your company.” 

She raised her gaze, falling for the trap he’d set. “I saw you but two days ago, Gwayne.” 

“There you are.” He grinned, pulling her closer as the dance began. “Now tell me, what is the matter?” 

“You are leaving soon.” 

“I am.” He replied as if this were any normal conversation. And perhaps it was, but Y/N would not say so. No normal conversation made her heart beat as fast as this. 

“And I-” She sighed. “I did not want to bother you while you prepared for your journey back.” 

“Back?” He tilted his head. “And where am I journeying to?” 

“To Oldtown, of course.” His eyebrows scrunched, and Y/N fought the urge to burst into laughter. “I assumed-” 

“Well, there’s no good in that, is there?” He whispered. “Assuming is a dangerous business.” 

“But why would you stay?” She felt entirely confused. He had won the tourney and now would go home to tend to his duties. “There is no-” His eyes sparkled as she spoke, halting her momentarily. “No reason.” 

Gwayne leaned down, his breath hitting her cheeks. “There is one reason. A very compelling one, in truth.” 

Her heart stopped. “Is there?” 

He nodded, eyes fluttering down to her lips. 

Oh. 

She was the reason. 

Before she could fall for his spell, she pulled back, disrupting the dance. His eyes widened, reaching out to hold her hand. “Y/N?” 

She ripped her hand back, staring wide-eyed. “I am not feeling well.” 

His tone was gentle, it made her stomach flip. Gods, he had to stop being so- so perfect. “Would you like me to-” 

“No!” She yelped, slapping a hand over her mouth. Nobles from around the room curiously gazed at the couple. “No, I shall go alone.” 

“Y/N-” 

She whipped around, stalking out of the ballroom. It broke her, to walk away from his hold. She knew she could no longer be around him; she was fighting her very soul to leap up and attach her lips to his. 

There was only one solution to this problem, this vexing complication - she would have to avoid him entirely. No more traipsing around the halls waiting for him to see her, no more walking by the stables or the training yard.

No, she would have to stay confined to her and Rhaenyra’s rooms. 

That was the best course of action, for both her and Gwayne. 

Little did she know, Gwayne would not stand for it. 

“They say-” Rhaenyra spoke carefully as she addressed her cousin. “That your knight is leaving today.” 

“Ah.” Y/N nodded, staring off into the distance.

“Y/N…” The Princess sat beside her, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Punishing yourself because of your birth… You must stop refusing any sign of affection or love simply on the-” 

“Who said it was love?” Y/N scoffed, walking out to the balcony. “Certainly not I.” 

“Anyone with eyes can see it. He is mad for you, as you are for him.” Rhaenyra muttered under her breath. “Even if you refuse to admit it.”

“I cannot admit something false, Rhaenyra.” Her lips curled into a twisted sort of smile. “I am content with my life, serving you.” 

“All perfectly fine with me,” Rhaenyra reassured. “But you have a chance with Gwayne. Swear to me you will not waste it.” 

“I-” She sighed. “I must retrieve your dinner, my lady.” Y/N curtsied before racing out of the room. By the gods, she couldn’t breathe when Rhaenyra lectured her. It was horrible enough that Alicent had begun to look upon her as if she was a kicked puppy, now Rhaenyra had began to do the same. 

She pushed open the servant's door, twisting through Maegor’s tunnels with ease. It was odd, she told herself, at the lack of maids in its halls. Normally, she was dodging servants left and right. This felt strange, unnerving in a way. 

Footsteps echoed behind her, and her heart leapt when a hand wrapped around her wrist, pulling her into a dark corner. She gasped, flailing her arms around, doing anything that could beat this intruder off her. Gwayne’s familiar voice ripped her from her panicked cries. “It’s me! It’s me.” 

She rolled her eyes, pulling her arm out of his grasp. “What possessed you to drag me-” 

“You will not talk to me.” He crossed his arms, staring at her intensely. “I am sorry if I scared you.” She turned around, walking back to the hallway. Gwayne followed diligently. “My party is set to leave today.” 

Y/N nodded, ignoring the way her heart clenched. “So I’ve heard.” 

“I wanted to say goodbye before I left.” His voice wavered. “I will miss-” 

“You’ve said goodbye.” She cut him off, whipping around. “Now you may leave.” 

He closed the space between them, eyes running wild with confusion. “Why must you be like this? Have I truly upset you?” 

“Will you not respect a lady’s wishes?” She took a step back, scoffing. “I thought you were a knight, Lord Hightower.” 

“Don’t.” 

“I must attend to my lady. Her dinner is past due.” She continued her walk through the tunnels, ignoring his overwhelming presence. 

“Damn her dinner.” He hissed, walking a pace behind her as he whispered. “I have been trying, for weeks, to court you, and you’ve denied me every step of the way. Just as soon as I-” 

She scoffed. “Court me? Did Lord Tyland put you up to this?” 

He shook his head, laughing. “Is it so hard to believe that I am interested in you? That the very thought of you consumes me?” 

“Yes, it is.” 

“Why?” 

She could only imagine his expression, his beautiful face creased with shock. Her cheeks flushed at the thought. “I am a bastard, you a lord’s son. By the gods, your father is hand to the King, and I am merely a lady in waiting.” She frowned, eyes watering. “It is not proper-” 

“Then damn propriety!” He yelled, grabbing her wrist and halting her in her tracks. Her back was pressed against his chest. “I- I am mad for you, you must see that.” 

Her shoulders shook, tears falling down her face. “Gwayne, it is for the best.” 

“No!” He twirled her around, his hand gently caressing her cheek. “You- you make me think, and feel, and act as none have. Your laughter- it brightens my day. Your wit makes me proud. I am-” He sighed, smiling brightly at the mere sight of her. “How?” 

She tilted her head. “How?” 

“How can I show you?” Her back collided with the wall, her breath leaving her, her heart thumping at their proximity. “How can I make you believe?” 

“Gwayne…” 

“Damn it to hell…” He leaned down, colliding his lips to hers. She gasped, eyes fluttering shut as she instantly pulled him closer. “I am not deterred by your status, nor do I care. I will have you, regardless of what the court thinks is proper.” His forehead leaned against hers, his hand resting at the bottom of her neck. 

“We cannot-” Tears continued to fall down her face. “Gwayne, it cannot happen-” 

“Do you want it to?” He remained steadfast. “Is this what you truly feel, or merely what the lords and ladies of Kings Landing shall say?”

“Gwayne, your father will never approve.” 

“By the gods woman…” He laughed. “Do you love me?” 

“Love?” She choked on a sob. Her body felt as if it could burst into flames at any moment. He was standing close, closer than what was deemed appropriate. “Do I-” 

“I do.” He whispered, nudging her nose with his, lips barely touching. “I love you.” 

“Gwayne, just listen to me.” She was fighting every bone in her body not to kiss him senselessly. “I am not good enough for you. There are hundreds of ladies-” 

“You are, you are good enough. Perhaps too good. Besides…” He whispered. “I want you. Only you.” His eyes were intense, his thumb caressing her collarbone. By the gods, he was trying to make her burst into flames. “Only you.” His lips collided against hers, her eyes fluttering shut once more. 

Her hands found their way to his chest, slowly pushing him away. “We cannot.” 

“Oh?” He looked around the hallway. “I do not see anyone.” 

“You know what I meant, Gwayne Hightower.”  

“Would you like to stop?” 

“No!” Her eyes widened, and she slapped a hand over her mouth.

His eyebrows rose, laughing to himself. “So eager.” He nudged his nose against hers. “Whatever shall I do with you?” 

“Why have you stopped?” Gwayne’s voice was but a murmur.

“I did not know you were listening.” She smiled. “You appeared to be sleeping.” 

“Merely basking in your presence, my love.” His eyes fluttered open. “I must say, you look radiant in this light.” 

She laughed. “As opposed to?” 

“You know that I find you impossibly perfect.” His eyes shut again. “How long has it been since you began this book?” 

“Hard to say. Possibly half an hour?” She squinted suspiciously. “Why?” 

“No reason.” He smirked, finding comfort in her lap once more. 

“Well, there must be.” Her laughter filled his heart, his soul. “You never ask for the time.” 

“May I not ask the beautiful woman, whom I love, what the time is? I simply want to know how long I have been lying in the garden.” His eyes peeked open once more, her eyebrows raising in amusement. “If you must know, I  have an appointment at half past three.”

“An appointment?” She shut her book, running her hand through his hair. “Whatever for?” 

“It is a secret.” 

“Really?” She pulled her hand away from his hair, laughing as he sat up, obviously disappointed by the sudden lack of touch.

“Really.” He stood, extending his hand. She smiled, placing hers in his gladly. “It is with the King.” 

She laid her head on his shoulder, smiling as they walked. “Has something happened?” 

“Yes.” 

Her heart dropped. “Is it serious?” 

He nodded. “Deadly.” 

She groaned. “Now you must tell me.” 

He sighed, stopping by the fountain. “Fine, fine. But you must not tell.” 

She nodded, interlocking their pinkies. “I swear.” 

He leaned forward, whispering in her ear. “I am asking the King for your hand.” 

Her eyebrows crinkled. “My hand?” 

“In marriage, my love.” She stood there speechless. He laughed, kissing the back of her hand gently. “I cannot be late.” 

He had been halfway down the trail when she’d been brought back to life. 

“Gwayne!” 

He turned around, laughing at the sight before him. Y/N was racing toward him, skirts in hand and book discarded, grinning wildly. “Gwayne, you come back here this instant!” 

He shook his head, running away. “This is highly unladylike, I must say!” She glared, almost tripping over a tree root, his laughter cascading through the garden. “Almost makes me rethink my question!”

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As a Targaryen, you were accustomed to getting your way—or fire and blooding your way through those who stood in your path. Yet, here you were, bound by a political decree to marry Ser Gwayne Hightower. A man whose pristine armour matched his equally pristine, frustratingly smug attitude.

The feeling was entirely mutual. From the moment the betrothal was announced, your interactions consisted of sharp glares, venomous masked insults disguised as courtly pleasantries, and a profound, simmering hatred.

Gwayne Hightower was everything you detested: impeccably groomed, insufferably dutiful, and fiercely loyal to a faction that viewed your family as an existential threat. He thought you a reckless, arrogant dragon; you thought him a rigid, sanctimonious knight.

When your hands were joined before the High Septon in the Great Sept, your skin crawled beneath the heavy silk of your gown, the ceremonial ribbons feeling less like a holy union and more like iron shackles. Later, at the wedding feast, when he leaned in to press an obligatory kiss against your cheek, his lips were ice. His jaw was clenched so tightly you genuinely wondered if his teeth might shatter under the strain of his compliance.

"Try to smile, my lady," Gwayne murmured smoothly through a fixed, public grin. His breath was warm against your ear, a stark contrast to his chilling demeanour, even as the lords of the realm raised their goblets in a roaring toast to your long life together. "The court is watching, and you look as though you've just been served a cup of nightshade."

"I would prefer the nightshade," you shot back, keeping your own smile perfectly, deceptively radiant for the court. "At least it would kill me quickly, rather than boring me to death over a lifetime."

Even once the bedding ceremony was announced, the two of you flatly refused to participate. When the drunken lords and giggling handmaidens finally shoved you both into your marital chambers and barred the heavy oak doors from the outside, the festive atmosphere vanished instantly, replaced by a suffocating silence.

The massive canopy bed sat heavily in the center of the room, lit by dozens of flickering candles. Gwayne stood near the edge of it, his hand hovering awkwardly near the fastenings of his breeches, his green eyes cold and tightly guarded.

You didn't give him the chance to speak.

"If you take that cock out, I will cut it off," you hissed, your voice dropping dangerously as you stood rigidly in your rumpled wedding shift. "I want no part of your seed infecting me."

Gwayne’s jaw went slack for a fraction of a second, his eyes widening in sheer shock before narrowing into slits of pure fury. Slowly, he let his hands drop to his sides, taking a single, step toward you. 

"Infecting you?" he repeated, his voice pitching up at your sheer audacity. The polite, courtly knight was gone; in his place was a man whose patience had been stripped entirely raw. "You speak as though my blood is a disease, my lady, when it is your house that carries the plague of madness to the realm.”

He leaned down slightly, his face mere inches from yours, his breath hot against your skin. "Rest assured, I have absolutely no desire to plant my seed in a field as barren and venomous as you. You want no part of me? The feeling is entirely mutual. I would rather couple with a pit of vipers."

"Then we are agreed," you spat, refusing to back down an inch, your eyes flashing with Targaryen fire.

You turned on your heel, violently ripping the heavy furs off the mattress and flinging them toward the far corner of the room. “You can take the settee.”

“I will not,” he growled, refusing to be displaced from his own quarters by a defiant dragon. “These are our shared chambers, and I will not sleep on the floor like a dog to appease your arrogance.”

You huffed, climbing onto the mattress and pulling the remaining silks up to your chin. “Then ensure you stay on your side. If any part of you crosses the center line, you will find that part missing by morning.”

Gwayne let out a harsh, dry laugh, watching you adjust the pillows with furious, aggressive movements. "A charming threat for a bride on her wedding night. Truly, the Seven have blessed me with a fortunate match."

He marched over to the opposite side of the bed, ripping off his heavy, embroidered doublet and threw it to the floor, betraying just how deeply you had gotten under his skin. He climbed into the bed fully dressed in his linen undershirt and trousers, turning his back to you.

"Goodnight, wife," he bit out into the darkness.

"Go to the seven hells, husband," you bit back, staring at the canopy above as the candles slowly burned down to ash.

The first weeks of marriage were a silent war of attrition. You occupied opposite sides of the massive chambers assigned to you, speaking only when absolute necessity demanded it. In public, you traded barbed pleasantries; in private, you weaponized a freezing, unyielding silence. But hatred is an exhausting emotion to sustain in isolation. Soon, the cold resentment turned into something far more volatile.

It started innocently enough. Gwayne was down in the training yard, unarmored but sweating through his training shirt as he ran through gruelling sword drills with the City Watch. He was, infuriatingly, a spectacular warrior—fluid, powerful, and possessing a sort of grace that made it impossible to look away. You watched from the shaded gallery above, purposely sitting beside a handsome young knight of the Kingsguard.

You knew Gwayne had noticed you. From below, his jaw clenched as you laughed a little too loudly at a joke the young knight made. Testing the waters, you leaned in closer to the Kingsguard, letting your hand rest conspicuously on his silver armoured forearm.

Below, Gwayne completely missed a parry. His opponent’s blunt training sword struck his shoulder with a heavy, echoing thwack. He didn't even flinch. Instead, his green eyes locked onto yours from across the yard with a burning intensity. The polite facade cracked, replaced by a dark scowl that promised retribution.

Two nights later, at a grand feast hosted by the Queen, Gwayne executed his counter-move. He spent the entire evening in a candlelit alcove, attentively pouring wine for a beautiful, doe-eyed lady-in-waiting from the Reach. He laughed—a genuine, amused sound you had never once heard him utter in your presence—and leaned in close to whisper something that made the maiden blush furiously and swat at his chest.

A sharp, hot spike of irritation flared in your gut. You didn't care for him, you reminded yourself. You hated him. But the sheer audacity of him flaunting another woman in front of the entire court—in front of you—was a direct insult to your Targaryen blood.

You immediately retaliated by inviting a charming stormlander lordling to dance, pressing closer to him than decorum allowed. Across the crowded hall, you caught Gwayne’s gaze. His grip tightened around his silver goblet so fiercely that his knuckles turned stark white.

From that moment on, the silent treatment was replaced by a silent war. Over the next few weeks, the animosity didn't vanish— it simply began to change. the Red Keep became a chessboard of manufactured jealousy.

If Gwayne spent an afternoon openly escorting a beautiful lady of House Tyrell through the godswood, handing her a winter rose with a theatrical bow, you would ensure he saw you the next morning at the tilting grounds. You would be draped over the gallery railing, tying your silk favour around the lance of a dashing young Royce, ensuring you were caught perfectly in the sunlight.

To formal dinners where you knew he would be seated directly across from you, you began wearing gowns with daringly low necklines, only to spend the entire evening conversing exclusively with the eligible lords to your left and right. In response, he would return from the training yards dripping with sweat, purposely unbuttoning his linen shirt to expose the damp line of his chest while recounting, in vivid detail, the flattering compliments paid to him by the highborn maidens in the gardens.

It was madness. It was childish. It was the only time either of you felt truly alive. The original hatred had evaporated, replaced by a thick, suffocating tension that left you both breathless and constantly on edge. You were playing with fire, forgetting that while dragons thrive in the heat, Hightowers were the ones who lit the beacons.

The explosion finally came on a stormy night, deep within the belly of the castle.

You had spent the evening at a private supper, deliberately sitting next to a dashing southern lord who had spent the night praising your beauty. Gwayne had sat directly across from you, acting as a silent, brooding sentinel. His grip remained white-knuckled around his goblet, his entire posture radiating pure, unadulterated malice.

When you finally returned to your shared chambers, the heavy oak door had barely clicked shut before the storm broke inside.

"He was practically drooling into your wine," Gwayne snarled, ripping off his heavy velvet cloak and hurling it onto a chair. The polished, courtly knight was gone; in his place was a man possessed by a seething fury.

"Who, Lord Lannister?” you asked airily, unpinning your heavy collar with practiced indifference, though your heart was hammering frantically against your ribs. "I found him delightfully attentive. A refreshing change from the sour company I am usually forced to keep."

"Attentive?" Gwayne strode across the room, his boots thudding ominously against the stone floor. He stopped mere inches from you, looming over you, his chest heaving with ragged breaths. "He was looking at you as if he wanted to tear that gown off your back. And you let him. You smiled at him. You touched his arm."

"And what if I did?" you challenged, tilting your chin up as your Targaryen pride flared to match his rage. "Are you going to forbid me? You, who spent the entirety of yesterday afternoon letting Lady Tarly press her favours into your hand? I saw the way you looked at her, Gwayne. Don't play the wounded husband with me."

"I don't give a damn about Lady Tarly!" Gwayne roared, the sheer volume of his voice making the candles flicker.

"Then why do it?!" you screamed back, finally losing your grip on your composure. The weeks of built-up tension, the longing disguised as spite, the agonizing game—it all came crashing down in a single torrent. "Why look at them? Why smile at them? Why do everything in your power to drive me mad?!"

"Because you were already driving me mad!" Gwayne yelled, reaching out to grab your upper arms. His grip was firm and unyielding, but careful not to hurt you. His green eyes were wild, dilated, searching yours with a desperate sort of need "From the moment we wed, you looked at me like I was dirt beneath your shoe. I wanted to see you look at me. I wanted to see you care! Even if it was anger, even if it was jealousy—I needed to know I could affect you the way you affect me!"

The admission hung heavily in the air, sudden and shocking. The storm outside lashed violently against the stained-glass windows, but inside, the silence was deafening.

"You..." you breathed, your voice instantly losing all its venom, leaving only a raw, exposed vulnerability. "You want to affect me?"

"You have no idea," Gwayne whispered, his voice dropping to a gravelly, breathless register. His gaze dropped to your lips, his hands trembling slightly where they held your arms. "You sit there, so proud, so beautiful, looking at everyone in this wretched castle but your own husband. It's torture. I hate it. I hate how much I want you."

The last string of your restraint snapped.

You closed the distance between you, fisting your hands into the heavy, embroidered lapels of his doublet and hauling him down into a collision of lips and teeth. It wasn't a gentle kiss, nor was it a surrender; it was a physical extension of the brutal war you two had been waging on for weeks. It was fierce, bruising, and born of a desperate, mutual starvation.

Gwayne let out a low, ragged groan against your mouth. His arms wrapped around your waist like iron bands, lifting you completely off your feet and slamming you back against the heavy, reinforced oak of the chamber door. The impact jolted through your spine, but the pain only fuelled the fire. You wrapped your legs tightly around his hips, anchoring him to you, pulling him closer until there was no air left between you, your fingers tangling into the thick waves of his auburn hair.

His hands were everywhere now, stripped of all chivalric restraint. They tore at the intricate laces of your gown, bruising the soft skin of your hips, tracing the elegant curve of your spine with a frantic, possessive urgency that demanded a lifetime of retribution for the weeks of forced distance. He kissed you as if he were trying to consume you from the inside out, to brand his name into your very soul, and you answered him with an equal, fiery Valyrian ferocity, biting his lower lip until you tasted the faint, copper tang of blood between you.

"You are mine," Gwayne growled against your throat, his voice a primal promise as his teeth nipped at the sensitive skin right above your collarbone, marking you and making you arch into his broad chest with a gasping, breathless sob. "Tell me. Say it."

"I am yours," you gasped, your fingers digging into the muscles of his shoulders, your heart frantic, your mind finally clear of any future schemes. You pulled his face back up to yours, your eyes flashing with a warning fire. “And you are mine, Gwayne. If you ever look at another woman like that again, I will burn this whole keep to ash."

Gwayne pulled back just enough to look at you, a dark, breathless, utterly ruined smile breaking across his handsome face. The green of his eyes was bright with a dangerous, triumphant fire.

"Let it burn," he whispered against your lips, and carried you to the bed.

Inside the marital chambers, the aftermath of the storm lay scattered across the floor—shredded silk, a discarded doublet, torn laces, and the heavy scent of crushed winter roses and sweat.

When you and Gwayne finally emerged into the outer corridors the following afternoon, the transformation was staggering. The icy distance that had defined your marriage for weeks had vanished, replaced by an atmosphere of mutual possession. You did not walk a step apart as you usually did, maintaining the stiff, courtly boundaries of rival factions. Instead, Gwayne’s large hand was wrapped firmly around your waist, his fingers digging into the fabric of your gown and keeping you flush against his side as if daring the world—or his own family—to try and wedge itself between the two of you.

But it was the physical evidence that truly set the whispers ablaze.

The court of King's Landing was a nest of vipers, trained to notice the slightest shift in a lord's posture or the subtle tear in a lady’s sleeve. Today, they didn't even have to look closely; the signs of your mutual destruction were proudly on display. Gwayne, usually the very picture of immaculate, highborn decorum, wore a high-collared doublet that failed spectacularly to hide the deep, purple bruises blooming high on the side of his neck. The illusion of his pristine nature was shattered further because you had playfully, yet possessively forced him to undo the top two buttons of his attire before leaving your chambers, making the marks impossible to miss. His lower lip was slightly swollen, bearing the faint, dark split from where you had bit him in the heat of your desire.

You fared no better, and you made absolutely no attempt to hide it. You had deliberately chosen a Targaryen-red gown with a wider, daring neckline, exposing the trail of marks and the faint, dark shadows of his handprints on the pale skin of your collarbone and shoulders.

The way you walked, slow and languid, spoke of a physical exhaustion that had absolutely nothing to do with sleep. Every lord, lady, and sycophant you passed in the gallery looked, widened their eyes in sheer shock, and quickly looked away under Gwayne's fiercely protective, lethal glare. The court was accustomed to seeing the two of you trade icy daggers with your eyes; they were entirely unprepared for the unified defiance that now radiated from your joined forms.

As you neared the small council chamber, a familiar figure stepped out from the shadow of a carved archway. It was Lady Tarly. She was dressed in a gown of soft, maidenly blue, holding a small silk handkerchief she had undoubtedly intended to offer Gwayne as a favour for the upcoming afternoon drills. Her face was bright with a practiced, flirtatious smile—a smile that died the absolute second her eyes landed on your husband.

Lady Tarly’s hands flew to her mouth, the blue silk fluttering uselessly between her trembling fingers. Her wide eyes darted from the deep, unmistakable bruise on Gwayne’s neck to his swollen, split lip, her expression a mix of genuine horror and mounting panic. To an outside observer unversed in the language of the flesh, he looked as if a wild animal had savaged him in the dark, and she looked as though she were about to call for a maester, the City Watch, or the Kingsguard itself.

She gasped in shock, her voice echoing off the vaulted ceiling. “Ser Gwayne, by the Mother... what happened? Are you alright? Who did this to you?”

Before Gwayne could even open his mouth to offer a courtly redirection, you stepped forward, tightening your grip on his bicep. The heavy fabric of his sleeve bunched under your fingers, an unyielding, territorial hold that drew Lady Tarly’s panicked gaze straight to you.

"Ser Gwayne is perfectly well, Lady Tarly," you said, your voice dripping with a smooth, lethal satisfaction. You leaned heavily into his side, ensuring the low, daring neckline of your Targaryen-red gown shifted just enough to give the young maiden a flawless, unhindered view of the dark, possessive marks and handprints decorating your own neck and collarbone. "In fact, I don't think my husband has ever been in better spirits. Or better hands."

"My wife speaks the truth, my lady," Gwayne murmured, his tone rougher and deeper than usual, a lingering remnant of the night's exhausting passions. He covered your hand with his own, his large fingers locking yours against his arm, cementing the unified front. "I assure you, I am entirely unharmed. Though... I admit the dragons of House Targaryen are far more feral than the histories lead one to believe."

Lady Tarly’s gaze flicked rapidly between the two of you, the scandalous pieces finally clicking together in her mind with the force of a sudden blow. The colour drained from her cheeks, replacing her initial shock with a burning, mortified blush as she realized exactly what—and who—had left those violent, passionate marks. The pristine, gallant Hightower knight she had been trying to court for weeks had been thoroughly, aggressively claimed.

“Was there something you needed from my husband?" you purred, the word husband leaving your lips like a final, devastating claim of possession.

Gwayne didn't even glance at the Tarly girl. His gaze was fixed entirely on you, his jaw relaxing into a dark, smugly satisfied grin as he felt the fierce, protective grip of your fingers on his arm. He loved it. The realization that you were actively, publicly marking your territory sent an intoxicating thrill straight through him.

Lady Tarly’s gaze flicked from your grip on his arm, up to the dark marks on Gwayne's neck and then yours, and finally to the unmistakable, lethal look in your eyes. The colour drained from her cheeks, her hands trembling slightly as she clutched her handkerchief.

"I... I merely wished to ask Ser Gwayne if he required a new favour for the tourney grounds, Your Grace," she stammered, her voice losing all its previous confidence, shrinking under the suffocating weight of your stare.

Gwayne’s grip on your hand tightened, his thumb stroking the back of your knuckles as he finally looked at her. "That is most kind of you, Lady Tarly," he said, his voice deep, rough, and entirely devoid of the polite warmth he had used to tease her just days before. "But I have already been thoroughly provided for. My wife has made it explicitly clear that I am to wear no one's colours but her own from this day forth."

He leaned down slightly, pressing a slow, deliberate kiss to the crown of your hair, his eyes never leaving the disgraced lady-in-waiting.

"In fact," Gwayne murmured, his eyes shifting back to you, burning with the very same fire that had consumed your chambers the night before, "I doubt I shall have the energy for the training yards today at all. My lady wife keeps a very demanding schedule."

"I... I see," she stammered, stepping back into the shadows of the archway, her eyes dropping to the floor. "Forgive me, Your Grace, Ser Gwayne. I did not mean to intrude upon... your morning."

"No intrusion at all," you replied, offering her a sweet, razor-sharp smile that promised absolute ruin if she ever dared to look his way again. "But if you'll excuse us, the Small Council awaits. And after that, my husband requires a great deal of my personal attention to heal from his... recent exertions."

Lady Tarly offered a hasty, deeply embarrassed curtsy, murmuring a fractured excuse before turning on her heel and practically fleeing down the corridor, her silks rustling loudly in the quiet hall.

You watched her go, a small, triumphant smirk curving your lips as you tasted the sweet thrill of total victory. But before you could fully savour it, Gwayne stopped walking. With a sudden, fluid movement, he turned his body, using his broad shoulders to trap you against the cold stone wall of the gallery, effectively shielding you both from the main thoroughfare behind a heavy, ancient Targaryen tapestry.

"Satisfied?" he whispered, his breath hot and ragged against your cheek as his eyes tracked the rapid, telltale rise and fall of your chest. The smugness was back, but it was laced with a deep, breathless hunger.

"For now," you countered, tilting your chin up to meet his gaze, refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing you flustered. Your fingers curled tightly into the fabric of his tunic, resting right over the steady, frantic beating of his heart. "Feral, am I? Is that what you're telling the court, Ser Gwayne?"

"Utterly," Gwayne breathed, his thumb tracing the elegant curve of your jaw before resting right over the racing pulse at your throat. "And I have absolutely no intention of ever letting you be tamed."

Robb moved through the stone halls like a thief, cloak tucked tight, footsteps soft on the worn floors. The castle had mostly gone to sleep. Those who hadn’t, were still drinking themselves into a stupor in the Great Hall. Good. Fewer eyes.

Behind him, Grey Wind padded in perfect silence, his large loyal shadow. Nose twitching.

"No," Robb whispered, crouching and reaching out to touch the direwolf’s thick fur. "Not this time."

Grey Wind huffed, unconvinced.

"You’ll get us caught. I need you to stay. Please."

Another soft growl. Not angry, just questioning.

Robb exhaled, pressing his forehead to the direwolf’s. "I’m not going too far. Just to her."

Grey Wind stilled, watching with those strange, knowing eyes.

"I’ll be back before dawn," Robb promised. "Stay."

With one final reluctant glance, Grey Wind slunk back into shadow.

Robb stood. His heart beat like a war drum.

You were just beyond the next corner. He could see the glow of firelight beneath your door, leaking out into the corridor like warmth begging to be touched.

What he was about to do was foolish. Improper. Dishonorable. But he couldn't bear the thought of sharing your first night in a room full of drunken fools. That moment, that memory, was meant for the two of you.

He didn't wish to knock, knowing how the sound would echo down the hallway. A soft push was all it took to open the door.

He slipped inside and closed the heavy door behind him. The latch clicked softly.

A fire burned low in the hearth, and his eyes took a moment to adjust. When they did, he saw you, sleeping softly in bed. Your hair was a spill of silk over the pillows, your eyes gently closed. Furs and blankets tucked around your shoulders.

His chest ached with a strange, warm feeling. The two of you had grown up together. Robb had loved you since before he knew what love was, and tomorrow you would be his wife.

It was a day meant for joy, but all Robb could feel was dread. The thought of the bedding ceremony had kept him up late into the night.

Theon had told him it wasn't so bad. All he had to do was lift your skirts, sheath himself inside and get it over with.

Even with your assurances that you would endure it bravely, Robb would not let your first time be something merely to endure. He wanted you to enjoy it.

There was another reason, a secret, selfish one. More than wanting to bring you the kind of pleasure Theon boasted about in his crude tales. Countless nights he had imagined your heat, your sounds, the soft glory of your body around him. Tomorrow, every god would know you were his. Tonight, he only wanted you to feel it.

He stepped further into the room. Your breath was slow, even. He wondered how long it would take for you to wake, should he join you under the blankets.

But no, you would stir and panic at the unfamiliar shape, the sudden weight on the bed. That was the last thing he wanted. 

Instead, he shed his cloak and went to the fireplace, stoking the flames and adding a few more logs. He pulled off his fur-lined gloves, letting his hands bask in the heat.

"Robb?"

He turned, seeing you awake, your eyes bleary, voice still heavy with sleep.

"Did I wake you?" he asked, sitting carefully on the edge of your bed.

“Just a little,” You blinked up at him, frowning. "Is something wrong?"

"No," he said quickly. "No, I just... couldn't sleep."

"Are you worried about tomorrow?"

"Yes," he admitted, taking your hand beneath the furs. Your fingers were warmer than his, and he curled into the comfort. "Very."

You smiled. "Have you come to end the betrothal, my lord?"

"You can't be rid of me so easily."

"A shame." You sat up, the blankets falling away to reveal a shift. It was thin, white cotton. In the firelight it nearly glowed, faintly see-through, and Robb’s eyes darted away like he had been burned. His cheeks growing hot.

"What are you doing here, Robb?"

"I've come to steal a kiss," he said. "Is that allowed?"

You laughed. "I suppose so."

He leaned in, pressing his lips to yours. It was sweet, tentative. You pulled him closer, shivering slightly. "You're cold. Come here.”

He hesitated, then climbed beneath the covers. You squeaked when his icy feet brushed your leg.

"Gods, you're freezing."

"Sorry," he whispered, curling closer. "I'm thawing, I swear."

You giggled, pulling the furs tighter around you both. "Thaw faster."

He smiled and kissed you again, deeper this time. His fingers found your hip, your arm, awkward in his gentleness.

"Is this all right?" he murmured.

You nodded. "Yes. Just... don't stop kissing me."

That was easy. Kissing you felt like breathing. He slid a hand along your thigh, faltered, then tried again. Your own hands wandered to his shoulders, clumsy with nerves, bumping his chin, tangling in the blanket.

"Sorry," you whispered.

"Don't be," he said, laughing softly. "I think I'm doing worse."

He kissed your cheek, your neck. When his hand drifted up, brushing your breast through the shift, you gasped.

"Is this all right?" he asked, searching your face.

"Yes."

He lowered his head, kissing you again, deeper, slower. Your fingers found his curls, tugging gently.

He pulled back, gasping. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have come here, we-"

"You've only just kissed me." You smiled. "We've been doing that since we were children."

"Not in your bed, with so little clothing," he said, color rushing to his cheeks. "Your father would have my head if he knew I was here."

"Yet you still came."

"I couldn't stop myself," he murmured, brushing a thumb across your cheek.

"And I am glad you didn't." You kissed him, smiling against his mouth. "Kiss me again, my lord."

"I would have you call me by name," he said, kissing the side of your mouth, down to your jaw. "When it's just us."

You giggled. "As my lord commands."

He huffed a laugh, eyes warm, lips meeting yours again. The shyness you had both clung to since childhood slipped like snow off a branch. Robb made a startled sound, half-laugh, half-moan, when you nipped at his lower lip.

You kept kissing, addicted to each others’ lips, until heat pooled everywhere your bodies touched. Robb shifted, and suddenly his quilted doublet clung too tight, suffocating in the space between you.

You broke away, palm pressed to the broad plane of his chest. "You’re going to melt in all this wool," you murmured. "Let me."

He sat up, knees still on the mattress, allowing you to help him shed the layers of his outfit. You were methodical, fingers brushing over clasps and ties, and Robb sat obediently still, feeling like a child being undressed for bed. It should have been silly. But your touch was reverent, your eyes intent. It was thrilling.

Underneath, he wore a simple linen shirt, thin and well-worn. It clung to him slightly, catching at his shoulders.

You reached for the collar, then stopped. Your eyes met his, a soft blush blooming across your cheeks. Robb smiled, and leaned in, catching your lips in a quick, chaste kiss. He felt your smile against his.

He broke the kiss, but not the connection, forehead to forehead, his breath mingling with yours.

You tugged the hem of his shirt. Robb raised his arms, letting you peel it over his head. He shivered slightly as the cool air touched his bare skin, gooseflesh rising on his arms.

Your gaze was heavy, traveling the length of his torso, taking in the hard lines and soft shadows. The light cast from the hearth turned his pale skin golden. A glow that spread from his collarbone to his navel, down the length of his strong, sturdy arms.

You had seen Robb without a shirt before. In the river, swimming in summer. On the training yard, sparring with Jon and Theon. You had always found him a pretty lad. But now he was truly a man grown, with muscle and strength. And yet, his expression was shy. Underneath he was still the boy you had always loved.

You cupped his cheek, smiling. He leaned into the touch, sighing contentedly. Then he was kissing you again, pushing you gently back against the bed.

You gasped, giggling. Your shift rode up with the motion, soft fabric sliding along your thighs. And suddenly his hand was there. Bare. Warm. Rough. A bold touch that made your stomach flip.

You tensed. Robb broke away at once, eyes wide, hand lifting like he had been caught stealing.

"Sorry," he stammered.

"It's all right." You whispered, taking his hand and placing it back on your thigh. "Touch me,”

His fingers were gentle, uncertain but eager, tracing the line of your thigh, the curve of your hip. You sighed, sinking back into the furs, eyes falling shut.

He didn't quite know where to put his other hand, or if he should say something about your beauty. He was too nervous and aroused to form proper thoughts. The sight of your breasts, pressing against the thin shift, was more than his brain could process. They rose with every breath you took, just beneath the sheer fabric, like something sacred he wasn’t sure he was allowed to look at.

In the haze, he remembered something Theon had told him once. A line he claimed would make any woman insatiable. Robb doubted the veracity of the statement, but he had no better ideas.

He took a deep breath and pressed a kiss to the side of your neck.

"Your breasts are so lovely," he said, the word strange and clunky on his tongue. "I hope they are the last thing I see before I die."

Your eyes flew open. Your mouth parted, a soft laugh bubbling forth.

"What?" you said, trying to catch your breath.

Robb’s face went beet-red and he quickly buried it in the crook of your neck. "That was terrible."

You couldn’t help but laugh. He joined you, chuckling into the soft skin of your neck, the sound sending sparks through your chest.

"Who told you to say that?" you managed, running your fingers through his thick hair.

"Theon," he mumbled.

"Why are you taking romantic advice from Theon Greyjoy?" you teased, still giggling.

He wanted to sink through the floor, or at least find a convenient snow pile to hide in. 

"Because," he said, pulling back so you could see the honesty in his eyes, "I don't know what I'm doing."

You sobered, watching him for a moment. "Me neither."

"I want it to be good for you," he said, cheeks still pink.

"Then it will be." You smiled, reaching up to brush a stray curl away from his forehead. "As long as it’s with you, I’ll enjoy it."

He smiled, then leaned in to press his lips to yours, letting his body relax into the comfort of your soft, warm frame. He stopped thinking so much. It was easier if he just listened. Your sighs and quiet moans were a good guide. The way you arched your back, hips lifting off the bed when his hand brushed over a particularly sensitive spot.

He moved, shifting his weight, until he was settled between your legs, his hips pressing between your thighs. The hardness in his breeches was unmistakable. You blushed, remembering what your sisters had told you. How big a man’s cock could get, how it would grow and lengthen and swell when it was ready to take a woman.

You bit your lip, feeling the press of it against the apex of your thighs, your breath catching in your throat.

Robb’s lips trailed down the length of your neck, over your collarbone, pausing at the neckline of your shift. He glanced up, searching your eyes.

Your nod was subtle, almost imperceptible.

He reached down, taking the hem of the thin fabric in his fingers. Slowly, carefully, he peeled the shift up and over your head, revealing the rest of you.

For a moment, he just stared. Taking in every detail, every curve and plane. You felt a sudden rush of insecurity, wanting to cover yourself with the blankets. But he leaned down, pressing his forehead to yours, and sighed.

"You are so beautiful," he whispered, cupping your cheek.

"And you are far too handsome for your own good," you said, kissing him again.

His hand drifted down your shoulder, ghosting across the swell of your breast. When his thumb brushed across a hardening nipple, you gasped, hips jerking up in surprise.

Robb grinned. The expression was boyish and proud. "Did that feel good?"

"Y-yes," you stammered, cheeks hot.

His hand found the other breast, rolling and pinching gently. His lips followed, trailing wet, open-mouthed kisses down the center of your chest, across the tops of your breasts, over each nipple. Your fingers carded through his hair, overwhelmed. There were so many new sensations, so much warmth and pleasure you had never imagined possible.

Your heart pounded. Your skin flushed, a fine sheen of sweat coating your body. Robb was the same. His chest glistening, breath unsteady. You ran a hand down the slope of his shoulder, marveling at the muscle there, and the way he trembled under your touch.

His hand moved higher on your thigh, and you spread your legs, allowing him access. His breath caught when his fingers grazed the heat between your thighs.

You had touched yourself before, in secret. A curious finger slipping into the wet, aching heat…but never further. You had always worried someone would catch you.

But now, with Robb, all of those fears faded away. He was warm and gentle, coaxing little gasps and moans from you.

He felt your arousal, the slick gathering between your legs. He wanted to taste it. Had imagined it more times than he cared to admit…but wasn't sure if that was too bold, too vulgar. He didn’t want to shock or scare you.

Your eyes fluttered shut when he slid a finger inside, the movement slow, deliberate. You were hot, tight, and so wet. It took all his self-control not to rut against the mattress like a green boy.

He was gentle, cautious. But soon your body was rocking against his hand, silently begging for more. He added a second finger, stretching the sensitive walls, and was rewarded with a soft gasp.

"Robb," you moaned, nails digging into his forearms.

"Shh," he whispered, pressing a kiss to the corner of your mouth. "You must be quiet. We can't be heard."

You let out a soft giggle, his beard tickling the skin of your neck. "Easier said than done when you are touching me there.”

"Then I suppose I’ll have to kiss you to keep the noise down." He grinned, kissing you, smothering your laugh with his mouth.

Your hands moved down, fumbling with the laces of his breeches. His breath hitched, hips twitching, the hardness beneath pressing into the curve of your hip.

"Can I see you?" you whispered, pulling back just enough to see the blue of his eyes.

He nodded, too nervous to speak. He was suddenly hyper-aware of his own nakedness, and the way your eyes roamed his body.

You gently freed him, fingers trembling slightly. A small smile formed on your lips. "Oh," you said softly. "It's so... different."

"Different than what?" he asked, a blush forming.

"What I imagined," you admitted, cheeks pink.

He smiled. "Have you been imagining it, then?"

"Hush," you laughed, your cheeks warming.

"No, no." He chuckled, leaning down to kiss the soft skin of your cheek. "Tell me."

"Robb," you whined, looking away from him.

He grinned. "Do I meet your standards, my lady?"

"Perhaps," you said, biting your lip.

"I should hope so. I am to be your husband."

"My soon-to-be lord husband," you said, looking at him through your lashes. "Will you give me what is mine?"

He swallowed, arousal spiking through him. "Yes," he managed, kissing you.

You sighed against his lips, your bodies sliding together. You were both so warm, skin feverish, blood running hot. 

He pulled away, reaching down to free his cock, aching with the need to be inside you. Your eyes were dark, half-lidded. You were panting, chest rising and falling, thighs spread invitingly.

You took him in your hand, stroking him a few times, testing the weight. He bit back a groan, his hips bucking into your touch.

He had never been touched like that. Only by his own hand, when the need was too great. And even then, he felt guilty.

But now, with you, it was different. You were meant to be his wife, and he, your husband. This was how things were meant to be, two halves coming together, sharing and exploring.

His fingers brushed over yours, guiding himself to your entrance. He paused, catching your gaze, and pressed inside.

He had never felt anything like this. The soft, wet heat gripping him. His arms shook, and he had to stop for a moment, lest he lose himself too soon.

You were breathing hard, hands moving to grip his arms. He leaned down, capturing your lips, the kiss messy, distracted. He kept easing forward slowly, breath catching as he met resistance. Your face pinched.

"Wait," he whispered, panic rising. "Did I hurt you?"

"It’s all right," you said through clenched teeth. "I think that was it."

He kissed your cheek. "We can stop."

"No. Just go slow."

He did. Inch by inch, the pain faded, replaced by pressure and heat. You clung to him, sighing, adjusting to the fullness.

His hand found yours beneath the furs.

He began to move, careful and reverent. It wasn’t graceful. You bumped noses. He nearly slipped off the edge of the mattress. Your moans and sighs filled his ears, he bit back his own groans, not wanting to miss a single one of yours. Your nails dug into his skin, leaving marks, but he didn't mind. In fact he hoped they would leave a scar, a reminder of this perfect night.

"Robb," you breathed, voice ragged. "Something ... something's happening..."

"Yes," he panted, sweat-slick forehead pressed to yours. "Yes, go on, it's all right."

You shuddered, arching your back, head thrown back, toes curling. It felt like lightning had struck, the pleasure coursing through every nerve.

Robb watched in awe, committing every second to memory. He had heard this sort of thing could happen with a woman. But seeing it happen, feeling it happen, was an entirely different thing.

He felt his own release building, a tension like a rope, fraying at the edges. It didn't take long, the sight of you, the feel of your body, the sweet sounds you made.

You clung to him, kissing him, riding out the waves of pleasure. He groaned, burying his face in the crook of your neck, hips twitching and stuttering as he spilled inside you.

For a moment, neither of you moved. Then Robb shifted, gently cupping the underside of your thigh as he slid fully against you, still inside, still trembling. One of his hands found its way to your belly, broad and warm, splayed low across the soft curve.

"Maybe," he murmured, voice hushed and rough against your ear, "maybe we made a child tonight."

Your breath hitched. He smiled, pressing a kiss to your jaw.

"I’d like that," he added, hand still resting there, possessive and reverent. "Something that’s ours. Made from this."

You turned your head, catching his mouth in a slow, lingering kiss. You didn’t answer with words, but your smile said enough.

You both lay there, trying to catch your breath. Your skin was tacky with sweat, limbs tangled. His hair tickled the side of your face, the curls damp.

"I love you," he said, pressing his lips to the curve of your neck.

"I love you too." You smiled, kissing his temple.

He rolled off of you, pulling you with him. You curled up against his chest, smiling as his fingers traced the line of your spine.

"We’ll have to face the bedding tomorrow," he murmured, thumb stroking your spine, "but this was ours."

"Ours," you echoed, drowsy smile against his collarbone. "I like the sound of that."

"Me too." He smiled, watching you, a wave of fondness and affection washing over him.

He could have laid there forever, but a soft whine came from the other side of the door, followed by a scratching sound.

"Grey wind," Robb whispered harshly, frowning. "Go away!"

Another whine. The scratching grew louder, and the direwolf let out a long, mournful howl. Robb scrambled out of bed, quickly pulling his clothes back on, while you grabbed your shift.

Robb went to the door, cracking it open just enough to peek out. The hallway was empty, but the sound of heavy footsteps could be heard approaching. The guards were coming to investigate the noise.

"Fuck," he hissed, grabbing the rest of his things, you were giggling as he fumbled around in the low light.

"Robb, they aren't going to care-"

"I will not have the guards speaking of you in such a manner," he said, finally managing to find his gloves.

You climbed out of bed, wrapping a robe around yourself. He paused, a grin forming, and kissed you.

"Sleep well," he murmured, stealing another kiss.

"Don't be late tomorrow," you said, smiling against his lips.

"Never."

He snuck back out, closing the door behind him with Grey Wind at his heels. You fell back into bed, still smiling, still giggling. Dreaming of all the tomorrows you would have together.

You stand again, taking a few more steps down. Your mind drifts as you fall into a rhythm of checking these nets, pocketing pretty shells and scraps of metal. Wonder pricks at the back of your neck as you imagine the war. As the lone tenant of this pier, you had never had to consider the rites of the Targaryen rulers. Most of your neighbors had already chosen their sides, even if it did not really matter in the scheme of things—neither of those fighting for the throne cared for their subjects, especially not those at the bottom, like you.

Rulers like these bled the common man dry while claiming it to be an act of love.

You move a little rougher with the next net. Nothing but rocks and debris in this one. You imagine it will be a while until you find a worthy treat. The Gods are usually not as generous on solemn days like these. War makes monsters out of men, and the Gods scorn those who partake.

When you stand again, your eyes drift a little further down the bank. At the edge of the shore, a clump of trees catch your gaze. The water is darker there, cloaked in shadow. The shrubbery bends so far, it almost touches the water. You draw closer, eyebrows furrowed.

A dark lump sits entangled by brush, barely concealed by the cluster of foliage. You draw closer, hesitantly. As your eyes adjust, you realize it is not a lump of debris, but a body. Your breaths quicken.

If the person is alive, would it hurt you? Never trust a soldier, your father had once told you.

You bend your knee just as if you are checking a fish net. Your hands unfurl from your sides, reaching out hesitantly. You can only see his body. It is clothed in thick leather, a quality of which you’ve never seen before. Several arrows stick out of his torso. A pool of blood stains the sand maroon beneath him.

You pull back the shrubbery to see his face. You startle at the sight, falling back onto your bum.

His eyes—they were open—albeit, he did not seem to see much of anything. His skin was not grey and placid like the bodies that you had seen before. Worse, you’d heard something when you held yourself over him. A breath, shuddering through his parted lips.

“Alive,” you whisper in awe. To survive so many arrows, then the tumultuous sea… it would take more than just courage. It would take something otherworldly. You know then that your decision has been made.

A huge piece of driftwood sits beneath him in the sand. You push it aside to straddle him. Gently, you grab his arm and sling it around your neck.

The rest of your journey back to the cabin passes in a frenzied blur. You move quickly, trying to spend as little time as possible forcing the grievously hurt man onto his feet. He lets out little grumbles as you move, head lolling this way and that like a puppet cut from its strings. You make it inside and push open the door that your father used to live, laying him onto his back on the bed.

Blood immediately infiltrates the off-white of the duvet, crimson floating before your vision. He groans continuously as you break the ends off of the arrows—serving as a reminder to the heart that still valiantly pumped beneath his ribs. Once they are off, you are able to slide the armor off. 

The tunic comes easily. It seems to be made of a material that deflects water, so when you drop it onto the floor, a puddle of liquid forms in its spot. You struggle a little with his breeches—though, those too come easily with a little pull.

After he is naked, you stare at his body in silence for a moment. You have helped men with injuries before. Arrow injuries just like these, even. But you’d never helped a man with this many. 

You reach out to touch his cold cheek. He is so young—had to be your own age. Too young for the cruel, unflinching hold of war. Gently, you close his eyelids, shutting away the dark brown of his unseeing gaze. He did not need to be witness to this.

You steel your nerves and clench your fists a few times to breathe life back into your numb fingers. Reaching into the bedside table, you grab your supplies—bandages, a bottle of rum, a couple cloths, and several blunt blades.

“I’m sorry, if you are awake,” you tell him, poising the knife along the edge of one of the arrow heads. “This will hurt a lot.”

Hours pass quickly under your blade. Each of the five arrows is cut away, sewn with fishing line, disinfected with rum, and bandaged tightly. Sweat falls into your eyes as you step away triumphantly, and you lift a hand to brush it off. As they are levelled with your eyes, you realize your hands are a bloody mess. Your stomach churns and you force the appendages away.

You hover over him a moment longer. You study the shallow rise and fall of his chest, the fluttering of his eyelids. He had a strong nose and jaw, thick dark eyelashes and a head of water-matted brunet hair. By all appearances, he was quite common-looking. He had the complexion and hair of any man you’d pass on the way to town. But something about him—the quality of his armor, the blemishlessness of his skin, it screamed something ethereal.

But even Gods can be killed. 

Your mystery man is not out of the woods yet. The chances of any of those arrows not nicking anything inside him is next to none. He’s also lost a lot of blood. The sheets are covered in it, not to mention the amount he was sure to have lost at sea.

You draw the hair sea-slicked to his head away from his forehead. Your hand slides to cup his cheek. He might never wake again. Your kind hand may be the last he knows. You wonder how many people missed him—if they were sitting with baited breaths, waiting for him to write. If only you could ease their worries.

You pull away and leave the room before your eyes can fill with traitorous saltwater tears.

There are few certainties in life. Ever since you were but a child, you had recognized this. Life is tumultuous and unfair. It takes and it takes, until you can give no longer. 

The sea is a comfort. She does not take, she gives. Usually, she gives you more valuable things than a body, but you try not to question her motives.

It’s been a day since you patched him and he still has not woken. His chest continues to move despite this disconcerting sign, and that remains your only comfort. You stood near-vigil at his beside for most of the hours following. Anticipatory nerves fill your every waking second, even at night when you lay awake trying to sleep.

You recognize that the danger has not fully passed for him. He had not had water in who knows how long. Eventually, his organs would fail due to dehydration and blood loss. That is, if the internal bleeding didn’t kill him first.

You also cannot help the hope that blooms in your chest as you gaze upon his face. Perhaps it is the fact that his skin seems more alive as of late. The fact that you have seen his eyes move behind his eyelids more and more often. The fact that you were quite insufferably lonely, and therefore latched onto any individual who came your way—alive or barely, as in the case of this man in your cabin.

You want him to survive because you want to know him. It is a thought that scares you as much as it invigorates you.

By his bedside, after a long morrow of scavenging by the tide, you dump your satchel of goodies on the now-clean duvet. (Now that had been annoying to do—having to move his admittedly quite heavy body over to remove the sheets). You begin to sort through them, cataloging them.

The silence is unsettling, so you begin to speak.

“The sea has been kind this morrow,” you say softly. You pick up a smooth rainbow shell, twisting it this way and that in the light. “These will sell for a couple of silvers.”

You put the shell down and then grab your cloth, gently stroking away sand and debris.

“My father taught me to do this,” you tell the man, “he taught me everything I know.”

Satisfied with its shimmer, you trade the shell for a clam. You pop it open forcefully—apologizing profusely to the creature as you did—and stick your fingers into the dark crevice you created.

“No pearl,” you report when your fingers come up empty. You bring the clam up to your eyes, stroking its now-broken shell. “I’m sorry, friend.”

The last piece had been one you were excited for. You grab the shrapnel of metal gently in your palms, categorizing the weight and feel of it with your hands. 

“Probably off a shield,” you decide. “I’m sure a blacksmith would like this.”

You put the metal down and let out a heavy sigh. You stare at the man, worrying your lip between your teeth. Perhaps some foolish part of you had hoped he would wake up to the sound of your voice, like the stories you had read as a girl.

But life is no story, as you had to continually remind yourself. Things like that just didn’t happen.

You go through a few other bits and bobs in silence, mood dampened by reality. A couple of small shells, a nail, and a scrap of maroon fabric. You aren’t sure why you grabbed the fabric—perhaps you’d wanted to try and sew something. It is quite pretty, you decide. It had belonged to someone once.

Once you finish polishing the items, you lift your head up to look at the man. Thoughts and images flash through your mind. What was he like? You wonder. He seems strong, based on his broad shoulders and defined stomach. But he also didn’t have the worn skin of a common man. He didn’t have callouses on his hands or fading scars upon his torso. He had to be a prince, you decide. A prince of a faraway land, hoping to bargain peace between the two feuding Targaryen houses.

You nod, satisfied with that recreation of events. Yes, a prince. A just, altruistic one. Perhaps he knew of the war and wished to come and save the small-folk.

You look down at his pale hand resting lifelessly upon the duvet. You swallow thickly. 

“You must wake soon,” you whisper, “the kingdom needs you.”

He does not stir. You sigh and gather your things into your satchel. If he is still not awake by the morrow, you decide, you will return his body to the sea.

That evening, you sit at the table with a plate of roasted fish and a glass of water. The fish is one of two meals you eat regularly. The other was for special occasions, depending on if you were able to procure bread and potatoes at the markets. 

You always eat the eye of the fish first. You do not like it looking at you as you eat its flesh. It feels wrong. The eye is not very tasty, though. The odd texture always makes you vaguely nauseous–the gooey, chewy ball. Your father had always laughed at you when you ate fish. He was not of an imaginative mind. He did not see the fish as being once alive, like you did. He did not imagine it swimming beneath the tide, with all its other fishy friends–before it was snared by ruthless hands and suffocated by the open air.

You stare at the vacant chair across from you with an empty feeling in your chest. It had been so long since you had a companion at supper time. Your father had not spoken much, but his presence alone was always enough to keep you happy. He is gone now, like with the ebbing of the tide, and all that is left is the shadow of the person he used to be.

His fishing pole, next to the door. His journal, where he kept extensive notes about what he found out on the sea during the day. His bed that now had a new, warm body sleeping in it.

You wonder what your father would have done, had he found the man. You take another bite of the fish, forcing it down with a thick swallow. Would he have left him? You had never thought of him as being cruel, but you also know he loathed unwelcome responsibility. He had enough of an imagination to conjure horrible images of betrayal and hurt, and so you decide he probably wouldn’t have brought him home to you. He had too much to lose to do so. Everyone did.

And so why did you? Perhaps, you think, you have lost everything that matters most to you already.

You stare down at the limp skeleton of the fish on your plate. You had never seen a person die of dehydration. Your father had once told you a story about a man he knew that had, and it sounded awful. 

You pick up your dinner knife, a sharp, clean-edged blade, and hold it in the candlelight. The silver edge catches the light, highlighting the sharp point. Your hand trembles as you study it.

Would it be quick, painless—slitting the sleeping prince’s throat? Or would it be messy and painful? Would it draw him out of sleep and would he gaze upon you with hurting eyes as he clutched the gaping hole in his neck?

Regret gnaws at you. As time draws on, you begin to think that the mercy you had granted your prince had been nothing but a farce. That by saving him for one moment had only just prolonged his suffering.

You put the knife in your satchel and stand. It is cruel, keeping a person alive only to die in a violent manner like this–it is inhumane. 

You take quick steps to the bedroom. 

You have never killed a person before. Your father had plenty. He always said the eyes, you can hear his voice in your mind now, the eyes are always the worst part. 

You can’t eat the prince’s eyes like you can the fish’s. No matter what you did, you would have to see those eyes. And with it, the betrayal. You stand over his prone body now. 

A sliver of moonlight streams in from the open window behind you, casting cool light across the heaving chest. He remains impassive, completely unaware of what you were about to do. You do not realize you are crying until you bring the knife up to your eyes and catch a glimpse of your face in the silver.

“I…I am sorry, friend,” you repeat the same mantra you had told so many clams before as you pried your fingers in their mouths, looking for a pearl. “But this is a mercy.”

Your hands tremble like windblown seagrass as you lift the knife against his skin. A moment of hesitation prevents you from acting. And it is just enough for a pale hand to wrap around your own and for dark eyes to snap open.

“Waaa-ter.”

You let out a sharp gasp and yank your hand away. The man watches you, his visage crumpled with pain.

He repeats himself, voice quieter than the first time. “Water, please…”

You move into action. You dart out of the room, hands fumbling with the metal bucket by your door. You run across the moonlit shore to the well that sits on the edge of the woods. Quickly, you fill the bucket. You curse yourself all the while–mind racing in what-ifs and guilt-ridden condemnations. 

You heave the bucket back into the house and grab the same goblet you had used with your own water. You take a huge scoop and shuffle back into the bedroom like a child caught with their hand on the sweets plate.

The man is still awake when you re-enter, his eyes wide and eyebrows furrowed. You drop next to him on the bed and angle his head and neck up onto the pillows behind him. Finally, you fulfill his request. He drinks like a man in Essos who has wandered the Red Waste for weeks; heavy, desperate gulps of the liquid. Some fall and drip down his side, which you dab away with a nearby cloth.

When he finally drinks it all, he pulls back, his breaths labored and eyes half-lidded.

“W…Where am I?” he finally says once he has caught his breath. You notice him scanning the room as if trying to find the answer written in the stone.

You decide not to answer honestly. You fear what his reaction will be if he forces himself to recall the battle. Instead you say, “you are safe.”

He stares at you as if only just noticing you. His dark eyes are swallowed almost completely by night, exhausted and ridden with heavy bags. He lifts a hand, as if to touch you, but it falls short. His eyes flutter, and then shut.

He falls unconscious. You touch two hands to his chest to confirm his heart still beats steadily. You let out a breath you had not realized you captured when you find his pulse.

Shame hits you like a tidal wave. You were going to… you were going to kill him. You are shocked at the tears that swim in your eyes. You stand in a hurry–not without remembering to pull the duvet back up to his chest–and stumble out of the room. 

The adrenaline has all but worn away now. Tears clog your eyes, slipping down your cheeks. You allow yourself to feel the emotions–all of them. Relief, shame, exhaustion, and fear overwhelm you completely and you can do nothing but sob. On the table in front of you, the skeleton of the fish and the silver knife mock you without having to say a word.

Waking feels like drowning. Fighting against the wave ahead of you, trying to get your head above water. Then when you finally surface, you fall behind the waves again.

Jacaerys wakes to the sun in his eyes and a warmth around his waist. He thinks for a moment, perhaps, he is in a dream. Another barrier between him and wakefulness. Then, the pain hits him. No, dreams don’t feel like this.

The groan stumbles past his lips before he can stop it and his eyes shoot open. Everything is pain. It surrounds him like dragonfire and steals his breath. He trembles as he uses all his strength to cradle his side.

“Gods,” he murmurs. He feels beneath his fingers the familiar texture of a bandage. Someone helped him.

Helped him. Helped him from what? He gasps as memory rolls over him. Drowning. Arrows piercing through skin and muscle. A dragon’s roar of pain. No, not just any dragon—

“Vermax,” he cries out, tears springing to his eyes. No, no, no…

But it was true. His mind had never failed him before. His dragon. His beautiful dragon. Falling to the bottom of the ocean like a ship’s anchor. He tries to move, to jump to his feet, but he can’t. Pain ricochets up his side, and he can literally feel the side of his chest pulling taut. 

He stares at the ceiling above him with tears fogging his eyes and coating his tongue in salt. For one long moment, he despairs. Why? Why would he be punished this way? Forced to live without Vermax? The bond between rider and dragon could not—should not be severed. Not by something as futile as war. He can’t breathe, can’t think. Everything is despair.

He should have died. Living is not a gift in this condition. His knuckles go white against the duvet. Anger sweeps over him—hot, potent fury.

He curses everyone who caused this. Aemond, Alicent, Aegon, even fucking Helaena. He doesn’t care. They’ll all pay.

But not like this. He finally shuffles himself into a seated position, cringing at the pain that shoots from every direction. Every small movement feels like another arrow tearing his skin. 

His feet are unsteady as he finds his footing. For a second, he fears he might not be able to even walk. Then, he finds himself. He grabs his breeches off the table and slowly, painfully, shrugs them on. He leaves his chest bare—unable to even think about having to lift his arms over his head. He keeps one hand on the wall and the other around his waist as he stumbles across the room. 

The place he is in is frighteningly humble. There’s nothing unnecessary here. Everything has a purpose, a function. No gilded armoires, tall candlesticks, or commissioned portraits. Bare, cobblestone walls, sparse furniture (all glaringly handmade and rustic), and cobwebs hanging in every corner. 

Jacaerys moves slowly from the room he started in to the short hallway that opens into a tiny living area. A large fireplace is the only comfort to him. A pot of a molten, unappetizing glob bubbles above the waning fire. 

There are very few personal effects here. Nothing to propose any kind of hint or insight. Out the window of the front of the ramshackle building, he sees amber light flickering across a wide sea.

His breath shudders out of his lips. He doesn't recognize this place at all. He’s hurt. He has no dragon. He’s never felt worse in his entire life.

All of what energy he summoned flees him in that moment. He practically collapses into a nearby chair and it creaks pathetically under his weight. He hangs his head and a soft sob escapes his lips. 

Tears tremble down his cheeks and onto the wood table beneath his hand. His mind races, memory and pain and fury collide in a war of its very own. Vermax, his mind strays. The perfect dragon. Gone. He digs his nails into the grain of the table beneath his hands, trying to recapture something to ground him. Short, hyperventilating breaths escape his lips—his vision fogs.

Then, everything clears. His hands unclench and he leans back in the chair. He stares at the ceiling, measuring his breaths. You are still alive, he tells himself. Therefore you are still useful.

Because perhaps that was his real fear. That he would no longer be of use—that he would no longer be worth fighting for. He’d always measured his worth in terms of what he could provide to his mother. Perhaps the truth is that his worth stretches beyond that.

He hears the sound of crunching footsteps outside. He sits up in the chair, eyes flickering toward the door. Ahead of him, he notices with a jolt, a knife lay discarded on the table. He grabs it before he can think the better of it, brandishing it like he actually could fight his way out of this mess.

He ignores the pain throbbing in his side and pushes himself to stand again. He won’t die now. He can’t.

The door creaks open slowly, and he angles the knife in front of himself protectively. 

But the figure that crosses the threshold isn’t what he’d been expecting. Wide eyes and a mouth fallen open into an oval. Hands clutching a satchel of… is that a seashell? 

She drops the satchel with immediacy, hands flying into the air. Jacaerys thinks he hears something break inside.

He keeps the arm holding the knife up despite the involuntary tremble that has begun in his arm. A cool sweat travels down his temple. His vision wanes. Despite her… figure (she hadn’t brandished a weapon a day in her life, he thinks), he knows looks can be deceiving. 

“You’re up.” She does not immediately acknowledge the weapon in his hand. She’s either brave or simply ignorant. Jace is not sure what he’s more afraid of.

“Who—“ he starts to speak, but he breaks into a coughing fit. His throat feels like it is on fire. She takes a step forward, as if to help or harm him, but he freezes her in place when he turns his gaze back onto her warningly. “Who are you?”

She tells him her name. Then she quickly adds, “you washed up on the beach in front of my cabin. I found you.”

He bends over to clutch his side. He notices her eyes widen.

“Please, I’m not sure you should be up. You sustained massive injuries,” she tells him. “Your body needs rest.”

“I cannot—“ he scoffs, then coughs again. “I cannot simply rest. I must leave. I must…” 

A pang in his side makes him gasp and hunch over. The knife falls with a clatter against the floor but he can’t seem to bring himself to retrieve it. Everything feels like it is in slow motion, out of his reach and control.

She grabs him around the waist before he tips over. He stays conscious long enough for her to lead him back to bed, but he falls within the waves again the second his head hits the pillow.

Consciousness returns to him in fragments. The sound of footsteps by his head. A burning pain spreading up his chest, to which he thinks he shouts, but cannot prevent. The feeling of a wet cloth soaking his tears and sweat. 

When his eyes finally flutter open, it is dark in the room. A candle burns to a nub on the nightstand next to him, wax coating the wood. Sorrow fills his chest again so quickly it nearly steals his breath.

He sees her slip into the room like a wraith come to haunt him. It is ridiculous, he thinks, that she should be the one to stand over him. On any other day, in any other circumstance, she would not put up much of a fight. Now, he is at her mercy.

“You tore one of your stitches.” Her voice is soft, but it reverberates in his ear drums and skull like a dragon’s final roar. He clenches his jaw and turns his head toward the moon that hangs like a silver noose in the sky. “I had to sew it back while you were resting.”

Jace doesn’t reply. He isn’t sure he would know what to say. How does he encompass all his feelings—or even one of them, into a coherent thought? It isn’t possible.

She draws closer and he tenses. She notices. “Are you going to try and hurt me again?” 

He considers her for a moment, then shakes his head.

She pauses, thinking about something, then she settles upon his side of the bed. Jace notices for the first time since she’s entered the room, that she has a bowl of that wretched-looking soup in her hands.

“Here,” she says, outstretching the bowl. He leans back. She pulls away slightly. “Sorry.” She cringes like even she realizes that the soup is nothing to write home about. “It is all I have.”

Jace swallows thickly. He reaches a trembling hand out. She smiles, relieved.

He goes to take the bowl, but his arm feels weak. He pulls back. “Perhaps…” he pauses, clears his throat. “Perhaps you could…”

Asking for help has never come easy to him. Being weak is not something he is accustomed to. His other hand clenches the sheet in his fist.

She nods. He does not have to be explicit. He untenses his hand as she leans forward, a small bit of soup in the wood spoon.

The first bite makes his face twist. She laughs.

“I truly am sorry,” she says. “I know it is probably not what you are used to.”

It takes every bit of his strength to swallow the offending liquid. It is strangely salty. It tastes like the brine that filled his mouth when he— 

He cuts the thought short. No need to ruin his own mood again.

“Something happened to you out there,” she says as if she’d read his mind, and although it should be a question, it is not, “something bad.”

He swallows another gulp of the soup. He does not reply. 

She must realize he does not want to speak on that, for she does not press the matter. She lifts the spoon again and he forces down another sip.

“The soup has fish and some potatoes—oh, and they had carrots at the market today, so I put those in too. Perhaps those are the disgusting parts. I won’t purchase them again.”

Jace does not have the energy, or perhaps the heart, to tell her it is certainly not the vegetables that have made the soup taste like what sea captains scrape off the bottom of their ships.

She scoops another bit of soup and he forces it down. His mouth had begun to retain that saltiness even when he no longer had the soup in his mouth, like a stain one can’t wash away with soap and water.

She does not speak for a long pause, but Jace suddenly feels a bit antsy. It feels too intimate an act to not be speaking.

He swallows another mouthful, then clears his throat to speak. “Did you catch the fish?” he asks, his voice hoarse.

“Oh, no, no,” she replies to him like it is a preposterous suggestion. Like killing fish is below her standards. “I just buy them.”

He frowns around the spoon in his mouth and hurriedly swallows the liquid. “Then why were you on the shore when you found me?”

She stirs the foul soup around for a moment, thinking hard about something, then she looks up at him. “I collect things. Shells, scrap metal, and fabrics. You would be surprised what comes with the morning tide, and even more what people would pay for them.”

An odd business, Jace can’t help but think. It seems like a hard thing to have to rely solely on the Narrow Sea for food and shelter. The Narrow Sea, he remembers with a sudden clarity. That is near where they fought.

“Are you going to tell your name?” Her head is tilted as she asks this, the soup bowl now empty and forgotten upon her folded legs.

He ponders the question for a moment. He could tell her his full name, but it might backfire, especially if she harbors a grudge against his family. He doesn’t think she has it in her to cause him harm, but he knows that many do not until they are cornered.

“Jace,” he finally tells her. “Just Jace.”

She smiles and her entire face lights up like nothing he’s ever seen before. Something twists in his stomach. “Nice to meet you, Jace.”

One, two, three, four. You count the shells noiselessly as you thread them onto the fishing line. They clink together softly as you pull the line taut around your wrist, measuring the width mentally. You remove the bracelet and add a few more of your little shells.

A few days had passed without much event. Jace drifted in and out of consciousness throughout the day and slept soundlessly through the night. He did not complain, but you had seen his thinly-veiled winces and his shuddering breaths. You know that he is suffering more than he lets on. 

It is an odd thing, you think, to be harboring a man in your home that you know next to nothing about, but had inexplicably formed an attachment to. You still know nothing more about Jace than his name and even that had not been an answer easily wrought.

You slide the shells all to one side and swiftly tie a knot at the end of the line, forming a perfect circular bracelet. Putting it to the side, you cut a new piece of fishing line and begin sorting through your shells again.

Just as you go to slide the first shell on, you hear something behind you. The creaking of wood as light footfalls go across.

You turn your head, body tense.

“Jace,” you say, surprised by his appearance. You stand.

He had not been up since he’d ripped that stitch a few days ago, actually heeding your pleas to rest. But a part of you knew even then that the peace would not last long. He is a restless creature, like a bird stuck behind the bars of a cage.

“Do you need something?” You clutch your fingers together across your front, as if doing so could somehow steel your nerves.

He takes a step into the room. You notice his gait seems more steady today. He looks around every bit of the room, his eyes taking in all the pieces that make up your home. You gnaw your lip between your teeth. Did he approve of what he saw?

His voice comes suddenly, a blade cutting through the silence. “What are you doing?” 

It is not accusatory nor standoffish, instead it seems almost curious. You grab the bracelet you just finished and hold it out to him.

“A bracelet.”

Jace steps closer, tilting his head. “For what purpose?”

You let out a short laugh. “It has no purpose. It is just pretty.”

“Hm.” He stares at the offending object like he’s never thought about making something just for the sake of making something before. You smile. He averts his eyes to the other side of the room.

“You said you do not fish,” he says, “and yet you have a fishing rod.”

You follow his eyes to where the thing sits near the door. It sits, forgotten, in the corner of the room—there to haunt you and the person you’d never become, you’re sure.

“My father…” you start to say, but something gets caught in your throat. You forcefully swallow past the blockage. “My father used to fish.”

Jace’s accusatory eyes soften around the edges. He hobbles closer and takes the seat across from you at the table. Your father’s seat.

“And your father—“

“He is dead,” you answer curtly, “he has been for two summers now.”

You pick up the bracelet you had only just starteda nd slide a seashell onto the line. Hurt does not fill your chest like a cavity anymore—now all you feel is numbness as it spreads from your lungs to your heart. 

Jace turns his head to look out the window at the night sky. “My father is gone too.”

Your eyes leap toward his in a flash. He does not look at you, his hand tracing repetitive shapes on the table. The deep circles beneath his eyes have all but faded now, but the weariness to his expression remains. He possesses the gaze of someone who holds more than they can carry–a gaze your father shared.

Your throat bobs as you force yourself to swallow. You feel hollow, but a bit of warmth has reentered your chest. Two children, you think, without a parent—an awful thing, certainly, but not especially rare in Westeros.

You slide another shell onto the bracelet, fingers trembling. “He went mad.” Telling the truth, those three words, stings like betrayal. “He was a knight before I was born. He never… he never forgot what he had to do. The faces of the men he killed… they haunted him.”

Jace goes pale. His dark eyebrows furrow, the line of his mouth pulling down. “I-I’m sorry. That must have been difficult.”

You nod. Put another two shells on the line. Desperately, you search for a way to change the subject. “He always wanted to teach me,” you say, gesturing to the rod, “but he never did.”

He drags a quick hand through his curly brown hair, then pauses as he gets caught in a tangle. He huffs irritably.

“Perhaps,” he says, onyx eyes catching the amber light of the candle flickering on the table, “if I could summon the strength to get dressed and brush my hair, then I could show you how.”

You swallow thickly. “You do not have to—“

“It is the least I can do,” he murmurs. “You saved my life.”

To smile feels inappropriate, so you avert your eyes and begin to tie a knot in another bracelet.

Jace stares at himself in the mirror that stands in the corner of the bedroom with solemn eyes. His eyes glaze over the bandages that wrap around his chest and lower torso, then the unfamiliar slightness to his shoulders and waist. He feels as though he looks at a person he no longer recognizes, like his mind has been transported into the body of someone much weaker than he used to be.

The old house is quiet in the morrow. Every once in a while, a soft breeze will make the house creak. One may occasionally hear a sea bird calling in the distance. Other than that, everything exists as if completely removed from reality; untouched by the war that rages just beyond the sea’s reaches.

His eyes flick back to the mirror and he sees her standing behind him with a deep green doublet wrapped in her arms. 

“It was my father’s,” she says, drawing closer. “It might be a little large on you.”

Jace nods. She hands him the doublet. The material feels like cheap linen, nothing to the quality he had worn before. He does not mind. It would be odd, he thinks, for him to expect anything better.

He lifts the top over his head and she helps guide it over. She seems to be trying not to touch his skin, like she thought he might be made of glass. He clenches his jaw when he feels the familiar tightness in one of his wounds as his arms stretch over his head.

The doublet falls over his body easily, but it does hang on him a bit like the robes a septa might wear.

He hears the sound of muffled laughter from behind him and he turns his head.

“My apologies.” She can barely get it out through her thinly-suppressed amusement. “You do look a bit funny, though.”

Jace feels his lips tug upwards in the first semblance of happiness he’d felt in days. It feels odd and out of place, and so it disappears with his next blink.

“Shall we go?” 

Jace nods. He follows her out of the bedroom and into the living area, watching as she bends to grab the fishing pole. He walks behind her as she leads the way outside, too slow to match her pace.

The brush of a briney mist against his skin feels like flying across the humid air on top of Vermax. His chest pangs and he forces the thought away. His eyes brush the swaying grasses that stand cloistered around the sea’s edge, each one caught up in a current of air drifting by. He watches the woman as she strides ahead of him.

She is quite plain. She does not have the dresses of the courts he is used to, nor the manners of a highborn lady. She moves unhindered by corsets and the plumes of expensive dresses. Her soft legs pump quickly across the sands, barefoot, like she has mapped every inch of the shore to near-perfection and knows without looking where she must go.

Seeing her slip ahead, her hair tangled in the sea’s mist, then as she turns over her shoulder with a jovial grin, it feels so different than anything he’s ever known before.

Baela is beautiful. She is poised, and gentle, but with a rough edge that assures him she could—and would—easily hurt him if pushed to it. But his stomach never flipped when she spoke. He never searched for her eyes from across the room. He never grasped her hand and wished he never had to let it go. He had known her for so long, he assumed she was all he’d ever need, that the feeling of content he felt in her presence was love. Now he isn’t so sure. 

She reaches the shore and stops when her feet hit the tide.

He meets her gaze as she turns to him. His heart pounds in his ears.

“Is it not wonderful?” She sweeps her arm in a half-arc as she speaks, eyes glimmering beneath the high morrow’s sun.

Jace draws his eyes away from her figure to the open waters. It is wonderful, he thinks. If not wrought with pain and regret.

He forces his gaze away. “Yes.”

“So,” she says, shifting on her heels, “how do we begin?”

Jace steps forward and picks up the rod. He retrieves the little scrap of maroon fabric that she had found a few days back and attaches it to the end of the hook. 

“It is always a good idea to have some kind of bait,” he explains, “fish are attracted to movement. If you can find insects or worms, those work even better. But this fabric may do. We will have to see.”

He moves close to the edge of the water and lets the rod scrape the top of the ocean. “Most fish do not swim right by the shore, so you will need to throw the line out a little ways. Make sure that you do not catch your skin with the hook.”

She nods, eyebrows drawn together in deep contemplation. Jace nearly smiles at the way she’s taking this all so seriously, before he catches himself and schools his expression.

Jace steadies his hand and propels the line out into the ocean. One of the wounds on his side complains at the movement, but he ignores it. He watches the line bob in the water with a softened expression. His memory flits between days spent under the sun at Driftmark and Dragonstone, laughing while he chases Lucerys with a wood sword; Laenor showing him how to fish among the tidepools; a fierce burn from the sun that is soothed by his mother’s affectionate hand.

“Who taught you this?” Her voice breaks through the silence that had settled between them. Her eyes keep steady on the line, lashes squinting against the harsh light.

“My father,” he replies after a moment’s hesitation. 

Another pause. 

He feels her shift to look over at the side of his face. “I’m sure he would be quite proud of the man you have become.”

Jace’s breath halts in his throat. Hands suddenly feel clammy. His heart hiccups and thuds against his skin. He had not thought of Laenor in a long time, Harwin even longer. It feels like decades had passed since he had seen either of them, a forgotten moment in his life overshadowed by tragedy after tragedy.

“Oh, look,” she says suddenly from beside him. “A conch shell.” 

She wields the massive thing toward him. Her entire face is bright with delight as she shows him the object that any normal person would completely disregard. She is anything but normal, though.

“These always sell for a few silvers at the markets,” she informs him, “the rich folk think they are good luck.”

He is not able to reply before his arm suddenly jolts and he is pulled a few inches forward. On the end of the line, something stirs in the water. 

“Come,” he orders her urgently. “Something is biting.”

She draws close, her eyes wide. The conch shell drops to the sand. “What is it?”

“I don’t know,” he says, “here, you hold the rod.”

“What? I don’t know how to catch a fish!”

He thrusts the rod into her hands. “I am too weak to reel it in. You have to.” It is a lie, but she does not seem to recognize it.

Her hands slip all over the rod as she tries to fight the beast at the end of the line. Jace, pitying her struggle, slides behind her and steadies her hands by placing his on top of hers. She freezes for a moment, then begins to pull. Jace clutches her hands gently within his own and he notices that they tremble like seagrass beneath his own. 

“Hold it steady,” he says against the shell of her ear, “pull only when you feel it stop fighting. You do not want–”

Suddenly, the pressure is removed from the end of the line and they are both sent stumbling backwards onto the sand. Jace lands on his bum, but she is able to catch herself as she tumbles beside him. The line must have broken. The fish is long gone now.

“Oh Jace, are you okay?” He looks over at her as she crouches beside him. “You did not reopen your wounds, did you?”

The laugh that tumbles out of his lips makes her jolt back. Distantly, he is not sure why he is laughing. The fish got away, he landed on back on the sand, and now one of his cuts hurts. But he had just felt so alive. So unburdened by responsibility, like any man of ten and eight without the entirety of their mother’s empire resting upon their shoulders ought to feel. 

The laughter eventually abates, and all that is left is the open sky atop him and the sun beating down on his skin.

“Do you think that the fish I cooked last night was spoiled?” she asks in response to his exuberant mood. “Once, my father caught ill from bad potatoes…”

Jace feels another chuckle escape his lips. “Sorry,” he tells her. “I have… not felt that free in a long time.”

She lets out a soft ‘oh’ and moves to lay next to him in the sand. Far enough away that there is no chance that they will touch, but close enough that Jace can smell the lavender on her skin.

Jace stares at the clear sky ahead of him until he begins to feel his body ache with exhaustion. He pulls himself into a seated position, but she does not move immediately. She looks at him with soft eyes from where she lays against the sand, a small, affectionate smile upon her lips. Her chest rises and falls slowly, hand absentmindedly drawing pictures in the sand.

His stomach churns as he turns away. He stares out at the rippling current with half-lidded eyes. 

“How far is the nearest town?” His words are nearly carried away with the next tide that pulls up the shore. She hears him all the same, sliding to sit up next to him.

“Not far,” she replies, a toothy grin on her breath, “would you like to come and help me pick out a fish for dinner tomorrow?”

Jace does not reply. The hope tinged in her words makes something inside him feel rotten. Like he is corrupting the world wherein she lives. As he takes longer and longer to reply, he notices something settle upon her face. A realization that fades into melancholy.

“Oh.” She looks to the sea in an attempt to hide the dewiness in her eyes, but Jace notices all the same. “You wish to leave.”

“My mother,” he says, “she will be looking for me. She will not stop until she finds me.”

She nods.

Something compels him to continue. “I would stay. I would, truly,” he says, “but this is bigger than me. Bigger than this–”

“I understand, Jace.” But Jace is not sure she does. Her lips purse, her eyebrows drawn to form a small wrinkle between them. 

“I would at least stay a couple more days,” he tells her, “I need to make sure I do not simply hurt myself again by leaving too soon.”

She pulls her knees to her chest and rests her head upon them. “It sounds like a good plan,” she agrees quietly. “Perhaps… Perhaps I could pack you some food as well.”

“Yes,” he says this far too enthusiastically, but he notices her brighten at the joy in his voice and so he continues to smile. “That would be wonderful.”

She nods, pulling at a frayed edge of her dress. “Then it will be done.”

The two of them watch for a few more moments as the red sun burns a hole against the sky and as the water ripples with wrath.

“I will leave on the morrow”--That is what he had told you over dinner the previous evening. 

In the morrow, the sky opens and floods them with her tears. 

You stand by the window of the cabin looking out at the frightful weather. Rain falls like daggers against the darkened, tumultuous sea. Waves crash against the shore. A crack of lightning makes you flinch.

“The Gods are angry,” you say to the still air of the cabin. 

Jace sits halfway over his plate of roasted fish as you say this. Then he straightens, his eyes flickering briefly outside. The dark brown of his irises reflect the grey of the clouds swirling above. “Or they do not grant me leave.”

You force yourself to pull away from the window. Turning your head, another flash of brilliant light comes across the floor, painting everything white. You fall into a silence as you step carefully across the cabin.

You knew that from the moment you found him, that it would not be permanent. Just like the rains that fall from above now, this momentary storm in your life will too pass. You had not even wished for him to stay, initially. You recall that first night, sewing his wounds with fishing line, as your eyes stretched across his alien visage. You had told yourself that his presence would be temporary as a comfort then, now you tell it to ground yourself in reality.

Jace had become more friendly in the past few days. Conversation came easily to him and made the thought of him leaving that much harder. Now you were the one that deflated at the sound of his voice across the hall, the one that shrunk from revealing the parts of yourself that had not seen the light in years.

You are selfish. It is a quality that had always lurked behind your eyes, but had sharpened since your father’s death. It is a survival tactic. Every animal, even humans, wish to hold onto the things they hold dear. It does not matter if it is not much. Everything you have is in some way worth keeping–including Jace.

But you could not fight logic. His mother, his family–they had a higher claim to him than you did. You could not keep him like a bird with clipped wings. It is cruel to even think it. 

You scrub the dish in your hands until your hands feel raw and achy. The only light comes from behind you in the smoldering fireplace and the flash of light that illuminates the sky. You hear the clatter of the bowl from behind you as Jace finds his footing–the screech of the chair as it rubs harshly against the floor.

You feel his warmth as he comes to stand beside you. He reaches a hand into the soapy mess over the wood bucket and fetches your hand from the fray. 

“You have made yourself bleed,” he observes quietly, a finger stroking over the cuts. 

You feel your throat bob under the weight of his probing stare. You slip your hand away from his and turn your back to dip the bowl in the bucket of soapless water.

“Have I done something to upset you?” he murmurs. His words are echoed by a rumble of thunder in the distance.

You still your movements for just a second before continuing. Your cuts throb at the feeling of the cool water cleansing the blood from your hands. “No,” you reply simply.

“Then why have you been so quiet as of late?”

You drop the bowl onto the wood surface in front of you and turn, drying your hands with a near cloth. “I just haven’t had much to say, I suppose.”

Another flash of light. Rain as it beats ceaselessly against the metal roof. You face him, clenching the towel in your fist.

“Shall we remove your stitches?” It had been suggested a few days ago as the first thing he would do before departing, so he would not have to bother with finding someone to do it for him on the road. 

Jace looks like he might say something. Then he shakes his head. “On the bed?”

You nod. “That would be easiest.” 

You slip behind him as he moves toward the bedroom. On your way, you light the spill near the fireplace and bring it with you. Your eyes find his figure as it slinks through the darkness. He’s healed so much better than you had ever expected he might. He should not have survived his injuries—should not have been able to heal so quickly. You think the Gods must favor his survival much more than they favored the own laws they stipulated.

He slides off his doublet and lounges back into the bed. You let the flame on the end of the spill touch the end of the wick of the candlestick and the room is bathed in a soft glow. You suffocate the flame and put the spill onto the table next to the bed.

Jace watches you as you do this quietly. When your eyes move up to his face, you notice his eyes are lidded, the tips of his ears red. You feel a warmth catch hold of your skin at his gaze and you avert your eyes to his chest.

You begin your work in silence. You lift the knot of each stitch and easily slice through it with the sharp edge of your knife. At the end of your first removal, you are happy to see that the wound has faded to a pinkish stripe.

“Who taught you this?” 

You startle at the sound of his voice after several long minutes of silence. It is a deep baritone, rough around the edges. Its unexpected richness has you shifting in your place on the edge of the bed. A flash of white light from out the window bathes his face in color. 

“My father.” You do not elaborate further. You think it self explanatory. Your father taught you everything.

“Was he hurt often?” 

You cut another knot. “There are no maesters in the far reaches,” you tell him. A hint of bitter frustration lines your words. “I have assisted several people who have needed help in the village.”

“I did not know,” he replies softly, “that is quite kind of you.”

“We all share responsibility here, no one is without duty.” You put another piece of the fishing line to the side. “It is how things function when you do not have the entire Seven Kingdoms at your disposal.”

You notice Jace’s eyebrows furrow. His stomach tenses beneath your hand. “How did you…”

“It is obvious,” you say, “your voice, your cadence, the way you were dressed when I found you… you have no scars, no callouses. You did not offer your house’s name, so I can only assume—“

“Jacaerys Velaryon,” he says, “that is my name.”

You still. Your eyes dart to his, alarm filling your chest and stealing your breath. “Velaryon,” you echo, heart racing. “That is the name of…”

“Perhaps you know of Corlys Velaryon,” he offers, “the Sea Snake. He is my grandfather. Or Rhaenyra Targaryen, my mother—“

You stand, breathing panicked. “You must leave,” you say, “why did you stay so long? The realm… your mother… the Seven Kingdoms need you.”

Jace leans forward to grasp your arm. You allow him only because you fear you may topple over without the stability.

“I am of no use to them in this condition,” he scoffs. You notice a faraway look in his eyes. The same look he sometimes got when he stared upon the ocean or recalled stories of his father to you. “My dragon is dead, my body a wreck. There is nothing left of me for them to scavenge.”

“T-That is not true,” you stutter. “You must at least find out if they are safe. You have been healed for days… you could have left—“

“I stayed for you.” You fall silent at the sincerity in his voice. His hand drifts down the bare skin of your wrist to thread between your fingers. He cups your hand between his own.

“You cannot stay,” you tell him.

“It does not matter if I stay one more day. The realm will not fall today,” he replies, “we cannot travel in this ruinous weather, anyway.”

Your eyes drift to the window, where the wind throws its tears against the pane. You nod slowly and find your seat again.

You grasp the knife from where you sat it on the duvet. You slide the other to rest upon his warm stomach. His breaths quicken beneath your hand as you drag it up to the next wound.

“I almost killed you the day after I found you,” you whisper, “I thought it would be a mercy. The fact that you are here at all… alive, breathing. It is a gift from the Gods.”

He leans forward. “What stopped you?”

Your movements pause from where you had started to cut away another knot. “You did.”

His throat bobs. His hand moves from where it clutches the sheets to where your hand rests upon his sternum. He strokes the skin of your hand gently.

You lean forward without realizing what you are doing. He does not allow you to back away. He brings his other hand to the nape of your neck and leans forward to seal your lips with his.

The kiss is languid. His tongue probes the seal of your lips and you allow it to slip inside. You bring your hand up to cup his jaw and he drags the hand cupping your neck to your hair. You let out a soft moan against his lips and he responds to the noise by pulling you forward onto his chest.

You do not lean your weight onto him in fear of hurting him, but you feel his hands crawl to settle upon your heaving ribs. You gently settle your lower half onto his hips, settling your hand down on a part of his chest that had no injuries.

You and Jace continue to kiss for what feels like hours. It is exhilarating. It feels like flying. Your stomach feels warm and fluttery, and your lips are throbbing.

You shift your hips and Jace lets out a groan. You pull away from the kiss, concerned. His hand moves to grab the flesh of your hip, sliding you back some. There is a hardness beneath you that makes a pleasant chill slide down your spine.

“Are you alright, Jace?” 

“Unless you wish for us to have sex,” he grumbles, “you should move off my hips.”

You swallow thickly at the insinuation. Sex. A novel thing. A thing that should be saved for marriage. But marriage seems so far from your mind now, drifting away like a current.

“And what do you wish for us to do?” you murmur. You slide forward an inch and he throws his head back onto the pillows. His chest heaves.

“You know what I wish,” he groans. “Is it not obvious?”

You lean forward so that your lips barely brush his own. “Then take it.”

Sunlight streams through the window ahead of you, branding the side of your face with heat, and your eyelids flutter against the intrusion. You fist your fingers in the sheets and twist your legs close to your body. As you shift, you feel an arm pulling you backwards.

You grasp the hand splayed across your stomach between your trembling fingers.

“Stay,” he murmurs against the shell of your ear. Tears bead in your eyes, but you keep them at bay.

Your thumb finds the pulse that thrums beneath his skin and you count his heart beats. The Gods are cruel, you think. They had kept Jace here long enough for you to miss him when he leaves.

You turn your body over to face him. You are not surprised to see him already staring back at you. His dark curls are a mess on the pillow beneath him. His lips pull upwards at the corners, but do not reach his eyes. He brings his hand up to stroke your cheek.

Your chin wobbles and he blinks away a frown.

“It will not be forever,” he tells you softly, reverently,

“I will return to you one day.”

You bring a hand up to wipe away the stubborn tears. “I suppose you do not know when that will be.”

He leans forward to give you a kiss and you know that is the only way he can possibly tell you no. 

Pulling away from the kiss feels like saying good-bye.

You stay in bed as he stands, sluggishly dressing himself as if he was still looking for reasons not to leave. You do not think he finds one. He turns his head to look back at you and his expression falters. 

A small smile curls at your lips as you mouth the word—go.

He heeds your instruction and leaves your cabin with a satchel of roasted fish, a map to the nearest town, and a bracelet strung with seashells.

ONE YEAR LATER…

The nets are full this morrow. The tide ebbs and flows, slinking across the silver sands. Birds let out cries of rejoice overhead for the plentiful bounty gifted by the sea. 

You bend the knee to heave the first net out of the water. You clutch your chest protectively as you search through the things with the other hand. 

“Hm,” you murmur, “a rainbow shell.” 

You bring the shell up to the light and small reflections bounce across your vision. Tucking it into your satchel, you search some more. A piece of metal, two scraps of fabric, and a clam.

You pocket the metal and one of the ratty pieces of fabric, but allow the clam to slide back under the tide. You bring your dry hand to rest upon the head of the babe swaddled against your breast.

“Shh,” you whisper to him as he begins to stir. “It is alright, my prince.”

He brings his head up slowly to peer at you. A splatter of sea foam settles on the side of his face, but he does not seem to mind. He gives you a gummy smile and you return it lovingly.

He watches with bleary eyes as you sort through the next net of things. You show him each individual item as you retrieve it. Your heart skips when you feel a familiar shape and weight in the palm of your hand.

“A conch shell,” you inform him with a giddy grin, “these sell for several silvers at the market.”

He stares at the shell with wide eyes. The pattern, a dark brown and white mottling, you think, must confuse or enrapture him by the way he looks at it.

The small of your back has begun to hurt. You straighten up and lift a supportive hand to rest underneath the baby’s bum.

“This will be enough for today,” you decide. “The sea has gifted us more than we need.”

The little boy smacks his lips as if agreeing with the statement. You nod and carry your satchel and the boy up the familiar path to the cabin.

However, your footsteps slow as you grow closer until you stop right before the door. Something is not right. You protectively cradle the back of your son’s head as you touch a hand to the door.

It pushes open with little resistance. You slide the knife you kept on you at all times to your hand in one swift movement as you step inside.

You take not but two steps beyond the threshold before you freeze. The knife clatters to the ground and a gasp shudders from your lips at the sight in front of you.

He stands across from you like he never left. He’s dressed in black gilded leathers, his body a tad leaner and steadier. His face looks older, more mature and shaped by circumstance, just as you imagine yours must too. His mop of dark hair curls around his ears, longer than when you saw him last.

His lips with awe. He stares at you and your face as if trying to map something with his mind. 

“Jace,” you say breathlessly. “How…”

“I saw you by the shore as I rode in from town,” he murmurs, taking a hesitant step forward. He lets out a soft laugh that sends your stomach aflutter. “I thought I might surprise you. I guess I am lucky to not have received a knife in my throat.”

Your throat bobs. Mistiness clouds your vision. “You came back for us.”

“For us?” Jace echoes, eyebrows furrowed. He comes so close he can reach out to you with his arm and you know that he has seen him then, by the shock that melts his features.

The boy turns his head to the best of his ability in your swaddle, his eyes searching for the unfamiliar voice. Jace’s mouth comes nearly unhinged, a trembling hand lifting as if to stroke his head, but it falls short.

He forces his eyes to look at you. “He… he’s mine?”

You bite your lip to suppress your smile as you nod. You reach around your neck with one arm while the other supports the baby’s bum. You unravel the swaddle easily, and the chubby baby flails his arms with relief. Never one to like a cage.

You outstretch him toward Jace and he takes him eagerly. He holds him with practiced ease. He supports the baby’s head and bum as he gazes down at him, tracing his forehead to the slope of his nose to the flutter of his lashes with only his eyes.

Jace finally breaks away from the baby long enough to look up at you. “And I just… I just left you. You and my son.”

Your heart skips a beat at the name. Son. You bite the inside of your cheek to keep from grinning like a fool.

“You had to,” you say, stepping forward to lay a gentle hand upon his upper arm. “Your family needed you.”

He clenches his jaw. “Nothing we did… nothing we accomplished… equals this.”

He strokes a featherlight touch against the boy’s cheek and he wrinkles his nose.

“Will you…” you pause. You try to steel yourself for the rejection that may very well follow, hands clammy by your sides. “Will you be staying long?”

Jace’s eyes rush to meet yours. He steps forward. The baby whimpers in his arms at the movement. 

“I would stay forever if you would have me.”

You feel your heart skip a beat. “What? What of the throne? Of your family?”

He shakes his head. Your stomach drops.

“My brother Aegon will be the next ruler. Wed to his cousin.”

“And you?”

His dark eyes soften as they consider this question carefully. He clutches the lost prince to his chest protectively.

“I am right where I want to be.”

You don’t say out it out loud, too tired and too anxious to speak, but you hate the way that they stare at you. You hate to see their pity. The way their faces twist like they’re expecting you to crumble at any second, tiptoeing around you as if you’re cracked glass ready to fall apart.

You’d overhead the Grand Maester whispering that he has Milk of the Poppy on the standby for when you finally collapse. For that moment when the weight of the situation finally falls upon your shoulders, and the reality that your lover, your husband, might not ever wake up sinks in.

It’s been weeks now, and Jace still has yet to open his eyes. The Grand Maester still isn’t quite sure why, but you know it has something to do with the arrows he took during the battle.

The Battle of the Gullet was a treacherous affair, with victory earned only through fire and blood and Jace’s own sacrifice. He had locked his mother, the Queen, in her chambers and taken his dragon to fight, and had he not then Lord Corlys and his ships surely would have been lost.

He had saved his grandsire’s beloved fleet, a fleet that was a part of his own legacy, but in turn, he suffered grave injuries.

Rhaena had told you through tears what happened.

She had fallen to your feet and begged for your forgiveness, weeping that it was all her fault.

She could not contain Sheepstealer and the dragon had gone rouge. It started to burn Velaryon ships, not knowing friend from foe, and Jace had tried to stop it. He and Vermax perused her before realizing that it was Rhaena, but in fleeing, he flew too low.

Baela had managed to save him the first time. The archers of the Triarchy took advantage the second. They hooked the young dragon as if Vermax was no more than trout and they dragged him into the sea. The dragon had tried its best to escape, but it was already injured and it was too late to fly again. He and Jace went crashing into the open water, but miraculously Jace managed to leap free.

As any Velaryon with salt in their veins, he swam to safety and he almost made it. Baela had also told you through her own tears, when it became too much for Rhaena, that he had managed to find a stray piece of driftwood and kept afloat. He clung to it, waiting to be recused, but by the time Baela and Moondancer came, it was too late.

Jace had suffered wounds that would have killed any other man. They should have killed him. Three arrows he had taken; one in his back, one in his chest, and one through the side of his neck. By the sheer grace of the Gods, they hadn’t killed him, but you had sobbed upon realizing that meant he would have seen them coming. He would have been alone, drifting in the middle of the sea, getting shot at but helpless to stop it.

The very image was enough to give you nightmares. You’d never forget that mental picture. Of Jace, clinching for his life and pierced with arrows like a ragdoll. It was another mercy that you weren’t there when they brought his body home. You had been locked in your chambers like Rhaenyra.

By the time they came to deliver the news, you were already numb, half drowned in a puddle of your own tears. Your fists were raw and bloody from pounding on the metal. Your fingernails were gone. You had screamed and clawed and cried so much that you supposed that’s why when they did finally break the news, Baela telling you herself with a bowed head, you didn’t do anything.

You couldn’t do anything except nod, silently following her to Jace’s broken body. He was unconscious by the time you finally saw him again, and his wounds had been bandaged. The maids had done a wonderful job at cleaning away majority of the blood from him, but you could still smell it. You could still see the faint traces of red splattered over his delicate skin, painting him in violent little freckles.

You could still taste it when you bent down to kiss his cheeks, not even sobbing when you barely felt warmth in them. He was cold to the touch and the fire in his blood had been extinguished. He was a flame that had been burned out by the Triarchy, but you had faith, you begged, you prayed that it would light again.

Day and night you stayed by his side, and day and night you waited for your sun to rise.

You waited to finally see those brown eyes you loved so much again. To hear him say that he loves you. More than anything else you wished to hear his voice, reassuring you that everything would be okay but-

His voice…oh Gods.

You weren’t sure if you would ever hear it again.

The arrow in his neck had gone deep and the Grand Maester said that speaking would be unlikely. You sweet prince might never utter a single word again, but as much as it tore your heart to pieces to think about, you were just thankful that he could still breathe.

So long as he could draw breath then nothing else seemed to matter. So long as he was alive. You’d take any version of him, voiceless or not, if it meant getting to hold him one last time. It was cruel that already you had forgotten what it was like. You had forgotten his touch. You had taken it for granted because you never thought things would come to this.

It wasn’t supposed to end this way. You were supposed to end with happy days.

Queen Rhaenyra was so close to getting her throne back. She was supposed to retake King’s Landing.

All would be well and the usurper would be dead, and you and Jace would be happy like he always promised.

You had been so close but yet…

Three weeks weeks went by, and Jace still had not woken.

Though he doesn’t say it, and he would never dare to in your presence, you can almost feel what the Grand Maester is thinking. That the odds of your lover waking up are getting slimmer and slimmer. You can see it in the way in the way visits with Jace have gotten fewer. His eyes have become sadder too, as if he knows, deep down inside that your prince will never wake again, but he is too afraid and too weak to say anything.

He continues his daily visits and changes Jace’s bandages faithfully, even offering you words of encouragement. He tells you not to give up, that the Gods could bless you any moment, but it’s not the same. Promises of Jace waking up and cheerful words mean nothing when he still lies half dead.

In the time that you’ve been sitting by his side, you have began to memorize him. You’d always thought that you knew of every nook and cranny, of every freckle and scar, but now that you’ve done nothing except for stare at him, you realize that you know nothing.

You didn’t know that Jace had a freckle under his lip.

You didn’t know he had tiny scar on his upper forearms.

You suspect by the depth and the crescent shapes that they might have been from Vermax. From sometime when Jace and the dragon were still young, unsure of each other.

You will be sure to ask if he wakes up—no, when he wakes up—but for the time being, you grapple with the reality that you barely know anything about him.

You and Jace have had so little time, so few moments and it terrifies you that might not get any more than what you have.

There are still so many things left to know, so many things left to be said, but the opportunity to do so may have passed. Just thinking about brings you an unfathomable amount of pain. It is nearly too much to handle.

Your only saving grace the past few weeks has been little Aegon. He is the only one that visits Jace.

Rhaenyra, in her grief, has spiraled into madness and has decided to lock herself in her room. She will not come out, too devastated by the loss of her other children to see her fragile eldest son. Ser Lorent reports that she would rather be alone, that it is an order to not disturb Her Grace. Gods only know the devastation she must be feeling so you let her be, and hope that she can find it in herself to visit one day.

Baela has not come to see him either. You cannot blame her. She is too busy on Driftmark, escaping her pain and guilt by helping her Grandsire to rebuild. She sends letters from time to time giving the council updates, but they are all formal. None of them even mention Jace.

If you had not known her so well, perhaps you might have taken offense to this. You might have taken offense to the fact that Baela has not come to see her own brother, but you know that you could never blame her. After all, she is the one that had to bring his body back. She is the one that witnessed it all. She told you once, before she left, that when she pulled Jace out of the water she thought that he was dead.

She mourned him the entire flight back to Dragonstone, and she collapsed when she found out that he was still alive. It is because of her efforts that Jace is even lying here, but you know that Baela will not be able to take it if he does not wake up.

She will not be able to handle watching him die again, and so she stays away, hoping to ease the pain with distance.

Her sister stays away with her out of guilt. You know that Rhaena thinks it’s her fault.

You have tried to tell her repeatedly that it isn’t, that such things happen when there’s war, but she won’t listen.

Ever the dragon, she is stubborn and has convinced herself that she is not welcome. Only a few days after arriving, she mounted Sheepstealer and you have not seen either of them since.

Where they are you cannot say, but you hope that wherever she is, Rhaena is not in pain.

You hope that your family, as broken and as desolate as it may be, will be okay again. Jace’s accident has shaken everyone to their core, but you keep it together because you are the only one left. If you fall apart, if you give up hope, then Jace will truly have nothing left. You stay by his side, even if it is painful, because you know that someone has to believe in him. Someone has to hold his hand and guide him back to where he is needed, and whether that takes weeks, months, or years, you are determined to be there.

You are determined to anchor yourself as long as it takes, and in the meantime little Aegon waits with you.

It is not often that he will sit by your side, silent as he snuggles into your warmth, but sometimes when the sun is low and the six year old has become restless, his exasperated maids will get tired of his begging and take him to see his brother.

You know more than anyone that he and Viserys worship the ground that Jace walks on, and his absence has been hard on the them both. Viserys is still too young to understand, and too young to fathom what is happening, but Aegon does.

At the very least, he knows that Jace has been injured and he knows that he might not wake up. As much as you have tried to hide the grim truth about the situation, the little boy is too smart for his own good.

He could tell by the way you spoke that something was off. He could tell that your smile did not reach your eyes.

Once, he even asked you bluntly if Jace was going to die, and the only thing you could do was stare numbly and say,

“I pray he does not.”

You have tried to not let him see your own emotions, but it is hard to keep them in check. It is hard to pretend that you are not constantly worried and heartsick with anxiety. You are already terrified that you and Jace will run out of time, but equally you are just as afraid that Aegon will too.

You are afraid that six short years is the only time he will get with his brother, and the idea makes your stomach twist. It makes you want to burst into tears at the thought of their precious time getting cut short, and so you do your best to make the most of it.

Even though Jace is not awake, you still try and find ways for Aegon to spend time with him. Mainly it is though story time. You’ll pick out a book and allow Aegon to curl into your lap, holding onto Jace’s hand while you read to him.

It is calming for you both, and on one night in particular, you decided to read him a story to give him comfort.

It was an old fable that your Septa used read to you when you were a child, about a woman who waited nearly twenty years for her husband.

He had gone off to war and left her with their young son, but even though everyone around her kept telling her that he was dead, she never gave up hope.

“Penelope waited for him and she waited. For twenty years, she never strayed from the idea that her husband would come home to her, and she never gave up hope. Even when…”

You voice drifted quietly through Jace’s chambers, mingling with the crackling fire and slowly luring Aegon to sleep.

The boy had found a comfortable position lying on your chest, and now he breathed softly as he struggled to keep his eyes open. He kept reaching up to rub the sleep out of them, but you figured that he’d drift any time now, so quietly you finished the story and kissed his forehead.

“How did you like that one, Byka ön’næza?” you asked softly, using the High Valyrian nickname. It’s one that Jace used to call him often and you hoped it would bring him some comfort.

Aegon smiled faintly.

“It was very good, sister,” he responded in his mother tongue, yawning. “Penelope reminds me a lot of you.”

You smiled sadly as you stared down at the little boy. You knew that he was right. Part of the reason that you had chosen the story was because it sounded so familiar, and Penelope and her husband’s happy ending brought you comfort, too.

“I suppose that you are right. I suppose that we are similar,” you responded, stroking his hair. “Penelope never gave up on her husband.”

“Just like you will never give up on Jace.”

“That is right, Byka ön’næza.”

Aegon hummed softly as you stared at the bed, watching as Jacaerys drew in a breath weakly. His body stayed still, as it always did, but you wondered briefly what was happening inside of his mind.

Was he awake there, and could he hear you? Did he know that you were waiting for him?

You hoped beyond hope that somehow he could. That somehow, there was a way for him to know that you were there for him, and that you’d wait as long as need be.

Just like the story, and just like Penelope, you didn’t plan on going anywhere. Until you were sure, and until you witnessed his last breath for yourself, you’d stay right by his side, and you didn’t care what anyone said.

You be there as long as it took.

—

“My lady, please. You must eat. You cannot continue to sit here and starve yourself like this.”

Four weeks.

“This is not what Prince Jacaerys would want.”

Five.

“You must eat something, please. Think about the babe my lady! You must!”

You blink, and suddenly six weeks have passed since the Gullet. An entire moon and half since you have lost your hudband, and yet he is right there.

Jacaerys is as still as ever, unchanging and unmoving. He is as silent and as unconscious as the day he was placed there, though his wounds have at least began to heal.

Just two days ago the Grand Maester finally took the bandage off of his neck. He said that the fact that Jace was healing was a good sign, but that did not make it any less brutal.

You expected to feel uncomfortable at seeing the scars, but nothing truly prepared you for how sick it would make you feel. The arrow pierced right through his flesh and left a long jagged scar that seemed to torment you. Once again, you couldn’t stop picturing Jace all alone at sea, getting shot at relentlessly, and so for your own sake, you covered his neck with a blanket.

This at least hid the physical evidence and gave you some relief, but the truth of the matter still remained.

Jacaerys still wasn’t waking up, and until he did, you had remained unchanging and unmoving as well.

In the beginning, it wasn’t so bad. You would at least get up to eat. You wanted to be strong and healthy in case he woke up and needed your help, but the silence and the anxiety had made your appetite decrease. Now, you hardly ever left his side, afraid that as soon as you did, he’d wake.

You were terrified of not being there for Jace, and so you reminded, even if you were harming yourself and the babe.

The last plea from Dorothea is what finally snapped you out of it. A small jolt went through you, almost as if you had been slapped by her, and instinctively you pressed your hand to your stomach.

It was warm and though you had only found out a week prior, it was already slightly round. The Maester guessed you that you were somewhere around a moon and a half, and the bitter irony was not lost upon you.

As soon as you lost Jace, you had gained his seed. A little part of him that he wouldn’t even get to see grow; and yet another person that would miss him.

You prayed even harder when you found out that Jace would come back to you, and if not for you, then for your babe.

He deserved to see your child grow up but the Gods had yet to answer you. You had no idea if

“I…I will Dorothea. I will eat, I swear it. Just…just give me a moment. Please. He may wake up soon.”

“My lady…”

She gave you a look. You hated that look. You hated the pity, and how she clearly didn’t have as much faith as you did. It made you feel crazy that no one else believed that Jace was coming back except for you. “I do not think that is a good idea. The longer that you prolong it, the more that you risk harming the babe.”

Her words sent a pang through your heart. As much as you didn’t want to hear it, you knew that she was right and your heart began to beat a little faster. You looked at Jace while keeping a hand on your stomach, squeezing his with your free one. His skin was still cold but it had warmed a little bit, something you attributed to the added blankets.

“Alright,” you whispered after a second, your voice barely visible. You barely looked up as you squeezed his hand and said, “I will eat a little. Something light, perhaps. I do not want to be away from him for long.”

“Very well then.” Dorothea gave you smile. It was obvious that she was relieved that you at least agreed to that, and she didn’t push. “I shall tell the cooks to prepare something quick. A sandwich, perhaps. I could even draw you bath while she prepares it.”

She held her hand out, and very gently she helped you from your chair. It creaked a little due to the absense of your weight, and it felt odd being on your feet again. Blood immediately pooled to your feet, which began to go numb from sitting so long.

“Let us get this over with quickly then,” you muttered, sighing.

You let go of Dorothea’s hand and began to move forward. You went to follow the maid, reluctant to even do so, but just before you could take a full step, something stopped you.

A tug on your hand had you freezing in your tracks, gasping as it pulled you back into place. It happened so suddenly that for a moment you were stunned, barely comprehending that it was coming from Jace.

“My lady? Are you alright? What…?”

“He…he did it! He squeezed my hand! Dorothea, he’s awake!”

Quickly, as fast as lightning strikes, you whirled around and dropped to your knees. You became eye level with the bed and you stared at Jace with wide eyes, your heart threatening to dance out of your chest. It was beating so hard that you were sure even Dorothea could hear it, the maid crouching down beside you with wide eyes.

“My lady, are you…are you sure?”

“Yes! Yes, look!”

The reluctance in her voice had you second guessing yourself, and for moment, you truly did fear the worst. You feared that perhaps you had just imagined it, your delusions fueled by your lack of food. It would not be the first time that you daydreamed of such a scenario, but it was the first time that it became real.

“By the Gods,” Dorothea gasped as she watched his eyelids. They fluttered slightly, as if he was trying to open them, and she called out, “M-My Prince? My Prince are you awake?”

“Jace, can you hear me?”

You leaned over anxiously, nearly tasting bile in your throat. Your head suddenly went blank and your body began to go numb. It tingled with sheer disbelief as you watched his eyes flicker again, his hand squeezing yours ever so slightly.

“Pe…pen…” he muttered weakly.

You gasped loudly.

“What? Can you hear me Jace? Jacaerys, please.”

You waited a few seconds for him to answer. The wait felt beyond agonizing. It felt like every breath was held with anticipation, waiting to see if this was truly happening.

“Pe…Penelope,” Jacaerys whispered again, swallowing thickly.

You froze.

“…What? What was that?”

“My…my Penelope. You waited for me.”

“My Prince?” In a haze, Dorothea turned to you, confused. It was obvious that she did not understand what the prince was trying to say, but you did.

You understood immediately and you couldn’t help but to sob as you held his hand.

“Oh Gods. Oh Gods, Jace. Jacaerys, I’m here. I’m here.”

He groaned a little as you kissed his knuckles, your whole body shaking like a leaf. You barely felt able to breathe as his eyes flickered, and finally, finally after a month of waiting, you saw his eyes again.

They turned to you in bout of confusion, unfocused and no doubt blurry. It took a few seconds of blinking for him to truly look at you, but when he did, there was no denying that it was him.

He looked at you the same way he always did. As if he was a blind man seeing the sun again. His eyes glazed over and he shifted a little, sniffling as he muttered your name.

“You…you’re here,” he slurred slightly, a faint smile growing on his face. “You…you waited for me.”

“Jace,” you sobbed again, leaning forward to rest your forhead against his chest. Your whole body shook as you cried into his arms, relishing the feeling of his warm touch.

“Of course I did. Of course,” you said.

You reached up delicately and stroked his cheek. It was warm, just as it should be. You cherished it for a moment before leaning down to kiss him, laughing tearfully as you said,

“I will always wait for you. Always.”

Fire danced with a horrific, erratic grace across the blackened waters of the Gullet, transforming the vital shipping lane into a sprawling, floating graveyard. Flames leapt from ship to ship in hungry arcs, feeding on timber and pitch and the desperate prayers of drowning men. Beneath the merciless onslaught of Team Black’s dragons, mighty Triarchy war-galleys splintered like kindling, their hulls cracking open to swallow their crews whole. Great masts toppled into the waves with the slow, theatrical finality of falling monuments. And yet, this was no easy victory. No clean triumph etched into the history books with golden ink. Below, Lord Corlys Velaryon’s fleet fought with everything it had, attempting to trap the armada in the narrow, choking passage, buying time in blood and smoke and screaming iron.

The atmosphere was a living thing, a suffocating shroud woven from the sharp salt tang of brine, the acrid bite of billowing smoke, the unmistakable iron-sweetness of fresh blood, and the sickening, almost honeyed stench of burning pitch. It coated the throat and burned the eyes.

High above the carnage, roaring through the roiling tempest of fire and ash, rode Prince Jacaerys Velaryon.

He sat astride Vermax like a man born to the sky because he was. The great emerald dragon cut through the smoke-choked air like a gleaming blade, his scales catching the hellish firelight below, wings spread wide. Jace’s riding leathers were already dark with spray and soot. His dark curls whipped against his face. He did not notice. His eyes were fixed on the battle, calculating and measuring, feeling the terrible weight of command settle across his shoulders with the intimacy of something he had worn all his life.

He had locked his mother in her chambers at Dragonstone before leaving. Had stood outside the door and listened to her pound against it, her voice cracking on his name. The sound had nearly unmade him entirely. But she was the queen. She was the cause. She could not be lost, and Jacaerys Velaryon had long since made peace with the arithmetic of that.

She lives. Therefore, I go.

Beside him, Baela streaked across the smoke on Moondancer fierce and brilliant, her silver hair streaming behind her like a war banner. And then, piercing through the mist like something half-imagined, a new silhouette emerged. Jace’s eyes snapped to it. His stomach lurched with shock before his heart swelled with a pride so fierce it nearly hurt.

Rhaena. Flying the wild dragon Sheepstealer.

Of course she was.

Together they were three dragons raining hell from the heavens, and for one blazing, exhilarating moment, Jace believed they might actually win this despite Sheepstealer almost knocking him out. He watched their collective fire devastate Admiral Lohar’s vanguard below, great tongues of flame consuming the armada’s leading ships, sending men screaming into the sea. He felt the savage triumph of it. The rightness.

Then the heavy, rhythmic thrum of scorpions began.

Massive iron bolts tore through the clouds around them. The Triarchy fleet was enormous, he had known this, had known it academically the way one knows a thing from maps and reports but knowing it and watching it materialize below him in all its terrible scale were entirely different experiences.

He pressed Vermax into a steep, dangerously low dive.

Below, through the roiling chaos, Jace had spotted Lord Corlys’s flagship being violently rammed by Lohar’s vessel. The silver-haired sea snake, his grandfather by every measure that mattered, surrounded and struggling. Jace made his decision in the space of half a breath. He would break the enemy lines. He would fly low. He would end this.

He flew too close to the water.

His focus had narrowed to a single burning point, the ships, the threat, the duty and so he did not hear the volley until it was already too late.

A heavy iron shaft sliced violently through the membrane of Vermax’s right wing with a sound like tearing cloth and screaming metal fused together. Another slammed directly into the dragon’s chest with a concussive, world-shaking force that Jace felt through every bone in his body.

Vermax screamed.

The sound ripped through Jace like a physical blade. Not a roar, not the magnificent, terrible declaration of a dragon in battle. A scream. Raw and agonizing and so deeply personal that Jace felt his own lungs seize in sympathy, as though the bolt had pierced him too. The great emerald body shuddered beneath him. The massive wings faltered, losing the steady rhythm that held them aloft. The world tilted.

They were falling.

“No-”

Jace yanked desperately on the reins, his boots straining hard against the stirrups, body thrown forward as the sea rushed upward to meet them with terrifying speed. Wind screamed past his ears. The fire and the smoke and the battle became a chaotic blur of sensation.

“Vermax, fly!”

The dragon fought. Even now, even broken and burning, Vermax fought. A beast born of fire, refusing absolutely to yield to the water. One wing beat heavily, then another. The torn membrane fluttered uselessly, a tattered rag of what it had been, but still Vermax tried, and something in Jace’s chest shattered at the sight of it.

“Soves!” His voice broke on the word, all royal dignity stripped away, reduced to something raw and helpless and very young. “Soves, Vermax! Please-”

One final, agonizing beat of the wings.

It was not enough.

Freezing, brine-heavy water swallowed Jacaerys Velaryon whole. It was not like diving, it was like being struck by the earth itself, like the sea had become solid in the last instant before collision, and he felt the shock travel up through his ankles, his knees, his spine, rattling his teeth in his skull. The sheer velocity of the crash tore his fingers from the saddle. The weight of his armor dragged at him immediately, a slow, patient, lethal pull downward into the dark.

Primal instinct flared.

He unhooked himself and practically clawed upward. His lungs burned. The cold was absolute, the kind that doesn’t feel cold at all but rather feels like being unmade, like the sea was simply erasing him a layer at a time. He could see nothing, only dark water and distant fire and the enormous bulk of Vermax somewhere below him, a shadow become a nightmare. He burst through the surface with a gasp so violent it tore his throat.

“Vermax!”

He spun in the churning water, hair plastered to his face, salt burning his eyes. The battle raged on around him, ships groaning and splitting, men screaming, iron raining from all directions. The world had not paused for him.

“Vermax!”

Through the haze of cresting waves, he found him. His dragon, his Vermax, who had carried him since boyhood, who had grown as he had grown, who had been as much a part of him as his own heartbeat was desperately trying to swim. The damaged wings beat uselessly to try to swim up. His great neck was straining upward. His eyes, when they met Jace’s from below the water, held something that a person with less grief in them might have dismissed as imagination. They did not look like the eyes of an animal.

They looked like the eyes of someone saying goodbye. A massive anchor, or debris, Jace could not tell which, tangled around Vermax’s exhausted body. The sea accepted its offering. With a final, sorrowful look that Jacaerys Velaryon would carry with him for the rest of his life.

He never resurfaced.

Something inside Jace broke. Not cracked. Not bent. Broke, the way an old bone breaks, the kind that doesn’t ever quite knit back the same way. He hauled his upper body onto a large piece of floating wreckage with the determination of a body that had not yet received the message from his mind that none of this mattered anymore. His chest heaved in ragged, desperate gasps. He was shaking. He was exhausted in a way that reached all the way down into whatever part of him had believed, until this moment, that he might survive this.

He had not brought enough of that belief. He saw that now.

He thought of his mother.

The image of her face, proud and terrified and trying not to show either rose unbidden. He had done this for her. Had done all of it for her. He hoped she would understand, someday, that locking her in her chambers had been the most love he had ever offered anyone.

He thought of Baela. Of Rhaena.

He thought of-

A sharp, dull impact struck his upper back.

Jace lurched forward with a sound that was almost nothing, barely a breath. Confused, of all things, not yet understanding, he glanced over his shoulder. A heavy crossbow bolt protruded from his shoulder blade at an angle that his mind catalogued with strange, distant calm, the way one notices a detail in a painting.

Slowly, numbly, he turned his head toward the source. A Triarchy war-galley drifted just yards away. Lined along the wooden railing stood a row of Admiral Lohar’s soldiers, unhurried, methodical, their crossbows leveled at the figure in the water.

They knew exactly who he was. There was no urgency in their posture, no battlefield fever. This was an execution.

The heir to the Iron Throne, stranded and defenseless. A second bolt flew. It slammed into his chest. He heard it before he felt it.

Then a third...straight to the neck.

A strange, sudden calm washed over him.

The deafening roar of the battle receded, becoming muffled, distant, the way sounds narrow when one goes underwater. The sea rocked him gently now, almost tenderly, as if it had been waiting all along to offer this small mercy at the end. He had not expected kindness. He was grateful for it.

He thought of his mother, safe on Dragonstone.

He thought of Baela’s laughter.

He thought of his brothers.

And he thought with a softness that surprised him, with something that might have been the very last warmth his body could generate, of you. Of a future that would not be built. Of a promise he was not sure, now, that he had ever been given the chance to make.

The last image to imprint itself on the fading mind of Jacaerys Velaryon was that reflection.

A burning sky, mirrored in the water.

Beautiful.

Tragic.

Then everything went black.

┈┈・ ✦ ・┈┈

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

Jacaerys bolted upright with a gasp that felt like surfacing.

His eyes flew open. His hand flew to his chest and then to his neck, pressing hard against his sternum, feeling for something, a wound, an absence, a bolt buried in bone and found nothing but the soft cotton of his t-shirt and the solid, living rhythm of his own heart. He sat there for a long moment, chest heaving, and simply stared at the ceiling.

White plaster. Crown moulding. A small water stain shaped vaguely like a continent.

No smoke.

No dragon.

No sea.

No battle.

Just a bedroom. His bedroom.

Morning sunlight filtered through floor-to-ceiling windows in long, clean shafts, illuminating the warm disorder of his life: the desk buried under business textbooks and notebooks with pages dog-eared and margins crowded with his handwriting, his laptop open from the night before with a lecture slide still visible on the screen, a hoodie slung over the back of his desk chair. Outside the windows, King’s Landing stretched endlessly in the early light, the city already stirring, glass towers catching the sun.

His alarm clock flashed 7:00 AM.

No swords or the banners of House Targaryen. Jace pressed the heels of both palms against his eyes and breathed.

The memories were still there. That was the wrong word for them, memories. They did not feel like the soft, dissolving stuff of ordinary dreams that faded on the edges as soon as you tried to examine them. They felt like the other kind of remembering, the kind that lives in the body rather than the mind. He could still feel the cold of the Gullet in his fingers. He could still smell the smoke. He could still feel the weight of dragon-riding leathers across his shoulders, the particular pull of Vermax’s movement through the air, the way the saddle had sat against the backs of his thighs.

He could still feel the bolts.

Just a dream, he told himself. The words felt inadequate in his own mouth, like trying to describe a storm with the word weather. He muttered them anyway, pressing his face harder into his palms.

“Just a dream.”

A dream where he had been a prince.

A prince who had died.

His stomach dropped with a physical lurch. The alarm was still beeping. He silenced it with a slap and sat on the edge of the bed for one more moment, just one, breathing in the ordinary scent of his ordinary room.. Then his brain supplied the information he had been avoiding.

Classes.

Shit.

He was already late.

He moved through his morning routine with the efficiency of someone running on instinct rather than thought, shower, clothes, a cursory battle with his curls that ended, as it always did, in a draw. He emerged from the bathroom in jeans and sneakers and his favorite dark hoodie, his hair doing exactly what it wanted. There wasn’t time to argue with it. There was rarely ever time.

The smell of coffee reached him in the hallway. It pulled at something in his chest and he followed it through the penthouse to the kitchen.

His steps halted in the doorway.

Rhaenyra stood at the island counter, reading something on her tablet with the focused, slightly stern expression she wore when she was processing information she found annoying. A coffee mug steamed beside her elbow, forgotten. She was already dressed soft grey, elegant, effortlessly so in the way that had always seemed to come naturally to her and she looked exactly as she always looked in the morning, tired by all the corporate bullshit.

CEO of Targaryen Corporation. One of the most influential women in King’s Landing. The most formidable person he had ever known.

His mother.

The word hit him somewhere unsteady. Something twisted painfully in his chest, relief so acute it nearly hurt, threaded through with the dreaming grief of a boy who had watched her face in his mind as the water closed over him, who had spent his last conscious moment believing she was safe, needing her to be safe, and had been right without ever knowing he was right. He crossed the room before he had consciously decided to.

He wrapped his arms around her.

Rhaenyra nearly dropped her coffee.

“Jacaerys-”

She caught herself, setting the mug down with a firm clink on the marble countertop, and then without hesitation, because she had always been this, whatever else she was, she wrapped her arms around him and held him back.

“Sweet boy.” Her voice was softer now. Her fingers found their way into his curls the way they had when he was very small. “What’s the matter?”

Jace swallowed against the tightness in his throat. The dream came rushing back through him like a tide, the war, the weight of a crown his mother should have inherited without blood, the desperate, bone-deep need to protect her. The image of her face as he had walked away from Dragonstone, toward the dragon, toward the battle, toward the Gullet. The way he had looked back.

He shook his head against her shoulder.

“I’m fine.”

“You are clearly not fine.”

Her hand moved in slow, soothing circles against his back. Despite himself, despite everything, Jace felt something in him begin to loosen.

He laughed. A weak, slightly broken sound, but genuine. “I just…” His voice cracked on the nothing he was trying to say.

Rhaenyra pulled back slightly to look at him. Not the way she looked at her board of directors, or at rivals across conference tables, or at the city from thirty floors up. The other way. The private way, that only he and his brothers ever saw.

“What happened?”

He wiped his eyes quickly, hoping she wouldn’t comment on it and took a breath.

“I had the most vivid dream.”

“What kind of dream?”

He hesitated. There was something strange about saying it. As though speaking about it aloud would make it either more real or less, and he wasn’t sure which outcome he wanted.

“I was a prince,” he said.

Rhaenyra blinked. Whatever she had been expecting, it was not that.

“A prince?”

“Yeah.” A small smile found its way onto his face, unwilling, almost involuntary. “You were a queen.” Something passed across her expression something soft, something she would never have allowed in a meeting room. “Oh?”

“I died fighting a battle for you.”

Silence.

She looked at him for a long moment. Then she reached up and brushed a curl from his forehead with the gentleness that had no performance in it, something she reserved for the three of them and no one else.

“Well,” she said finally, her smile warming to something that was almost, almost teasing. “That sounds exhausting.”

Jace stared. “That’s all you’ve got?”

“You are standing in my kitchen wearing yesterday’s hoodie and telling me about dragon wars, Jacaerys.”

He opened his mouth to protest then closed it. “Fair.” She squeezed his shoulder. “It was only a dream.”

“You know,” said a new voice from the doorway, “some families start their mornings with good morning.”

Luke wandered in carrying a cereal box like a trophy, nineteen years old and permanently, professionally smug. He surveyed the scene with the cheerful heartlessness of a younger brother who had found ammunition and intended to use it.

“Did Jace finally lose his mind?”

Behind him, Joffrey, fourteen and grinning with the particular delight of someone who had been waiting for this squeezed past into the kitchen. “About time.” Jace rolled his eyes so hard it was almost an athletic achievement. “There he is.”

“Dreaming about being a prince?” Luke plucked a bowl from the cupboard with casual ease. “That’s because you’re already treated like one.”

The napkin Jace threw hit him square in the face. Luke threw it back. Rhaenyra sighed with the air of a woman who had calculated exactly how many more years of this lay before her and found the number disheartening.

“My sons,” she said, picking up her coffee. “Truly intellectual giants.”

┈┈・ ✦ ・┈┈

Breakfast passed with the comfortable velocity of mornings that had been rehearsed through repetition until they ran themselves. Luke complaining about something, Joffrey eating cereal in quantities that defied his size, Rhaenyra reading from her tablet while simultaneously tracking all three of them with the peripheral attention of someone who had never once been entirely off duty.

Jace was reaching for his coffee when Rhaenyra glanced up.

“Are you still picking up your girlfriend?”

He froze.

The coffee cup remained halfway to his face, arrested in mid-air.

“…My what?”

Luke’s head snapped up. The expression that crossed his face was one of pure, unalloyed joy. He looked like he had been handed a gift.

Rhaenyra stared at her eldest with the patient, faintly incredulous expression of a woman who had not expected to be performing this particular reality check on a Tuesday morning.

“Your girlfriend.”

“Oh.” Jace set the cup down carefully. “Right.”

You.

He had a girlfriend.

A beautiful girlfriend, and she was his girlfriend, and she had been his girlfriend for- he was briefly lost in the arithmetic of it, which was itself a kind of answer and she was wonderful, she was brilliant, she made him laugh, and somehow in the space between waking up with the sea in his lungs and standing in his mother’s kitchen in yesterday’s hoodie, he had momentarily forgotten she existed.

And then, because his brain was apparently in full catastrophic mode this morning: betrothed. Not yet. Not technically. But the word had been sitting in the back of his mind ever since he woke up from his dream.

Heat flooded his face with spectacular completeness. Luke nearly choked on his cereal.

“Oh my God.”

“Shut up.”

“You forgot your girlfriend.”

“Only briefly.”

“Only” Luke dissolved entirely, shoulders shaking. Across the table, Joffrey watched with the dignified appreciation of a connoisseur.

Rhaenyra shook her head slowly. “Honestly, Jace.” “It was a very intense dream,” he said, with as much dignity as one can muster while slowly turning the color of a sunset.

“You forgot your girlfriend.”

“The dream had dragons, Mum.”

She gave him the look. The specific look, the one that had been making him feel twelve years old since he was actually twelve years old. “She’s a lovely girl. I wish you’d bring her home more often.”

Jace stood from the table with the decisive energy of a man drawing a conversation to a close. “I was planning to.”

“When?”

“Soon.”

“Today?”

“…Possibly.”

“Good.” Rhaenyra returned to her tablet, the slight smile at the corner of her mouth saying everything she was too dignified to say aloud.

┈┈・ ✦ ・┈┈

The underground parking garage was cool and dim, smelling of concrete and oil and the expensive quiet of a building where people took the lift rather than the stairs. Jace’s Porsche sat in its usual spot, Oak Green Metallic, catching the fluorescent light.

Vermax.

He had named the car Vermax which now sounded so ionic to him.

He stood beside the driver’s door for a moment, hand on the handle, the thought arriving fully formed and then sitting there in his chest with an odd weight. He had named his car Vermax years ago. He had thought it was because he liked the sound of it, or because it was the name of a character in a book he’d read, or because of some half-remembered reason that had never quite solidified into anything coherent.

He looked at the car. The deep green of it. The long, low lines of it, built for speed, built for the sky-

Built for the sky.

A strange feeling settled over him, the kind of not-quite-vertigo that comes with recognizing something without being able to name what it is you’re recognizing. Like seeing an old friend across a crowd before you’ve registered their face.

He shook it off. Got in and drove.

┈┈・ ✦ ・┈┈

The street outside your house was quiet in the way that Tuesday mornings in King’s Landing occasionally managed to be, with the morning light that made ordinary things seem briefly considered. Jace pulled to the curb and sat for a moment with the engine idling, window down.

Then the front door opened and you stepped out. He got out of the car.

The morning light caught your hair the way it always did, making you look almost angelic in Jace’s eyes in that moment. You were still in the act of adjusting the strap of your bag when you spotted him, and the smile that crossed your face. Happy just to see him.

And for one strange, suspended moment, another image overlapped the morning like a transparency laid over a photograph. A figure standing on the cliffs of Dragonstone. The sea grey below and the wind pulling at dark fabric. Watching him leave. The expression on her face, your face, heartbroken and resolute and trying to be neither.

Waiting for him to come back.

The image dissolved as quickly as it had arrived. The morning reasserted itself. You were walking toward the car, your bag settled on your shoulder now, your smile still in place, and Jace found himself already stepping forward already moving toward with certainty that was less decision than gravity.

Before you could say a word, he took your hand and raised it, and pressed a kiss against your knuckles. Deliberatea and unhurried. Like he’d done it a thousand times before, in other rooms, in other centuries.

“How are you, my beloved?”

You stopped.

Looked at the hand.

Looked at him.

And then, because you were you, you laughed, the bright, surprised sound of someone caught genuinely off guard. “What has gotten into you this morning?” you questioned him.

Jace grinned, and the grin felt more like him than anything else had all morning. “I genuinely have no idea.”

“You’re being sooo weird.” You studied him with the narrowed eyes trying to grasp his words and actions. “How weird is this going to get?”

“I had the wildest dream.”

“Oh?” Already your expression was shifting into the one you wore when you were preparing to be entertained. He leaned forward and kissed you softly quick, warm and certain.

“In it,” he said against your smile, “you were my princess too.”

Your cheeks went pink with entirely gratifying speed. “Oh my God.”

“You asked.”

“I asked what was wrong with you, not-”

“Details.”

“Jacaerys Velaryon, I am going to need you to be normal for the next five minutes-”

“I make no promises.”

He opened the passenger door for you, still grinning, and the morning felt lighter than it had when he’d left the penthouse.

The dream wasn’t entirely terrible, he thought, settling behind the wheel. If nothing else, it had done this, sharpened his vision, made ordinary things brilliant again. Made you more vivid than you’d already been, which was saying something considerable. He found himself smiling the entire drive to university.

┈┈・ ✦ ・┈┈

University should have felt normal.

Instead, Jace spent the entire morning convinced he was losing his mind by degrees as new details of his dream would hit him.

The dream lingered with a persistence that ordinary dreams did not have, the kind he usually forgot by the time he reached the kitchen. This one clung. Every corridor he walked reminded him of castle hallways, the echo of footsteps on stone, and the smell of torch smoke. Every crowded lecture hall conjured the geometry of noble courts; the subtle theatre of power performed through proximity. His Strategic Management lecture had an entire section on resource allocation that kept pulling his thoughts sideways, toward councils and war rooms and Dragonstone. He stared at his notebook.

He had written, in the margin: Corlys was right about the Gullet.

He had no idea when.

“You’re disassociating again.”

Jace blinked.

Across the seminar table sat Cregan Stark, regarding him with the expression he used on everything: tall, dark-haired, slow-blinking, fundamentally and constitutionally unimpressed by the world and all its events. He was from Winterfell like genuinely, actually from Winterfell, which Jace had always found slightly funny without ever quite being able to explain why.

They’d been best friends since secondary school, the friendship that had calcified into something so much more. They were like brothers in every sense. Also, he looked almost exactly like the Cregan from the dream.

Same jaw. Same eyes. Same expression, the one that said I am listening to you and I find you exhausting. Same, in other words, as he always looked well except his had slightly shorter hair.

“What?” Jace managed.

Cregan raised one eyebrow. “You’ve been staring at me for ten seconds with an expressionless face.”

“Sorry.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “I had a strange dream. I feel like I keep repeating these words over and over again.”

“You texted me at four in the morning.”

Jace went very still.

“I did?”

Cregan reached for his phone with the patience of a man who had long since resigned himself to the chaos of being Jace Velaryon’s closest friend. He scrolled briefly, then began reading aloud in the flat, informational tone of a news anchor delivering a weather report.

“‘Brother, imagine if we were medieval nobles.’”

“Oh, God.”

“‘You would have loved Winterfell.’”

“Cregan-”

“‘You were Lord of the North.’” He glanced up briefly. “I’m from Winterfell, Jace. I grew up in Winterfell. I know what Winterfell is.”

“Please stop-”

‘I miss Vermax.’

Cregan lowered the phone.

“I don’t know what Vermax is, if its not talking about your car.” he said.

Jace buried his face in both hands and made a sound that was less a word than a comprehensive statement. “You were never meant to read those.”

“You sent them to me.”

“I was apparently not fully conscious at four in the morning. I don’t remember doing this at all.”

“That’s concerning.”

“Yes.”

“Are you okay?”

The question arrived without ceremony, Cregan always asked things he actually wanted to know, dropped into a conversation like a stone dropped into water, watching to see what it displaced. Jace hesitated for long enough that the silence became its own answer.

“Yeah,” he said. Then, quietly: “Not entirely.”

Cregan nodded. He didn’t push. This was something Jace had always valued about him, the Stark capacity to hold space without filling it.

“Tell me later,” Cregan said, and turned back to his laptop.

Mostly, Jace thought. He was mostly okay. ┈┈・ ✦ ・┈┈

You found him outside the business building at noon, materializing from the flow of students and your smile arrived before you did.

Jace felt the thing in his chest that had been clenched since 7 AM ease, slowly, like a hand opening. There was something about you that operated on him this way, had always operated on him this way, since the beginning. A quality of presence that grounded him, that made the world’s coordinates make sense again. He’d never found quite the right words for it. He’d stopped trying.

You slipped your hand into his without ceremony.

“Better than this morning?”

“A little.”

“Still thinking about your prince dream?”

He laughed, the sound freer than he expected. “Unfortunately.”

“You are such a nerd.”

“I was literally fighting a war.”

“You were dreaming about fighting a war.”

“Details.”

“Jacaerys Velaryon, if this dream becomes your entire personality, I want it on the record that I tried to prevent it-”

“Noted and rejected.”

You rolled your eyes with magnificent feeling. “I make no promises about what I tell your mother.”

Together you walked toward the café nearby. A small, overcrowded place called something Jace could never quite remember but it had had excellent coffee and terrible lighting and was perpetually full of students and professors who had clearly rather be somewhere else. The place that existed to absorb the ambient anxiety of a university and convert it, through caffeine, into something marginally more functional.

You had barely settled into your seats when a familiar voice arrived from approximately two tables away, belonging to someone who had apparently been watching for them.

“Well, if it isn’t my favorite nephew.”

Aegon Targaryen dropped into the empty chair beside Jace with the comfortable confidence of a man who owned, and this was literally true, approximately half the building they were sitting in. Twenty-six, blond, expensive, reliably catastrophic. His jacket probably cost more than Jace’s car maintenance for the year, and he wore it with the carelessness never once considering the cost of anything.

He was nothing like the monster from the dream. The dream-Aegon had been something Jace couldn’t fully bring himself to examine yet. Jealous and bitter and capable of terrible things. This Aegon was mostly known for throwing parties that became local legend and mysteriously managing to avoid all professional consequences for anything he did, ever. Jacaerys supposed that has something to do with his mother and his uncle Aemond keeping these things contained.

“To what do we owe the honor?” Jace asked.

Aegon’s attention had already moved to you.

“And how are you?”

“Good,” you said politely.

“Still putting up with him?”

You smiled. “Barely.”

“Excellent answer.”

Jace groaned. Aegon looked absolutely delighted. “You’re blushing,” Aegon observed, with the tone of someone reporting a natural phenomenon.

“I’m not.”

“You absolutely are.”

You leaned over the table, and Jace recognized the look on your face immediately. The collaborative look. The look that meant you had identified an ally.

“He was calling me his beloved this morning.”

Aegon’s chair nearly lost him. He grabbed the table.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“In what context?”

“He kissed my hand. In the street. Before nine in the morning.”

Aegon looked at Jace the way someone looks at an archaeological discovery with facination, slightly appalled, deeply pleased. “This is the greatest thing that has ever happened.”

Jace contemplated his options. Leaving. Changing his name and moving to Braavos. Committing entirely to the persona of someone who had never been caught calling his girlfriend my beloved at eight forty-five on a Tuesday.

None of these were practical.

He reached for his coffee and said nothing, which Aegon correctly interpreted as total defeat.

┈┈・ ✦ ・┈┈

After Aegon eventually wandered off, ostensibly to a meeting, credibly to cause chaos somewhere else and so the café settled back into its ordinary rhythms. Students came and went. Espresso machines hissed. The ambient noise absorbed itself.

You and Jace remained at your table, and the laughter faded naturally, the way good laughter does, not dying but simply becoming something quieter.

He was staring into his coffee again.

You watched him for a moment.

“You never told me the whole dream, since it has you in a weird mindset today.” you said quietly.

His fingers tightened almost imperceptibly around the cup. He was aware of you looking at him, with your full attention, which had always been more like listening than looking, patient and genuine and without agenda.

“To put it simply, there was a war,” he said.

You didn’t ask him to explain. You waited.

“A civil war.” He looked up briefly, then back at the table. “A war over who would rule over Westeros. My mother was supposed to inherit as was the rightful heir to the throne but there were those who didn’t accept it. Didn’t accept her.”

“And you fought for her.”

“Of course.”

The images came without invitation, Dragonstone’s grey halls, the council table, the maps spreading the whole kingdom out before them like a wound. The feeling of duty that had lived in his chest since childhood, not as a burden but as a definition. This is who you are. This is what you do.

You reached across the table and took his hand. He continued.

“I flew a dragon. I know this sounds no so scary but-” Despite everything, he heard the ghost of wonder in his own voice. “Vermax. He was- he was mine. Since I was a boy. He knew me.” The wonder curdled, softened into something heavier. “He died with me.”

Your thumb moved in a slow arc across his knuckles. “The last thing I remember,” he said quietly, “was dying. Floating in the sea, after everything.” He paused.

“It was strange. It wasn’t- it wasn’t the way I would have imagined. It wasn’t terrifying.”

“What was it?”

He thought about it honestly.

“It was sad,” he said. “But calm.”

You were quiet for a moment. Then you reached up, and the gesture was so unexpected that he went still, your hand cupping his cheek, steady and warm, thumb tracing a line beneath his eye.

He leaned into it without thinking.

“I’m glad it was only a dream,” you said softly trying to calm his anxieties that he didn’t want to confess out loud.

“I’m glad you’re here.”

The tightness in his chest released, not all at once but in stages, like a knot worked loose over time. He turned his head slightly, pressing his lips briefly to your palm, and you let him, and neither of you made anything of it. She’s right, he thought. Whatever that was. Whatever it meant.

He was here. Alive. With his family, with his best friend, with his girl.

Maybe that was enough. Maybe that was, actually, everything.

The afternoon passed.

Classes ended. The university slowly emptied like it did every day at dusk, students and professors releasing themselves back into the city like a pressure valve opening. The parking lot filled briefly with the usual chaos and then thinned.

“My mother wants you over more often,” Jace mentioned, as they walked toward the Porsche.

“Apparently she likes you.”

You brightened immediately. “Really?”

“She said so unprompted. First thing this morning.”

“Good.” You smiled with satisfaction. “I’m charming.”

Jace looked at you sideways. “You are deeply smug about this.”

“I’m charming,” you repeated, pleasantly. He laughed. “Come over tonight?”

You looked at him, with that look you had, the one he’d never found a word for, the one that made him feel simultaneously seen and unsteady in the best possible way. Made him feel a bit giddy.

“I’d love to,” you said.

┈┈・ ✦ ・┈┈

The penthouse was unusually quiet when they arrived. Rhaenyra was visible through the glass of her home office, phone tucked between her ear and shoulder, reading from a document with the focused intensity and it was clear that the woman needed a break from everything. Luke had evaporated somewhere. Joffrey was reportedly studying, a claim no one in the household had ever been successfully able to verify.

You and Jace settled at the dining table with laptops and scattered notes and the collective fiction of productivity.

For forty minutes, it was remarkably functional. Jace had his economics module open. You were working through something, he didn’t ask, didn’t need to and the sound of quiet typing and the occasional turn of a page created a kind of companionable silence that he had always thought of as the specific luxury of being comfortable with someone. presence. You could simply be in it.

He was reading about capital allocation.

“Jace.”

He looked up.

“You’re getting lost in your mind again.”

“I’m not what are you talking about?” he said automatically. Then, because honesty was something he’d apparently committed to today: “I was thinking about- uhhh. Economics?”

“That is not better.”

“You look pretty,” he said simply.

The silence that followed had a distinct texture. You looked at him for a long moment. Then you slowly, deliberately, closed your laptop.

“No,” you said.

“What?”

“You don’t get to say things like that when I’m trying to study.”

“I was simply making an observation.”

“You are impossible.”

He was very pleased with himself. He did not bother hiding it.

An hour later, the economics module had not progressed. The textbooks had been consolidated into a single pile and pushed to the far end of the table, a gesture that meant these exist and will eventually be addressed, which was as much as either of you were willing to commit to. A film had been agreed upon via negotiation.

Blankets appeared.

The overhead lights went off.

And somehow, as these things always somehow managed, you ended up curled against his chest on the enormous sectional, his arm around your waist, the film playing distantly while neither of you particularly watched it. Your breathing slowed first. His heartbeat was steady and familiar beneath your ear.

The city moved quietly outside the windows.

You didn’t remember falling asleep.

┈┈・ ✦ ・┈┈

The prince stood before you.

The wind came off the sea like a cold hand, whipping through his dark, curling hair, pressing his black riding coat against his frame. Behind him, Dragonstone rose in its glory against a steel-grey sky, all sharp towers and dark stone, magnificent and terrible, built by people who had never believed in half measures. The sea crashed against the rocks far below. Dark clouds gathered on the horizon with the patient, deliberate advance of something inevitable.

“No.”

Your voice came out broken.

“No, please.”

He looked at you the way he always looked at you as if you were the clearest thing in a world that had lately become very unclear, like looking at you was the one thing he could do without effort in a life that had demanded extraordinary effort from him since the moment he was old enough to understand what he was.

“I have to go.”

“You don’t,” you said, even though you knew it wasn’t true. Even though somewhere beneath the desperate present tense of the argument, the truer, older part of you already knew exactly what was coming. Already knew the shape of this farewell.

His hands found yours.

They were warm. Strong and real, so real that makes their loss so much more brutal than the loss of things you never fully believed in.

“You can stay,” you said. Your voice was steadier than you felt. “You can let someone else-”

“I cannot.” His voice was gentle but stern. He was stubborn and so if he made peace with this decisions, he wouldn’t have it any other way.

Tears burned behind your eyes. The fear inside you was almost unbearable and burning, it was twisted and layered, because you knew. You already knew. This was not a premonition, not a vague presentiment. It was knowledge, carried somewhere beneath language, beneath memory, in whatever part of you had been this person before.

You knew what awaited him at the Gullet.

Fire.

Water.

“You promised.” The words escaped before you could decide to say them.

His expression shifted. Something moved across it, grief, tenderness, the ache of a man who loves something too well to pretend it isn’t breaking. “And I will keep that promise but this is a battle I must fight for both myself and my mother.”

He stepped closer, and you let him, and he pressed a kiss to your forehead so gently it barely qualified as a touch at all.

Then he rested his brow against yours. His eyes never left yours.

“If I do not return- which I intend to,”

The world seemed to hold its breath.

“I will find you.”

A tear escaped. Traced the line of your cheek. He watched it with eyes that were very dark and very steady.

“In every lifetime if not this one. I promise.”

The words landed somewhere deep in you, somewhere wordless, somewhere older than the language you used to think with. A promise that had the weight of truth rather than intention.

You memorized his face. The curls. The strong jaw. The eyes, brown and earnest and alive, so alive.

He smiled.

Then he stepped away.

He turned toward the waiting dragon.

Toward the dark water below.

Toward a destiny that was also a death.

And all you could do was watch him leave. ┈┈・ ✦ ・┈┈

You woke with a gasp that tore itself from somewhere past your chest.

For several seconds, you could not find the room. Could not find yourself in it. There was only the dream...the cliffs, the wind, his forehead against yours, the sound of his footsteps retreating and the grief of it, which was specific and devastating and nothing at all like the vague emotional residue of ordinary sleep.

Tears burned behind your eyes. Your heart was pounding.

You pushed yourself upright. A blanket tangled around your legs. The room was dim, the film long since ended, the television showing a menu screen. Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, King’s Landing glittered in the full dark of night, the city’s lights reflected upward in a warm wash against the low clouds. Jace must have moved you to his room when you fell asleep.

The bedroom door opened.

Jace stepped in carrying two mugs, steam rising from both. He had apparently, at some point during your sleep, been productive.

The moment he saw your face, he froze.

“Hey.”

The concern in his voice was immediate, the shift from normal to careful happening in the space of a single syllable.

“What’s wrong?”

You didn’t answer. The words were somewhere on the way, but in the meantime your body had already decided what it needed, and what it needed was to close the distance between you and him as quickly as possible.

You stood.

Crossed the room.

The mugs barely survived. He caught them against the edge of the side table with an impressive reflex, setting them down quickly before his arms came around your waist, and you buried your face against the side of his neck, and breathed him in.

“Sweetheart?” Low and careful. His chin came to rest on top of your head.

You stayed there for a moment just letting the reality of him replace the dream of him. The warmth of him. The solidness.

Then you pulled back. Not far. Your forehead came to rest against his, which put you close enough to feel his breath and see the small crease of worry between his brows.

“I had a dream,” you said. It seems it was your turn to utter those words.

Something moved across his face. He went very still in the way that meant he was paying every variety of attention he had.

“What kind of dream?”

“I saw a prince.”

His breath caught. You felt it.

“I saw him leaving for a battle. He was going to fight-”

Your voice faltered, then steadied. “He knew he might not come back. And he said-” You stopped.

Jace’s arms tightened around you, almost involuntarily. “He said he would find me,” you continued. “That if he didn’t return-” Your eyes met his, and something in your chest recognized something in his. “He would find me in every lifetime.”

Silence.

Complete, absolute silence.

Jace stared at you.

Because those were the exact words. Not a version of them, not a paraphrase but the exact promise, the exact phrasing, the exact scene, the stone of Dragonstone under grey skies and wind coming off the sea. He had lived it from one side and you had lived it from the other, and here you both were, in a penthouse above a city that did not have dragons, with the memory of them living in your bones.

His throat moved.

You smiled softly with tears still bright at the corners of your eyes. Your hand lifted, your fingers moving gently through his curls, the same gesture that felt simultaneously new and ancient.

“I don’t know what any of that means,” you said.

“Neither do I.”

“But if it was real-”

His forehead pressed more firmly against yours.

“You kept your promise,” you whispered.

He felt his throat close.

And for the first time since he had woken to the sound of an alarm clock and a bedroom that wasn’t the sea, he stopped wondering whether the dream had been real. He stopped wondering whether he was grieving something imagined or something true. He stopped needing to know.

Because you knew.

You had been there.

You rose onto your toes.

Your lips met his.

It was slow and gentle. He kissed you back like someone returning to something, like a navigator finding a landmark in familiar water.

Like he had been waiting centuries and perhaps his soul had waited for this moment. The moment to return to her. ┈┈・ ✦ ・┈┈

The knock was soft.

They both startled apart with the excellent reflexes of guilty consciences, then immediately demonstrated the dignity of two people pretending they hadn’t. Jace cleared his throat. Rested his forehead against yours for one final second. His breath was unsteady in the best way.

Another knock.

“Jacaerys?”

Rhaenyra’s voice, measured, carrying through the door with the easy authority of a woman who managed board rooms and board members and the shenanigans of three sons as a single uninterrupted professional skill.

“Dinner is ready.” They heard the muffled voice of his mother.

Jace answered at a volume calibrated for normalcy “We’ll be there in a minute!”

A pause that had weight.

“Five minutes,” his mother’s voice returned, drier than a desert, and entirely aware of everything and perhaps making a wrong assumption of you two being alone in his room.

You laughed, pressing your face briefly against his shoulder to muffle it. He was already smiling.

“Your mother doesn’t trust you.”

“She absolutely does not.”

“And honestly?” You poked his chest. “I don’t blame her.”

“You wound me.”

“Good.” You pulled your hand back, but he caught it, quick and easy, and pressed a kiss to your knuckles again. The same gesture as that morning. The echo of it traveled through both of you clearly.

Your cheeks went pink.

He watched it happen with a feeling in his chest that was too large and too simple to require any examination at all.

There she is, he thought. My girl.

My princess.

He took your hand properly, fingers laced and led you toward the dining room.

┈┈・ ✦ ・┈┈ They heard the argument before they reached the dinner table.

Luke and Joffrey, seated across from each other in the arrangement that the family had collectively accepted as a flaw, were conducting a debate with the commitment of two people who had come to win.

“No, because you’re objectively wrong-”

“I’m objectively right-”

“You don’t even know what objectively means.”

“I literally do.”

“You used it wrong.”

Joffrey groaned with his whole body. “I hate this family.”

“You are this family,” Luke pointed out.

Joffrey considered this. “Exactly.”

Rhaenyra, at the head of the table, was pinching the bridge of her nose with annoyance. This was her normal and yet it was tiring.

The moment she saw you, her face entirely changed.

“There she is.”

You smiled. “Hi.”

She stood and pulled you into a hug with a warmth that was, Jace thought privately, rather more enthusiastic than his own homecoming greeting most mornings. “I was beginning to think my son had invented you.”

“Mum.”

“What? He never brings you over.”

“That’s his fault,” you said.

“Traitor,” Jace said.

“You’re literally my boyfriend.”

“Exactly.”

You smiled sweetly. “I’m allowed.”

Rhaenyra looked delighted in the specific way she allowed herself to look delighted when she was genuinely pleased, a rarity outside this apartment. Luke immediately leaned toward you.

“See? This is why she’s my favorite.”

“I’m sitting right here.”

“Unfortunately.”

Jace threw a bread roll at him.

Luke threw one back.

The war began immediately, and lasted approximately five seconds before Rhaenyra’s single sharp look ended it. She had a look for this. It was very effective.

“Sometimes I wonder,” she said, settling back into her chair and accepting a bread roll from the basket with the serenity of someone who had already mentally exited the building, “if I raised wolves.”

“That’s insulting,” Joffrey said.

Everyone looked at him.

The fourteen-year-old shrugged with the composure of someone who had thought this through. “Wolves are smarter.”

The silence held for two seconds before Luke’s expression cracked. Jace looked at the ceiling. Rhaenyra’s attempt at severity collapsed at its foundations.

You sat beside Jace with your hand warm against his under the table, and you were already laughing, and the sound of it filled the room the way laughter does when a room is already full of people who are glad to be there.

┈┈・ ✦ ・┈┈

Dinner found its rhythm.

Conversation moved in the easy, overlapping way it does with people who have logged enough hours together that they no longer need to manage it consciously. Luke complained about a group project with the vivid resentment of having decided the problem was everyone else.

Joffrey explained something about a game or a film or a historical period but the audience could not quite keep up, but that seemed to be part of the experience. Rhaenyra complained, with great economy, about company politics, and then told a story about a colleague that had everyone at the table paying full attention (It was Aemond who everytone is afraid of in their company).

You listened to all of it.

Jace, mostly, watched.

He had not expected this. Had woken this morning in the sea, or the memory of it. Had spent the drive to university with the dream still active in his body, had sat through lectures half-present, had carried the weight of Vermax’s last look in his chest all day like a stone.

And now.

He watched his mother smile at something you said. He watched Luke do the thing he did when he was actually amused, which was different from when he is pretending. Watched Joffrey explain something to you directly, having apparently determined that you were worth the effort, and watched your face do the thing it did when you were genuinely interested in something, slightly forward, slightly bright, entirely present.

You fit here. Not as a guest, not as someone being accommodated. As someone who belonged. He thought of the dream again.

Remembered standing at the dragonpit of Dragonstone with his armor on and the dragon saddled and the sea grey behind him, and looking back at everything he was leaving, his mother, his brothers, you, the stone halls and the cold salt wind and the ordinary miracle of a morning that didn’t require a king’s son to die for it.

He had wondered, in those last seconds at Dragonstone, if he would ever see any of them again. He had his answer now.

The realization settled in his chest quietly, without drama. Not a revelation, something more like a confirmation. A peace he hadn’t known he was looking for, finding him here, at a dinner table with a bread roll dent in the tablecloth and Joffrey currently holding forth on something no one else understood.

No war. No dragons. No succession. No battles. Just family. Just love.

Just this.

Halfway through dessert, Joffrey’s phone lit up. “Oh!” He reached for it with the speed of receiving news they’d been waiting for. “Dad’s calling.”

Jace felt himself smile before the screen even showed Laenor’s face.

It appeared a moment later, that face, familiar and warm and slightly tanned by whatever sun was currently shining on whatever harbor on whatever coast he was sailing toward. Behind him, a bright blue sky suggested somewhere in Essos, probably. The man was perpetually in motion, perpetually somewhere else and yet found time for them. He was not their real father, but he might as well have been. After Harwin passed away, Rhaenyra had remarried Laenor as more of a deal since Laenor wasn’t interested in anything but he cared for Rhaenyra platonically and it seemed to have worked out great and that’s all that mattered.

“There are my favorite children.”

Luke snorted. “We’re your only children.”

“And yet somehow still my favorites.” Laenor’s gaze found you across the table, and his face smiled “There she is.”

You laughed. “Hello.”

“Good. Finally, someone sensible has arrived.”

“Hey!” Three voices, simultaneous.

Laenor continued as though he hadn’t heard. “How are you, darling?”

“I’m well, thank you.”

Jace groaned. “Why does everyone in my family like her more than me?”

“Because,” Laenor said, and the timing was beautiful, “she has manners.”

The table erupted. Even Rhaenyra, which was a significant achievement.

Laenor spent twenty minutes on the call, chatting about his route, trading insults with. He heard both Luke and Joffery’s rambling. He asked Rhaenyra about the board meeting she’d complained about, and listened to her answer. He asked you about your studies, and remembered something you’d mentioned three calls ago, and asked a follow-up question about it.

The man had walked into their lives years ago and simply decided, without announcement or conditions, that these were his sons. No performance of it. No documentation. Just- love, extended to fill the available space.

Dream Laenor had disappeared. The thought arrived gently, without bitterness. The dream-Laenor, who had been present mostly in his absence, who Jace had barely known, who had been lost before Jace could understand what losing someone meant. This version was here. This version showed up.

And Jace was, quietly and completely, grateful for that. The call ended. The dessert finished. The evening moved toward its natural conclusion with the comfortable inevitability of all good evenings. Luke vanished in the direction of his room. Joffrey disappeared with a quantity of snacks that could feed a whole army. Rhaenyra retreated to finish what she’d started, she always had something she was finishing, this was simply who she was and the penthouse settled into quiet

Which left you and Jace, alone on the balcony.

┈┈・ ✦ ・┈┈

King’s Landing stretched below them without end. The city was all light from up here, not the individual lights, not streets and windows and the moving points of cars, but the collective glow of it, the warmth of a few million people living their lives in proximity, translated upward into something that looked, from this height, almost like its own kind of fire.

A cool breeze moved through the dark, carrying the city’s particular nighttime mixture of warm pavement and distant food and the faint, improbable ghost of something floral from a rooftop garden somewhere below. It found its way into Jace’s curls and did what it wanted with them.

You stood beside him. Close enough that your shoulders touched.

Neither of you spoke. Neither of you needed to. The city was enough, for a while.

Then you broke the silence the way you often did when a thought entered your head.

“Do you think it was real?”

He didn’t ask what you meant.

The dreams. The prince and the princess. The battle. The promise made at the edge of the world on the morning of an ending. The specific weight of standing on Dragonstone and knowing.

“I don’t know,” he said.

You slipped your hand into his. Your fingers were cool from the night air. He closed his hand around yours.

“But it felt real,” you said.

“It did.”

Another silence, this one richer. Weighted, but not heavily, weighted the way a good book is heavy, in a way you want.

“If it was real…”

Jace looked toward you. The city’s light caught you from below, softening the angles, turning you luminous in the warm way of a portrait painted with care. The same thing he’d thought this morning returned, effortlessly, as though it had simply been waiting for the right lighting.

Radiant.

The same as the princess from the dream. The same, and also entirely herself.

“If it was real,” you continued, a smile finding the corner of your mouth, “I think she’d be happy.”

“Who?”

“The princess.”

Your fingers squeezed his.

“Because she got her prince back.”

Something moved in his chest and he felt a giddy sensation.

“And he got his princess,” he said quietly.

The smile you gave him in return was the specific, undone kind that he privately thought was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. He doubted this would change.

“You know,” he said, after a moment, “I’ve spent all day thinking about the battle.”

“The Gullet?”

“Yeah.” He looked down at the city. “The part where I died.”

You were quiet beside him.

“And?” you said, finally.

He looked back through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the penthouse.

His mother, visible in her office, signing something. The small movement of her hand showing her actions. Luke in the hallway beyond, typing away at his phone aggressively with determinations of someone looking to win an argument even if he may be wrong.

Joffrey somewhere in his room planning a prank on his mother.

And all of it, all of this life, this ordinary, extraordinary life, glowing warm behind glass thirty floors above a city that had never known a dragon. His family.

“I think that prince would’ve liked this,” he said.

You followed his gaze.

You understood immediately. He could see it in the way your face softened, not with sadness but with tenderness that recognizes grief and holds it carefully.

A life without war. Without the weight of a crown.

Without sacrifice, the kind that swaps one beloved thing for another in an endless, devastating ledger.

Just family.

Just love.

Just peace.

You rested your head on his shoulder.

He turned his head and pressed a kiss to your hair, slow and quiet.

Neither of you saw it.

But just for a moment, a breath, almost a blink, the glass of the balcony door held a reflection that was not quite yours.

Two figures. Side by side. Dressed in black and red, the colours of a house that had once held the world.

Standing exactly as you were standing. Looking out at exactly what you were looking at.

Smiling.

At each other, and at this, and at everything that had managed, against all odds, to survive.

Then the image dissolved.

The glass held only the room behind it, warm and lit and full of the sound of Luke losing the argument.

And Jace, and you.

Exactly where you were always meant to be.

“Yes, please,” you nod, feeling dazed.

Joaquín starts pulling things out of the fridge to make a smoothie, humming to himself. You try to direct your focus back to your half eaten toast, but you get distracted by his forearms as he gets everything ready on the counter, and then by his bicep again when he reaches into the cupboard above the sink for the blender.

You don’t realise he’s noticed your ogling until he speaks up,

“You’re staring at me,” he says, sounding amused.

You blink. You’d been watching him unscrew the lid on the blender, mesmerised by the flex of his forearm and the curve of his fingers.

“Huh?”

Joaquín laughs, a pleased, rumbling sound that makes you warm all over.

“You’re staring,” he says again. “What’s the matter?”

Your face goes hot all over. You don’t like the way he’s looking at you, eyebrows raised like he knows exactly what’s the matter, and doesn’t plan on doing anything about it.

You shake your head. “Nothing,” you say, your voice just a notch too high.

Joaquín’s eyebrows lift higher. “Really?” He drawls, “Looked like you were staring at my arms, gorgeous.”

He upends a half empty bag of frozen berries into the blender and your eyes betray you — they follow his movements as if you’ve been hypnotised. You certainly feel as if you have.

“I’m not staring,” you say weakly, even though you absolutely are.

Joaquín gets this wicked grin on his face, one part amused and two parts handsome.

“You’re so cute when you lie,” he says.

He wants me dead, you think. Your face goes burning hot and you resort to hiding in your hands, palms pressed to your cheeks and fingers over your eyes, feeling as if you’ll melt into a puddle any second now. You wish you could — you’d much rather that than this, especially when Joaquín starts to laugh at you, smug and dripping in fondness.

“Aw, honey,” he croons.

He gives up on the smoothie, and you hear him moving around the kitchen island back to your side. You stay stubbornly hidden in your hands until you feel him standing beside you, the warmth of his firm chest on your forearm.

Joaquín spreads his hand over the small of your back and twists you in your chair so you’re facing him.

“Babe,” he practically whines. “Come out, please? I’m sorry.”

You can hear the grin in his voice. He doesn’t sound very sorry at all, he sounds like he wants to tease you some more.

Still, you can’t resist him for long. You emerge to find him grinning down at you lopsidedly.

“Hi,” he says.

You roll your eyes, annoyed at how sickeningly charming he can be when he wants to.

“You’re being mean,” you tell him.

Joaquín pouts, bottom lip pushing out as he tucks some hair behind your ear for you. His hand lingers at your jaw.

“I’m sorry,” he says again.

You huff. This close, you get a great view of his arms, though you try not to look for too long lest you be caught again. The curve of his bicep, however, is quite impossible to ignore.

Joaquín tilts his head to the side, warm hand cupping your jaw. “Would it make it better if I told you I totally wore this on purpose to woo you?”

You groan. Of course he did. Half of you knew it already. The other half of you wanted to believe it was a mere coincidence.

“No,” you grumble. “That makes it worse.”

your hands drag up his forearms to rest on his biceps and he sets both his hands on your hips. your shirt rides up around his wrists, his fingers pressing into your skin with a lovely sort of pressure. he doesn’t kiss you again, just looks at you, the warm afternoon sun painting his skin a pretty shade of gold.

“what?” you ask, feeling fondness like an ache all over. and joaquín just shrugs, “nothing. just like looking at you, baby,” he says.