What brought you to me?

“What if war comes?”

It was a cunning question, asked with something vicious in the lord’s eyes. It was a spark that could start a ruinous fire, and it all seemed like the man would enjoy its heat.

You could feel your cheeks burning too, but you wouldn’t give him the satisfaction so easily. Anyway, you always thought about yourself as a composed woman; you never expected your nerves to be brought so close to their end, especially after all the horrors that you’ve been through.

“What then?” You answered like you would to an unruly child, but trying to sound respectful at the same time. It was a hilarious matter to speak of, too hypothetical to approach seriously. “We have remarkable generals and strategists, my lord. If, as you imply, the council will suggest against his grace leading the army, I’m sure he will choose someone equally suitable as himself. Perhaps his brother, Prince Maekar.” You nodded at the youngest of King Daeron’s sons, who grunted under his breath.

Your brother-in-law refused to look up, apparently biting his tongue and fighting to remain silent. You preferred it that way too. The king asked you directly to watch over the peace of the dinner that you were sharing with a significant guest. It would be much more challenging if you had Maekar running his mouth, unable to control his building fury.

As much as you liked him silent right now, you wouldn’t blame him if he snapped. Truth be told, you wouldn’t even mind if he stood up to drag the lord out of the room… The man stabbed the cake on his plate with unnecessary force. You could see Maekar’s grip on his goblet tighten. The faces of his children were warmed with small grins that they tried to hide. The little menaces awaited some action: perhaps someone being yelled at, punched if they were lucky.

You would mutely cheer on that too if you weren’t the main person responsible for the conversation with the guest. A man who was speaking against your husband ever since the meal was served. He balanced on the line of fake concern for the realm and open objection to Baelor being his father’s heir.

After the events of Ashford, he was intrusive enough with his letters that the king finally agreed to hear him out. He expressed his worry that the prince, who recently recovered from his life-threatening injury, wasn’t the right choice. It boiled your blood, truly. Not out of hunger for power, the crown… You couldn’t care less for that. It was the audacity and rudeness of the man that made you furious.

The accident clearly and visibly affected your husband’s health and life; there was no question about that. He spent long weeks in bed under the watchful eyes of maesters, with you and his sons by his side. Even longer until he was finally able to sit or walk on his own. He sometimes complained about his eyesight failing him, and his hearing in one ear almost disappeared. He spoke of it like it was his own fault, with embarrassment and distress that you assured him were unnecessary. A grimace appeared on his face whenever he became too aware of his limping walk. Something that was connected to the damage of his spine that the injury caused. Yet, he recovered.

The long path of coming back to health earned him many silver strands in his hair and beard, and he felt overwhelmingly lightheaded when tired, but except for that, you couldn’t tell that the man almost faced death. You sometimes still teared up, watching him during normal daily duties. There was no sight more beautiful than Baelor sitting at his desk, back straightened like you would expect from a prince, doing his work while humming under his breath from time to time. You always pointed out he worked too hard and too much, but now you couldn’t even forbid him that. On some days you spent hours sitting with him, watching the view that you missed so greatly despite hating it before.

And now this—this fucking cunt dared to ramble against Baelor while looking you deep in the eyes. Audacious bastard, you thought probably for the sixth time during this damn dinner.

“Fine…” he muttered as an answer to your words, making you want to stand up and slap him. Then he smiled again in that planned way, fakely respectful and expressing the worry he held. “And what if our friends, an ally country, send their proxy here one day? Let us say that the prince – then king – has one of his worse days. Because you admitted, your grace, that he has ‘worse days,’ am I correct? How will that make us look if he passes out or feels too weak to attend the council?

You clenched your jaw and cursed your father-in-law, the old king, for being too tired today to join you. None of this would happen if he were here, listening to the lord. On the other hand, you weren’t surprised that he needed more time to prepare himself before he would call for the audience that the guest could express his thoughts on. Baelor was currently attending to his urgent duties. His absence was better for the situation, actually. Better for the world. You were sure you would stab him with your fork if he dared to speak like that in the prince’s presence.

“It’s not me you should speak about this to,” you said sharply, and yet still more calmly than you would like to. “I am not in a position to make those choices, and to put it simply, your words cannot make me think differently of his grace.”

You always referred to Baelor as ‘your husband’ or ‘the prince,’ but now you felt the need to mark his superiority over rascals like the man. It made the air around the room heavier. Even Maekar’s kids stopped in their hushed bickering, sensing the built-up tension to finally break.

“They will simply think we are ruled by a cripple,” he said, like you didn’t hear your words at all.

That was when the first person at the feasting table broke. Maekar’s hand  hit the table, making the plates clatter. “You will be a cripple by the end of your visit here if you don’t start watching your tongue,” he said from between his clenched teeth.

“My prince, I just…” he tried, silenced by you but only for a moment.

“Not another word from you, my lord.”

But you had enough. The expectation, Baelor’s tendency to work himself to death, Maekar’s moods, the king’s demands, and the memory of the maester’s words that your husband’s condition is fatal… All of it. The bastard was just one more pull to the thin string that held your composed nature in check.

“My lady…” he tried, making you stand up from your seat abruptly.

He was lucky he sat away from your place at the top of the table. He was also lucky that you had some mercy left in you, because the thrown goblet of wine crashing nearby him and not on him certainly wasn’t your bad aim.

A deep breath sounded between everyone, making you more aware of what you have done. There was not even one bone in your body that would regret it, though. Daeron moved from his seat with painfully little grace to reach the pitcher of wine that stood in the middle of the table and keep it close to him as if you would come for it next.

“You have been insulting and speaking against our house ever since you showed up in the Keep,” you said in a hoarse grunt that surprised even you.

“Princess,” he spoke up again, reconsidering how he should address you. “I’m sure we can come to an agreement with calmness, my princess,” he muttered, but you could hear his voice growing more and more unsure.

“You will achieve no agreement with me,” you announced firmly. “Perhaps the king will be more understanding of your vituperations.”

He nodded and looked at his lap for a moment, apparently gathering his thoughts. “I have no doubt that he will hear me out with fairness and will be able to acknowledge the truth. It would mean a lot to me, though, princess, if I could call you my friend in this matter.”

“You fucking can not.” The yell was the final thing that made him drop the sure face he tried to keep. You pushed your chair away and leaned more over the table, pointing him out with a finger. “I almost lost my husband to The Stranger, and look at him now. He’s fine. Not unaffected, yes, but healthy and in good spirits. He’s a victorious survivor, not a victim as you put him.”

“Not unaffected, that’s my point…”

You had to stop yourself from stealing Maekar’s cup and also throwing him at the man. This time  pointing it straight at him. Luckily for your dignity, you were able to hold back from the fantasy of his bloodied face.

“Shut up, bastard,” you ordered harshly.

It was his turn to stand up with anger. He could handle even the worst scolding from a royal, but a woman? Oh, that’s something he was very unused to and never planned to change. “Gods, woman! You are blinded by your desire for a higher position!”

Prince Maekar’s deep voice broke the silence that rang in your ears after the lord’s scream.

“Insult the princess once more, I dare you,” he warned. “Then you won’t walk away as a cripple. You will be carried out.”

He was never very fond of you, you imagined, but when it came to protecting the good name of his family, he knew no measures.

This calmed the lord, scared him enough that he sat again.

“I am merely a simple man concerned for the future of his land and country,” he muttered under his breath.

You scoffed in irritation.

“A blithering idiot is what you are.”

It was a loud remark that made him sit back in his chair. Daeron snorted in his drunken state, quickly being hit with his father’s murderous gaze.

But you acted upon your frustration and turned to him at once. “Shut the fuck up, Daeron.”

The loud thud of the doors sounded in the room long after you left.

All that you felt bad for was screaming at your husband’s nephew and doing it not only in front of a guest but also his siblings. If you were honest, you wished to banish the memory from your mind, even if worse words escaped your throat that day. You didn’t regret anything said to the lord.

With your husband busied by his duties, you were left to linger around your room, unable to focus on anything. After seeing the hours pass with no mercy and being left with no choice, you walked out of your chambers to find Daeron. He was probably too drunk to be bothered by your scream. All that caused him was a headache, but even for that you felt wrong.

You found him with his young siblings outside the castle, lying in the grass. He threw a hand behind his head to make the hard ground more comfortable and let out quiet snores while the others played around. Daella and Aegon stayed on their backs too, pointing out certain clouds and giggling about their shapes, while Rhae tangled the grass into numerous braids before connecting it together. Pretty convenient for Daeron, you thought. If only they could always be so well-behaved when he was ordered by his father to watch over them.

Rhae smacked her eldest brother straight in the face when she saw you approaching. “Wake up!” She demanded in a pitched voice.

“Wha–” Daeron almost sat up before his back hit the ground again. He had hair all over his forehead, and he looked up at you, upside down, before letting out a relieved sigh. “Oh, it’s you.”

“I’ve come to apologize,” you said after clearing your throat but weren't given a chance to speak more.

Daeron waved his hand dismissively and closed his eyes again. “That’s nothing, aunt. No offense taken. It was… rather entertaining, anyway.”

“It was,” Egg agreed loudly. “Especially when you threw that gobble his way!”

The siblings agreed in a mutual, excited hum. You felt the need to massage the aching space between your eyebrows.

“Come, watch the sky with us,” invited Daella.

“Yes, auntie!” Rhae was quick to grab your hand and drag you down to the grass, putting all of her little body’s strength into it. “Sit with us!”

Well, how could you say no to them? Sometimes it felt like the children were the only genuine creatures in this castle, even if they could also be the most cruel ones.

You laughed out loud, forgetting about the awful feeling left in you after the dinner. Just before you approached the kids, it struck you that the news would eventually reach Baelor’s ears, and you would have to face him. The mere thought made you dizzy. Now you could abandon the worry for a while, almost choking on your giggle when you noticed that Daeron was making up the shapes he ‘saw’ in clouds at the demands of his sisters, while his eyes were still closed.

“That one looks like Uncle Baelor,” claimed Rhae, nudging her brother’s shoulder.

Her sister deeply disagreed, snorting under her breath. “Perhaps when his head was all swollen,” he mocked.

You knew she was a child who probably only meant to hurt her sibling a bit, but you couldn’t feel your breath stop for a while. You stayed still, not very trustful of your own reactions today. Thankfully little Egg, the kindest boy you knew, sat up immediately and threw his sister a look of utter disappointment.

“Daella!” He screamed at her, making her blush and look your way as if she just realized you were there.

“I didn’t mean… I’m sorry,” she said to you, looking at her feet.

“It is alright,” you said quickly, certainly not wanting to cry in front of them. “I must go back to my occupations now. Have fun and… try not to walk away far from your brother.”

You looked at Daeron, snoring and asleep again, for the final time before getting up.

It wasn’t alright, not at all. The memory of Baelor’s suffering was a horror you would never forget. All the moments when his sons woke up at night were engraved in your mind. When you didn’t keep watch over your husband, you often sat by their side, holding them in your arms when they needed it. They were almost men, and yet they called for their father like children because of the worry for his life.

Ashford was about to stay with the four of you forever, and you knew it was better to accept it. Just sometimes, in moments like this, when your husband was locked in his room, you felt the overwhelming burden of it. It was like a force that could break your shoulders, your spine, and bend you in half just so you could hide your aching head between your knees.

When you reached your bedroom again, you gripped the goblet of wine like it was your only salvation in life. Gods, you really couldn’t handle it sober today. It made you feel even more pathetic when Baelor came in the evening, forcing you to turn around to hide your face reddened from crying and drinking. You banished the memory as much as you could when he left, forced by your desperate please.

If only you knew how much it broke his heart to leave you with all of it alone.

The pain was unbearable when you stood in front of his study the next day. It was midday, and you could still feel like sleep didn’t free you from its paws.

You entered slowly, recalling all the words you had prepared. The door didn’t squeak; your steps didn’t betray you.

“I pray…” you spoke without proper greeting, but your voice broke. It was so pitiful you wanted to scream. “All I can hope for is that you see my behavior as humiliating only for myself and not for you too.”

Baelor's head snapped up, and his expression turned from surprise to something gentle.

“My wife…” he whispered like he didn't hear your words at all, just taken aback by your presence itself. You knew he had problems with hearing, but you also knew he did that deliberately now. “How do you feel, heart?” He asked, rising from his chair, not daring to step closer to you.

That was the worst; you screamed at him too last night, and now he resented you. He must have. You were almost scared of yourself too, especially after how you behaved towards him when drunk.

Moments after your fury and your vulgar, uncontrolled speech, you were partially proud of it. With time came the questioning. You decided you couldn't bear the embarrassment.

You refused to open the door when Baelor sought you, but he entered anyway.

“Please, please…” you sobbed in your drunken state. “Leave me alone. I am deeply sorry, husband, but I cannot– Scold me all you like… all I deserve, but tomorrow. Let me have tonight…”

“Are you certain you are good to stay on your own?”

“Fuck, just leave!”

He had awful remorse for leaving you alone, but you also never looked at him with such fright. He didn't know how to react and fled, feeling more like a coward than ever.

“Baelor…” you whispered, making him return his thoughts to now.

You didn't answer his question, but he saw you were swaying on your feet. It wasn't something he would ever blame you for. He remembered his youth well; he had drunken nights with his brothers and tried to drown his sorrows in wine as well in the past.

He wished to take you in his arms and rock you calmly but didn't wish to overstep. There was deep doubt in him that your wish from last night would ever leave his memory. To him it wasn’t about your behaviour, though. It was about how much he failed as a husband, which made you feel like you had to hide.

Left with no choice, straightened his back and took a deep breath. “I could never think of your acts as humiliating. To neither of us, never.”

It made your breath hitch.

“But I…”

“It was… unexpected, I admit.” He nodded his head and stood up slowly, allowing you to step away if you wished to.

He prayed you wouldn’t. It would be unbearable if you backed away to the wall, fleeing from him like that. His fists tightened and loosened as a way to distract himself from the need to have you close.

You teared up again, trying to fight it, but your head ached, blood buzzed in your ears, and you felt like collapsing in front of your husband.

Baelor broke his promise to not do anything against your wish. He ignored it and closed the distance between you, pulling you to his chest.

“Do not cry, my love,” he said softly, brushing the top of your head with his lips. “Shhh… I'm so sorry it happened to you.”

You allowed your hands to move up and grip the material of his clothing over his chest.

“I let him provoke me,” you explained, trying not to sound hysterical. “It's my fault…”

You could hear it in Baelor’s voice that he smirked. “Even if you're not the first and not the last.”

“I'm so sorry.”

He moved away just to have a proper look at you. With his thumb, he brushed your tears away. Then it collided with your shivering lower lip and pressed a little. When he leaned in and you felt his warm breath all over your neck, you couldn’t help but think that some part of him enjoyed all of it. You decided to ignore it, not wanting to leave things unsettled.

“Why are you apologizing to me, sweet?”

“I never meant to rush you outside our bedroom,” you explained, ignoring his question. “I didn’t want you to see me looking so pitiful. Certainly not when I expected you to be ashamed of me.”

“I could never be ashamed of you,” he assured you without the need to think about it. “And besides, from what Maekar told me, there is nothing I or you should feel bad about.”

You smothered the material over his chest from the crumples your grip left. You looked up at him again with worry. “Did he tell you what caused it?”

“He refused to, but don’t take me for a fool, my wife. I know this lordling’s belief better than I would like to,” he muttered with a grimace.

Not wishing to see him like that, you moved onto your tiptoes and tugged at the collar of his shirt. Your lips merely brushed over his, but you felt him smile and chase you chastely when you meant to pull away. His touch was warm, and a big hand placed over your back made you shiver.

“What he did mention, though,” he spoke up, parting from your lips swollen from your own biting, “was that you fought like a true dragon. It’s a grand compliment from my brother.”

“I am no dragon…”

“Well, I guess you take from people you surround yourself with.” He played with your hair before brushing it behind your shoulder. The path of his finger that traced your face made you realize he missed you as much as you missed him. “Now answer my question, wife. How are you feeling?”

The tension suddenly left you, making you sigh deeply. You were happy to lean into Baelor’s strong arms more, supported by him.

“Awful,” you admitted. “Disgusting…”

That's what he figured. A night like that couldn’t leave you with anything good, especially when the remorse that caused it was unnecessary.

“Will you allow me to take care of you?”

“I don't want to be a bother,” you murmured quietly, hiding your face in his chest, but he gently made you look at him again.

“Nonsense. And when you feel better, perhaps tomorrow, I would like to take you for a ride. Would that be appealing to you?”

You hesitated for a while, knowing how much worse Baelor’s anger could make the situation. Still, you placed his good name above everything, and it felt like your chore to remind him of that.

“Baelor, I think it would be better if I stayed out of sight for some time. I certainly shouldn't show up next to you anywhere. At least for a few days. I…”

Baelor's eyes darkened dangerously. You felt him cupping your face tighter. Still gentle enough to call it sweet, but it was slowly turning into a touch of urgency. Made from the need to keep you close even against the wishes of others.

“Are those your thoughts, or did someone suggest that to you?” His voice turned lower and quieter. He always spoke his warnings like that. But it wasn’t meant to intimidate you, certainly not.

“They are mine,” you promised. “I only meant what's good for you…”

Baelor stared at you, his face barely over yours, and you would swear he didn’t even breathe. You could no longer recognize if his expression was a grimace or a smile, but there was something wicked in it. Something that you could only see on Baelor when he was furious or led by desire. It made you feel warm.

With thrill settling in the base of your spine, you wrapped your arms around Baelor, settling yourself more comfortably against him.

“Husband?”

“Say it again,” he dared. “Say that your wish is to stay away from me.”

“Oh, you know that it's not like that.”

“Say it,” he repeated, placing his big hand at the nape of your neck like he needed to support your head. He forced you to look up and throw your head back a little.

You watched him eye your bare neck like a man starved for what was his to take.

“I don't want to say it.”

He brushed another strand of hair out of the way. Your noses almost touched before he leaned in closer. A lazy kiss was placed on the side of your neck, dragged on for too long to consider it proper. Baelor’s warm lips traveled up to your ear, settling there for a while and playing with your earlobe before he spoke up again.

“If anyone says something about it again,” he spoke up in a serious, quiet voice that sent shivers down your body, “tries to pursue you into staying in the shadows…”

“Baelor,” you didn’t want him to end that sentence, even if your less rational part was thrilled with it. Enough harm was done already.

But would Baelor think the same if he were there with you, hearing the lord speak all of those sick words? For now he looked shaken only by the idea that you could be pushed away from your place by his side.

“Whoever tries to keep you away from me will have to face something much worse than your screams. Not that they weren’t scary enough, from what I’ve heard.”

a/n: this was such a pleasure to write. just me, wine and my dear friend baelor break-my-back… oh i mean–

The first proposal arrived on a Tuesday.

Baelor knew this because he had been in his mother's solar when the messenger came — had been in the middle of a sentence about grain yields in the Reach, which was not a subject that had ever previously caused him difficulty — when Myriah had accepted the sealed letter, read it with the pleasantly neutral expression she deployed when delivering information she intended to observe him receiving, and said: "Lord Ambrose Celtigar has written to your father regarding a match."

Baelor had finished his sentence about grain yields. He had said I see with the composure that had served him in war councils and throne rooms and every demanding context his life had presented him with. He had excused himself at a reasonable hour and walked back to his solar and sat down and looked at the wall.

Lord Ambrose Celtigar was thirty four years old. Not unpleasant looking, by general report. He held a respectable seat, had no significant character defects that Baelor was aware of, and was by every measurable standard a perfectly suitable match for a young woman of good family and accomplishment.

Baelor sat with this information for some time. He thought about it with the same thorough attention he brought to tactical assessments and pieces of legislation that required careful consideration. He thought about Lord Celtigar's seat and Lord Celtigar's reported appearance and Lord Celtigar's presumably functional absence of character defects. Then, against his better judgement and with the inevitability of a man who has been trying not to think about something for several moons and has finally encountered a reason he cannot maintain the effort, he thought about you. He thought about the particular way you laughed when something actually struck you as funny rather than merely requiring a polite response. He thought about all the moons of carrying something carefully that he had been meaning to do something about and had not yet done something about, and he sat with the full uncomfortable weight of that gap until the candles had burned considerably lower than when he sat down. Then he went to bed and did not sleep particularly well.

The second proposal arrived on a Thursday. Ser Willam Waxley — twenty eight, well regarded, good family, reportedly personable in the specific way that made Baelor briefly and irrationally consider what reportedly personable actually meant in practice and whether it was a quality you would find appealing, which was not a line of thinking he pursued to its conclusion because he had more self-respect than that. He received the information from his mother over correspondence review, said I see, finished his tea, and continued with the correspondence. It took longer than usual. He kept losing his place.

The third proposal arrived the following Monday, and Baelor heard it from one of his mother's ladies who mentioned it to another in passing while crossing the training yard without any awareness that he was within earshot. Lord Patrek Mallister — young, wealthy, the kind of man described by other men as having prospects, which was a phrase Baelor had always found vague and now found specifically aggravating. He held his sword incorrectly for the remainder of the session. His master at arms observed this with the expression of a man who had seen many things in training yards and had made a professional decision to comment on none of them today.

By the second week Myriah had stopped pretending she was telling him incidentally.

She told him directly now, with the pleasant composure of a woman delivering information she had every right to deliver, and watched his face with the specific attentiveness she had been applying to him since he was approximately four years old and had not, in the intervening decades, become any less accurate. "Lord Rowan," she said one Wednesday morning, in the same tone she might use to note the weather. "He sent a very thoughtful letter. Apparently he is an articulate man — the letter suggested genuine consideration of the match. He mentioned his gardens specifically. Considerable, by his account."

"How nice for him," said Baelor, examining his correspondence with the focused attention of a man who was absolutely reading every word and not at all conducting a parallel and involuntary assessment of whether considerable gardens were a meaningful advantage in the context of a marriage proposal.

"They are in the Reach," Myriah offered. "Lovely climate."

"I am aware where the Reach is, Mother."

"I am simply noting that Lord Rowan appears to be a man of—"

"I am aware," he said, with the measured evenness that cost him slightly more than it usually did, "of Lord Rowan's considerable attributes."

Myriah looked at him over the rim of her tea with the serenity of a woman who had already drawn her conclusions and was simply allowing the conversation to confirm them at its own pace. Across the room you turned a page of correspondence with your habitual focused attention, entirely unaware that a man three feet from your queen was conducting his seventeenth silent assessment of the morning of whether the Reach's climate was in any way a disqualifying characteristic in a prospective husband and arriving, frustratingly, at no useful conclusion.

The problem — and he had examined this problem with the thoroughness it deserved, sitting with it in his solar across several evenings while the candles burned and the city went about its business outside his window — was not that the proposals were coming. Of course they were coming. You were accomplished and intelligent and the kind of person who made rooms better by being in them, and proposals were the entirely predictable result of other people having eyes and using them. The problem was that he had been meaning to do something about a feeling he had been carrying for far too many moons and had not done something about it, and now other men were doing something about it, and the window in which doing something felt like a considered and deliberate choice was rapidly becoming a window in which doing something felt like a response to a crisis. He did not want to do something as a response to a crisis. He wanted to do something because it was right and honest and because he meant it entirely, not because Lord Rowan had considerable gardens and the Reach had a lovely climate. The distinction mattered to him. The distinction was, currently, making his life significantly more difficult than it needed to be.

The fifth proposal was from a lord whose name he forgot immediately upon hearing it, which concerned him more than anything else that had happened so far. He had a good memory. He did not forget names. He went back to his solar and sat with the wall for an hour before acknowledging that the wall had never once been helpful and he should probably stop consulting it.

Maekar found him on the battlements on a Thursday evening, which was not unusual — Maekar found him in various places occasionally and delivered his opinions without invitation, which was simply a feature of having a brother that Baelor had long since accepted. "You look terrible," Maekar said, by way of greeting, leaning against the stone beside him with the air of a man who had come here with a specific purpose and was not going to be deflected from it by pleasantries. Baelor thanked him with the composure of someone receiving a compliment and returned his attention to the city. The city, like the wall, was not particularly helpful.

"The proposals," Maekar said.

"I am not discussing this."

"You have been discussing it with yourself for two weeks. Loudly, in the sense that everyone can see you doing it even though you have not said a word." Maekar paused, with the brief patience of a man making a concession to tact before abandoning it. "She does not know. She has no idea — she sorts the correspondence and answers the proposals politely and has absolutely no indication that you are standing on battlements losing your ability to remember lords' names because of it."

"I did not forget his name."

"You called Lord Fossoway Lord Forrest twice in council," Maekar said flatly, "and his name is Fossoway and you never forget names. Do something about it."

"It is not that simple."

"It is exactly that simple. You consider things until other men act and then you consider the consequences of other men acting. Do something about it." He let that sit for a moment, then pushed off the wall and left with the decisive efficiency of a man who had said what he came to say and had no interest in discussing it further.

Baelor stood on the battlements for a while longer. He thought about Lord Fossoway, whose name he had apparently been calling wrong. He thought about Lord Rowan's gardens and Lord Lyonel Tyrell, who had not yet written but whose existence as a potential candidate Myriah had mentioned with the casual precision of someone planting a seed and fully expecting it to grow. He thought about you sorting correspondence with your focused attention entirely unaware that he was up here mangling names. Then he went inside, because the battlements were cold and the wall had already established it was not going to be helpful and Maekar was right, which was an irritating thing to have to acknowledge even internally.

The sixth proposal arrived on a Friday morning and was, by his mother's assessment delivered with a serenity that he found specifically challenging, the most serious one yet. Lord Lyonel Tyrell. Young. Wealthy. The heir to Highgarden.

He sat in his habitual chair and looked at the correspondence he was not reading and thought about Highgarden with the sustained focus of a man attempting to locate a flaw and being unable to find one. Highgarden had gardens that made Lord Rowan's look modest. It had resources and position and climate that were objectively difficult to argue with. Lord Lyonel Tyrell was, by every measurable standard, an excellent prospect, and Baelor was a fair enough man to acknowledge this even when the acknowledgment was deeply inconvenient.

You were at the correspondence table. You were wearing the blue dress — you always concentrated better in the blue dress, he had noticed this some time ago, something in the colour seemed to settle something in you. You had a small ink stain on your left forefinger from where the pen had slipped earlier and you had not noticed and he had noticed and had said nothing, because saying you have ink on your finger would have been a reasonable and unremarkable thing to say and for some reason this morning reasonable and unremarkable things felt slightly beyond him. He was going to lose you to Highgarden. Lord Lyonel Tyrell was going to take you to his considerable gardens and his considerable resources and you were going to sort his correspondence and make his rooms better by being in them and—

"Your grace."

He looked up. You were looking at him from the correspondence table with an expression of mild concern, which meant the expression on his face had apparently communicated something he had not intended to communicate. "Are you well?" you asked, and he said yes, and you looked at him with that observational patience that had always seen more than he planned for, and said he had been quiet, a different kind of quiet, and he told you he was perfectly well with the composure he had left and you returned to the correspondence and he looked at the window and thought, very clearly and very finally, that he was done thinking about Highgarden.

He stood up.

He crossed the room.

He stopped beside the correspondence table and you looked up and he looked at you — at the ink on your left forefinger and the blue dress and the expression that was currently hovering between curious and concerned — and he thought about Maekar saying do something about it with the bluntness of someone who had run entirely out of patience for watching things not happen. He thought about Lord Fossoway, whose name he had been mangling. He thought about Lord Lyonel Tyrell's gardens, which he was done thinking about.

"There is something," he said, "that I should have said some time ago."

You put down your pen.

"Alright," you said quietly, a light frown appearing on your face.

He looked at you — at your face, which was giving him its full attentive consideration the way it always did — and he thought about how he had wanted to do this properly. Considered rather than reactive. Chosen rather than pressured. He had wanted the moment to be right and he had been waiting for the moment to be right and the moment had apparently decided not to wait for him and had gone ahead and arrived anyway in the middle of a Friday morning over a correspondence table with an ink stain on your finger, and he found, standing here, that he did not mind this even slightly.

"I love you," he said. Quietly. Plainly. With the full weight of the words and several proposals in his mind and one brother's bluntness behind it. "I have loved you for some time. I had wanted to tell you when the moment felt properly considered rather than — I had wanted it to be right rather than reactive, and in attempting to ensure that I have apparently been calling lords by the wrong names and holding my sword incorrectly and consulting walls, none of which has been productive. It has been brought to my attention, with some force, that I consider things at the expense of doing them. I am attempting to correct this."

The solar was very quiet.

You looked at him for a long moment, something moving across your face through several registers — the attentive reading quality, and then something warmer and more wondering beneath it, and then something that was almost but not quite a laugh — and you said: "Lord Tyrell."

"Has excellent gardens," he said. "Yes."

"And Lord Rowan."

"Lovely climate."

"And Ser Willam Waxley and Lord Celtigar and—"

"Yes," he said. "All of them. I am aware of all of them in considerable detail, I have been aware of all of them in considerable detail for two weeks, and I would like, if it is at all possible, to stop being aware of them."

The almost-laugh became something more definite, and he stood beside the correspondence table and watched you laugh softly and found that the moons of careful management had nowhere left to go except simply — out. Released. Like something that had been held very tightly finally being allowed to exist without the holding.

"I was not going to accept any of them," you said, when the laugh had settled into something quieter and warmer. "I had no intention of accepting any of them. For reasons that I think are probably apparent."

He went still. "How long," he said.

"Longer than two weeks," you said softly.

The solar was warm and golden and entirely, completely quiet. He reached across the correspondence table and covered your hand with his — the one with the ink on the finger, the one he had noticed and said nothing about, the one he was done saying nothing about — and felt you turn your palm and close your fingers around his with the ease of something that had always been going to happen and had simply required a Tuesday and too many proposals for his liking and one correctly remembered name to arrive.

"I would like," he said, "to have a conversation that is considerably overdue."

You looked up at him with that real smile — the one underneath all the others — and said: "Are you going to consider it first, or simply have it?"

He looked at you for a moment. "Simply have it," he said.

Outside the solar a Friday morning in spring continued with cheerful indifference to the fact that Prince Baelor Targaryen had just resolved moons of careful management in approximately four minutes. Somewhere in the castle Myriah Martell set down her tea with the expression of a woman who had been waiting for this particular Friday since approximately the third moon and found it entirely satisfactory. In the adjoining corridor Maekar, who had absolutely not been listening at the door, walked away with the expression of a man who had said do something about it and had been correct and intended to bring this up at the earliest opportunity and every opportunity thereafter.

You were still holding his hand across the correspondence table. Baelor looked at that for a moment — at your fingers closed around his and the ink stain and the blue dress and the smile that was still present in the corners of your mouth — and thought that he intended to do something about that too. Properly this time. Without the walls and the battlements and the involuntary memorisation of other men's garden statistics. Simply and directly and without further delay, in the manner Maekar had recommended and that he was now prepared to fully endorse.

He was, after all, done considering.

A.N.: I have been sitting with this request for some time. Sorry for being this late, I have not been as inspired as I would have wanted to. Some people have noted that the AKOTSK is kinda dying (or dozing off) and I think I have the same feeling, idk. Guess I need to take it easy for a minute or two. Thank you all for your constant support, you are all champs <3

Taglist: @qardasngan @nerdyinfluencertastemaker @princessphilly @shyravenns @loveslide @dulcebloodhnd @caitlynluna @mongrelcryptid @sacha1slytherin @faithfullyvigilantsliver @alternarabuda @jjubilee-fluff

The air at Summerhall was thick enough to drown in.

It carried the overripe, rotting sweetness of bruised plums and night-blooming jasmine, a cloying perfume that hung in the humidity and clung to the skin. Aerion despised it. He preferred the sharp, dry heat of King’s Landing, or the sulfurous bite of Dragonstone. Summerhall was a palace built for indulgence, soft and yielding, much like the lords and ladies currently spilling out from the feast hall onto the upper terraces.

He could feel their eyes. A hundred parasites leaning over the carved marble balustrades, their wine-flushed faces half-hidden by shadows and climbing ivy, watching the newly betrothed couple take their first ceremonial stroll through the lower gardens.

Aerion’s hand rested over yours where you held his arm. His grip was precisely calibrated. To the sycophants on the terrace, it looked like the possessive, attentive touch of a prince deeply enamored with his future bride. In reality, his thumb was pressed hard into the delicate grouping of tendons on the back of your hand, the heavy gold edge of his signet ring digging into your flesh, grinding down with every step you both took down the sweeping limestone stairs.

He wanted to see you flinch. He had been applying this specific, grinding pressure since you left the great hall, waiting for the inevitable stutter in your step, the sharp intake of breath, the widening of your eyes.

You gave him nothing.

Your hand beneath his remained perfectly relaxed, resting lightly against the crimson silk of his doublet. You walked with the infuriating, measured rhythm you had maintained since arriving in the South.

"They are waiting for you to stumble, my lady," Aerion murmured, his voice a low, melodic hum pitched only for your ears. He did not look at you. He kept his gaze forward, his profile angled perfectly to catch the silver moonlight. "The Tyrells, the Peakes, the flock of useless second sons. They are watching your hem. They want the Northern savage to trip over her heavy velvet and break her nose on the marble."

"And what does Your Grace want?" you asked. Your voice was flat, carrying the cold acoustic deadness of a snowdrift.

"I want to see how long it takes for the frost to melt off you." Aerion shifted his grip, sliding his hand up your wrist, his fingers clamping tight enough to restrict the blood flow. "You ate the roasted boar tonight with the enthusiasm of a starved hound. I watched you cut the meat. You hold a knife like a man who kills for a living, not a lady of a great house."

"The boar was dead, Your Grace. It didn't require much technique."

Aerion’s jaw tightened. He smiled, a brilliant, terrifying curve of his mouth that he aimed toward the dark canopy of the weeping willows ahead.

"You think your insolence is armor," he said pleasantly. You stepped off the final marble stair together and onto the crushed gravel of the garden path. The crunch of your footsteps masked the distant strains of the high harp drifting down from the feast. "It is entirely transparent. I have broken older, crueler, and much more interesting things than you, little wolf. I am going to peel that stoicism off you layer by layer until you are begging me for the privilege of serving my wine."

You did not miss a step. You did not attempt to pull your arm away. The heavy cobalt wool of your cloak brushed against his leg.

"If I pour your wine, you'll have to drink it," you said.

Aerion halted. The sudden stop sent a spray of white gravel across the manicured grass. He turned to face you fully, stepping into your space, crowding you. He was taller, broader, armored in layers of stiffened silk and gold thread that cost more than your father’s entire bleak fortress.

The light from the distant torches caught your face. You were not a classical beauty. Your jaw was too sharp, your coloring too muted, entirely lacking the Valyrian luminescence he was accustomed to. You looked exactly like what you were: a creature bred in the dark, frozen ass-end of the world.

But your eyes were steady.

Aerion reached out and caught your chin. He didn't use his fingertips; he used the hard ridge of his thumb and the knuckle of his index finger, pinching the bone of your jaw with enough force to leave a bruise by morning. He forced your head up.

"You have a very poor understanding of your position," Aerion said softly. The music from the terrace was barely a whisper here, swallowed by the dense foliage of the arbor. "You are a broodmare. A political concession. Your father sent you south because he is a coward who understands that fire consumes ice. When we are married, you will not speak unless I grant you permission. You will not look at me unless I command it. And if you ever attempt to threaten me again, I will have your tongue cut out and served to your father wrapped in a Stark banner."

He waited for the fear. He thrived on it. He needed to see the pupil dilate, the slight tremor in your lower lip, the sudden, shallow spike of breathing. It was his favorite vintage, and he was thirsty.

You looked up at him, your chin caught in his vice grip. Your breath brushed against his knuckles. It was slow. Even.

Your eyes dropped from his violet gaze, tracking slowly down the line of his nose, the curve of his mouth, the exposed skin of his throat above the stiff, jewel-encrusted collar of his doublet.

"Your pulse is elevated," you noted.

Aerion froze.

"It's beating erratically right here," you continued, your voice entirely conversational. You lifted your free hand. You did not try to break his grip on your jaw. Instead, you brought your hand up to his throat.

Aerion’s immediate instinct was to break your wrist. His muscles twitched, primed for violence, but the sheer, bizarre audacity of the movement paralyzed him for a fraction of a second.

Your fingers were not soft. The skin of your palm was rough, scraped with calluses that had no business being on a highborn lady. You pressed the pads of your index and middle fingers directly against the carotid artery on the side of his neck.

"There," you said quietly. "Fast. Shallow. Like a rabbit."

He shoved your hand away, violently slapping your arm down, his own composure fracturing for the first time since you had met. He dropped his grip on your jaw and stepped back, his chest rising.

"Do not touch me," he hissed, the courtly volume control snapping.

You let your hand fall to your side, entirely unbothered by the strike. You didn't rub the skin where he had hit you. You just watched him.

The dynamic in the heavy, perfumed air shifted. It was an ugly, grinding sensation, like the gears of a siege engine slipping a notch. Aerion was accustomed to people shrinking away from him. When he escalated, they retreated. It was the natural law of the world. The dragon opened its jaws, and the sheep scattered.

You had not retreated. You had stepped inside his guard.

"You speak a great deal about breaking things," you said, your head tilting slightly to the side. The shadows of the arbor leaves painted dark, fractured patterns across your face. "You talk about it constantly. It’s all you wanted to discuss during the feast. You broke a servant's fingers for spilling wine. You broke a horse for refusing a jump. You broke a puppet show in Ashford because you didn't like the ending."

"I did what was necessary to maintain respect."

"You did what was necessary to keep yourself entertained," you corrected smoothly. "But it's a very loud kind of entertainment, isn't it? It requires an audience. You brought me all the way down here, out of the light, but you made sure we were still just visible enough that the lords on the terrace could see the silhouette of you dominating your new Northern bride."

Aerion’s eyes narrowed. "You think you are clever. You are merely a provincial attempting to read a book in a language she doesn't speak."

"I speak violence perfectly well, Your Grace," you said as you took a step toward him.

Aerion did not step back. To step back would be a concession, a physical surrender, and a Targaryen did not yield ground. But his spine locked, and the crushed gravel crunched under your heavy leather boots. You didn't wear the delicate silk slippers the Southern women wore. You wore riding boots, practical and lethal.

"The problem with breaking things," you said, your voice dropping lower, slipping beneath the ambient noise of the garden, "is that you are only powerful as long as the thing you are breaking agrees to be fragile."

You took another step. You were close enough now that he could smell the cold, sharp scent of you. It cut through the sickening sweetness of the Summerhall blooms like a rusted iron blade. 

Pine needles, woodsmoke, and the metallic tang of snow.

"You are threatening the wrong woman," you whispered.

"I could snap your neck before you could draw breath to scream," he said, the words slipping out through his teeth. It wasn't a premeditated threat, it was a raw, reactive snarl.

"You could try." You looked up at him, and for the first time that evening, you smiled.

It was a hideous thing. It didn't reach your eyes, didn't soften the sharp angles of your face. It was the baring of teeth.

"But you won't," you continued softly. "Because you know that if you put your hands on my throat, I will not cry. I will not beg. I will take this heavy silver hairpin," you gestured vaguely to the intricate mass of dark hair coiled at the nape of your neck, "and I will drive it directly upward through the soft tissue under your jaw, pinning your tongue to the roof of your mouth. You will drown in your own blood right here in the gravel, and the last thing you will see is me, entirely unbothered."

Aerion stared at you.

The heat in his blood spiked, a violent, confusing rush of adrenaline that settled heavy and hot low in his stomach. It was fury, absolute and unadulterated, but threaded through it was an electric, sickening jolt of arousal. He had never been spoken to this way. He had never been looked at this way.

You weren't looking at him with awe. You weren't looking at him with fear.

You were looking at him the way a butcher evaluates a carcass. Figuring out where the joints connect. Deciding where to make the first cut.

"You are insane," he breathed.

"I am realistic." You closed the final inch between them. You were shorter than him, forcing him to look down, but the physical reality of you felt massive, immovable. "You want a victim. You want a soft, weeping thing to torment in the dark to make yourself feel like a god. You chose poorly."

Aerion reached for you again, moving purely on instinct, his hand flashing out to grip your throat. He wanted to feel the pulse you had mocked him for. He wanted to squeeze until your eyes rolled back.

He moved fast, the speed that had won him a hundred melees.

You were faster.

Your hand shot up, your fingers wrapping around his wrist just below his heavy rings. Your grip was startlingly strong, the calluses scraping against his fine skin. You didn't try to wrestle his arm down, you couldn't have, he was twice your weight, but you caught his momentum, using his own force to pull him off balance, stepping slightly to the side so his hand slammed hard against the stone trunk of the statue behind him.

Pain flared up his forearm, a sharp, blinding crack.

Aerion gasped, stumbling forward into your space.

Before he could recover, before he could leverage his weight, you moved in. You pressed your body against his, crowding him against the cold stone of the statue. Your hand remained clamped around his wrist, pinning his injured hand against the rock.

"Do you know how they kill wolves in the North?" you murmured, your lips practically brushing the fine silver hairs at his temple.

Aerion was breathing hard. The pain in his hand was sharp, metallic, but the pressure of your body against his, the rigid, unyielding lines of your posture, the heat radiating through the thick wool of your cloak, was suffocating. He tried to pull his wrist free. You twisted it slightly, digging your thumb directly into the nerve cluster he had assaulted earlier on your own hand.

He inhaled sharply through his teeth, his jaw locking.

"They don't hunt them," you whispered, your breath hot against his skin. "They bait them. They put a piece of bleeding meat in the snow, and they bury a blade in the center of it. The wolf licks the blood. It licks the blade. It cuts its own tongue, and it bleeds to death drinking its own blood, entirely convinced it is gorging itself on a kill."

You stepped back abruptly, releasing his wrist.

Aerion staggered slightly, his shoulder catching against the stone to keep himself upright. He cradled his hand against his chest, the knuckles throbbing. His heart was hammering against his ribs, a frantic, frantic rhythm that he could not control.

You stood two paces away, your hands folded neatly in front of you. The cobalt cloak fell perfectly straight. Your breathing was completely undisturbed.

Up on the terrace, the music swelled, a bright, trilling melody played on the high harp. Someone laughed, a sound that carried over the manicured hedges. To the lords watching from above, the silhouette was likely romantic. The prince leaning against the stone, you standing before him.

"I am not a rabbit, Aerion," you said, driving the blade in deeper. "I am the blade in the meat. Keep biting."

You turned, your heavy skirts swishing against the gravel, and began to walk back up the path toward the lights of the terrace. You did not look back to see if he was following. You did not hurry.

Aerion remained pinned against the stone.

The cloying scent of the Summerhall gardens suddenly made him want to vomit. He looked down at his hand. The skin across his knuckles was raw, bleeding slightly where it had scraped the stone. He rubbed his thumb over the blood, smearing it across his heavy gold signet ring.

His chest heaved. The fury in him was a living thing, thrashing violently against his ribs, but beneath it, the cold, terrifying realization settled into his bones like frost.

He was not holding the leash.

He watched the dark shape of you moving steadily through the weeping willows, your posture impossibly straight, cutting through the heavy Southern air like an executioner’s axe.

He tasted copper in his mouth. He had bitten his own cheek.

Aerion swallowed the blood, his eyes locked on your retreating back, the burning in his chest shifting from the heat of control to the agonizing, terrifying heat of the trap.

He pushed himself off the stone and followed you into the dark.

“I know cities,” Lyanna replies back simply, “and a city that has more people hungry than people fed is not a good city.”

You can’t help but smile a bit at your sister’s naïveté. She knew as well as you did that isn’t how diplomacy worked. No king could snap his fingers and rid Westeros of hunger and strife. It is a nice thought, though.

“And your betrothed? What do you think of him?” you ask, your inflection curious but restrained. 

“I suppose we will see, won’t we?” Lyanna tries to sound unaffected by the responsibility placed upon her slight shoulders, but you notice her hands threading the fur of her coat incessantly, the slight tremble to her fingers.

There’s a lapse in conversation as you look down at your lap as if it holds the answer to all your worries. Lyanna is not your full sister, but she is your sister nonetheless. You worry for her more than anyone else in the seven kingdoms.

“Perhaps he will surprise you,” you tell her this in earnest, but even you recognize that your words ring hollow. 

In the farthest reaches of the north, whispers of the Targaryens were as commonplace as snow. One cannot wonder what the Red Keep is like without considering the people that live there. They have ruled on the Iron Throne since the time that dragons walked among people. Some were quick to call them “gods among men” whilst others claimed they were a stain upon the seven kingdoms

You cannot blame either side. It seems to be a bit like flipping a coin whether or not a Targaryen ruler would be corrupted by the weight of all it entails. You would never gamble on those odds.

“The castle,” your sister’s voice is tremulous and weak and it quickly shakes you from your thoughts. You look over at her and notice the widening of her eyes as she peers out the small window.

Your curiosity wins over your fear as you lean forward to take in the view. The castle is simultaneously beautiful as it is haunting. Landed on the precipice of an imposing cliff, your eyes slide down the brick side to the edge and your eyes make the jump over the rocky shoreline to the water below. You briefly wonder how many people had fallen to their deaths there. You shake your head to clear yourself of such thoughts.

The rest of the journey to the Red Keep moves slowly. Each rattle of the carriage has you clutching your gown in the hope you could steel your nerves. You are not the one being sold off like a breeding mare today, so why are you so nervous?

When the horses finally draw to a stop, you bite your lip so hard that you begin to taste copper. You release your lip when you meet Lyanna’s eyes from across the carriage; her eyes looking between yours in some semblance of comfort, some kind of bravery. You reach across the carriage to grasp her hand. Her palm is slick and trembling.

“No matter what happens,” you tell her softly, “I will be here for you. Always.”

Lyanna’s quivering lips pull into a soft smile at the corners. She averts her eyes.

“I know I have not always been the best to you.” She pulls at an invisible thread of her beautiful deep grey gown as she speaks, too afraid or embarrassed to meet your eyes. “But you have always been my closest friend.”

You purse your lips at the thought of you and Lyanna’s tempestuous relationship and nod. You squeeze her hand once and pull away just as the doors to the carriage open and a burst of light blinds you.

You lean back so as to escape the light’s reach and to show deference to your sister. Lyanna is the picture of elegance and beauty as she stands from her spot across from you and takes poised steps down to the path below. You move only once she has cleared herself completely out of the way.

You stand and grab the outstretched hand of a nearby guard to help escort you down. You squint your eyes to better focus on the outside as the light assaults your senses. In Winterfell, the sun is never this bright. And if it is, it is filtered through thick tree branches or clouds. This sun is aggressive and its light immediately heats your skin through your thick fur coat.

You keep your eyes respectfully averted as you join your sister and your father, but you allow them to trail upwards after you have taken your place and successfully escaped the spotlight.

Your eyes latch onto a feeble older man near the front of the line. You recognize him immediately by his deep red robes, violet eyes, and gold crown as King Daeron. His hair is white and his skin is aged and pale as the full moon on a deep starless night. His gaze sweeps across the dire wolves assembled in front of him like the round, intelligent eyes of an owl. When they reach you, his near-white eyebrows furrow only slightly. It is an imperceptible difference that not many would catch. A bastard always would, though. 

It is the same expression that other noble ladies would make after hearing of your parentage. The same face that suitors of your sister would pull when they noticed the stark differences between you and Lyanna. It was the same face Lord and Lady Stark made every time they looked upon your visage as a child.

You look back down at the ground, content to trace the lines in the cobble beneath your feet as they spoke.

“Lord Stark,” the King’s voice is light and youthful as he speaks, a difference to his weathered face, “it is a pleasure to welcome you to the Red Keep.”

You look over at your father as he nods. His beard moves as a smile splits his face. “No words can fully capture our deep gratitude for you having us.”

The king nods once before he looks back at your sister. Your eyes unconsciously drift across the gathered faces.

Each one you recognize from stories and vague descriptions from your studies. Maekar Targaryen, the youngest son–the anvil, strong and capable. His eldest children; Daeron, Aerion, and Daella. Two other young children. And then… Baelor Targaryen.

You startle when you realize his eyes are already centered on you. His eyes, the most recognizable of his features, one violet-blue and the other a deep brown, are extremely intimidating. Something lingers there, behind those mismatched eyes. Something that you cannot quite place. You look away just as his own flit toward his father.

“And those you have brought with you?” the king beckons.

Your father’s head turns in your direction. You do not look at him, but you can feel his gaze burning holes in the side of your face. You know what he is feeling. The embarrassment at having to present his beautiful, perfect daughter and then the walking depiction of his sins on the other. He looks back to the king and you let out a breath as his gaze is removed from your face.

“These are my daughters Lyanna and–” 

“You are Lady Snow,” a small voice interrupts your father. “You are the bastard.” Your heart pounds in your ears as your eyes seek to identify the speaker. 

Your gaze meets the violet ones of a young boy across from you. Prince Aegon, you guess. He can’t be older than eight or nine, a small, genuine smile pulling at the edges of his lips. He was smiling… at you?

His father immediately grabs his shoulder and the boy falls silent under his disapproving eyes. You do not fault the boy. If anything, he made the whole thing a bit easier. Now, everyone is on a level playing field. 

“My apologies,” the king says, and you are startled to find his gaze not on your father but on you. “The boy has yet to learn when to hold his tongue.”

You smile tensely. “It is quite all right, My Grace. Ae-the boy meant no harm.”

The king smiles at you, genuinely, and you think in that moment that perhaps you had judged his character too hastily. 

Your father steps forward. “She will not be of consequence to you or your family, My Grace. She knows well her place.” 

You swallow thickly and any happiness or feelings of acceptance you had been mulling in disappear. 

“Hm,” the king does not say more. Silence settles over the courtyard like snow blanketing a valley.

You hear the sound of boots clanking against cobble and your eyes drift up from the ground to the figure approaching. Baelor’s deep black and maroon coat swishes across the paving as he takes long strides toward Lyanna. You watch from the side of your sister as he looks deeply into her eyes and a small smile curls at the edges of his lips.

“My lady,” his voice is soft. It sounds like the crackle of fire warming a room. The sound of the crunch of snow underneath heavy boots through an old growth forest. The sound of a lone dire wolf howling from afar, searching for its missing half.

Lyanna smiles gently and curtsies. Her dark hair slips from the thick coat and tumbles into her vision like the waves of a waterfall slipping off the edge of a cliff. Everything she does is carefully measured and planned, from the slightest gesture of her hand to the expression on her face. Your sister carries an effortless grace you could only hopelessly dream of. She offers her dainty hand and Baelor reaches forward to grasp it within his own. A small smile slips across your mouth as he bends his head down to plant a curt kiss across her knuckles. You notice your sister’s lips tremble with delight.

Their hands slip away from each other and Baelor takes a step back. You think he is going to go back to his spot with his house, but then he surprises you by stepping forward toward you. 

He keeps a respectful distance as he nods his head in your direction. “Lady Snow.”

You hide your tremulous hands under your coat as you do your best attempt at a curtsy. His eyes wrinkle at the edges and a smile flirts at the edges of his lips. You do not return the gesture–it is already enough that he has singled you out in the way he has, no need to stoke the flame.

As he finally steps away, you realize what emotion it is he hid behind his mismatched eyes you saw before but could not place. Curiosity. 

If Winterfell is a sleeping den of wolves, then the Red Keep is charged like a viper’s nest. Everywhere you turn, there is someone lurking. You cannot ever fully escape the stares that follow you regardless of where you are or what you are doing. 

Suddenly, you find yourself seeking the most recluded spots in order to escape it. You find yourself backing out of arrangements and responsibilities more often than you ever have. Sometimes you sit in your chambers all day in the hopes that the quilts will simply swallow you whole.

Instead of your usual wallowing, that morrow you slip away with the first rays of light to the courtyard. You have traded your usual plethora of thick fur-lined gowns with airy dresses that you feel that you can actually move and breathe in. People pass you and give you cursory glances, but you realise that most do not recognise you as the Stark you are without your fur. You smile to yourself for a moment at the realization before your thoughts are shattered by the sight of your sister striding toward you.

“Lyanna,” you say, surprised by her appearance so early in the morning. She is one to not be so easily roused from her chambers, rather, she usually sleeps until the sun is high in the sky. 

She is dressed in a beautiful fur-lined coat and a deep emerald gown that draws eyes from every corner of the courtyard. That, along with her striking northern beauty compared to your plain commoner beauty, is the reason you shrink in on yourself when you see her headed your way.

She smiles and grasps your arm, threading it across her own in a secure hold. “Walk with me.” The statement is less of a question than it is an order. You are used to following your sister’s bidding and so you simply bite your tongue and follow her as she leads you across the courtyard.

“How have you been, sister?” she asks. You startle at the title she only scarcely afforded you. Being called Lyanna’s sister–the acknowledgement of it–was not something that you were used to.

“Just fine,” you tell her, though it could not be farther from the truth, “and you?”

The smile that whips across your sister’s face makes you realize that the question had been less a genuine one and rather a formality. What Lyanna really wanted was to tell you about her day, but she had to get all the boring questions of your own out of the way first so she didn’t come across as a complete bitch.

“I have had the best few days,” Lyanna says in hurried excitement, “the gods have really smiled down upon me as of late.”

You bite your lip to prevent yourself from questioning her. The Gods? Which, those of the Old or of the Sept? 

“I’m glad to hear that,” you say. You think you might actually mean it, but a part of you stews in jealousy. While your sister thrives like a flower underneath the oppressive sun of the Red Keep, you wilt and long for the wild outside the walls.

“Baelor is so sweet,” Lyanna continues unperturbed by your lackluster reply, “he took me on a walk around the gardens yesterday. He told me all about his duties as Lord Hand, which I mostly tuned out, but then he picked a flower and gave it to me and said that I was as pretty as a rose and I nearly cried.”

You almost laugh at the irony of the differences between you and Lyanna. You would have been thrilled to hear about the duties of a hand to the king–and probably extremely put-off by the cheesy flirting. 

“So your betrothed is kind?” you say, thinking back to your conversation only a few days prior and the fear you had felt on her behalf.

“Yes, oh, I couldn’t ask for anyone better.” Lyanna’s grin stretches from ear to ear as she continues. Then, it slips away as she seems to recall something. “But I will say he is awfully busy. I do not see of him nearly as much as one should their betrothed.”

Your lips twist. “Well, he is the hand of the king. I’m sure he is very busy.”

“That’s what father said,” Lyanna groans. “But my mother always said that nothing should be more important than one’s wife, or in this case, wife-to-be.”

You look over at Lyanna in amazement at her naïveté. You had distantly remembered her mother saying that, but you do not think she had meant it in respect to the situation at hand now. Surely she realized that the fate of the kingdoms held some weight against the fate of one young woman?

“Oh,” Lyanna suddenly gasps. You follow her gaze across the courtyard where an older lady in bright red robes stands under a pillar. “I have to go. I forgot I had lessons.”

“Lessons?” you say, confused.

She looks over at you as if she suddenly remembered something. Her face turns from surprised to guilty in a flash. “Yes, er, father has me in studies to become a better wife for Baelor.”

You nod even though a pit has formed in your stomach. Father had considered it all for his true daughter, but left naught for you. You try not to take it personally. You were not the one getting married, afterall. But a bitterness sweeps over you despite it.

Lyanna runs toward the septa and you watch her as she goes. Passing noblemen watch her with wide, lustful eyes, before they snap away at the realization of her status. You ball your hands into fists, but you are not sure what you are more angry about. The impropriety of the men’s reaction to your sister or the jealousy that you had never once been looked at like that before.

You turn your head away before your thoughts further circle toward destructive tendencies. You try to remember exactly what it is you had planned to do for the day when your eyes get caught on a beautiful black stallion crossing through the courtyard, led on a lead by a young boy. 

He’s all muscle and velvet. His long, wavy mane stretches past his forelocks down to the start of his legs, jumping and falling against his side in tandem with his heavy trot. You do not realize you are following him until you are led across the castle to the stables. The stableboy is busy removing his halter and he does not notice you as he does, hanging it up on the wall, and then crossing the stable and leaving through a small door.

You move as if in a trance toward the beautiful beast. His dark eyes are sharp and follow your every step as you inch closer. His velvet nostrils flair and a deep noise comes crawling out of them, a swell of hot, ashy air lifting your hair from your face.

He leans over his stall door curiously and you reach out a tentative hand toward his face. 

“You are beautiful,” you whisper. 

Suddenly, the stallion lets out a high pitched neigh and his ears pin themselves tightly against his skull. You step backward instinctually and draw your hand back to your side.

You are not sure what you have done to offend the animal. You watch him closely.

“...His name is Vaegon.”

You do not look to the unfamiliar voice, half-assuming it is the stableboy from earlier, as your eyes stay enraptured by the stallion. “Emā se brōzi hen iā rōvēgrie vala,” you whisper. (You have the name of a great man).

The horse seems to calm in the face of your fluency. His ears lift from their tense position into their upright form. He leans forward and you are able to lay your hand onto his snout. He does not only allow you, but encourages it by pushing his face wholeheartedly into your palm. You let out an amazed laugh at his eagerness to be stroked. 

You smile. “Iksan biare īlon shifang tolie sir.” (I’m glad we understand each other now).

“Skoriot gōntan ao gūrēñagon bisa?” The voice breaks in again. This time, though, the change of language makes your head spin to look at him. (Where did you learn this?)

Your hand falls from its position back to your side at the sight of the man before you. Prince Baelor. You fall to your knees automatically and drop your head. 

“Stand,” Baelor orders and you do not know why for a brief moment you believed him to be anyone else. His voice is completely unique and gentle in a way you had never known a man’s to be.

You follow his order but keep your eyes stubbornly on the silver broach in the shape of a dragon keeping his cloak together. 

“…Kessa ao udligon nyke?” (Will you answer me?)

Your mouth suddenly seems dry as you go to answer. “I… taught myself.” You draw your hands across your gown. “Issa daor qopsa skori emā jēda.” (It is not difficult when you have time).

The prince lets out a laugh. It is not like his speaking voice. Rather, it is loud and sharp and contradictory in every way. You assume he must be amused by the thought of a young bastard girl teaching herself High Valriyan as a choice of pleasure. Admittedly, stated so plainly, it does sound quite absurd.

He stops laughing and when you look up, his eyes are soft, held together by deep crow’s feet that reveal to you his seniority to your own years. 

You can feel your throat bob as you swallow harshly.

“Gaomas aōha mandia gīmigon ziry tolī?” his eyes continue to twinkle with amusement despite the laughter having fled far off his face. (Does your sister know it too?)

“Lyanna?” you say, even though you know who he speaks of. It is not often people refer to her as your sister. It is startling when put as plainly as the prince did. “Daor, gaoman daor pāsagon sīr.” (No, I do not believe so.)

“Hm,” Baelor seems to be considering something as his mismatched eyes draw down your face. “Pār iksā mēre hen iā sȳz.” (Then you are one of a kind.)

Your eyebrows furrow before you can prevent them from doing so. Your skin prickles with unease at the thought of the stableboy watching from slats in the wood. You nervously card your hands down your gown. 

“My apologies, my prince,” you say, “I have to excuse myself. I had forgotten but I made some arrangements…”

If he is offended by your response, Baelor does not show it. His lips curl only partially at the corners, a hint at the amusement he had felt before. 

He nods his permission and you hurry away, nearly tripping over your skirts in the process. You blame your pounding heart on the fear of getting caught in a compromising position with Lyanna’s betrothed, but even you are not sure how true that is.

You had thought that perhaps you may have a short reprieve from having to deal with the royal family, but that hope is shattered as quickly as it arrives when Lyanna bursts into your room later that evening.

“Why are you not dressed?” she says urgently, looking you up and down in your shift with thinly veiled contempt.

You frown from where you sit at your desk. You look down at yourself. “You mean why am I dressed to rest?”

“I told you,” she starts, “that King Daeron has requested we join them for dinner tonight...”

You startle and immediately you stand. “You did not.”

“I did,” Lyanna says angrily, “are you calling me a liar?”

You shake your head. No use in making her angrier than she already is. “Of course not,” you reply. “Just… I need to get dressed, can you step out?”

The fire that had been stoked in Lyanna’s eyes douses out like water being poured over her head. She smiles and nods and steps out of your room without any more ceremony.

And so this is how you find yourself in the midst of the dining hall and smiling, jovial faces and the celebrations of marriage and the bringing of families together. Unlike before, your sister is happy this time—joking with Egg and shooting coy glances across the table at her betrothed. 

You cannot find it within yourself to share in the celebration and you hate yourself for it. You are lucky to be included, to be treated more of an equal and less like the bastard you were always treated like at Winterfell and yet a part of you longs for the simplicity of fading into the background like you could so easily back home.

You are not sure why you have been included. You are not adding much to the conversation or atmosphere. Really, if anything, you’re detracting from it.

You pick at the roasted duck in front of you in mild interest. You push around sprigs of parsley and thick marinate to see the strips of white meat underneath. You take a small bite and force it down.

The back of your neck suddenly prickles with unease. You lift your eyes and immediately they clash with the deep brown of your father’s across the way.

He’s looking at you like he might an animal. Or worse, an insect. You have to remind yourself that he does not hate you, he hates what you stand for, but even that seems like a lie now.

You look back down at your plate and you feel the weight of his gaze leave you as he gets involved in conversation with Prince Maekar, if you had to guess by voice alone.

“Lady Snow,” someone says from down the table.

You immediately meet their eyes and recognize the sharp violet as belonging to Daella. Even at her young age, she is already strikingly beautiful. 

Most of the eyes at the table draw to you at Daella’s beckoning as if they only just realized you were there.

Daella continues to smile at you unperturbed by the stares. “What was it like growing up in Winterfell?”

You wonder why such a question was not aimed at Lyanna. As your eyes dart to your sister, you think she’s wondering the same thing. Your experience is not the average, and most of your memories are downtrodden by the fact of your existence being a stain upon Winterfell. 

If you were to be honest with Daella, which you never would be, you would tell her that your childhood was strife with heartache. That from your earliest memories you remembered being ostracized, pushed to the side for the better sister. That you always felt bitter for how you were treated and took it out on Lyanna, causing her to hate you for much of your youth. That other noble girls would turn their noses up at the idea of even touching you, much less being friends with you and that noble boys would tease others by saying that they had a crush on you, as if the very idea of courting you was the worst their mind could conjure. That your own father and step-mother were your own worst enemies. 

Instead, you smile pleasantly and say, “it is much colder than King’s Landing, that is for sure.”

That gets a few laughs from around the table.

“I’ve heard it’s all snow and wolves,” Daella continues innocently, “what did you do for fun?”

What should be a simple question makes you sweat. Your mind goes blank. What had you done? Embroidery? Weaving? Reading? They’re all trivial things that make your throat clam up and your palms slick. 

Lyanna leans forward when she notices you struggling. “We enjoyed the things that all noblewomen did. We are no different than you.”

You meet her eyes and give a small nod of thanks for her quick response. 

Daella smiles cordially, the picture of royalty, and nods. She turns her attention fully onto Lyanna and she begins to continue her conversation with the more social of the two Stark sisters. 

A few minutes pass before King Daeron stands from his position at the end of the table, raising his goblet into the air. Your eyes get caught on Baelor’s face as he sits near his father. He watches him like he hung the very stars in the sky; his eyes wide and his lips pulled into a small smile. You feel a spark of envy at your chest at the evidence of the close relationship Baelor has with his father, a relationship you would never have with your own, but you force the feeling away as Daeron begins to speak.

“I am so happy to have the North and the South united as one again,” Daeron says, “and as much as I enjoy talking. It is time to dance!”

Your breath catches in your throat as from the corner of the room a few stewards begin to pluck at lutes. A beautiful song begins to play, the chords oddly familiar but still exotic and even harder to place. You watch as Lyanna jumps to her feet, excitedly gesturing to her betrothed to dance.

You notice Baelor’s eyes linger on his father’s for a moment too long before he grabs your sister’s hand and leads her to the middle of the room. You wonder if perhaps the prince was just as embarrassed by attention like everyone else was.

He wraps his arm around your sister’s waist and Lyanna’s hands climb up to hang around his neck. They begin to four-step around the room as the music climbs and climbs and becomes jovial and intense.

As they continue to dance, others begin to join them. Baelor’s son Valarr takes his cousin Daella to the floor. Daeron swings Aegon around the room with a burst of laughter escaping his lips. The youngest princess dances with her grandfather.

You watch with solemn eyes at the display because you cannot bear to look at your father sitting across from you in the fear that he might suddenly get sentimental.

“Perhaps you’d like to dance, Lady Snow?”

Your eyes shoot toward the sudden voice by your side and you nervously clutch your gown when you see who is standing there. Prince Aerion. He’s handsome, smiling, the picture of cordiality. But you have heard things about him that makes your stomach twist at the sight of him.

You do not have the power to deny the prince. You nod and stand and take his hand as he leads you to the floor.

Prince Aerion does not say anything for a moment. You try to focus on not stepping on his feet as he guides you around the room. You had taken lessons as an adolescent, but your skills were definitely rusty.

You keep your hands a few inches from actually touching his body, partly in the fear that he may react badly if you do.

“Lady Lyanna is beautiful,” he says suddenly. Your eyes dart from watching your feet to his staring eyes. His violet ones are not the comforting presence like his uncle’s, his are predatory. A smirk licks at the edges of his lips. “But she is no match to you.”

His eyes trail from your face to your bust and his wet tongue slips from his mouth to trail a line of spit across his teeth. You stumble at the words and nearly fall backward in your attempt at creating distance when Aerion’s arm tightens around your waist to prevent you from falling.

“Careful there.” His grin splits across his face like an open wound. His teeth are like maggots wiggling inside decaying flesh. “Wouldn’t want you getting hurt.”

You don’t say a word as his eyes continue to trail over your body. You look over his shoulder and see your father staring at you with narrowed eyes. You clench your hands from where they sit frozen on Aerion’s shoulders, a well of helplessness coming forth from your chest.

“It is unfortunate you were born from a fleabottom whore,” Aerion continues, unperturbed by your horror. If anything, he seems fueled by it. “You certainly are not marriage potential by any means… but that does not mean you are not a good lay. Tell me, did your mother teach you any tricks—“

“Prince Aerion,” a voice startles your dance partner and his eyes widen and dart to the side. You follow his gaze to where his uncle stands, his eyebrows furrowed and his hands crossed behind his back.

At the opportunity given before you, you jump away from Aerion as if his very touch scalded your skin.

“Uncle,” Aerion’s response is deferential, but in it a touch of bite rounds off the word. No doubt, he is frustrated that his toy has been ripped from his hands.

You gaze at your unlikely savior with wide eyes. You can’t help seeking your sister from behind him, but find she seems to have been enraptured in conversation with Valarr across the hall.

“Perhaps I may dance with Lady Snow for a round?” Baelor asks, though you gather it is not as much a question as he tries to make it seem.

Aerion rolls his eyes, but does not argue. He does not say anything more before he turns his back and slinks away.

You stand, frozen, staring at the spot where he once stood. 

“Are you okay?” Baelor steps closer to you as he asks this.

You swallow back the desperate emotion clawing up your throat.

“I am just well,” you reply after too long a moment of hesitation.

“He will not bother you again.” your eyes snap up to meet his, and you are surprised by the anger in his clenched jaw and set gaze. “I will make sure of it.”

You are intimidated by the seriousness inflected in his voice and center your eyes on his broach again. Why should he care? It is not like Aerion had said that to your sister. You are a bastard second daughter. Your only benefit to your father is to how much dowry he can gain from the highest bidder. Baelor should not care about you. And yet, inexplicably, he does.

His hand enters your periphery and for a moment you stare, stunned, at the raised veins in his corded muscle and the rings on each of his fingers. 

“You do not have to dance with me,” you tell him in lieu of a reply.

Baelor’s lips twist. “And if I want to?”

“I would say that is incredibly improper,” you tell him. You watch for a moment as his face drops. Your heart pounds against your ribcage. He goes to lower his hand, but you intercept it and guide it to wrap around your waist.

The instantaneous brightening of his face makes you feel dizzy.

Unlike with Aerion, you place your hands gently on Baelor’s shoulders and the dance comes naturally to you. You tell yourself it is because Baelor is a good lead, but a part of you actually thinks it is something else—something deeper.

You smile despite yourself and avert your eyes. Baelor’s arm is warm around your waist. You tingle from where his fingers brush your exposed skin. You suddenly feel incredibly hot, and you chide yourself for feeling such a way with such a man.

“Why do you do that?”

Your eyes meet his, alarmed. You have to wet your lips before you can speak and his mismatched eyes dart to follow the movement. “Do what, My Grace?”

“Baelor,” he corrects quickly, “call me Baelor.”

You shake your head. “You must understand I cannot. My father would have my head.”

“In private then,” he says softly, and somehow that idea makes you even more uncomfortable. The idea seems like a secret shared between lovers, something fugitive and risqué. 

You nod just to appease him.

“Why do you not meet my eyes?” he clarifies.

You frown, unsure of how to answer the question. Unconsciously, your eyes drift to meet his own. His lips curl into a smile when you meet them and your heart stutters.

“I… I'm not sure, My Gra-Baelor,” you say, “it is something I have just always done.”

“You are a lady,” Baelor says and your heart leaps up to your throat when his arm tightens. “You should not be afraid to be yourself.”

“I am not a lady.” A flash of anger rips across you, so sudden it is dizzying. “I am a bastard. They are not the same.”

Something like amusement clouds Baelor’s face. Frustration makes you dig your nails into his cloak, but he only looks more joyed at the feeling. Like he’s finally gotten some kind of real emotion from you.

“My mother,” Baelor says and your grip loosens, “do you know of her?”

You try to remember, but the memory slips from you like an apparition. Your jaw clenches as you shake your head.

“She was of Dorne,” Baelor tells you, “and I do not know what you know of Dorne, but I will tell you that they do not ostracize bastards there. Any child of a royal is simply that — a child.”

You try to hide your surprise but you know he notices, for a self-satisfied smile crosses his face. How had you never known that? Had you truly missed that in your studies? You look over Baelor’s shoulder and meet your father’s gaze. Or had it been kept from you?

“All that to say,” Baelor continues, “I do not think your being a bastard should define you. I think that you let it define you more than anyone else does. I think you use it as a shield to keep yourself from feeling. I think you feel safe with it because it means that you will never have to feel anything for anyone in the way you have never known.”

Your feet stop abruptly in their dancing and you remove your hands from him. Tears spring to your eyes before you can stop them. You notice through bleary vision Lyanna’s gaze from across the room. You drop your head.

“You know nothing about me,” you whisper, “you know nothing.”

You push past Baelor and weave through the room to the doors at the far end of the hall. You do not look back once because you knew if you did you would say something that you would regret. 

Later that night, sitting in your bed, sleep evades you no matter how hard you chase it. Those words echo in your mind, relentlessly pursuing you. You know it is not true. It can’t be true. And yet your hands fist in the bed below you and your breaths come out in stuttered gulps as you try to recover from the hardest blow you have ever had to take.

“You look awful,” Lyanna says in lieu of a greeting as you step into the covered seating area at the edge of the garden. 

You roll your eyes. “Thanks. You really know how to make a girl feel good about herself.”

You cannot fault her statement. Your entire body pangs with exhaustion as you lower yourself into the seat across from her. The sun filtering through the leaves of the rose tree behind her gives a ring of gold around her figure that only further exemplifies her angelic demeanor.

Lyanna reaches over to pour you a cup of tea. You watch the dark liquid gather in the teacup with weary eyes.

You take a sip, and are pleasantly surprised by the warmth that immediately flows into your sore throat.

“This is lovely,” you tell her, “what flavor is it?”

She does not appear to have heard you as she stares out at the garden. You follow her gaze and jolt with surprise when you notice Baelor strolling down the path. Even though it is in the midst of summer, he wears at least three layers. 

You shrink in your seat as you recall your interaction with him from the previous night. You take another generous gulp of your tea to hide the cringe that comes with immediacy across your face.

“May I confide something in you?” Lyanna says.

You put down the tea cup and watch her with wide eyes as she threads her hands nervously through her hair.

“Okay…” 

“I do not want to marry Baelor.”

Your eyes widen. “What? Did you not just say the previous morrow that you cared for him?”

“…Yes,” Lyanna says, “but I was acting too hastily. Baelor is… how can I put this… boring.”

You pinch the bridge of your nose in between your fingers and try to will yourself to stay civil with your sister. She had always been this way. Lyanna would ask for a new dress one day, then it would sit rejected in her closet for years until it was eventually passed to you. Lyanna once asked for a horse and she got it, of course, but decided she did not like the way he rode and sold it as her earliest convenience. Why should she be any different with men? 

“All he wants to talk about is politics,” she continues, “I mean, what man talks about politics with his betrothed?”

“I imagine the Hand of the King does a lot of those types of talks.”

“—And then he won’t even ask how my day is,” Lyanna says, “and he won’t kiss my hand or pick me flowers or compliment my dress. It is like he does not care for me.”

“Perhaps he is just not romantic,” you say to her.

“But I want romance,” her voice quivers with emotion as she conveys this to you, “I want to be swooned and to be cared for and to be looked for in a crowd. As it stands now, he looks more at you than he does at me.”

You frown at the last statement. “That is not true.”

“Isn’t it?” Lyanna scoffs, “if we do talk about me it is about you. I was too foolish to realize that before, but now I see it clearly.”

You sigh, too tired to argue with her. As you saw it, she was just making a load of assumptions about nothing.

“Well,” you say, “what are you going to do?”

“What am I going to do?” Lyanna rolls her eyes hard. “Nothing. I can’t do anything.”

“Maybe you could talk to father,” you offer, “he always listens to you.”

Lyanna looks amused by the suggestion. “Does he? What kind of fantasy world have you been living in?”

You bite your lip.

Lyanna lets out a soft laugh and shakes her head. “Father hasn’t listened to me since I was two and ten. Ever since I got my first bleed, it’s been about what I can offer him rather than what I can get from him.”

“I… didn’t know this,” you say to her, and you truly didn’t. You had always thought Lyanna to be her father’s biggest accomplishment in life, his biggest love. You did not know his misogyny extended even onto her. “I’m sorry, Lyanna.”

She nods, taking a deep breath. “It is fine,” she says, though you are not sure it is, “I should be grateful. Many women do not get as nice a man as I am afforded.”

You smile tightly. You do not argue with that, because it is very true. Many women would die to marry as honorable and intelligent and handsome a man as Baelor Targaryen.

A moment of silence passes as you take small sips of your tea and watch the microexpressions on Lyanna’s face warp and twist as she thinks deeply about her pressing issue. Suddenly, you notice her eyes dart to something behind your head. You go to turn when she stands abruptly.

“You will excuse me, sister,” she says, “I do not want to speak to him at the moment. Maybe you could?”

Your mouth gapes helplessly like a fish as your sister quickly takes her leave. You turn your head only to see Prince Baelor Targaryen headed toward you. He looks over at your sister speed-walking away for only a brief moment before his eyes look onto yours. His hardened expression softens so quickly you may have missed it had you not keen eyes. You suddenly feel quite nauseous, but for what you are not sure.

Baelor strides forward and stops a few feet from you. He keeps his hands crossed behind his back as his eyes sweep over your form.

“You look nice in that color,” his eyes are locked onto the periwinkle of your dress, and you smile without fully meaning to. “I have never been one to enjoy the Stark colors.”

Your throat suddenly feels very dry. You do not have the heart to say that you did not like the Stark colors either. “Thank you,” you manage to reply.

Baelor, by contrast, is in the colors he always wore. Black and red. You suppose you could say something about how handsome he looks underneath the rising sun, but knowing you, it would probably come off creepy rather than genuine. 

“I… apologise my sister left in such a rush,” you force yourself to say, “she forgot her lessons.”

Baelor cocks a brow. “I do not mind.”

You notice as he draws closer a young kingsguard has accompanied him. He is far enough not to hear your conversation but close enough so he could quickly intervene should you get any funny thoughts. You nearly laugh at the idea of you attempting to overpower a man that went by the nickname“breakspear.”

“Gaomagon ao hae se rūklun?” he says, going to take a seat in the place your sister had just abdicated. (Do you like the gardens?)

“They are beautiful,” you reply with a tight smile, “as is most of the Red Keep.”

“Gaomagon ao daor ȳdragon eglie valriyan sir?” (Do you not know High Valyrian now?)

Despite his amusement at you pretending not to understand the language, you stay stoic.

“I do not find it appropriate to use it,” you tell him, “and I should have never learned it. It is not for common folk to know.”

“Qilōni vestras?” (who says?)

A flush of anger rushes over you at his continued questions. “Vestan. Sir keligon.” (I said. Now stop.)

A small smirk curls at his lips, but he listens and looks away. He seems to be watching a small butterfly flitting from flower to flower nearby. 

You smooth out a wrinkle on your gown. You feel an inexplicable rush of guilt.

“...I apologise,” you tell him after a moment of silence. “I did not sleep well the night prior.”

His eyes draw back to your expression. He tilts his head slightly as he considers your weary expression. You stare at his mismatched eyes and wonder how in the Seven such an anomaly of nature could occur.

“Is there a reason you did not sleep well?” he says and you realise with a jolt that his voice sounds like concern. “Are your chambers not to your liking?”

“They are just fine,” you are quick to remedy, “I just had some things on my mind.”

Things that were put into your mind by Baelor. Things that you would never admit had a greater impact on you than you could have ever imagined.

As you watch Baelor sitting across from you, you realise he is turning one of the rings on his hand incessantly. He notices your gaze and he stops.

“I did not mean to offend last night,” he tells you and you think his voice sounds earnest, “I just wished to comfort you.”

You frown and pull at a stray thread hanging off your dress. “I do not need comforting.”

“No, I’m sure you do not,” Baelor says with a toothy smile. “But perhaps you would like a friend.”

Your eyes dart up from where you had been pulling at your dress. You stare at him for a moment in shock. You have never… Perhaps this is some kind of sick joke? Does he think you a fool?

“For what purpose?” you finally settle on saying. “If you want a quick lay, I am sorry to disappoint.”

Baelor’s eyes widen. You bite your tongue until copper fills your mouth.

“Is that truly…” 

You feel sick at the pity that fills his expression in that moment so you avert your eyes.

“Do you truly believe every man that is kind to you wants to use you?”

The words hit like a slap against the face. Your blood runs cold. 

“Baelor,” you say finally, “every man wants to use women. And those who do not believe that are fools.”

You notice him lean forward in your periphery. He gently places his hand upon where yours continually pulls at the fringes of your dress. Your hand stills, but you do not pull away. His hand is warm, kind. It is as gentle as his voice when he speaks to you, as intelligent as his eyes when he realises your emotion. You look up at him to see his eyes narrowed in contemplation.

“Not all men,” he finally says.

He pulls away and you can only hopelessly watch as his hand rejoins his other on his lap.

You begin to think about Baelor in your every waking moment. When you walk the gardens, you watch butterflies and wonder if Baelor had seen them before. When you read your few books on High Valriyan, you think of him and the conversations you shared. When you speak with Lyanna, your mind always drifts to him.

It is a terrible thing, you think, to become friends with someone who can never fully understand you. Soon, you are talking with him during family gatherings. You are seeking him out to ask about the history of his family. You discuss the endings of popular fables. 

It becomes easy to like Baelor Targaryen. Contrastingly, it becomes harder and harder to acknowledge the fact that your relationship is only temporary until the wedding in a moon. You fear what will happen after it is all gone. Will you be able to recover?

You consider this as you weave through the hallways in the Red Keep, walking without a true purpose in mind. You keep your spine straight and your hands tucked behind your back as you walk. People watch you as you walk by with curious eyes. You do not flinch under the weight of the gazes anymore. They simply slid off you like water off a bird’s back.

As you continue to walk, you consider all that you have gained since coming to King’s Landing. You no longer shrink behind your sister and father and exist underneath the shadow of their impressively large fur coats. You do not try to hide your intelligence anymore, rather, you flaunt it to anyone who cares to listen. Most importantly, you do not think you are completely rotten anymore. You do not think you are doomed to a life of fear and ostracization anymore. Hope has sprung in your chest like blooming flowers at the start of spring.

“Lady Snow?” 

A voice says from behind you. You pause in your steps and cock your head in the direction of the tremulous noise. It is a little serving girl, no older than five and ten, her eyes wide and glassy like she was preparing for a hit. She could have been you. You could have been her. You swallow thickly and put on a gentle smile. You can see the girl’s shoulders drop with relief at your aparent kindness.

“Yes?” 

“Your father requests you in his chambers,” she tells you softly. 

Your face hardens without you even realising. You watch as the girl drops her eyes and scurries away. 

You begin your journey toward your father’s chambers with slow steps. You are not opposed to making him wait. Anyways, you could use the extra time to consider what he might say to you. 

Your father, Lord Stark, is not a particularly kind man. He is gruff and hardened by years of living in Winterfell’s unflinching cold. He had always been worse to you. He never hit you or was particularly cruel, but it was the little things. You were always cast aside. Your sister was doted on, you were a brief consideration. For many years, you thought your jealousy to be born of a place of wrong, for you were much better off than many bastards in the realm. You were not living on the streets, selling your body for scraps, proliferating with more bastards to carry on your name. But you were not equal, either. As you later realised, the rejection wore worse on you than one could ever imagine.

Lyanna’s mother died when she was five and ten. She’d had a persistent sickness that eventually stole her breath. You had not cried for her. Your father and sister thought you were a monster for not. But why should you? She had never loved you, she had borne you like a responsibility, not as the impressionable child you were.

You did not cry for those who caused you pain. But you held Lyanna still and allowed her tears to soak your gown.

You stop outside the door of your father’s chambers. You had not been inside before, but you remembered it from the tour when you first arrived. 

You place your knuckles across the mahogany door and rap them against it softly. A part of you hopes that it is quiet enough that he will not hear it. That you will have an excuse to escape before he notices.

The hopes are in vain, for he calls you in moments after you knock.

The chambers are quiet. Your father sits halfway leaned over a piece of parchment at his desk, a nearby candle casting great shadows across his face. You step closer. His eyes slowly draw up to your face and you are at once struck by the weariness in his expression.

He looks as if he hasn’t slept in weeks. Dark circles are under his eyes. His skin has an odd pallor to it. For a moment, you fear he might be sick like your step-mother.

Then his lips part.

“It took you long enough to get here.”

Your sympathy leaves you with the next breath that escapes your lips.

“I had not known you were searching for me.” 

He gestures toward the chair across from his desk and you lower yourself carefully onto it. Your father’s eyes watch you closely.

“How have you been?” 

Of all the questions you could have expected from your father, this was not one of them. You feel your eyebrows pinch together. 

“I’m sorry?”

“I said, how have you been?” he repeats.

“I have been… fine.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” he says. Then, his eyes go back down to his parchment and he begins to write something down.

You scoff at his audacity after a few seconds pass in silence. “I’m sorry, did you need something from me, father?”

His eyes slowly trail back up to your face. Suddenly, you feel incredibly uncomfortable. He looks… sympathetic? You frown, tingling fear spreading through your limbs.

“What is the matter?” you say urgently. “What has happened?”

Lord Stark’s throat bobs as he considers your question. “I have been speaking with Prince Maekar often these past few days,” he begins. “And he has made me a very… generous offer.”

You freeze. “You did not.”

His eyes soften. “It will be a good match for you.”

Your hands tremble as they go to cup your head. Your eyes slide closed at the realization. He allows you a few minutes to process this. You finally open your eyes and look up at him.

“Which one is it?” you say, “please… do not tell me it is the youngest.”

“Maekar believes that you and his second son will make a good match.”

“Second son,” your voice sounds not like your own. Everything feels like it is happening from outside of your body. You tremble all over, your heart pounding in your ears. “Aerion.”

Your eyes dart to his. Fear flees to your lips. “You cannot… Aerion will kill me.”

Your father cocks a brow. “You are being dramatic.”

“I am not,” you say quickly, desperately, “have you truly not heard of his exploits in the Street of Silk?”

“Your future husband’s hobbies will be of no consequence to you,” your father replies, “you cannot find one nobleman in the seven kingdoms that does not seek the company of women outside the marital bed.”

Anger, hot and rare and real, sweeps through you.

“Just because you sleep with any woman that gives you the time of day does not mean every man does,” you bite back. You stand. Your father does too.

“You will not speak to me in that way,” your father’s face is flush with anger, “no matter what you believe of me, I have done more for you than any man would in my position. I have gifted you with this.”

“Gifted me?!” your voice is shrill. You thrust your finger into his chest, pressing hard. “You have given me nothing. You have cursed me with this… this life.”

“Do not say that.”

“But it is true, is it not?” you continue, unperturbed, “if you had not slept with that whore we would not be in this mess. Your life would be better. My life would be.”

“Do not speak about your mother in that way.”

You shake your head. “What the fuck do you care? She was a fucking whore!”

His hand shoots out before you can react and he grabs your arm in a tight, unflinching hold. Your breath turns stuttery. You are frozen, forced to stare into his dark, encompassing eyes.

“Your mother was not a whore,” he says, his voice quiet. “She loved me.”

You lean forward until your noses are but a breath apart. “Is that what she told you when you spilled inside of her? When you gave her two silvers for her trouble at the end of the night?”

You think the anger is about to spill over. You think he might strangle you, slap you across the mouth for the audacity. Then, the fire leaves him all at once like water dousing a flame. He releases your arm and you take three hurried steps back.

He drops his head and turns his back from you. “You will marry Aerion. End of discussion.”

You feel the tears before you can prevent them. Time moves in a blur as your feet take you out of the room and through the winding halls. You keep your head down, shrink in on yourself when people stop to look at you. You are ruined. Your life is over.

You turn into an empty corridor and place yourself against the wall. The tears overflow and flood your vision, falling in rivulets down your cheeks and neck and the front of your dress. Your mind spins with the realization you will never live freely again. Becoming Aerion’s wife will be an execution of you mind, body, and soul. 

The tears do not stop even when you hear the sound of footsteps. You simply turn your back and continue to shake with sobs.

“Please leave,” you tell the approaching figure. 

They do not listen. A hand falls on your shoulder and you finally turn.

Your sobs become intertwined with a gasp. 

Baelor stands behind you. His eyes watch you with a mix of solemnity and understanding. His face is bathed in shadow from the ill-lit corridor, but even through it you can see his lips pulled into a soft frown. You watch him as his eyes trail slowly down your face.

“You knew,” your realization comes with another choked sob. “You knew and did not tell me.”

“I just found out this morning,” Baelor says. “My brother told me.”

You shake your head. “My life is over.”

“I will do everything I can to convince my brother and father it is a bad choice,” he says and your mouth gapes like a fish at the admission. “I will help you any way I can.”

“Why…” you feel like you could puke. “Why would you help me?”

His beautiful eyes dart between the two of yours. His jaw clenches and you trace the muscle as it disappears into his close-cropped shave. 

“Because you are my friend.”

You watch him as he offers this as an explanation in stunned silence. You trail from his gentle mismatched eyes to the mole that rests just beneath his eye to the dark salt-and-pepper beard to the faint wrinkles that pull at the sides of his lips as he offers you a smile. You can feel his breaths as they hit your skin, as they fan across your face and heat your blood. Your eyes become locked fixedly on his parted lips.

You lean forward before you can stop yourself and you fully place your lips upon his. He is frozen for a moment and your heart stutters. You suddenly feel like the biggest fool there is. Then, his hand lifts from your shoulder to cup the back of your neck and he is suddenly returning the kiss with full force.

He tastes sweet, like the blueberry tarts served in the morrow. You feel like you are drowning in him. His nose scrapes against the side of your own. His hand lifts and cradles your cheek, softly stroking the saltwater-slick skin.

You kiss him like you are drowning and he is your oxygen. It is raw, passionate, and self-preserving. You drag a hand up from his neck to scrape against his thin hair and he lets out a soft moan into your mouth.

You go to tilt your head to kiss him harder when you hear something from behind him.

You start to pull away when you suddenly hear a gasp. You rip yourself away and Baelor spins to see who has witnessed your indiscretions.

You recognise the face immediately. Her dark, curly hair. Her wide, angelic eyes. Her mouth, which has fallen into an oval.

You immediately launch forward away from Baelor, but the damage has already been done.

You go to reach for her but she moves away.

“Lyanna, please–”

She turns her head from you and brings a hand up to stifle her shock. She stumbles away.

“Lyanna!” you call.

But she does not turn around as she runs off. 

Your life is over. You are quite certain of that now.

Baelor finally stopped, eyes closed to refrain from talking to you as he did his many small council men when they would not listen to him. He held the patience of many Houses of men in his body alone, that would not falter with you. You had picked up your skirts to chase after him, finally stopping as you reached his chest. 

A familiar scent. A very familiar scent.

You craned your head toward his neck, standing on your toes to better reach him. "Is that… lemon?"

Baelor felt his cheeks heat at your observation, wanting to run from his sweet wife as you stared up at him, a challenging smirk stuck to your face. "I miss you during my day of many duties, I carry your scent as a reminder."

He said it so casually, as if this was not such a grand declaration of love toward you. Your knees nearly buckled at his admission. 

"Baelor Targaryen." You gasped, hands clutching your chest. "I will find this marriage annulled to wed you all over again, if you are not careful with your words."

He breathed out a laugh, reaching his hands to grasp your cheeks within them. "Must I be so careful? I am enraptured by you, even after our many years of marriage."

The scarce moment between you was sweet, innocent, free of any duties that you were both bound to, you did not want to sour it with digging your heels in on the matters of your protection. But you did anyway, you were nothing if not a vessel to keep Baelor on his toes. 

"Must it be? A sworn shield for me sounds like utter nonsense." You pleaded, your hands shifted from your chest to his. Your touch waged war between his mind and body, he had little option than to submit. 

"You sound much like Maekar." His tone was amused, light, hopeful to sway his decision on this sworn sword. "But your protection is paramount to me, I will not risk your life because you wish to wander the halls alone."

You huffed, stomping your foot like a sulking child not getting their way, before shuffling away from your Husband. "Nonsense." 

You were not even permitted to choose your sworn shield. Not a grand moment of the Kingsguard lined before you, pointing below to a particularly beefy one. No, in stead, you had been woken and summoned to the gardens by your Husband, the cloaked guard stood beside him. 

"My dear wife," Baelor greeted you, taking your hands into his and bringing them to his lips. His kiss was soft, any firmer and you would be dragging him to your bedchambers. "This is your sworn shield, Ser Caine."

The knight bowed his head before you, your polite smile convincing enough to have him smile back at you. Baelor was contented with his decision as he looked at you, accepting the protection, being safer for it, settling Baelor's heartbeat during his routinely duties. But as he looked at Ser Caine, a familiar sight as he had seen before in most Lords that met with his wife. He had been damned. 

You were beautiful, Baelor knew that. He was more than happy with it, to have a wife that was so easy on his eyes, it made his duties as a Husband simpler. But he could not cage the chill in his bones, as it swept through his chest like a wind from the North. Ser Caine's gaze had not left yours, as you rambled innocently about something only you thought so fondly of. 

Baelor spent many a day and night listening to your words, how they fell from your mouth in a ramble completely separate from your mind. He entertained it, encouraged it, you were a person of your own will, and felt natural enough with him to carry yourself in such a way. It felt foreign to see it happen so quickly with this Ser Caine. 

But Baelor was nothing if not dutiful. This was the happenings from this moment forward, there was little to be done with it. 

Baelor could not fault the poor knight, he was exceptional at his duty. He spent every moment at your side, or at the door of the rooms you occupied. Some nights even guarded your bedchambers. He was simply performing his duty, doing as he had sworn to do. So why did Baelor feel so… vexed? He was a busy man, though he wished he was not. When not in small council meetings, he would be at the King's side, aiding him on his authority over the Realm. He did not have the time to give you, even if he yearned for it, so you mostly existed in thought. 

He would pass the library, dragging himself to yet another called upon meeting, catching you drifting between the shelves, Ser Caine closely behind you, his own eye upon you. As if the books that surrounded you were any threat. He simply continued on his path, shaking his head free of his poisoned thoughts. 

He would venture outside to locate his sweet wife, to take a moment at your side to look upon you fondly, to relax the stiffness in his shoulders. And would see you, blunted steel in hand, sparring with Ser Caine. Albiet lightly, the knight was not a fool. He did not clash your swords, did not attack, only defend from your strikes. His lip firmed, bordering a sneer, at the sight of you both. 

Your laugh echoed through his chest, only lifting the smile of your sworn shield. You engaged in your laughter, the swords clattering to the ground beneath you as you played the victor. Baelor was controlled by envy, jealously, this feeling had not yet been named. He had not felt this with Jena, his late wife, only with you, his younger, prettier wife. 

"Husband." Your voice was smooth against his ears, melting whatever hardened, sour feelings had gathered within him. You approached him with a simple kiss to his cheek. "Did you see my technique? I feel my call to war is imminent, I must be armoured and horsed immediately."

Ser Caine laughed behind you. Stolen the laughter from Baelor's throat. 

"If only, dear wife." He spoke, his fingers reaching to fiddle with your necklace, the gem he had gifted you settled on the hollow of your throat. "The Realm would not lift a sword toward you, for you are too kind."

"And pretty, I hope." You added, allowing Baelor's eyes to shift over your body. Awaiting his answer.

"I need not say it, for you already know what I think of your beauty." He answered, taking hold of your heart as he did every time you spoke. It was simple for him, he need not do much to have you a mess in his hands. 

He was not oft so affectionate with you in public view. He saved his sweet words and sweeter touch for the privacy of your chambers, but he was a man at his core, he would not be mistaken for his place at your side. He allowed your hands to rest on his chest, he allowed his hands to cradle your cheeks. He yearned to kiss you, touch you, have you come undone around his fingers. But duty had called him away once again. 

"Your Grace," a serving man stood behind him, taking him from your grasp, "The King summons you to his solar."

"At once, Husband." You bowed your head, stepping away as he drifted away from you. Scarcely a look over his shoulder at you, and your heart retired to its sunken place in your stomach. With a deep sigh, your chest felt hollow.

"Ser Caine," you spoke, eyes stuck on the wall your Husband just disappeared behind, "I wish to visit the gardens this afternoon."

"Of course, my Lady." He spoke, taking his place ahead of you and taking the lead toward the gardens. 

You would not dare admit it to your Husband, but you were delighted of his appointment of Ser Caine as your shield. He was dutiful, but kind, indulged in your humorous remarks. Made your days less hollow. Of course, when Baelor had appeared to see you between his day, he retired to his role as Guard. Or when Valarr and Matarys would bombard you with excitable happenings of their days. But when your Husband and sons-by-marriage had been stolen by responsibility, you found a friend in Ser Caine.

You sat opposite each other in the library, books open between you. You had reached such new depths of boredom, you had made a game between you. The first to find spilt ink on a page won. Won what, you had not yet gotten that far. But it evolved into a race, who could find the splotch of ink first?

Your fingers dragged over the rough page, assessing between the lines of words for any abnormalities. Ser Caine contained as much vigor as you, flipping between pages faster than you had. You were both so lost in your fun, you had not noticed your Husband enter the library. 

Ser Caine raised from his chair with haste, spine straightened and hand atop his pummel. Only then did you look up from your book. 

"Do not tighten your guard on my account, Ser Caine." Baelor commented, reaching for his wife to raise you from your seat. "You are at my wife's service, not my own."

The knight did not move.

"Husband." You cooed up at him, an affectionate hand on his cheek. "To what do I owe this visit?"

"I missed you. That is all." He spoke, his next words quieter. "I must speak with you."

As you followed your Husband's path, Ser Caine had shuffled to folow you. 

"Stay, Ser Caine." He ordered. 

Baelor had taken you through the library's doors leading toward the gardens, seating you before himself on one of the many benches that aligned with the rows of foliage. His hands held yours, cradled them in their vast size over your own, smoothing his thumbs over your knuckles. 

"What is the meaning of this, Husband? You concern me." Your eyebrows knotted where they separated, eyes glassy as you looked upon your Husband's uncomfortable face. 

"I must go to Oldtown." He declared. "There are trade disputes I must settle."

"And why must I stay here? I can accompany you." You argued softly, 

Baelor just shook his head, only tightening his grip on your hands. "There is little need, sweetheart. If I bring you, we would only stop along the roseroad more. It is much swifter this way."

He was right. It would be quicker had you remained here, but you would not be happy. Your heart would be ripped from your chest as he rode from the gatehouse. You knew he would take Valarr and Matarys, too. The boys were ripe for learning responsibility. So you would be utterly without your family. 

"I will be back with haste." He assured you, freeing a hand to pull your shoulders into him. "Scarcely a moons passing." 

He peppered kisses into your hair, marking you with his love as he prepared to leave. You would feel hollow until his return, it sickened you with grief. You kissed the boys cheeks, cradled them against you to wish them a safe journey. You could not see their horses leave, you could not be near the gatehous as they rode off. In stead, remaining in the gardens, where Baelor had told you of his departure.

You turned blue in their absence. In Baelor's absence. Your bed was a vast wastland of fabric, unnessary for the little room you took up. You did not feel his affection on your shoulders come the morn, nor did you feel it between your thighs. You ate supper alone, duty says not even Ser Caine could be seated with you. 

It gave you little option but to spend your efforts talking with Ser Caine. You had grown fond your sworn shield, the knight vowed to make you laugh as much as he did to protect you. He would walk aside you around the gardens, around the Keep, would talk with you through your chamber door as you bathed. It passed the time until your Husband would return. 

Baelor was reeling with your absence from his side. His temper was shorter than usual, though still more evident than Maekar's ever would be. He could not believe a moons passing was wasted on journeying to Oldtown to slap the wrists of some Lords, and journeying back. Time wasted away from you, your beauty, your kindness, your touch. His mind would wander to Ser Caine, how he was undoubtedly fawning over your every breath. His gaze steadfast on the curve of your waist, or the bare skin of your sternum. Laced with his jewels, as the knight looked at his wife.

He knew your difference in age was something oft mentioned in his leave, how you were young and beautiful, yet handed to a once-before married Prince of the Realm. He was tormented by how softened the Lords and Ladies gazes upon you were, how sweetly they spoke to you. Of you. His ego was of no concern to him, he took pleasure in the Realm looking so kindly upon you. A match well made for the goodness of your Houses. But seflishly, he wanted you entirely for himself. Only he would be admitted to look upon your beauty.

He nigh on exerted the energy of his horse on the return to King's Landing, the horse scarcely halting before he dismounted. He did not conform to waiting until nightfall for you, the thought of being envious of the fabric you wore had decided it for him. You were to be reclaimed by him. Now.

Not a moment wasted. 

He found you, walking aside your sworn shield, and advanced toward you. His footing was firm, his hold on you the opposite. 

"Allow me to see my wife, Ser Caine." Baelor was rigid in tone, eyebrows raised in search of defiance, but was met with none. "In fact, you must guard our bedchambers from any person requiring my presence."

You could scarcely keep the pace of your Husband's, who held your hand in his on your movement toward your bedchambers. You were ravenous for him, your mind and body yearned for this very moment. Whatever conversation you held with Ser Caine now forgotten, laid to rest the moment you saw your Husband in his approach.

Baelor closed the door after ushering you inside, a passing glance at your sworn shield as he disappeared behind it. You were already tugging at the fastenings of your dress, cursing your maidens for tying it with such force this morn. 

Baelor was busying his hands with his own garments, eyes remained on your frame as it lost your skirts, revealing more of your skin to him. He felt his mouth water, hungry for the taste of your flesh coated in lemon scented oil. 

"Did you settle the trade disputes, Husband?" You questioned him, climbing onto the bed on your hands and knees, crawling like an animal over to where he laid. 

"I do not wish to talk of the Realm with you." He grunted, taking firm hold of your hips as they settle atop him. He was already hardened beneath you. "I only wish to hear your pretty little sounds."

You giggled, placing your hands onto his bare chest as you lowered onto him. The feeling was familiar, made your toes curl as they settled on his legs. His fingers dug into the flesh of your ass, guiding you as you moved against him. Even as you mounted him, taking most of the range of movement, he still controlled you. 

"I have longed for you around me, sweetheart." He breathed, not daring to close his eyes in fear of missing how your eyes rolled back. "So soaked for me, sweetheart?"

You only nodded, fastening your pace as you took him over and over again. The sounds coming from your cunt were just as the ones he dreamt of, in the many nights spent away from you. But the sounds coming from your mouth were new, desperate, whiny. He would not last under you. 

He protected your frame against him, turning you both so your back hit the bed beneath you. "So beautiful." He sighed, kissing down your chest, giving his attention to your breasts and how they firmed under his touch. 

"The Realm knows it," he kissed down your ribs, your breath shallowing, "I know it."

"But you are all for me." He paused at your hipbones, ghosting kisses at them before lowering himself further. "Isn't that so?"

You nodded, his tongue delving deep into you. The way it danced over you had your stomach tensing, you nigh on pushed him away. But you would not dare do such a thing, when he was so skilled at finding your release. Better than you ever had yourself.

"Say it." He moaned, pausing his tongue just to order it from you. 

"I am all for you, Husband." You whimpered, your fingers shook as they cradled the back of his head. He could not be any further inside you, but you wished him to be. 

"Louder." He ordered, lifting his head to insert two fingers and to watch your face as they entered you. "I want the Keep to remember that regardless of your beauty, you remain my wife."

"I am your wife, Baelor." You cried, his fingers curling inside you to further chase your release. You felt tears build in your eyes, lost in the haze of desire that Baelor had called upon. He knew your body so well, knew what you did and did not respond to. No other could do as he did. He would remain confident in that fact.

But his gaze was dark, that chill not yet satisfied. He must enstate himself further, in a manner no man would forget. 

He tore his fingers from you, and in his gaze was not the soft Husband you were so used to. You saw dancing flames, ash, dragonfire within him. You would hunt it down, find it, assess it, take it for yourself. You hungered for him in this moment.

He gestured you to the edge of the bed, taking you in his arms and lifting you. With a strength you seldom witnessed, the Hand scarcely finding a moment to show such a feat. He carried you to your chamber doors, and your heart quickened as he pressed your back against the engraved oak. 

His lips found yours once more, grunting into your mouth, the sounds undoubtedly echoing through to this sworn shield of yours. The worst had not yet come for that poor, lovesick knight. Baelor slammed into you, jolting your bodies against the door, only forcing your moans out of your chest with a volume so unladylike. 

"Louder, my wife." He instructed, his forehead colliding with yours. "They all must know. You are mine."

His venomous words in your ear, the oak against your back, the way he thrusted into you, it had all mixed into a mighty charge for your pleasure. He was hunting for it, you could see the embers in his eyes heighten, taken completely by desire. He built a vengeful rhythm against you, his grip tighter than it oft was when he fucked you, consumed by something darker, twisted. You invited it, regardless. 

"That's it." He grunted against your jaw, flexing his jaw to refrain from biting at you. Lost in hunger, pleasure, jealousy. "All mine."

His words sent you over the edge, your entrance tightened around him as you welcomed his seed within you. A collision of your pleasure with his, erupted from your mouths against the thick door. You had no concern with who heard you be undone, only the man that cradled you, restored your soul to what it had been before he left. 

He chuckled as he held your sweltering skin, lips flush against your cheek. 

"What has taken you, my Husband?" You breathed against him, the throes of desire still biting at you. He remained inside you, not wanting to part with the pleasure he brought upon you both. And the satisfying heat he felt sweep across his chest.

As if spellstruck, he'd forgotten all the words he rehearsed, all the cruel jokes he meant to play on you, all the names he wanted to whisper in your ear when you danced to watch you try and pretend all was well, instead he whispered sweet words that had you shy.

 "A dragon does not bend nor break, so what makes you think I am 'softening'?"

Those were the calculated words he responded with when Daeron questioned his change in plans and demeanor, words that had his eldest brother exhale in muted amusement—as if he knew something Aerion did not.

Well… Daeron never knew shit about anything, so…

What's he to know about strategy?

He was simply building you up so he can break you later — yes, that's why, that's why he spent so much time on figuring out what you liked.

Your favorite color. Your favorite type of jewelry. Your favorite gemstone. Your favorite flower.

Anything you liked.

Those were all easy facts to unearth, all he had to do was bribe your stupid brat of a little brother with a short play-time with his glorious draconic black-steel helmet to find that information out—if he wasn't your little brother he would have had him whipped for even daring to ask, hells, he wouldn't even let him ask for anything in return, but a dragon is merciful as much as he was strong-handed.

He had his armorer deep clean his helmet afterwards from your brother's disgusting sweaty head.

But it was worth it in the end, because you smiled the widest he's seen since he laid eyes on you when he presented the bracelets he had all but threatened the jeweler give priority over his other pieces (not that he'd need to be ordered).

 "It matches your eyes, my prince." You smiled softly, holding up your wrist as if to compare him with the amethyst-eyed silver dragon coiling around your wrist.

A very dangerous heat rolled over his body in waves, simmering, his heart gnawed at his ribs, he felt sick, like a fever possessed him, but a dragon doesn't fall ill, it had to have been something else.

 You adored him, that much was obvious. His plans were moving along nicely, it wouldn't hurt to have a little bit of fun with you now.

It took little convincing before he had you sitting on his lap, your knees on either side of him, looking up at him so sweetly, like he could never hurt you.

He wanted to ruin you.

Teach you that the word 'fuck' wasn't merely a profanity men threw around. Tear down all the walls your parents put up around you to protect you from this indecency he had you in.

And yet…

And yet… he couldn't find it in himself to do it.

Instead, he was soft.

Soft in the way he taught you how to kiss. Gentle in the way pressed his lips against yours, understanding in the way he let you pull away for air when he didn't want to, patient in the way he let you change the angle of your heads as many times as you wanted.

He let you kiss him until his lips were swollen. Then he let you walk away, not going any farther than that, and kept the promise he planned to break.

 It was only one afternoon that he learned the truth behind the phantom fever that came and went. Initially he thought you had a spell placed on him out of spite, and when he told Daeron of his suspicions, he gave him a look.

"Well, how's that going to help her?" Daeron laughed, brow raised. "A fever spell he says… sorcery has fallen on sad days."

Aerion simply rolled his eyes and went off to bed.

You were sat on a blanket beneath a tree when he finally found you—well, finally was a dramatic word, he knew you'd be here—it was only that he hadn't seen you since the night before.

Slowly and boredly, you plucked the petals off the flower in your hand, a growing stacks of petals on one side, each different colors, and on your other side was a stack of stems.

That wasn't what got him though—he knew you liked making coloring paint from flower petals—what got him was the way you lit up when you saw him, he was certain your smile willed the clouds away for the sunlight to shine through.

"Aerion!" You called, excited like seeing him was the best thing that's happened to you, he wanted you to say his name like that forever.

He felt his knees go weak.

Aerion understood what the "fever" truly was now.

That was a lie — the truth of it was known to him for a while, within the deepest crevices of his soul, he just couldn't admit it to himself.

His heart was yours to hold, a vulnerability he's willing to gamble on.

After-all – look at you, and the way you smiled and gazed at him so sweetly like you could do nothing but.

 And that was what you've done, and kept doing, through your wedding ceremony, through your marriage, and through… well…

He was certain something was wrong.

You grinned and kissed and touched at him the way you've always done, but there was a certain weariness in it.

A weariness in your tired eyes, the skin beneath your eyes sunken like you've missed sleep.

At first he thought it was his fault for tiring you out every night, driving into you relentlessly and filling you up over and over each night. Eager to see you grow heavy with his child, and claim you in one more way to drive the eyes of these lustful mongrels off you.

Now, that he has gone easy on you, it seemed like the problem lied elsewhere.

Still, you remained tired, and you spent less time near him.

He suspected his seed quickened within your womb, but that was quickly disproved by your moon-blood the day he wished to get you examined by a maester. What a pity.

So what was it?

Did you tire of him?

Surely not.

Aerion would burn Westeros to the ground if that happened, mark his words.

 He'd hoped it was mere paranoia, you didn't love him less, you still smiled at him the way he liked, you still slept beside him in his own bed, you never left him.

 You would never leave him — never.

 But here you were, doing just that.

Aerion woke up to a cold emptiness on your side of the bed and a disturbing lack of the limbs that usually wrapped around him much like a soft warm blanket, a haven from the coldness of night.

Your side of the bed was cold—It was cold.

You've been gone a while.

Where could you be that was so urgent you would disturb your sleep and comfort for it?

What was so important that would have you leave your dragon? your prince? your husband? your Aer?

He paced around the room, restless, plagued by his thoughts, the waning light of the candles shroud his mind in further darkness.

He had half a mind to rouse and gather all the servants to look for you, but what little reason he had – had won out. You will have to come back to bed eventually.

He will wait, yes.

You slowly and carefully opened the door, worried that the rickety hinges would squeak that annoying shrill sound and rouse your husband — unaware that he was already awake and watching you, cross-legged and leaning his elbow on the armchair with his temple rested on his hand, his eyes glinting with barely contained amusement despite his worries, it wasn't his fault you looked so adorable taking off your shoes and sneaking about like some scared little kitten.

"My love!" You nearly died right there from the scare.

"Aerion!" You whined with your hand on your beating heart, glaring at your husband who was all to happy about nearly murdering you. "Why are you out of bed?"

Aerion stood slowly and stalked towards you, one prowling step at a time. "Why am I out of bed? Why are you out of bed, when you've been so, so tired these past weeks?"

He took ahold of your hand, pressing his palm against yours and enlacing his fingers through your own. "What has you so busy that you would leave me in the cold dead of night?"

You gazed deep into his expectant eyes, you didn't want to tell him, not yet, so you took his jaw in your free hand and pressed kisses on the other side of his face, that usually had him wrapped around your fingers, and distracted him from whatever held his ire and wrath at the time.

Aerion was torn between pressing his cheek into your hand or your doting lips—instead he groaned and took your face into his hands and joined his lips with yours in a hard and lustful kiss.

It worked, but only for a second.

He pulled away from you in a sudden and quick movement, tragically… just when you felt the outline of something you've grown intimately familiar with against your abdomen.

"Tell me, don't avoid the question again." He ordered, irate.

"Where were you just now?"

You sighed in defeat, you wanted this to be a surprise.

"I will show you tomorrow." You compromised, pressing kisses again to his face, but Aerion pushes your face away, gently, despite his irritation at your relentless attempts in seducing him, at any other time, he would welcome it with elation, but now was not the time.

"No, show me, now." He commanded.

"As you wish, my Aer." You said with small pout at having your surprise be ruined.

You led him through the darkness. The halls of this side of the castle long abandoned, they weren't unfamiliar to him, he just never had the interest of being here, no longer a curious wide-eyed child but a grown prince with better things to do.

Aerion used to stack the furniture in one of these rooms into some kind of "castle" and force Daeron to play some make-believe game, he was Aegon the Conquerer, Daeron was Balerion the Black Dread, his brother couldn't exactly fly, but they made do—the memory had his lips quiver into a grin at the hilarity of it.

You walked him into a dark room and took the torch from his hand.

"Before I show you this, I want you to know that it's unfinished, I didn't want to show you this until your nameday, oh and it's pretty dark here, so don't give your verdict on it yet." You said, slightly nervous, and he began putting two and two together.

You were working on some kind of painting, for him. Impatient to see it, he wrapped his hand over yours on the torch and raised it to the easel behind you, bringing light to the painting rested on it.

It was a portrait of him and you, a masterpiece if he's ever seen one. The colors were so vibrant even in the dark. His features were so drawn so carefully, so identical to his own—is this why you've been holding him down in bed? Why you've traced every line and outline on his face? Why he's woken up countless times to you straddling him and staring so intensely?

The way you've drawn yourself was far inaccurate compared to his own, it lacked the details he loved about you, you've told him how hard self-portraits were to you, saying how the back and forth between the mirror and yourself was boring and arduous, but he knew the truth.

"Aer?" You called, uncomfortable at the way he was staring at the image of you. He hummed in response, taking the torch from your hand and lit the sconces on the walls, lighting up the room.

Aerion held you close to him, curling himself on you with his cheek pressed to yours, holding your head and turning it to the portrait.

"You have no idea how much you've delighted me with this, my love," he whispered lowly against your ear.

"But…" He said nuzzling his cheek against yours again and staring back at the painting. "It would be made much better if you've drawn yourself the way you deserve to be drawn."

You let him pull you before the tall mirror you've been using to draw yourself.

Aerion presses himself to your behind, and you feel his hardened cock against it. He takes his time in undoing the drawstring of your night clothes while pressing kisses to your shoulder.

You throw your head back with a breathy moan when his hand touches at you where you need him most, his other holding you up against him at the buckling of your legs.

The lack of credit to your martial prowess did not bother you much, if any were to know you would be a pariah to the court. Because ladies did not comport themselves with such 'impropriety' — they do not swing swords nor clad themselves in armor to protect themselves, their families and people from traitorous pretenders.

You father was only supportive of your joining the fight was because it made your brother look good. Making his heir look like an unstoppable warrior was his only reason for being so permissive for so long, if it were any other lord, he would have threatened to send you away to become a septa or a silent sister.

Besides, It was not hard to deceive the others when you looked so alike, and the chaos of battle did not allow anyone the chance to think twice about how your brother lost an inch or two, or lacked the limp of a hurt leg they saw him with before he entered his pavilion – although your father was sure to give him that same impairment to keep the deception.

Nerves never touched you in the face of death. Your heart never quickened in worry for your life. Your hands never shook with fear of misstep, not for yourself—not even for your brother, you were sure your father would find some way to deny 'his' death, not even he could be cruel enough to kill your brother over this grand charade—they only shook for Baelor, in the beginning, but you could never forgive yourself if your fear cost you him. So you quickly learned to reign that fear in deep in the confines of your heart.

But in the anticipation of seeing him again—your beloved—face-to-face and unhidden by disguise, you found a flutter of butterflies spiraling around in your stomach and your heart felt like it could burst from how hard it beat in your chest, and you found your hands trembling no matter how hard you clutched at the straps of your satchel.

In all the nerves that threatened to topple you in, you refused to let them drown you. Baelor asked for you, he was hurt, he needed you. To pause and hesitate out of uncontrolled apprehension outside his pavilion was not an option.

So you stepped in without hesitation, your steps never faltered once. He was alone, topless and bleeding from a wound on his arm, and yet he smiled and greeted you by your name as if nothing was wrong. Like you were children again and you came to visit for a game of Cyvasse, like the decade of separation never happened, and you were not in a war.

You do not reply, your legs moved before you willed them to, guided by familiar instinct and urgency to protect him.

"It is better than it looks, do not worry yourself." He tells you as you remove the cloth he used to stop the bleeding to clean the wound and check for the extent of the damage. It does not seem like blood is actively streaming down, that was a good sign. It still needs to get stitched up, the war is not done, the healing must be expedited.

"How have you been?" Baelor asks, watching you as you swiftly laid out your tools on the table.

The question felt severely out of place, but it was good to keep him distracted from the pain so you answered but kept it short while you cleaned his wounds.

"I'm alright, considering." You reply calmly, referring to the war you were in.

He sucks in a breath at the burning sensation of wine.

"Good." Baelor says, voice strained with slight pain.

He does not waver at your meager response. "And your brother?"

"He was unharmed last I seen him, your grace." Truly, he was fine. Physically at least. He was waiting in his pavilion as the battle raged on with bated breath for you to get back safe and sound, no matter how neutral he kept his expression – you could tell from the mess of books strewn about that he was particularly consumed with anxiety this day. He only left when you were done washing the blood off you, and after you told him everything that happened. Partly to keep up the ruse but mostly to evaluate and efficiently strategize in the next war council meeting.

Your brother was the best strategist there ever was, if only your father recognized that and did not value skills of arms more than skills of mind. He would be unparalleled as Lord of Warrior's Den.

Silence passed and you believed that was the end of his questions.

Your grace? Baelor frowned.

It has been years since he's seen and spoke to you alone. He understood why you kept such distance, after what he's done — after leading you on and marrying another for the sake of the realm, for who the council dictated he marries.

He supposes your unresponsiveness and informal demeanor towards him was his punishment—and what a punishment it was. It would be far merciful if you yelled and screamed instead, you would look him in the eyes then.

You did not bother responding to his prodding. Instead holding up a potion he's come to see often these past moons. Milk of the poppy.

"No."

Your brows furrowed in confusion. Has he went mad? What the fuck does he mean no?

"I cannot continue unless you're numb to the pain, your grace."

"Baelor." He corrects. You pay him no mind, raising the potion to him again.

"Drink it." To order him around was out of line but you could give a shit about that right now. He was acting like a child—you were about to sew him up like a piece of embroidery and he wants you to call him by his name?

He takes it from your hands only to set it aside on the table.

"If it please you, I'd rather be without it."

I want to make sure you're real.

"As you wish," you respond, masterfully threading the silk through the needle like you've done it countless times before. "should it be too much, tell me to stop."

Take your time. Baelor nods in understanding.

"I will." He lies with a reassuring smile.

The moment the needle pierced his skin, he grit his teeth and hissed in pain – but he endures and does not even give the pain numbing potion a glance.

His eyes were fixed on you the whole time. Burning your focused expression into memory. It was reminiscent of the one you had whenever you thought too hard in your discussions or games, always so serious, so endearing.

That face was as beautiful as he saw it last. Halfway through the stitch-up he was sure the relentless rush of his heart at your touch numbed up the pain the way it did in the battlefield.

When all was done you carefully wrapped his arm with clean bandages and discarded the bloodied linen cloth he had pressed to his arm earlier.

You couldn't help but think. How could he have been wounded? His armor was far too durable to be slashed through so easily, unless the assaulting weapon was of valyrian steel, in which case it would've had no issue cutting through like hot knife to butter.

But when was this? You kept your eyes on him so closely, you had his back. How could you have missed this? How could you have let it happen? Was he attacked by a backstabber in your midst after he shed his armor?

It couldn't be helped — you needed to know.

The words slipped past your lips before you could think twice about them. "Who did this?"

Baelor grinned, his smile frustrated and worried you both, you have never seen a man so happy about being injured. "Does it matter?"

"Yes." You said firmly and without thinking.

His grin grew wider, alarming you further. "Why?"

"There were no wielders of valyrian steel in this battle other than you and my brother." You pressed.

"You mean other than you and me?"

Your heart drops and you turn your gaze at the open flap of the tent, when you look back he was standing so close you could feel the heat radiating off his bare chest. You couldn't help but step back, realizing how inappropriate the proximity was in his state of undress.

"What are you talking about!?" You hiss at him, knowing exactly what he was talking about.

Your father lent you the ancestral sword of your house—Cyclone—on account of the growing heap of swords you bent and broke. It's useless in your brother's hands. He'd tell you. And as much as you felt for him, you were grateful—not to your father of course—but for the opportunity to protect your prince better.

"My father would never allow me in the field, I'm only a healer—you know that!"

"Do I?" He says as he walks to the entrance of the pavilion to close it shut, the only light source left within was from the candlelight—if it weren't for the situation at hand you'd wonder to yourself why he'd have candles lit in broad daylight—your eyes rake over his back, broad and covered with scars.

Baelor turns to find your wandering eyes right where he wanted them — all over him. The plan is unfolding exactly as he intended.

He walks up to you, albeit not as close as he was.

"What a wonderful fighter your brother is," he steps forward, you step back. "that's what everyone seems to go on about when the fighting was done." he steps forward again, you step back again.

"But he couldn't possibly be as good as you."

There was no more room for you to back off to, you stumble into the chair he was sat in and it almost topples backwards at your fall, but he holds it in place by the arms and all but cages you in.

Heat courses through your whole body. He's so fucking beautiful, a voice in your head screamed. He had his head tilted at an angle and dark curls fell upon his face hiding his only valyrian trait, his pale lilac eye — and yet he still looked every bit the dragon they all denied he was, with the way he had you trapped with a fanged smirk as if you were his prey.

You turned your eyes away from his heated gaze, they fall on the bandaged arm and you realize— could the wound have festered? Is this why he's been acting so brazen and unconcerned? Why he's accusing you of these things? Even if he was correct it is beyond you how he could have realized it was you.

"Baelor are you alright?"

There it is, you finally said it. Baelor's grip tightens around the wooden armrests without quite meaning to, his nails dig into the wood at the strength of his hold.

When he does not respond you press your palm to his forehead, you do not detect the blazing heat of fever. You let your hand fall to his cheek, he responds to your touch immediately, kneeling down and melting into your hand.

"It's been so long since you touched me like this," he breathes reverently.

Your mind blanks as you watch him press your hand harder into his face and kiss it in a gentleness that contrasted his demeanor mere moments ago.

The puzzle pieces finally begin to fall into place. Memories of your youth flood your mind, of all the times Baelor came to you complaining of calluses borne from weapon-handling, calluses that you tended to with the proficiency of a maester, considering your close and personal familiarity with them. Often times he came to you complaining of razor burns, and needless to say you became his personal apothecary.

You turn to the lit candles situated around you and you feel a squeeze on your hand, calling your attention back to the kneeling prince.

"What are you thinking of?" He asks you.

Your tone is humorless. "Baelor."

Getting the sense that he was in trouble with the familiar stern look you gave him, Baelor's smile falls and he ceases the thumb-strokes on the back of your hand, but he does not let go, even when you stood up—the action terrified Baelor, he thought you were going to walk out on him, but to his relief you lowered yourself to your knees instead.

You take his hand in yours, squeezing it – and if that was not enough you spoke up again. "Baelor."

"Did you do this to yourself?"

Baelor avoids your gaze, shame coloring his ears red. He did not need to respond for you to know the answer.

"Are you mad?" You ask calmly, but he's never seen you angrier. It was not the time at all but he felt aroused at the low and firm tone you took with him.

He couldn't open his lips to sputter out any words in defense before you started again, voice full of fury.

"You must be," you add angrily whilst you stood and jerked your hand from his grip. "to risk dying just so you can drag me in here–"

Baelor goes to speak, but again you interrupt him. "Shut your mouth."

He obeys, silently looking up at you from his position on the ground, waiting on your next reprimanding words.

"This is the most dimwitted, thoughtless, foolish thing you've ever done," you point at his bandaged arm.

"I did not mean to slash so deep, and I'm quite certain I've done more foolish things." He retorts quietly, causing you to drop back onto the chair exasperatedly and throw your head back with a much needed deep grounding breath. "Like what?" You question, tone weary.

"Not getting to you sooner."

The quiet and sincere admission drains the smoldering rage that consumed your heart from the inside out – replacing it with the all too familiar cold ache that made you feel like your ribs were choking out your heart.

Lowering yourself back on your knees again, you take his hands in yours looking at him with the softest of eyes and a sad smile. "Regrets won't take back the years lost, Baelor."

"And we both know I could never be a good queen." You shrug bitterly.

"That is not true." He interjects gripping your hands hard as if it would change your mind.

"Of course it is, everyone in the Red Keep knew how much I adored you but I was not even an option—what with me being the daughter of a second-son at the time—not even you considered me seriously–" your voice wavered and you broke into a sob.

Baelor pulls you into a crushing embrace—swallowing back the screaming pain in his wounded arm and in his aching heart—rocking you back and forth while he apologized over and over in your hair.

He ran his fingers through your hair, the way he used to do whenever you came to him crying. This was all his fault, he could have been faster, he could have done better.

"I did consider you," he said quietly when your sobs died down into little gasps for air. "I wanted to find you that day the betrothal was announced and tell you that I could never agree to marry anyone but you, that I did and will not care what the King or his Hand decided for me."

"But he.." he trailed off with barely contained venom. "he sent you back to Warrior's End and said you were to be betrothed to some lord. However, when we got reports from the Riverlands, not a single one of them included your name."

Oh. Of course your father ruined everything over his damned pride.

"I wanted to take you away with me to Dragonstone and marry you before they could get their hands on either one of us."

That would have had severe repercussions; tensions with the marcher lords were bad enough as they were — to insult them like that and break the betrothal… that would have been an unwise move. They already dislike him (even if in a discreet way) for his dornish ancestry, passing over a marcher lord's daughter for the daughter of a second-son lord in the Riverlands to be their future queen could've boiled up the discontent into a rebellion.

Although a rebellion was inevitable—you were in one right now—that could have brought it on quicker, and many would find the bastard preferable to the weak book-loving king that couldn't control nor keep his lovesick heir from breaking the promise made to them, even if the promise wasn't uttered from his own lips nor pen.

You suppose it was for the best things turned out this way, but even then—if you went back in time knowing this, and Baelor came to you in time with his plans, you knew, from the bottom of your heart and in the deepest parts of your soul you would run away with him, he was irresistible like that.

And you would rather die than be away from him again for that long. Wondering if you've done something wrong. Doubting him and yourself; if he ever loved you in the first place, if you were misinterpreting things to be more serious than they were. You came to the conclusion that whether he loved you or not meant nothing, he wasn't your husband and you weren't his wife.

He was a prince, the future king — and you were only a royal subject, nothing more and nothing less. What happened in your youth means nothing, you were incompatible. The years will pass and what was in the past should remain in it, that's what you told yourself.

Yet even then you couldn't help yourself from dreaming of what could have been. Hells, all you've done was compare your suitors to him.

You'd watch their behavior and scrutinize; Baelor wouldn't have humiliated that servant over a spill of wine – too repulsive. Baelor wouldn't have acted so immature and giggled so much over his own inappropriate jokes, he wouldn't have said an inappropriate joke to begin with – too childish. Baelor wouldn't have been so condescending and assumed you didn't know the simple rules of Cyvasse, he wouldn't have thrown a tantrum about losing either – too much of a whiny piece of shit.

Baelor. Baelor. Baelor.

That name tormented you, made you remember too much of what you lost, and for that reason you tried to draw distance by referring to him with titles, but even that did not last. It seems that not even a logical person like yourself could stay indifferent, your heart longed for him too much.

'The prince' slowly turned into 'my prince', and calling him 'Breakspear' only reminded you of how feverishly he kissed you the day he earned that title. It didn't help that it was the name you lovingly called him thereafter.

At one point in time you gave up, accepting that you will never stop wanting him, that your love for him was a flame that would keep your heart ablaze forever, you felt much like the navy-blue moth ablaze with azure fires on the white banners of your house, difference was that the moth was delighted to burn, the grin of the crescent moon and the laughing eyes on it's wings told you as much.

When you were but a girl you were confused at the sigil as it contrasted with the ideology of your house. For a member of house Mori, a death in battle is the most honorable kind — to have a puny bug as your sigil was strange and unfitting, it was only when you shed your first drop of blood that you understood, that you knew the true elation of a good fight in the rush of invigorating energy that coursed through your veins like wildfire—you wished for it to consume you.

Two things can be true at once though, you can delight in the heat of battle and the flames of his love, you just didn't think you'd have both again — it was thrilling.

"That would've been.. a stupid thing to do." You say with a fond smile, eyes trailing down to his lips.

"Would you rather I just let them–" you interrupt his distressed speech by leaping at him and kissing him like you've longed for all these years. He melts into you instantly and pulls you down slowly with him on the ground.

When his hands trail down on your body and he groans against your mouth at the strain of his pants on his manhood, suddenly you remember where you were and pull away.

He looked like a mess, sprawled out on the ground like that – hair disheveled, body shirtless, sweaty and flushed all over. As much you wanted to take things further and devour him whole, he was injured and you needed him alive.

"What wrong?" He asks with heavy breaths, staring up at you with wanton eyes and laying his strong hands on top of yours, the ones you had anchored on his chiseled stomach under the guise of keeping your balance.

"I cannot let your wound get worse, Baelor. What kind of healer would I be if I let that happen under my watch?"

"I suppose you're right." He says, yielding to your will. There would be time for that, he'll make sure of it.

Baelor sat up and wrapped his arms around your waist, pulling you even closer on his lap. "When all of this is done – will you be my wife?" He asks lowly, eyes looking at you intensely.

What a stupid question. You grin and answer him with a chaste kiss. "Who else would I be marrying?"

Baelor's hold tightens ever so slightly as you continue pressing small kisses on his mouth. He pulls his head back to look at you. You look back at him with confusion. "I heard you were well acquainted with that Royce man." He says, searching your face for something, a change of expression. A denial from your lips. You give nothing but confusion.

You were honestly unsure which one he was referring—ohhh!!

Harris Royce? Yes you suppose you were acquainted. He was a suitor—and emphasis on was—he is now a friend you enjoyed the company of whenever he deigned to visit your family's seat. The courtship at this point was a front and an excuse for lords to leave you be.

Your father knew of that arrangement and could not care less whether you married or not. His main concern was your brother anyways, you were not the heir.

"Oh?" You grin impishly. "I did not know the Prince of Dragonstone held so much interest on the marital affairs of the Riverlands?"

Baelor peers down at you with a frown. "I am meant to know these things, why are you so surprised?" You laugh as you push his hair out of his face, he preens under your touch.

Wanting to change the subject you look around you at the lit candles and incense that drowned out the metallic scent of blood.

You could not help it at all, you had to mess with him. "So your plan was; to get me alone under the pretense of needing me to mend your self-inflicted wound, woo me into bed and then propose? You couldn't do the latter alone like a normal person?"

Baelor scoffs. Suddenly he leans forward and pushes you down on the floor, startled at the sudden shift you had your legs instinctively wrapped around him. The Baelor you knew in your younger years wouldn't have been so shameless like this—yes, you may have shared kisses back then but he never went this far. Maybe you shouldn't have riled him up.

"You want me to be a normal person?" He asks you as if what you told him was such an unattainable and absurd request

He leans down low, his lips hovering along your jaw, feathering against your skin but never kissing it. "I spent years—long and miserable years far away from you."

You should not have riled him up at all — and with the pressure and heat at your core you truly do not trust yourself at all not to pounce on him if he kept on speaking to you like that, if he kept on teasing you with those almost kisses any longer.

"And when this war finally brought us together," he said against the base of your jaw. "I was given the opportunity to speak to you again, but you did your utmost to avoid me."

Baelor pushed himself up with one arm and looked deep into your eyes, his pupils blown. "You always made sure to fight by my side in each and every battle, but despite that you refused to speak to me," he held his hurt arm up to you "I had to wound myself for you to do that, yet even then you could not bring yourself to speak freely or say my name the way you used to — so tell me.."

"How was I ever meant to act normal?"

You should probably say something, but your mind drew a blank. How do you even respond to something like that? Your body spoke for you instead. A groan rumbled through his chest as you squeezed your legs and grinded yourself against him. Baelor breathed out a laugh that was akin to a whimper.

"What happened to 'I cannot let your wound get worse'?" He told you tauntingly, meeting your movements with equal fervor and lowering himself close to see your face clearly. "Do you want me that badly that you would risk it?" Now, Baelor knew the answer, but he wants—needs to hear it from your lips.

You felt too ashamed to say it, so you responded wordlessly, arching your back with a moan and pulling him down to your lips. He chuckles into your mouth and carefully stands up, there was no issue in carrying you as you did most of the work anyways, considering your strength and stamina.

The strength that had his heart singing with pride and cock throbbing with want. When he regains his health back. When the war was over and you were his. He swears to test the full extent of that stamina.

Baelor lays you down on the bed after nearly knocking over everything on his way to it, not wanting to separate his tongue from yours. He laughs again into your mouth when you refuse to loosen your grip on him. He taps on your interlocked arms on the back of his neck and you snap out of it, pulling away after a moment. Your hazy eyes follow his fingers as they moved to wipe away the string of saliva connecting your mouths.

"I've missed this, sweet moth," your breath hitches at the fond nickname. "you taste as good as I remember." His hands caress their way down your inner thigh and pause right before they touch you right where you need him most. There he goes again with the almost touches.

"I can think of a way or two for us both to enjoy ourselves without worry," of a growing babe or of an open wound. As much as he wanted to have a little prince or princess off you — he cannot allow your first child together to risk your life nor let it bear the scrutiny of bastardy, nor would he let those cruel whisperers besmirch your reputation. "If you would let me show you, that is."

You think you have an idea of what he meant. You think. He could be talking about anything really. Who knows what he's been planning on doing.

"Okay," you say breathlessly, spreading your legs apart for him. Baelor settles himself between your legs when they loosened their hold around him, his eyes find yours and the way you looked up at him was maddening.

Baelor's hand moves along your hot skin in an unhurried pace that betrayed his eagerness, he'd rather not overwhelm you. He lets out a breath he did not know he was holding when his fingers press against your clothed cunt, the cotton cloth keeping him from it was warm and soaked with your arousal.

He slides a finger beneath the hem of your smallclothes and traces a line on your skin, smiling at the shiver it got out of you. "Can I help you out of those clothes, moth?"

You give him your approval by sitting up and turning around, silently requesting he helps you unlace, his nimble fingers undo them with ease. When you finally lift the hem of your plain dress over your head and throw it to off to the side, Baelor presses himself against your back and wraps his arms around your waist. He plants urgent kisses to the side of your neck, breathing you in between each kiss—and each one was placed higher than the one before it.

"You're extremely maddening you know that?" He says lowly against your ear, fingers trailing up and down your front snd squeezing your breast from underneath the thin cover of cotton.

The wandering touches of his hand, the feeling of his clothed cock hard against your behind, his labored breathing—all of it together sets your skin ablaze, it almost makes you yield to your temptations and pin him to the bed and have your way with him. So much for not wanting to overwhelm you, and he says you were maddening.

You knew exactly how to make him give you what you want – with your head tilted back you press a kiss to his temple. "My fire," you breathe out in desperation. His fingers still their movements at the name you called him by, but the beat of his heart quickens against his ribs. "please… stop teasing."

"As you wish." Baelor promises.

In swift but careful movements he laid you back on the bed and removed what little cover you had on your body. Despite his promise of not teasing you, Baelor takes his sweet time staring hungrily at your nude body — practically caressing your soft and supple skin with his eyes. As much as you loved seeing Baelor Breakspear be put into a trance by the simple sight of you stripped of all clothing, you were tired of waiting.

You snap him out of his trance with a call of his name – which you had to repeat twice. You do not say anything but he gets the idea from the impatient look you give him. Baelor shuffles off the bed, gently but firmly pulling you to the edge of it.

He kneels and lifts the underside of your knees, he starts kissing down your inner thighs — slowly.

"Baelor," you raise your head to look at him impatiently, the name uttered almost a groan. "you promised not to tease! just fuck me."

Baelor laughs against your skin, the sound affects you more than it should–no it affects you just like it should, the throbbing at your core matches the rhythm of your heart.

"I am not teasing," he sinks his teeth into your thigh, the bite sends a pleasant combination of pain and pleasure through you; some have said that those two sensations were two sides of the same coin, now you understand what they meant. "and I am not fucking you, I am making love to you."

"That said," his hot breath fans against your folds and you hold your breath. "I have no plans to rush this."

Baelor plants a reverent kiss against your wet folds — drawing a long exhale out of you — then another, then another, until he was practically devouring you like a starving—thirsty man lost in a vast desert and only your cunt would satiate and quench him. His tongue was incessant, it had your legs quivering and your tongue tied-up with mewling his name, albeit incoherently.

Since the moment you've won your very first spar, you've had a taste of euphoria. Back then when you were a child—to you, there was nothing better than the rush of victory in a melee or joust, not even the sugary taste of the sweetest cakes.

That was your thinking well after you were a woman grown, you simply turned your nose up when the squires–thinking you were your brother–spoke to you of brothels and sex. Sure, sex was good but surely it was no better than a hard-won victory? How could it match the invigorating sight of your opponent yielding to your hand, all while the sound of your heart beats hard through your ears?

Sure, you've thought of Baelor in that light — but at that age, you would much rather clash swords with him in a friendly spar, that felt much more romantic, even if he didn't know. Not to mention the sweet kisses and nights you spent gazing at the stars together, his eyelashes tickling your neck while you rambled on about something you could no longer remember; that was far better than the obscenity of sex, and you doubted you could ever change your feelings on that.

You were horribly wrong.

This was far better than any of that — and he was holding back on you.

"My fire," you barely manage to articulate—your hips jolt up against your will at the blinding pressure coiling inside you that threatened to shatter your mind to pieces at any second. Baelor does not even part from your cunt, he just locks an arm around your hips and pins you down. "please I—mmh–"

That hot tongue of his laps hard against your clit. Those fingers leave their place of anchor on your hip and take the place of your tongue, rubbing and prodding at your sensitive cunt. Just when you were about to tell him to, he slides a finger inside you.

Your walls take it in hungrily and easily, squeezing tight and coating it with your wetness.

You clutch at a handful of his hair. "Fuck—Baelor, that feels so good–" at your praise he adds another and curls them at an angle that has your moans and whines reach a dangerous volume, you had no choice but to bite at your lip and stifle them lest you invite unwanted rumors.

Baelor replaces his tongue with a thumb, drawing back to look at you clearly, and you lock eyes with him. He looked thoroughly debauched, mouth covered in your wetness, his eyes blown with lust, and his hair tangled up and unkempt unlike its usual neat style.

There was a certain pleasure to be had from knowing you made him—reduced him, the great and honorable prince and heir to the throne to this – all without much effort.

Your wondered what else you could do to him if you tried.

"I cannot wait until this is all over," Baelor holds your thigh and presses open mouthed kisses against the bite-mark, soothing the angry skin with his tongue. "then I could make you my princess and you would not have to hide your beautiful sounds from me."

Baelor stares through you, as if in a distant dream. "Then I could bury my cock into you without any judgment from these petulant fools."

His hand leaves your thigh to free his aching cock from the suffocating breeches that caged it in, he removes a ring with his teeth and spits it to the side. His jaw drops slack in a satisfied sigh when he wraps his fist around it and strokes.

Baelor presses his cheek against your thigh, eyes glazed over. "Your warm walls feel like they would fit around me so well. I can already imagine it, sweet moth—can you?"

You can, it has your back arching just thinking of him pushing and pulling his cock inside you.

"Yes–I can, I can..." You say breathless and almost incoherent.

"There's nothing I want more than filling you to the brim with my seed–" Baelor groans against your thigh, trying his best to emulate the squeezes of your tight walls with his hand. "have you milk me for every last drop of it."

"Look at me," the order was more of a plead. You obey your prince and raise your head to hold his eyes, the eyes glistening with pleasured tears.

"I promise—" Baelor vows, head dropping and voice breaking with a moan, his eyes find yours again. "No one would ever separate us again. I'm yours—always."

You want to say something. Anything. Give him a promise of your own, say you were his, that you would kill all his bastard uncles to be his wife, put their heads on spikes—end this farce of a rebellion before the break of dawn.

But that rope of pressure in your stomach coiled so tight it could not keep on going—you could not keep on going. It snaps along with your control over your body, the hot waves of pleasure coursing through your body numbs your mind to reason, your awareness of your surroundings.

Only thing you can think of is him. His fingers that refuse to stop their assault on your quivering insides. His warm cheek pressed to your thigh. His erratic hot breaths against your cunt as he thrust into his hand, the stroke of his hand not proving enough. His name. His whole being—His name.

Baelor… Baelor… Baelor!

That was the only word you had on your mind and tongue as he finally pushes you to the edge. You quiver and tremble as he lets you ride through your peak on his fingers still. Your back arches for the last time and you drop onto the bed, exhausted, satisfied, and still not done yet.

Raising your head, you find Baelor's face buried on your thigh, trying to reach his own release to no avail.

You sit up and take his face in hand. He tries his best to keep his eyes open and look at you but he surrenders to the soft caress of your thumb and gives the tenderest smile you ever seen, lips twitching as if he could not help it from forming. An overwhelming amount of adoration floods your heart and you dive down to kiss him.

The taste of him—the taste of you and him fills your tongue, pushing you to try and tangle your tongue with his for more. As if reading your mind, he raises himself onto his knees and tilts his head for a better angle. It does not work. Not without his hands pressing you to him.

Baelor groans in frustration and envelops you in his arms, ignoring the ache at his groin at the lack of stimulation, releasing meant that you would have to leave him, it could wait. You did not share that view though. Since he pleased you so thoroughly he deserves to be rewarded for it.

A hand smaller but as callused as his own wraps around his cock, wet with the slickness that you gathered. He whimpers into your mouth at the sudden quick and hard rhythm you set. It was the same momentum you moved at and with same strength you put into the swing of your blade in the field.

Unwavering. Relentless. Firm.

This was far better than fucking into his own hand, than fucking into his pillows and deluding himself into believing it's you instead.

Baelor could feel you smile against his lips at the way he crumbled so easily at your touch, and if that wasn't enough, you put another hand to his shaft. Pulling and twisting in movements that forced him to pull away from your mouth to bury his face into the crook of your neck and muffle his sounds.

Where did you learn how to do all this so well? Did someone teach you? Or were you just so perfect for him you knew just how to bring him to the edge?

"Fuck," he curses lowly into your neck. Surrendering himself to you and your hands, he strained against the growing shakiness of his weakening legs. It was embarrassing how quickly you unraveled him.

"I can feel how close you are," you whisper into his ear. "are you not tired?"

Baelor had no words left to give, so he nodded shakily instead.

"What is stopping you?" You say, faux curiosity enlacing your questioning voice.

"I could use my tongue," you say casually like it was the most normal thing to offer, like the thought of your tongue lapping and wrapping around his cock did not keep him up at night since the moment he knew you were among your father's banner-men.

"Would you like that?" Your voice felt like an extra hand teasing him.

Fuck. He wanted to say yes. He wanted to nod — but just the thought of it had erased every coherent thought in his brain. It doesn't help that you graze your teeth at the rim of his ear and lick at it.

His brain goes blank as hot ropes of cum spill out of him in waves and splatter against your stomach. You don't stop your hand, making sure to have him spill every last drop. All while pressing kisses at his temple, and whispering the words he taught you all those years ago.

"Avy jorrāelan." You say fondly.

I love you. Those words sent cherished memories into the forefronts of his mind. Of each time he told it to you.

The first time, you didn't know what they meant, you didn't even hear him say it – because he told it to you in his heart. When he first saw you grin and laugh in triumph the first time you won against him in Cyvasse. The game that finally got you to pay him any attention.

In the very first year of your and your brother's time at court, Baelor was smitten with you. He's tried his best to impress you when you loomed above them all in the training yard, but no matter how many times he's beaten the others to the ground you just stared with a blank expression.

He assumed that was due to your brother being amongst his opponents — unbeknownst to him, you were impressed, it was only that you were burning everyone's move to memory for the next time you take your brother's place in the training, and humiliate Aegor for daring to speak that way to your brother.

From his hiding place behind a tree, he eavesdropped heard you complain about how you could never win against your brother, no matter what strategy you go with. It was later that he came to you, wondering if you wanted to play with him. It took you by surprise, but you relented after a moment of deliberation.

That day entwined your soul with his, he was sure of it.

He recalls another time, on the final day of his mother's name-day celebrations. It was the last match, the last tilt — you versus him.

Baelor knew it was you. How could he not? No matter how many times he wanted to ask for your favor in past tourneys, he could never find you in the stands. You who always spoke of your younger twin with nothing but love and respect, was always missing when it was your brother's turn to show himself

And It was always when your brother was performing his best. Then when he would find you, the calluses of your palms were always more inflamed than when he saw them last; he'd assumed it was from bow-handling, it made barely any sense but it was the only explanation possible to him then.

To know it was you beneath the armor all those times, besting your opponents with the might of a warrior – it filled him with pride. No matter how much it worried him. No matter how his heart ached at how you hid this from him all those years.

"Avy jorrāelan." He said to you under his breath, even if you were on the other side of the tilting grounds and it couldn't reach your ears, he vowed to give you his all. It was the only way to honor you. It was the only way for him to see that glow on your face – giving you a tough fight.

After ten tilts, your lances splintered for the last time and Baelor fell off his horse. The hard fall to the ground had him seeing stars in the daylight. An ethereal glow took shape around you when you came into view to lend him a hand, ignoring the cheers in the stands at the climax of the joust, along with the jeers calling for Baelor to get up and give them an encore with a bout on foot.

When the Grand-maester finally took him away, it appeared that you knocked him off so hard it gave him a concussion. It was not his first of course, but it was his favorite one. Because you gave it to him, it didn't hurt that you fussed over him afterwards. Apologizing on the behalf of your brother and massaging his temples awkwardly, unsure if it would actually help.

He only gave you a reassuring smile and commended your brother for his skills with the lance and horse-riding, stating that he had the strength and chivalry required of a true knight; that if he was a knight himself he'd knight him on the spot.

Despite his clouded sight and confused mind, he managed to etch your sweet and bashful reaction into the deepest crevices of his heart and soul.

It was the reaction that stopped him from killing your father for letting you enter the fray of this war, but he supposes he has him to thank for teaching you how the skills you needed to survive for so long, revolting as he was.

A tremendous amount of gladness and relief fills his heart, that you were safe and sound and his.

"Avy jorrāelan tolī.' He returns your loving admission, pouring all the love in his heart into it, as he had hundreds of time before, the words came as naturally as they did all those years ago.

Baelor gets up to seat himself by your side, taking your hands in his and calling you by your name with a serious look, causing you to look at him with full attention. "Can you promise me something, my love?"

"Anything," you answer, searching his eyes for a hint of what he could want.

"If you ever see Daemon, promise me to walk the other way." He implores you, he knows how you act to his uncle's foot soldiers, he doesn't want to know what you'd do if you saw that man.

A dark look crosses your face, eyes glinting with conviction. "You know I would die for you, right?" You say as if that was a reasonable excuse to fight the most protected man on the opposing side.

"Can you live for me instead?" He urges you, pleading with his eyes too, you get lost in them for a moment and sigh. You've been dreaming of killing Daemon yourself, but if your prince insists with his beautiful eyes.

"I suppose I can let someone else take him off my hands." You compromise calmly, despite the raging disappointment swirling in your gut. It calms too though when Baelor launches himself at you and pulls you onto your sides, peppering dozens of kisses that send you hurtling into a fit of giggles.

It took a minute or two of half-hearted resistance before you pushed him off of you. "What's gotten into you?" You tell him while he walks off to look into the drawers.

"You know exactly what," he retorts with a grin in his voice, revealing himself from behind the dresser with a small box in hand.

"What's that?" You ask him when he sat down next to you.

"This is yours," he states, opening the box to reveal a pendant.

The chain was made of silver, just as you preferred – the pendant hanging off it was in the shape of a ring containing a thoroughly detailed moth, the grinning crescent and smiling four-eyes was as unnerving as it should be. You turn the moth to find the other face encrusted and divided with an amethyst and a smoky quartz, your favorite gemstones – you wondered if he realized that was because they had the same shades of his mismatched eyes.

Baelor watches your reaction with a pleased smile. "I meant to gift you this when I sent the letter vying for your hand moons ago, but you know what happened."

Yeah, maybe you should not have promised to leave Daemon be. As if sensing your thoughts, Baelor presses a chaste kiss to your lips.

you pitch a whine from the back of your throat as his cock spreads the wet clutch of your pussy apart, dragging deep towards the plug of your cervix as he ruts into you, hips smacking against the flesh of your arse. but that’s when you feel it—the solid mass of his chest and abdomen as he leans over you, crowds you, then the thick, scarred column of his arm as it wraps around your throat.

you yelp when he hauls you up until you’re kneeling with him, your sweat-slick back flush with his chest. the corded muscles in his arm contract as he pins your neck into the crook of his elbow, his head coming to rest directly beside your ear.

you suck in a gasp at the new angle and the way the head of his cock pushes up deep inside you. the pressure makes you keen, moaning his name as he traps you against his chest. your hands find his arm, nails dimpling the sun-kissed skin, as he noses at the shell of your ear, his hips rucking upwards.

“you’re restless today,” maekar mutters, tip of his cock nailing that perfect spot inside you. you mewl, clutching his arm as your pussy flutters around him. he pants against the pulse point below your ear. “you just couldn’t kneel there and take it, could you? were you waiting for this, sweet girl?”

his cock hits deep, the velvet ridges along the length rubbing against the slick walls of your cunt. you take him so well, squeezing tight each time he thrusts in and out, slick dribbling from you as he takes what he needs.

you whine in response. “no, maekar, i’m—”

“s’alright, s’alright…” maekar coos, his other hand curling around your waist to press flat to the mound of your lower belly. “i’ve got you, sweet girl. can’t go anywhere now, can you?”

the strong mass of his arm presses tighter to your throat, and you suck in a sharp breath. you hold his arm too, anchoring yourself as he fucks you, your entire body shifting with each of his movements. he’s grunting in your ear, and a couple of damp, white strands of hair fall across his forehead and rub near your temple.

“that’s a good girl, that’s it,” he whispers, feeling your pussy flutter around him. he’s holding you firm against him, the space between you nonexistent and boiling hot. the hand on your belly presses in, the added pressure making you cry out his name. he kisses your cheek softly. “s’alright, don’t fuss, sweet girl. just take it—just fucking take it.”

you can’t do much but take it, really. you’re pinned to his body, heat radiating from him. the bed creaks softly as his hips slam up against you, and he groans right in your ear. you moan his name in response, the vowels stretched around a whine, and he kisses the heated skin of your cheek again.

“my sweet girl, my best girl,” your husband rambles, breathing harshly as his cock ruts in and out of you, the wet heat of your cunt sucking him in. he groans, “i think you’ll take my seed just as well as you take my cock, won’t you?”

you whimper, gasping through the sound as the head of his cock grinds up against that spot inside you that has stars exploding behind your eyelids. the heat in your belly and the pressure in your spine threatens to shatter within you, and you clutch maekar’s arm in support as he fucks you. he groans, revelling in the tight squeeze of your pussy and the way slick dribbles from you, wet across the seam of his balls as he moves.

“she’s begging me for it,” maekar utters, holding you tightly as you flutter around him. “she wants me to fill her, doesn’t she? she wants me to fill her, sweet girl, i can feel it.”

you moan. “maekar, please, please, please—”

“i know, i know, i’ve got you,” your husband mutters, kissing your cheek as the heat and pressure inside finally overwhelm you. he feels your body seize up, your cunt clenching vice-like around the thick of his cock, and he knows you’re on the edge. his hand on your lower belly presses down even firmer. “let me feel you.”

you splinter from the inside out, orgasm racking through you as heat bursts like stars in your veins, and the pressure in your belly dissolves into the marrow of your bones. you come with his name on your lips, moans filling your chambers as your body trembles against his, nails digging into the scarred skin of his forearm. he fucks you through it, trapping you against him as you tremble and whine, pleasure flushing through your veins.

“good girl, there we go,” he mutters, practically bouncing your spent body back onto his. your head rolls back onto his shoulder and he plants a wet kiss to the junction of your jaw. his hips snap, then snap up again, and he growls where he kisses you, his balls drawing tight. “gods above, you’re so fucking tight. she’s begging for a babe, isn’t she? cunt’s pitching a right fit—doesn’t want to let me go.”

you mewl softly, eyes closing as maekar barrels towards his own release. there’s a sharp pressure in the base of his spine, and you can feel the desperation of his movements as he chases that pressure towards its breaking point.

maekar groans, thick and rumbling. “i’ll spill inside you, alright, sweet girl? fill you with my babe—fuck, you always look so fucking good when you’re with child, when you’re round with my babe. yeah, fuck—fuck, my sweet girl, my perfect girl—”

he’s rambling now, and that’s when you know. maekar groans your name right against the shell of your ear as his hips stutter, the arm around your throat pinning you back as he spills inside you. the pressure in his spine snaps and spreads, and he moans deep from his chest as the heat of his orgasm crashes over him. his cock nudges deep inside, right at the base of your cervix, and paints you in thick, hot ropes.

being filled has you leaning back into his hold, whimpering across a sigh as he ruts a few more times, emptying himself completely as your pussy pulls tight, milking him. he kisses along your jaw, cradling you as his cock jerks, then softens where he’s buried, slick and seed drooling slowly from where you connect.

“there we go…” maekar whispers, large hand rubbing across your belly as if that’ll help the taking process. he kneads the soft fat there with calloused fingers. “nice and full, sweet girl.”

you whine, pliant in his arms, blinking the setting sunlight from your eyes.

The argument began over something small, so small that later neither of you could remember how it had started.

Rain battered the windows of the tower chamber while the fire snapped in the hearth. You, his young bride stood near the table, hands clenched in the folds of your gown, trying desperately to explain yourself while Prince Maekar Targaryen paced before you like a storm given flesh.

“You never listen,” he snapped.

“I was only trying to—”

“You were told what was expected of you.”

His voice struck the stone walls hard enough to make you flinch. Maekar was not a gentle man by nature. Sternness sat in him as naturally as breathing, and anger came quickly when he felt challenged.

You looked away.

“I did not mean disrespect.”

“But you gave it.”

The words came harsher than he intended, sharpened by exhaustion and pride. He saw your mouth part slightly, as if you wished to answer, but then your expression crumpled instead, and tears welled in your eyes.

You turned away from him quickly, pressing a hand to your face as though ashamed he might see.

And suddenly the room felt horribly silent.

Maekar’s anger vanished so swiftly it left him cold.

Gods.

He stared at your rigid shoulders and realized, with a sick heaviness in his chest, that he had frightened you.The last thing in the world he wanted.

You, his bride, was a bright laughter in dark halls, warmth beside him at supper, soft hands reaching for his when no one watched. You spoke endlessly about little things he never would have cared for before meeting you, and now he listened simply because he loved hearing your voice.

And he had reduced you to tears. Maekar swallowed hard.

“Look at me.”

You shook your head. His chest tightened painfully. He crossed the room slower this time, cautiously, as though approaching a wounded creature. He reached for your hand.

"Please.”

That word sounded strange from him. Rare. At last you turned. Your cheeks were flushed, lashes wet, and you looked so wounded by his temper that shame burned through him.

“I should not have shouted at you,” he said quietly.

You said nothing.

“I was angry, and I spoke cruelly.” He exhaled sharply through his nose. “You did not deserve it.”

Your lips trembled again. “You looked at me as though you hated me.”

The words struck him harder than any blade.

“Hate you?” he repeated, almost disbelieving. “I could never hate you.”

He reached for your other hand slowly, giving you time to pull away if you wished. When you did not, he cupped your face carefully in both hands, thumbs brushing the tears from beneath your eyes.

“I am sorry,” he said again, softer now. “Truly.”

For a long moment you simply looked at him. Then, quietly: “You frightened me.”

Pain flickered across his face.

Maekar lowered his forehead against yours and closed his eyes. “I know.” His voice roughened. “And I swear I will regret it longer than you will.”