โน หโกโงStarlightโงโก หโน
This is a part two of their relationship and the birth of all six of their children. You don't need to read the first part in order to read this one, though it is appreciated. (2/2)
pairings: Maekar Targaryen x (Dayne) Reader
warnings/content: Maekar is only an asshole to other people; age-gap ( โข แด - ); fluff; he loves you a lot okay?
words: 8k
Chapter one
โนโ หโซโซโซโกโซโซโซ ห โโน
The servants sworn to you carefully tended the garden ahead. It was a quiet afternoon, the sort that ought to have passed without note.
Nymella had said the words with the brightest smile upon her face. It was, after all, what was expected of such news. The maester had already set it to parchment, that word might be carried by raven to the capital and to the rest of your family so that they may send their blessings and make their own offerings to the Mother for your health. A breeze passed over your cheek, soft as a blessing, while the sun warmed your temples. It was not as hot as it had been in past days. Summerhall, for once, seemed gentle.
And yet you could not be still.
Countless women had stood where you stood now, and still no soft assurances from your mother or your sisters could make the truth sit lighter in your breast. Nothing, in truth, could prepare you for the strange and swelling weight of it, that fierce love, the trembling excitement, the fear that stole in behind them both. Fear and love, bound together for the small life you carried.
Maekar was away overseeing an exchange of knights between House Martell, the ruling house of Dorne, and the royal family. Even so, your heart quickened not with loneliness, but with anticipation. You thought only of how you would tell him. Of what his face might become when he knew.
When the sun dipped low against the mountains, Summerhall was bathed in streams of red and orange, as though the castle itself had been built of firelight. Your mourning doves had begun their lament by then, soft and low beneath the eaves. It was time to retire.
You passed beneath the shade of a lemon tree as you climbed the terracotta steps to the palace. Its fruit hung heavy and golden above your head, sharp with scent where the leaves had been bruised by the wind. Servants bowed as you passed.
He was seated already when you entered, his gaze cast ahead into nothing, as though whatever occupied his mind lay farther off than the walls of Summerhall. Before him the table had been laid simply, though no royal table was ever truly plain: warm white bread wrapped in cloth to keep its heat, a dish of green olives glistening with oil, soft goat cheese dusted with herbs, and roast quail browned crisp at the skin. There were figs split open upon a silver plate, their red flesh jeweled in the candlelight, and a jug of dark wine breathing its spice into the room.
He heard your steps and turned to look at you. He smiled, soft and courteous with a deep breath, like a weight had been lifted.ย
That smile was for you alone.ย
Dressed in purple and red silk, you came at last to join your husband for the first time that day, to break bread with him and speak as married couples do.ย
โ-all are green boys,โ Maekar said, bringing an olive to his mouth. โStupid and young. At the sight of an enemy, they would sooner shit themselves than think to attack.โ
You toyed with the quail breast, cut open and placed earlier by your husband on your silver plate. You could hardly stomach anything for the past couple of days.ย
โWe have you and your brother to thank for that. Daemonโs rebellion is over. The only things they should be ready to fight are the maidens swooning over their chivalrous advances.โ A servant brought wine, but you covered your cup before he could pour it. He bowed as he moved to Maekar.
โI suppose.โ
โYou know, Iโve been meaning to talk to you all day.โ
โWhy did you not send for me?โ He broke a piece of bread, absentmindedly.
At your silence he left the bread on his plate. Eyes narrowing at you, trying to decipher what sort of things you could be wanting to say.
You took a deep breath as you started, โYou shouldโve been the first to know. But when Maester Crassen insisted I sent the ravens I couldnโt say no to him. Of course, it was also Nymella-โย
โWhat has happened?โ He mustโve been thinking some horrible illness took you. Poor, dear Maekar. His mind was ever quick to assume the worst.
โI am with child.โ You had no idea what couldโve taken hold of you, but your voice broke and eyes stung at saying it out loud. It was real and happening.ย
He looked at you for a very long moment in which you thought he was finding words to say to you. But in the way he kissed you and brought you to his lap, muttering words in a language you could not understand, not yet at least, you knew he was happy.
โนโ หโซโซโซโกโซโซโซ ห โโน
Maekar moved through those months with a quiet quickness quite unlike the somber man the smallfolk had come to know. There was something lighter in him now, something almost boyish in the way he turned whenever you entered a room, as though his eyes sought you before his mind had even thought to do so. Pride and love sat so plainly upon his face at such moments that it made your own heart ache to behold him. He wished to double the guard. He wished to send to Oldtown for another maester besides your own. He wished, it seemed, to place the whole of the realm between you and any harm that might still find you. You had refused him what you could, though never without affection, and still his fussing knew no end as your belly grew rounder with each passing moon.
In those months, both his family and your own came and went through Summerhallโs gates, bearing silks and carved cradles, little gowns, fine blankets, congratulations, prayers, and well wishes for both yourself and the life you carried. The castle had never seemed so full. And late into the night, when all had gone quiet, you would whisper to the babe of how fiercely they were loved already. How wanted they were. How cherished.
Maekar would lie beside you with one hand spread over the swell of your stomach, as though even in sleep he must keep some part of himself upon you both. In the darkness he would murmur of names, of ancestors, of hopes too precious perhaps to be spoken beneath the light of day. Sometimes his voice would fall into High Valyrian, soft and low against the dark, and though you understood little of it still, you knew enough to hear the devotion in it.
King Daeron sent his well wishes too. Yet his gift, when it came at last, was worth more than gold.
It arrived with two letters: one in High Valyrian for your husband, and one in the common tongue for you.
And with it came a dragon egg.
For a time it seemed that Summerhall held within its walls something older than kingdoms, older even than memory. Your husband placed the egg within the unborn babeโs cradle with a care almost reverent, there to await its siblingโs birth. And if the gods meant to favor your child as they had favored your husbandโs line for centuries past, perhaps flame and life would wake within it.
Your own family set less store by dragon eggs. Their gifts were of a different sort, though no less lovingly given: a sword and shield, crafted of the finest steel, meant for the childโs valor in battle and wisdom in peace. It was a Dayneโs blessing, as true and earnest as any prayer, and you loved them for it.
โนโ หโซโซโซโกโซโซโซ ห โโน
The pains began in the deep of night.
At first they were little more than a tightening low in your body, strange enough to wake you, faint enough that you thought perhaps you had dreamed them. But soon another followed, and another after that, each one stronger than the last, until there could be no mistaking what had come for you.
By dawn the chambers of Summerhall were awake.
Women moved in and out in murmuring haste. Basins were brought. Cloths were warmed. The maester was sent for, and Nymella had scarcely left your side. Outside, the castle endured as castles do, unchanged and indifferent beneath the morning sun. But within your rooms all the world had narrowed to pain, breath, waiting.
Maekar had dressed in such haste that the ties at his sleeve had not been fastened properly. His hair, usually kept with such martial neatness, had been left half disordered by restless hands. He said little. There was nothing in his face now of prince or commander, only the hard, drawn look of a man forced to stand before something he could neither master nor strike down and you had never seen him so helpless.ย
He remained near whenever he was allowed, close enough that you could feel him there even with your eyes shut. Hand tightly wrapped around yours. Sometimes it was at the nape of your neck or braced beneath your shoulder to help bear you through the worst of it.ย
The hours lengthened until time itself seemed to lose all meaning. Pain came in waves so vast you thought each one must surely be the one to break you, and yet always another followed. There were moments when fear took you whole, when you thought dimly that women had died doing this, that queens and peasant girls alike had bled and labored and been lost to it, and that no crown, no bloodline, no prayer to the Mother had ever made a woman safe from such things.
He looked as though each cry torn from you laid a blade against his own flesh. Once, when the pain had left you trembling and spent, staring at the canopy above to find answers in the pain you were feeling, you felt his mouth against your temple. His hand shook where it held yours.ย
When at last the final agony came upon you, it seemed to split the world clean through. Then there was a silence so sudden it frightened you.
And after it, a cry.
Small, furious, alive and everything in the room changed at once.
You fell back against the pillows with tears on your face before you had known you were weeping. Someone was laughing. Someone else was thanking the gods. Nymella was crying as she wrapped the babe in cloth. Your son lay on your chest, red-faced and squalling, and for one wild instant you could only stare, unable to understand that this small, wailing thing had been the great and terrible center of your fear for so many months.
Maekar looked as if struck senseless, all the color gone from his face. You wouldโve laughed at the expression if it was happening in another circumstance, but you knew, your eyes held the same emotion.
He held his son as though afraid he might vanish in his arms.
He had never loved you lightly. Of that you had always known. But now, with his child before him and your body still trembling from the labor of bringing the soul into the world, his love seemed almost too large to be borne. It was there in the way he could not stop looking at you. In the hand he kept upon the babe, as though no power in heaven or earth would take either of you from him now without a fight.
The castle moved differently after that.
Summerhall had always been a place of warm stone and open air, but now it seemed to breathe around one small life. Servants crossed the halls with smiles they tried and failed to hide. Ravens were sent in careful haste to Kingโs Landing, to Dragonstone, to Starfall, bearing word that a son had been born between your houses. In the kitchens, honey cakes were made in greater number than the household could ever eat, and wine was poured more freely in the servantsโ quarters that evening than on any feast day of recent memory. Men-at-arms who would sooner have faced ten Dornish spears than a womanโs labor spoke of the prince in lowered, reverent voices. Even the maesterโs chain seemed to catch more light when he bent over the cradle.
The dragon egg remained where Maekar had placed it, dark and ancient, as though it too, kept vigil.
Baelor and Jena came to Summerhall, when the gardens were as green as can be and the air smelled faintly of milk in the nursery and damp earth after rain. They came not with courtly noise, but with the hush proper to a house where an infant slept. Baelor took his nephew in his arms with that easy steadiness of his, and Jena after him held the child beneath the pale light of the window as though she feared the moment might vanish if she breathed too deeply. She had always been kind, but there was something different in her then, something tendered raw by want and prayer and long waiting.ย
Later, when the men had gone from the chamber and the sunlight had shifted golden on the floor, she confided in you in a voice so quiet it seemed part of the room itself. She had prayed for a child and received only silence. You comforted her as best you could, and when she departed from Summerhall, carrying none of that pain lessened and yet somehow not so alone beneath it, something between you had altered for good. After that her letters came often, and yours went back just as quickly, until affection had ripened into something nearer sisterhood.
A year passed. Daeron grew sturdy and solemn, all blue eyes of his father and grave wonder, his small hands forever reaching for things just beyond him. Summerhall was as usual gold and green and rose-colored dusk. You told Maekar of your other blessing in the garden. The scent of crushed thyme and sun-warmed stone clung to the air. Maekar had been speaking of some matter of court or training, something half-lost to you already, when you laid your hand low against your belly and brought him to stillness.
For one suspended heartbeat he only looked at you, all the blood gone from his face before it returned twice as fiercely.
โAnother?โย
โYesโ you laughed.ย ย
He picked you up in his strong arms so that kissing you would be easier.
โนโ หโซโซโซโกโซโซโซ ห โโน
Some days you would burn to the high heavens, unable to have anyone near you. Your skin felt as if a fire had been stuck beneath it. The maester said it was normal, the Blood of the Dragon is strong. Bearing a Valyrianโs child came with those misfortunes. The second labor came swifter than the first.ย
You knew what it was almost at once. There was less fear in you then, though not less pain. Summerhall woke again in darkness and candlelight, in hurried feet and lowered voices, in steaming water and linen and prayer. The maester was fetched. Nymella came. And Maekar, as before, remained close as a shadow. He bore it no better for having endured it once. If anything, the knowing made it worse. He had seen before what it cost you. He had heard your cries and stood helpless beneath them. Now every look in his face was drawn tight by dread, every touch careful to the point of reverence. He said little. His hand was forever upon you as though he might hold you to this world by sheer will.
The hours did not drag as cruelly as they had with Daeron. Yet when the worst of it came, it still seemed enough to split you open upon the wheel of the world.
And then, as before, there came that terrible stillness.
You wept before you could stop yourself. The child was laid against you, warm and squalling, all flushed limbs and furious life. You felt as if you could do it all over again, to feel this love, to see your husband in such a state, unmovable by the fact you brought a part of him into this world.ย
Another son.ย
He kissed your brow, then the babeโs crown, and closed his eyes a moment as if in gratitude too sharp to be borne.
Aerion was loved no less fiercely than Daeron had been.
Three years passed in the manner years do when children are concerned: quickly, and never quietly.ย
Jena wrote after, telling you of her own pregnancy and you mustโve cried with joy when you read her words. Both Maekar and you departed Summerhall for Kingโs Landing with both of your boys when Jenaโs time finally came. You never liked the capital much, and neither did Maekar. But you were glad to see all of Maekarโs family. From your good-father Daeron, who pressed a kiss to your temples and called you โdaughterโ to the Dornish queen Myriah who held you as tight as your own mother in her arms.ย Rhaegal and Aerys were both overjoyed to see everyone in one place, even though Aerys was happier to leave you all to his books afterwards.
Summerhall, which had once seemed all red stone and sun-warmed terraces and long still afternoons, gave itself over instead to small footsteps and laughter and the unsteady tyranny of growing boys. Daeron ran before he ought to have, climbed where he was forbidden, and regarded the world with a solemn intensity that was somehow more disquieting in one so young. Aerion came after him like bright fire to banked coals, quicker to noise, quicker to temper, quicker too to charm. Where Daeron would fall into thought, Aerion threw himself headlong toward delight.
One was no mirror of the other. Yet you loved them each to the hilt of your soul and so did Maekar.
He was not softened into some laughing fool of a father by it. The world still knew him stern. Men still stepped more carefully when his eyes fell upon them. Yet your sons had only to lift their arms toward him and he would take them up at once, no matter who watched. He taught Daeron how to hold a wooden sword before the boyโs fingers were steady enough for it. He endured Aerionโs sharp little hands in his hair and the indignity of being climbed like a keep under siege. When Daeron couldnโt sleep, it was to him as often as to you that he reached in the night. At dayโs end the castle quieted around the small rites that had become dearer to you than feast or tourney or courtly praise. The boys were brought bathed and warm to their chambers, smelling of soap, milk, and summer linen. Daeron, tried, as usual, to refuse sleep as though it were some lesser thing unworthy of him. Aerion did not refuse it at all, he only fought it with the full insulted fury of one who believed himself wronged by every darkening sky.
You loved those hours best.
You would tell each boy a story, and Daeron would already be drowsing by the time Maekar drew the covers higher about him, his fatherโs large hand absurdly careful against so small a shoulder. Aerion, stubborn and flushed with sleep, would burrow into your neck while you carried him, one hot cheek pressed to your skin, his fist still caught in the fabric of your gown. And when at last he was laid down, he would blink up at you as if betrayed, only for Maekar to rest a hand over his little chest until his breathing steadied.
There were times the sight of your husband bent over the children with that grave, guarded care made your heart clutch hard enough to ache.ย
The child you were carrying now was easier than Daeron or Aerion, some days they would move against your palm as if on command. To show you they were there.ย
By then the candles had burned low. The night air had cooled. Beyond the open lattice the dark lay soft over Summerhall, and the doves beneath the eaves had long since quieted. Maekar sat at the edge of the bed unlacing one sleeve with the look of a man still half-thinking of tomorrowโs duties. You watched him a moment before slipping beneath the coverlets.
When he finally laid his body down and drew your back to his chest, one arm settling heavily and familiarly across your waist you spoke.ย
โAerion seems adamant about doing everything himselfโ you smiled at the memory, โ-he yelled at Maester Cressen today that he didnโt wish to have his hand held as he tried climbing the steps.โ
You chuckled into your pillow and felt your husbandโs smile against your hair.ย
โAerion is every punishment the gods denied us with the first.โ Maekar kissed your head as he laid in a more comfortable position.
โHe is your son.โ
โSure enough.โ
You held his hand, fingers intertwining, as he caressed the child yet unborn in your belly with his thumb. Here he was only your husband. Here his sternness was thinner, his silences kinder, his want of you plain in every unguarded touch. He held you close until the warmth of him and the long day carried you under.
It was strange later to think how the body knew before the mind did.
Some small, buried part of you had already risen toward the surface when Daeron screamed.ย
Not fully awake, not yet, but seized all the same by a sharp and nameless dread, as though the sound had reached you before it had truly reached the room. By the time it tore through the corridor outside, you were already pushing yourself upright. So was Maekar. The warmth of the bed was gone at once, split clean through by terror.
โDaeron,โ you breathed.
Maekar was moving before the name had left you.
The floor was cold underfoot. The corridor beyond your chamber darker still, torchlight shivering low in its irons as you ran. Another cry came then, strangled and wrong, and it struck something so primitive in you that for one instant you thought your heart had stopped altogether. Maekar reached the boyโs chamber first and flung the door wide hard enough for it to crack against the wall.
Daeron was not merely awake.
He was half-upright in the bed, tangled in his blankets, his little face white with terror, his eyes too wide and fixed upon something no longer there. His whole body shook with it, trembling and sobbing as if struck. He did not seem to know where he was, only that whatever had found him in sleep had not loosened its hold.
Maekar crossed the room in two strides and took him up at once.
Daeron made a broken sound and caught fistfuls of his fatherโs nightshirt, clinging with a desperation that made your stomach turn. Maekar said nothing, only gathered him hard against his chest, one hand firm at the back of the boyโs head, the other under his small body, holding him with the blind force of a man who would have fought the dream itself had it taken shape before him.
He took Daeron back toward your own chambers while you turned instead down the passage to Aerionโs room, your pulse hammering still. But Aerion slept on, one arm flung above his head, his mouth parted in the loose peace of the very young. His covers had slipped nearly to his knees. You drew it back over him, laid a trembling hand gently above his little heart, and stood a moment longer than necessary just to feel him breathe.
Maekar held his son to his chest as the boy cried. He pulled the coverlet over them both, as you entered and climbed into bed.
โWhat happened, Daeron?โ You rubbed circles on the boy's back as he pushed his face in the crook of his fatherโs neck for protection.ย
When he finally calmed down enough, he showed you his face, bathed into the moonlight as he gazed at the balcony doors behind you, curtains blowing in the passing wind.
โA fire.โ His voice shook. He dragged a breath into himself as though even that hurt.ย
โOnly a dream, sweet boy.โ you said.
โNo.โ His lids fluttered shut. His eyes, once they found yours again, looked full of sorrow, sorrow beyond his years. โNo. No. No-โ he began crying once more and your heart broke all over.
Maekar gathered him closer, one arm closing round him so fully that Daeron nearly disappeared into his fatherโs chest. โEnough,โ he said softly, not in rebuke but in mercy.
The boyโs trembling did not stop at once. It went on in small aftershocks through him, each one making your own heart clutch afresh. So the two of you held him between you until at last the worst of it ebbed. His breathing slowed. His hands loosened in the linen of Maekarโs shirt.ย
He brought his little arm up toward you and you pulled his back to your chest, laying down properly. Maekar held you in the same manner. He rubbed circles with his thumb on his sonโs arm.ย
You must have drifted off, half-waking and half-dreaming, because when Daeron stirred again it took a moment to understand what had roused you.
โMom..โ
His whisper was no louder than the curtains. His little hands, holding the bedding.
Maekar slept still, one arm thrown protectively across the both of you. The boy had half turned towards you, wide awake, his small face pale.ย
โYes, my love.โ You brushed his hair back, fighting against the wave of sleep threatening to overthrow you.
In a voice rubbed thin by fear and sleep, he asked, โTell me a story.โย
Both boys loved your stories, as a Dayne, you excelled in all manner of fables, myths and legends. If this would pull him under dreamless sleep, you would do anything. And what other story could you tell your son, but the one you knew best. You told him of Starfall.
Of the pale stone seat of your house where the sea broke white beneath the cliffs and the dawn came sharp over the water. Of the old kings who had lived there when the world was younger and stranger. When magic and dragons ruled the earth. Of the night a burning star had fallen from the sky and struck the earth beside the mouth of the Torrentine, bright enough, they said, to turn darkness into day. Of how from that stone your ancestors had forged the blade called Dawn, not Valyrian steel, but older and fairer, pale as milkglass in the sun and deadly as any dragonlordโs sword.
Daeron listened without moving. Gasping at the mention of Dawn, you promised your son you would take him with you when the time was right, just the two of you, to see it with his own eyes.ย
You told him how the sword passed only to the worthiest of your line, never by simple birthright, but by honor and valor, and how men had crossed half the realm only to look upon it. You told him of the tower from which the sea could be seen for miles, of gulls wheeling silver in the wind, of lemon cakes in the kitchens and old women who swore the starโs light still lingered in the stone when the moon was high. You told it slowly, softly, with one hand smoothing his hair back from his brow whenever it fell.
You told him how whenever he would see a star running across the sky, luck beyond measure would be bestowed upon him from the Gods.
By the time you reached the end, his body had grown heavy against yours.
His breathing had softened. One hand still clutched the sleeve of your shift, but only loosely now, as though even in sleep he needed to be certain you remained. You bent and kissed his temple. The moon had painted the chamber in silver. Beyond you, the curtains moved like water. Behind you, Maekar slept on, worn out by fear and love alike.
You woke to a morning of a far gentler spirit than the night had left you in.
The chamber was full of pale gold. Somewhere below, servants had begun to move through the halls again. For a moment, waking slowly beneath the weight of sun and sleep, you almost forgot what had driven the three of you into one bed.
Then you felt Daeronโs foot against your thigh and remembered at once.
Sometime before dawn he had managed, in sleep, to sprawl across nearly half the bed like a conquering little king. Both arms spread open as if awaiting an embrace, while you and Maekar had been driven together so near the edge that another inch might have seen you both tumble to the floor. You turned your head just enough to look behind you.
Maekar was already awake.
He lay on his back with the expression of a man who had endured an indignity in grim silence for several hours and meant to make it known now that daylight had given him leave. His hair was disordered from sleep, his jaw clenched. His blue eyes looked upon you as if you pushed him yourself towards the cliff that was his place on the bed.
โWell?โ you murmured.
โMy back is ruined.โ
You smiled as you looked once more at your boy. At that, even half asleep, Daeron let a small smirk sneak its way to his face, as though some part of him had heard and approved.
You laughed quietly and reached to smooth the hair from his brow. In the morning light, with his face untroubled and his limbs loose with sleep, it was almost impossible to believe such terror had gripped him only hours before.
For the next few nights he slept with you still.
Not because he woke screaming again. He did not. Whatever cruel thing had found him once did not return, or at least did not come so near the surface that it could drag him out of sleep. Yet each evening, when the candles were lowered and the servants dismissed, he would hover near your bedchamber with too careful a bravery, as though he meant not to ask and hoped instead that love would spare him the humiliation of needing to. And every single time, it did.
So he was brought again beneath the coverlets, and though he tried the first night to lie solemnly and take up no room at all, by morning he had flung himself sideways in sleep and driven his father once more to the very edge of the mattress. On the second night he curled nearer, warm and trusting, his small back to your belly and Maekarโs hand resting over him in the dark. On the third he fell asleep before the story was half done, one fist in the linen near your shoulder, and slept through until dawn with no sign of fear at all.
Maekar complained every morning.
He complained in the same tone he complained about a great many things, even if you both knew full well he would submit to the same discomfort again that night if Daeron so much as looked uncertain at dusk. Whenever darkness came, and Daeron climbed between you, it was Maekarโs arm that drew the child nearer and Maekarโs hand that settled over him before sleep.
By the end of the week even you had ceased to think much of it. One evening, you and Maekar sat together in the fading warmth outside while the boys played in the garden below the terrace. You held your belly as you watched the children.ย
The sun had gone softer by then, laying amber across the terracotta and gilding the lemon leaves where the wind turned them. Daeron was chasing some private glory with a stick in hand, grave and intent as ever, while Aerion, not to be outdone by anything in creation, had abandoned nobler pursuits in favor of crouching down and picking at the ground with all the concentration of a scholar.
You and your husband had been speaking of something forgettable, letters from Kingโs Landing, perhaps, or which knight ought to be sent back to court and which ought to remain, when his attention wandered from the subject in that way you had long since learned to recognize. He looked into your eyes and then at your lips as you talked and you felt yourself growing shy even, under his gaze.ย
He glanced toward the boys once, then back to you.
โHe sleeps in his own chambers tonight,โย
You kept your gaze upon Daeron, who was solemnly announcing some victory to no one at all, and said, โDoes he?โ
โHe does.โ
โSo decided,โ you murmured.
โIndeed.โ
As if summoned by the subject itself, Daeron came trotting up the steps not long after, all bright cheeks and wind-tossed hair, with the abrupt seriousness children often wore when approaching matters close to the heart.
โMay I sleep with you tonight?โ he asked.
Before you could answer, Maekar said, โNot tonight.โ
Daeron stopped short, looking first at his father and then at you with quick disappointment gathering in his face.
โYou have slept well these past nights,โ Maekar said. โYou must learn to sleep alone again.โ
It was not cruelly spoken. It was reasonable, and because it was reasonable it struck the boy all the harder.
You reached for him before the silence could bruise. โI will come and tell you a story,โ you said. โAnd I shall stay until you are asleep.โ
At once some of the disappointment eased from him. โTruly?โ
โTruly.โ
He considered that with the solemn care he gave all bargains of importance, then nodded.ย
That was when Maekarโs gaze shifted past him.
โAerion!โ
The sound of it cracked across the terrace with enough force that both you and Daeron startled where you sat.
Below, Aerion froze in the act itself, one grubby hand half-raised, his mouth already suspiciously open for something.
โDo not eat it.โ Maekar called, already rising to pull Aerion away from his newfound delicacy.
Aerion blinked up at him, offended by the interruption and wholly unrepentant.
Daeron, recovering first, twisted toward you with all the outraged superiority of an elder sibling. โHe was eating dirt.โ
โYes,โ you said, already, laughter spilling from you before you could stop it. โI saw.โ
Maekar muttered something low and despairing under his breath that only half deserved to be called a curse. Aerion regarded his father with the solemn, dirty face of one interrupted in important work.
When he reached him, he rubbed his face clean with his hands, then his little fingers.ย
โNo dirt.โ Maekar said.
Aerion frowned. โWhy?โ
โBecauseโ your husband continued as if speaking to one much more intelligent than a boy of three โyou are a prince of the realm and not a goat.โ
Daeron laughed.
โนโ หโซโซโซโกโซโซโซ ห โโน
Then came Aemon. Quieter than his brothers, seeming to watch the world before he had properly entered it. You and your boys settled into your own kind of rhythm. When time would allow, you would watch Maekar teach Daeron and Aerion how to fish while you held Aemon to your breast. All boys received dragon eggs, none hatched, but you or Maekar didnโt care much for that supposed disappointment you should be feeling. You were happy that they were healthy and all yours, each one of them. The nights were short and the days longer, one of the longest summers in living memory existed all around you and life seemed to be perfect in every way.ย
When your husband would return to your bedchambers and take you in his arms, running his hands all over your body and kissing you like you would disappear. His need for you grew with each pregnancy it seemed.ย
You smiled whenever he would tell you he wanted a girl from you, and then youโd be left alone.ย
โYou promise?โ You murmured against his lips between kisses.
โNo.โ He brought you on top of him.
โนโ หโซโซโซโกโซโซโซ ห โโน
Daella and Rhae followed after, soft-cheeked and lovely, with Maekar undone by them both almost at once in the secret, helpless way stern men were undone by daughters.ย
The children grew before you knew it. Daeron lengthened into a solemn boy who looked too hard at things and seemed, at times, to know more than any child should. Aerion burned hot through every hour of the day, all fierce temper and impossible fancies, as though some part of him had been born expecting wings. Aemon learned silence before speech had properly left him, happiest with old things, old words, old pages. Daella moved sweetly through the halls like candlelight. Rhae was all sun and mischief and little bare feet over warm stone. Summerhall had once belonged to princes. It belonged now to children.
By the time you carried the last of them, nearly eight years had passed since Daeron had first been laid against your breast.
And this time the gods were not kind.
The pregnancy with your sixth child sat ill upon you from the first. It did not bloom in you as the others had, with fear and tenderness twined together, but with a slow cruelty that seemed bent on wearing you down bone by bone. Food turned your stomach. Even water lay wrong in you some days. The heat of Summerhall, which you had once loved, became an enemy. The stairs exhausted you. The weight of the child dragged low and hard, as though he meant to pull you with him toward the earth before his hour had even come. Some mornings you woke already tired. Some nights sleep would not have you at all. The women said such things happened, that a last child could be stubborn, that a mother who had borne five babes had a body grown weary of miracles. You smiled when they said it. You thanked them. You said little else.
He watched you with the rigid quiet of a man holding himself back from violence simply because there was nothing living before him he could strike for what was being done to you. He sent for the maester twice as often as was needed. He had your cushions changed, your meals altered, your chambers aired or shut according to the hour. He looked at every servant as though negligence might kill you. At night, when the children had gone to bed and the castle had softened around the last candlelight, he lay awake beside you more often than he slept.ย
โนโ หโซโซโซโกโซโซโซ ห โโน
Lord Rolland Penrose rode in with his wife, Lady Ellyn, and a modest train, all courtesy and stormland silk and the smell of horses still clinging to their cloaks. The lord and lady of Houses Selmy and Swann were there as well, and the supper table that night was fuller than it had been in weeks.
Candles burned long and golden across silver and polished wood. The windows stood open to the evening air. Beyond them the dark of the gardens sent up the scent of orange blossom, crushed thyme, and the warm stone still holding the dayโs heat. Servants moved quietly with platters of roasted chicken, pork, and beef, with white bread and olives glistening in oil. The talk had gone from easy things to old court tales and births and marriages, as it so often did when noble ladies had been given enough wine to grow careless.
Lady Ellyn Penrose spoke first of one womanโs labor, then anotherโs, then, with the heedless confidence of those who mistook chatter for grace, turned to old history: โIt must have been the most dreadful thing,โ she said, setting down her cup. โPrincess Rhaenyraโs little girl. The one born dead and twisted, half dragon, they said. I have thought of it often. How monstrous for the mother. How absolutely terrible.โ
The table quieted.
Every eye seemed to turn, if not openly, then near enough. Leaning back against the ebony chair, unable these days to find any posture wholly free of discomfort, you lowered your eyes for a moment and gave the sort of polite acknowledgment expected of you. The words you wished to offer the young woman were of a far less courtly kind.
Lord Rolland Penrose looked at his wife with all the resignation of a man who had seen disaster and knew it by name.
โMy lady,โ he said carefully, โperhaps-โ
โI only mean,โ Lady Ellyn went on, smiling toward you with a brightness so misplaced it turned cruel, โwhat fear such tales must put into women. Particularly when they are carrying again. Though of course, you must not let such stories trouble you.โ Her glance flicked, foolishly, to your belly and back to your face. โYou shall be well enough, I am sure. After all, you have had five already.โ
She gave a little laugh then, as if she might mend the thing by pretending it had been light.
You found nothing light in it.
Maekar only looked at Lady Ellyn Penrose, his fists clenched on either side of his plate, and there was so much naked fury in the stillness of him that even her husband seemed to blanch beneath it. Some hidden, mean, frightened part of you had already been whispering the very same words to you in the dark for weeks.
You lowered your eyes only long enough to spare the woman the full force of your face, then lifted them again with all the composure you could gather.
โYes, my lady,โ you said. โYour concern is noted.โ
But after that the talk never truly recovered. It dragged itself onward until the proper hour for parting arrived and everyone fled it with relief thinly veiled as courtesy.
You rose with your husbandโs help, one hand braced at your back, and thought only of sending for Nymella and the sleeping draught she had begun to keep near for such nights. Lord Rolland Penrose at last found the shame to catch Maekar aside. You both had only just reached the steps, your arm linked through your husbandโs for support.
โMy lord, my lady, you must pardon my wife. She meant no harm-โ
โYour Grace,โ Maekar said, before you could soften the moment.
Rolland Penrose swallowed. โYour Graces. Please. Pardon her manner.โ
You might have done so, had Maekar not spoken first.
โDo you think my wife wishes to hear of dead children at my table?โ
โNo, Your Grace. No, of course not.โ
โGood.โ Maekarโs voice was iron. โThen go and teach your wife some restraint, or fuck off. The both of you.โ
โนโ หโซโซโซโกโซโซโซ ห โโน
You stared at the flames as if you might find some answers in them. It rained again during the dinner, so the weather was brought to a comfortable chill that was well welcomed by everyone else but you.
Maekar looked at you. Then bent down to remove your slippers, carefully laced by Nymella a few hours earlier.ย
โNothing will happen to you,โ he said. โJust the words of a stupid girl, take no heed to them.โ He held your foot gently as he removed the slipper and moved to the other leg.ย
You brushed your hands through his hair. Silver like the moon you loved staring at since you were but a girl.ย
โIf anything should happen,โ you said softly, โyou know I will not leave you. Not truly. I will always be with you. Always.โ
He snapped his eyes to you, and you felt your throat become tight. Something flashed in his face then, rage, fear, refusal, all of them too near each other to be separated cleanly.
โNo.โ he said.
โMaekar-โ you tried to smile.
โNothing will happen to you.โ His voice sharpened, then lowered again, as though he would not let even the walls overhear such treason. โNot under my roof. Not while I still draw breath. Do you hear me, woman?โย
He moved to continue the work he started on your leg โYou cannot leave me alone with Aerion.โย
You laughed at that, and he smiled too. He could be funny if he wished to be.
โIf what Lady Penrose said should ever come true,โ you whispered, and still you did not tell him of the bad feeling that had shadowed you these last weeks, of the private dread that came and went like weather through your bones, โyou should not be alone.โย
You knew he was aware of what that meant. You had hoped you didnโt have to spell it out for him.
The fire let out a crack between you and Maekar moved your shoes to the side of the rug as he said, almost absentmindedly, because saying it while looking at you would give power to the fear: โIโll never love again.โ
The child sat too low and too heavy in you now, and even the short walk from hearth to bed had begun to feel like something to be endured rather than done. Even if this pregnancy seemed to drag you to the brink of madness, you loved your son or daughter fiercely. What great person they would become, to have taken such a great toll on you. They had to make their presence known in some way. Maekar drew you gently from the fire and guided you back to the mattress with both hands, one firm at your waist, the other beneath your arm. There was nothing delicate in him, nothing practiced in tenderness for its own sake, yet in moments such as these his care became almost reverent. He lowered you slowly against the pillows, as though he mistrusted even the bed to receive you gently enough.
The room lay in firelight and shadow. Beyond the half-open balcony doors, night had settled soft and black over Summerhall. The curtains stirred with the breeze. Somewhere far below, water whispered in the gardens. The stone of the chamber still held the dayโs warmth, and the familiar things about you- the carved bedposts, the chair by the hearth, the little table near the window, the silver comb left where it had been set down that morning- seemed touched by something sharper than memory. Here your children had been safe. Here you had been wife before all else, and mother, and beloved. Here, beneath this roof, life had gone on in its own small kingdom of firelight and bread and linen and sleeping miracles made true by you and your husband . Here, of all places, the world had seemed most held.
One arm went about you at once, drawing you back against his chest with the unthinking possessiveness of long habit. His hand found yours where it rested over the hard, aching curve of your belly, and stayed there.
Summerhall slept on around you, untroubled and whole, holding its peace for one night more.
Because all girl names had already been tried and picked apart countless times, because one had already been chosen and kept close, you thought, for all the heaviness this child bore within you, for all those dreamless nights you prayed and all the food you brought back whence it came, that perhaps he would be a boy.ย
And if so, his name shall be Aegon.
โนโ หโซโซโซโกโซโซโซ ห โโน
author's note: thank you thank you for reading. If you are one of the people who had lovingly send all those messages for part 2 this is for you, ily, please forgive me it took so long, a lot of personal issues had climbed on top of each other in the past weeks- but it is here now! I have left little details that hint at each childโs actual future, I hope everyone got that, also some little things that tie to the first part. Thank you for reading again, if you are kind enough to leave me a message, that would mean the world to me. Have an amazing day babes and Happy Easter
my wonderful taglist who had been so patient for part 2:
@sweetxime
@risefallrise
@gul--aaab
@just-some-random-blogger (ur reblogs almost make me smile)
