ঌ EPHEMERAL
FEATURING: aerion targaryen x fem!reader
SUMMARY: you and aerion spend a day on the shores of lys. you do not know that the quiet will not last for much longer, but you take advantage of it anyway.
WARNINGS: fem!reader, reader comes from valyrian lineage but no physical traits are mentioned/described. the high valyrian is not properly translated because we don’t know the words for the words I needed so bear with me LOL. mentions of alcoholism (daeron & reader’s brother). casual mention of slavery in volantis by reader. reader & aerion are not morally good people LOL (when one of them does something wrong, the other’s reaction is very usually ‘oh that wasn’t so bad’ even though it definitely was LOL). aerion's narration is well aerion aufhsduhf LOL he has fantasies of violence and love in the same breath.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Next part!!! This one is a bit lighter plot wise, just reader and aerion bonding a bit more before everything comes crashing down LOLLLLL. The next part is going to be very long and plot heavy I can't wait for you guys to read. Anyway, comments and reblogs always appreciated! I hope you guys enjoy!
READ: RȲ ĀNOGAR SE PERZYS | STARFALL
“I thought you said you knew how to fish.”
You do not know how you got yourself into this dreadful situation.
“I do know how to fish, dragon prince,” you scoff, taking your time with getting the rod Aerion found for you set up, because you do not, indeed, know how to fish, and you’re waiting to see how he sets up his so you can mimic him. “Who doesn’t know how to fish? It is a basic skill.”
He watches you for a moment longer than necessary—gaze trained on your face, your eyes, watching the way they flick toward him and then away again, keeping track of what he’s doing. You pointedly keep your eyes ahead when you realize that he’s picked up on the fact that you’re mimicking him.
His mouth twitches.
“Mm,” he hums, turning back to his own rod at last, fingers working easily through the motions, and you watch in disbelief, hardly able to keep up with how quickly he moves, like the whole thing is second nature to him. He agrees, “It is a basic skill.”
You try to follow along with him, but by the time you’ve managed one step, he’s already two ahead, and you’re forced to slow yourself even more so it doesn’t look like you’re scrambling to catch up.
It is deeply irritating.
“You’re holding it wrong,” he says after a beat, not even looking at you.
The nerve.
Defensively, you snap, “I am not.”
That makes him look over at you, head falling to the side so that his gaze can drop to your hands. You resist the urge to adjust your grip on instinct, forcing yourself to raise your chin and hold it exactly as it is. His brow lifts, amused, lips curled up into a smug smile. He knows damn well you’re lying—probably has known since the two of you were strolling through the market trying to busy yourselves with finding the new merchant ship that arrived from Qohor—but you’re far too proud to admit it.
You wish to drown him.
“You are,” he says, lips curling up into a smug smile.
“I know what I’m doing,” you say, raising your chin and giving him a snide look. Why you dig your own grave by doubling and tripling down? A mystery.
“Do you?”
Your eye twitches, and you turn your attention back to your rod with exaggerated focus, pretending not to hear the way he snorts in amusement.
This is your own doing, you think miserably. You are not sure what possessed you to lie when Aerion mentioned offhandedly that he used to enjoy fishing, but the words had slipped out anyway—not only did you claim to know how to fish when you’ve hardly even seen a man fish in passing, but you claimed to be better than him in the same breath, which naturally spurred him challenging you to a competition to prove he is better.
You had half thought he was full of shit anyway—what sort of prince spends his time fishing? There are far more princely hobbies in Westeros, you’re sure. No need for a prince of the blood to spend his time as a common fisherman. You thought the worst that would happen was that you both make fools of yourselves and end up lounging in the sand, but alas, the only fool seems to be you.
But you do not regret it—not yet, at least. The humiliation is still only surface-level; your answer might change by the end of the hour. There had been something strange in his voice when he said it—quieter than usual, stripped of its usual bite, like the thought had come from somewhere further back than he ever lets himself reach. And because Aerion so rarely indulges in that, you have developed a habit of pressing at it when he does.
He had been off all morning, too—wound tight in a way you could not understand and he would not explain. You know that he didn’t get much sleep last night, and he was woken up early to break fast with Vyrano, but it didn’t seem to be because he was tired. When you tried to pry, he turned sullen and defensive, deflecting you at every turn.
So, when he offered up fishing as a peace offering after hours of him jumping down your throat every time you tried to make conversation, you seized on it without thinking. A careless “I used to fish too. Bet I could catch a bigger fish than you,” fell from your mouth before you could stop it—despite the fact that you have never touched a fishing rod in your entire fucking life.
But then he had looked at you—really looked at you, eyes going wide, alive and glittering in a way you have not seen in days—and it had been too late to take it back. You swallowed the truth, doubled down on the lie, and when he demanded to know if you meant it as a challenge, you said yes.
Now you are standing at the edge of the water with a poorly assembled rod and a prince who clearly knows what he is doing, and you can feel the consequences of your own pride settling in around you like a noose.
He steps closer to you, and your spine goes rigid, attention snapping sideways even as you pretend you’re wholly focused on the rod in your hands.
“Here,” he murmurs, voice lower now. His hands close over yours, adjusting your grip so that you’re holding it lower. “If you hold it like that, you’ll snap the line the second something pulls.”
You mutter, “That’s how I was holding it.”
It was not how you were holding it.
“Mhm,” he agrees, thumb pressing briefly against your wrist, correcting the angle, before pressing an open-mouthed kiss beneath your ear. You tilt your head to the side, letting out a soft sigh, and then he lets go and moves back over to his rod, an irritatingly smug smile on his lips.
You watch as he steps back half a step before casting the line forward, and you mimic the motion—it is not nearly as smooth as his, but you pretend it is.
Neither of you says anything for a long while, and you find yourself frowning as you wait for something to happen, squinting out to the calm waters of your cove, waiting for a fish to latch onto your hook. You huff, glancing at his line, but his is equally slack. How long until something happens?
“You do not even know how to fish, wench,” he mutters after a moment, but there is no bite behind the accusation. If anything, it is almost fond. Irritatingly so. “Why did you lie?”
“Yes, I do,” you snap, because you’ve come too far to admit the truth now. “I am fishing, am I not?”
Aerion doesn’t respond, but you can see the way his lips are curled up into an amused smile. You have half a mind to take your rod and shove it up his ass, but before you can, he asks, “Who taught you then? They did a miserable job.”
You side-eye him. “My father, of course. You should watch your tongue, prince,” you reply, lying through your teeth. You think your father would sooner beat you with a fishing rod than teach you how to use one. Aerion snorts softly, and you scowl at him. “And who taught you how to fish, then? You are hardly better than I am.”
He gives you a disbelieving look, but then rolls his eyes and looks ahead again.
He doesn’t respond for a while.
“... My brother, Daeron,” Aerion says after a moment. His voice is quiet, eyes a bit more distant as he looks out toward the water. He exhales deeply through his nose, jaw tightening. He smiles wryly, too tight at the corners, knuckles white around the rod. “Though he has not touched a fishing rod since he picked up a bottle.”
Your gaze shifts to him, curious. Aerion is standing stiffly now, gaze fixed on the water—you do not think he meant to say that. It slipped out, too quick and too honest, and now it lingers between you, heavier than anything that has been said all day.
He doesn’t often talk about his family. You know who he’s referring to; you’ve heard enough rumors about the Targaryen royal family to recognize most of his siblings by name. Daeron the Drunken—the eldest son of Prince Maekar, who can hardly pull himself out of a bottle long enough to sit a horse, much less ride in a tourney.
You shift your weight slightly, sand crunching beneath your feet.
“My brother is also fond of the bottom of a bottle,” you say dryly.
You try to keep your voice light, but it is hard—you think Aerion understands, though, because he lets out a huff through his nose. There’s a heaviness in your chest when you think of the number of times you came home to find your brother drowning himself in wine, miserable and glassy-eyed because once the euphoric wave of reckless laughter and dancing comes to an end, he crashes hard, only wanting to bury himself in your arms—but if he is to be father’s embarrassment, it is easier to be drunk, he tells you as you clean the vomit from his hair and he presses his nose into your neck.
You could protect him from everything back then, but never from himself.
Now, you cannot protect him from anything at all.
You do not like thinking about this.
“The two of you aren’t close anymore?” you ask after a moment to distract yourself from your thoughts, gaze tracing the way his hair frames his face. His hair grows so fast, you think woefully—much faster than yours, faster than even your brother’s. You think you will try to get him to let you braid it later; you’ve been itching to since you realized he was letting it grow out, but he always bats your hands away when you reach for his hair.
“No,” Aerion answers, voice flatter now, more closed off. Then you see his jaw tighten, lips pressing together hard. He adds bitterly, “He did not even see me off. Was probably off drunk in a ditch somewhere.” His throat bobs as he swallows, and then he exhales hard through his nose. “I do not wish to speak of this.”
“We do not have to,” you say easily when you see the expression on his face. Your fingers thrum against the wood of your fishing rod before you hum lightly and test, “Can I ask something else, then? Or are we to sit in silence until a fish deems our bait worthy?”
Aerion lets out an annoyed breath, already side-eyeing you. “You only ask that when you are about to ask something particularly irritating.”
Usually, you would answer that with a teasing smile and a nip at his jaw, but your grip only tightens around the fishing rod as you stare ahead, trying to articulate exactly what you want to ask without him throwing a fit. You see him look at you from the corner of your eye, suspicious, realizing that this question might be worse than all of the rest, which it probably will be.
“What is it, wench?” he asks when you don’t immediately speak. “You look as though you’re about to swallow a lemon.”
You ignore that, still trying to figure out how you want to broach the subject. “I was curious,” you finally say, “as to what actually occurred at the tourney in Ashford.”
Aerion stills the way you expect him to. His tongue darts out to wet his lips. His voice is cool and defensive as he asks, “Why, exactly, are you asking about Ashford?”
You raise your eyebrows, tilting your head to the side to meet the daggers he’s shooting at you with an innocent expression. Tread lightly, you remind yourself—he’s been testy all morning, you might be pushing it. “Curiosity, I said. You know the whole grand story behind my exile. I want to know yours.”
Aerion wants to argue with you—you know him well enough by now to know his tells. His shoulders are tense, and his fingers are twitching around the fishing rod he holds, half-inclined to snap it in half. His teeth grind together as he holds your gaze for a second longer, and when you expect him to spit venom—
—he deflates.
You physically turn to him now, concern worming in your chest when you see how his shoulders slump and he lets out a puff of air. The pale scars that line his cheeks gleam under the mid-afternoon sun, and he looks away from you, gaze dropping to the shallow waves brushing his feet.
“It was not grand,” he finally says, voice smaller than you expect. “It was not grand, or righteous, or something to be proud of. It was not like yours. It was—”
He exhales hard again, shaking his head, expression twisting up as he tries to find a word to describe it.
“It was a mistake,” he finishes quietly. “A stupid one. One of my own design, no less.”
You don’t respond right away, because Aerion seems inclined to continue, lips parting over words, but he can’t seem to force them out, brows furrowing before he squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head. You lower the rod you’re holding a little, fingers twitching to reach out for him, but you stop yourself.
“They say it started with treason,” you say after a few moments, when he can’t bring himself to add anything else, and Aerion looks at you with such a hollow expression, so tired, so defeated in a way you’ve never seen from him before, that you know what he has been trying and failing to say. “There was no treason.”
Aerion’s eyes slide shut again, breath ragged now as he inhales deeply through his nose once and lets it out. For a second, he looks like he wants to fight the statement—of course, it was treason, you can hear threatening to burst from his lips, because he doesn’t dare splinter the flimsy shield that absolves him of responsibility for what happened, but then his expression twists.
“It was a puppet show,” Aerion finally says with a bitter scoff. “I was not even supposed to be there. I do not even know how I found myself there. I was supposed to be at dinner with my father and uncle. I must have looked like a damn fool standing there among the rabble, watching like it was meant for me.” He lets go of the rod with one hand to rub his face harshly. “It was ridiculous. A woman dressed up as a knight playing at hero. A dragon made of wood and cloth. I—I was enjoying it, at first. It was—”
He doesn’t finish what he was about to say, but you can imagine. The way he speaks of dragons, dreams of them—sometimes, you hear him mumbling in his sleep, restless and tormented. You can’t catch every word he slurs out, but you always catch one: zaldrīzes. He likes to ramble about them when you let him, telling you about all of the dragons of the Targaryen dynasty—their names, the colors of their scales and flames, how big they are in comparison to the Temple of Yndros on the northside of the isle. Every time you think he’s told you everything he knows about them, he comes forward with half a dozen new facts he hasn’t shared yet. You think you must know more about the Targaryen dragons than half their dynasty because of him. You imagine that he must have been fascinated by it before whatever happened next that made it all go south.
“And then she killed it,” Aerion says flatly. He does not look at you when he continues. “They celebrated it. They cheered. The whore smiled. So I—” Aerion doesn’t finish for a moment. He looks at you, an unreadable expression on his face as he stares at you, as though gauging your reaction before he even says anything. “I broke her fingers—and had her tent burned later.”
You raise your eyebrows. “Merciful of you,” you say wryly, leaning in to knock your shoulder against his. “That you did not take her hands.”
Aerion huffs out what you think is a laugh, expression easing, tension bleeding from his shoulders and a smile softening his face. You wonder if he expected you to scorn him, and the thought nearly makes you snort, because he is a fool, and you know damn well he’s heard the tales of your first year of exile.
He tosses you a smile that leaves you breathless for a split second. He is pretty, you think, watching his pale lashes lower as he looks down at the water, skin golden from the time the two of you have spent lounging in the sun. You have half a mind to reach out and brush your fingers through his hair, but you refrain when he continues talking.
“No one else thought so,” he says quietly, smile fading. “That oaf of a hedge knight—he threw me across the tent after he bashed my face in. Demanded a trial by combat after being accused.”
“He struck you before a whole tent of people? And he lived to demand a trial by combat?” you ask, voice riddled in disbelief, and when Aerion grimaces as an answer, you laugh and shake your head. “Your Sunset Kingdom is… fascinating. I don’t even know what would happen if a Freeborn or a slave struck one of the old blood. They certainly wouldn’t live long enough to demand combat.”
“Yes, well, perhaps if my uncle and wretch of a younger brother didn’t intervene on the oaf’s behalf, it would have gone down similarly,” Aerion scoffs, lips pressed together tightly as he stares at the rippling water again. “But they did, so I demanded a Trial of Seven and—”
“You must explain your Andal customs, dragon prince,” you drawl, lips curling up in amusement when he gives you a suspicious look, not sure if he should take it as an insult or not. “I do not know them.”
“They are not mine—”
“Yet, you called upon them.”
“Do you want the whole story or not, you miserable wench?” he hisses, tanned cheeks pink as he glares at you. You smile and pointedly shut your mouth. “It is self-descriptive, if you would use that brain you claim to have. A trial by combat where seven champions are declared for each side, and they face one another in battle.”
“An apt name, then,” you say. And then add, “We have a very similar custom, you know. Iderenne hen perzys.”
Trial of the Flames.
Aerion doesn’t reply, but he doesn’t need to. He stares at you hungrily, waiting for you to explain, as he always does whenever you off-handedly mention a Valyrian tradition that his family has not retained over the years. You raise your eyebrows at him, but oblige—you suppose you could grant him this without teasing since you’ve decided to pry on a sensitive subject.
“It is declared between families of the old blood,” you tell him flippantly, eager to get back to his story. “There is an accuser and an accused. Each must name six other representatives of the Fourteen Flames to stand for them, and those chosen meet in a battle to the death. We revere all of the Flames, of course, but each house keeps a patron—and only a votary of a Flame may represent them during the trial. Whichever side loses the trial is exterminated to the tenth degree. It is a dishonor to their patron otherwise. The stain must be cut out entirely for it to be restored.”
Aerion, who had the wide-eyed look he always wears when listening to you talk about this, blinks at the last sentence.
“To the tenth degree? What does that even mean?”
“The loser of the trial, of course, and their representatives, if they did not fall in battle. Their ascendants to the third generation, and their descendants to the third. All collateral kin of their line—siblings, and the issue of those siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins. Their consorts, and the blood of those consorts in equal measure,” you tell him, watching the way his eyes widen as the list goes on. “In short, anyone who shares their blood, or has bound themselves to it. It is not often invoked because the declaring process can get quite chaotic, and many families are tied through marriage now, so the extermination process would be, ah, messy, and blood magic is always finicky. I think the last time it was invoked was during the Century of Blood, actually.”
“Ah,” Aerion replies, clearing his throat. “Well—it is similar in a way, yes.”
You snort. “You were saying—the Trial of Seven? What happened with it?”
“Ah,” he says again, inhaling deeply. “I… did not think the hedge knight would be able to gather six champions to defend him. I meant to—” His jaw tightens. “—I meant to embarrass him. Make a quick thing of it. I did not anticipate that—”
You think you know this part.
“That your uncle would side with the hedge knight,” you finish for him quietly.
Aerion grimaces, fingers tightening around the fishing rod again. “I did not mean for him to die,” he admits, voice cracking over the words. He clears his throat again as though to cover up the weakness in his voice. He says more firmly, though his voice is strained, his pitch betraying his attempt at ambivalence, “But if the Trial of Seven was really meant to be the gods' bidding, then that speaks for itself, does it not?”
It is another flimsy shield, a weak one that already has cracks in it from the way his brows pinch and his lips press together so tightly, throat bobbing as soon as he speaks them. A way of convincing himself that it really is not his fault, blaming gods he doesn’t even believe in to absolve himself of the blood spilled in his name—the rest of the world labels him ‘the Monstrous’ and a kinslayer, along with his father, but…
You sigh. “It is not your fault, Aerion,” you say dismissively. “Even if your trial isn’t some work of the Andal gods. Your uncle chose to ride for the hedge knight—he knew the risks.”
Aerion makes a noise in the back of his throat, but he does not respond for a long while. You glance at him from the corner of your eye and exhale softly when you see that his shoulders have hunched inward slightly, that he turned his face away from you to collect himself.
“I think my father would have preferred it,” Aerion rasps after a moment, staring down at his hands, a dull expression on his face. His fingers are trembling. “If I had died instead of Baelor. I think he would have preferred it.”
Your lips part, but you have no words to respond to what Aerion just said to you. You think he didn’t mean to say that either—a thought that has been plaguing him for nearly a year that he never dared to speak out loud—because his expression crumbles, a breath leaving him as though all the air was knocked from his lungs with just three simple sentences.
“A—” You can’t even get his name out before the fishing rod nearly goes flying from your hands. Your grip, which had loosened during your conversation with Aerion, tightens before you can lose it. “What the—a fish!”
You don’t know what to do. You dig your heels into the sand when the line jerks violently in your hands, the rod bending in a way that feels like it’s about to snap clean in half, and you make a startled, undignified noise as you scramble to keep hold of it.
“What do I—” you start to ask, gaping when the line yanks so hard that you have to take half a step forward. “What type of fucking fish—Aerion!”
You toss a panicked look in his direction, and you falter when you see the wide-eyed expression on his face. And then—
He laughs. Not the sharp, cutting sound you are used to, or the mocking huff he gives when he is amused at your expense, but a real, bright, unrestrained laugh, bursting out of him before he can stop it. He leans forward as the sound spills free, easy and unguarded in a way you have never heard from him before, amethyst eyes glittering, crinkled at the corners and lips curled up into a pretty, boyish smile.
For a moment, you forget the fish entirely, breathless at the sight of him, and then it reminds you of its presence when it nearly rips the rod from your hands again.
“Aerion, stop laughing!” you sputter, scandalized, as the line jerks again and he laughs harder, like watching you struggle against the fish is the most entertaining thing he has ever seen. “What do I do?”
“I thought you knew how to fish,” he mocks. “Didn’t your father teach you?”
“My father is a fucking Triarch, not a fishmonger, you buffoon,” you spit as he makes his way over to you, still snorting through laughter. He comes to stand behind you, close enough that you can feel the heat of him at your back, his chest brushing your shoulder blades as he reaches around you.
“Gods, you are hopeless,” he says, and you don’t have to look at him to know he’s smiling, so you scowl as his hands close over yours, taking control of the rod before you lose it entirely, guiding your hands into place before you can even think to argue. He murmurs near your ear, amusement still lacing his tone, breath warm against your skin, “Do not fight it like that. You will lose the line.”
“I am not losing it—” you start to snap, but the line jerks again, harder this time, and your grip slips enough to send a jolt of panic through you, but his hands tighten over yours immediately to correct your mistake.
“Hold,” he tells you, laughter fading as he focuses on the issue at hand, adjusting your stance with a nudge of his knee against yours. “Let it run a little—do not drag it in all at once, you’ll snap it.”
You grit your teeth and let him take the lead, following the guidance of his hands, loosening when the fish pulls, tightening when it falters, until he shifts his grip entirely, one hand sliding down to the line to take over. He works it in easily, drawing the fish closer, and you turn your head to watch him instead of the line, gaze focusing on the way he pokes his tongue out slightly in concentration, silver-gold strands falling loose across his brows, catching the light as the sea breeze puts it in his eyes.
You want to braid it, you think again, almost forgetting entirely what the two of you are doing until the fish breaks the surface with a violent splash, thrashing as he drags it through the shallows and onto the sand at your feet, red scales gleaming under the sun.
Your eyes widen. “I caught it!”
Aerion gapes at you. “I caught the fish, you useless wench. I did all of the work.”
You give him a smug look. “It is on my rod, isn’t it?” you say, raising your chin, delighted. He stares at you in disbelief. “It is my fish. I told you I would catch the bigger fish.”
“This is my fish,” he snaps, stepping forward to crouch down as the thing flops in the sand, trying to work the hook free before it tangles itself. You lean over his shoulder, watching how he handles the fish with nimble, uncharacteristically gentle fingers. “It was my effort.”
“Our fish, then,” you say, chest brushing his shoulder as you stare at the fish. It is pretty, you decide—a fitting fish for the two of you. “What do we do with it now?”
Aerion huffs, but there is no real irritation in it, only the ghost of that earlier laughter lingering at the edges as he shakes his head. “You are insufferable,” he tells you. “We can kill it or put it back in the water.”
You hum. “Put it back in the water.”
He looks at you from the corner of his eye and then reaches out to grab the fish by its tail and toss it back into the water. You watch it splash, leaping out of the shallows once before swimming far away, and then you slink your arms around Aerion’s shoulders and drag him down until he’s sitting in the sand between your legs. He lets out a startled noise as you pull him down, but he doesn’t pull away as you settle your chin on his shoulder.
“What are you doing?” he asks dryly.
You don’t respond for a long while, fingers slipping underneath his silks to flatten your palm against his chest, feeling the warmth of his skin, and the steady beat of his heart beneath your touch. You ghost your lips against his shoulder, inhaling once as you choose what you want to say carefully, his words from before still ringing through your head.
“I cannot speak to what your father would prefer,” you say quietly. He stiffens in your arms, heart jumping beneath your touch, but your grip tightens, forcing him still before he can bristle. “Fathers are—” You press your lips together, remembering how willing your father was to send your twin off to his death if it meant you would remain his heir. You finish quietly, “—cruel. But I can speak for myself, I would not have preferred it.”
You press your face into the crook of his neck, eyes sliding shut as words work over in your head, trying to figure out how you want to articulate yourself. For a moment, you think he’ll pull away, but then he sinks back into you.
He’s tired, you realize—you should take advantage of it when he dozes off so that you can braid his hair the way you want.
“I am glad you are here. With me,” you tell him softly. And it is the truth—you are glad. Aerion burns, and he cuts, he bristles and rages and screeches, and there is a good chance that this story that the two of you are living is not going to end happily, because you do not know what will happen when he is called back to Westeros, but you would not have it any other way. “I would not have it differently—not for anything. I am glad you are here.”
Aerion does not respond for a long time.
“You are a fool,” he tells you. His voice is thin. It wobbles. You both pretend that it doesn’t. “Since when are you so sentimental?”
“Do not fret, I do not plan to make a habit of it,” you say with a smile, kissing the crook of his neck once. Twice. A third time before you sigh. “Let’s sit here for a while, okay?”
He exhales hard. “Yeah,” he agrees quietly. “Okay.”
————————————
“What are you doing?”
Aerion feels you pause from where you were about to section off a third part of his hair. He was startled awake when he felt you pull through a knot, and he squints when he realizes that you seem to be preparing his hair for something.
The sun is setting, he realizes, blinking twice blearily. It was noon, not too long ago, wasn’t it? How long has he been asleep? He doesn’t even remember falling asleep. His eyes almost droop again as he sinks back into your arms, until he notices the sweet smile you’re giving him and instantly becomes suspicious. He lifts a hand to rub his face, trying to recall the last thing he remembers.
I would not have it differently—not for anything. I am glad you are here.
Oh, he thinks, a lump suddenly lodged in his throat.
“Nothing,” you reply easily, lifting your hands to force his face forward again. He lets out a noise in the back of his throat, indignant at the feeling of you manhandling him, but he is too tired to snap his teeth at you. “Do not be a child, dragon prince. I am braiding your hair.”
He scowls and shakes out his hair from the neat sections you’ve divided it into. You let out a frustrated noise at him and tug his hair furiously. He sees the way your fingers twist in the sand, as though you’re about to grab a handful of it and fling it at his face. Sensing your waning temper, he shifts away from you, turning to give you a more accusing look head-on.
“You will not play with my hair like I am some maid, you wench,” he mutters with a yawn, brushing his hair back over his shoulder, thoroughly away from you. Your lips curl down into a frown, but he ignores it as he toys with a stray strand framing his face. He muses, “It has gotten too long. I should have it cut. It is becoming irritating.”
“If you cut your hair, I will cut your throat, dragon prince,” you say with another sweet smile, and you ignore the appalled expression he casts your way. You add, “I prefer it longer.”
“I do not,” he scoffs, “and I do not care for what you prefer.”
You stare at him for a moment and then hum, looking away. Aerion’s eye twitches because he can sense the snide comment that’s running through your head without you having to say a word.
“What?” he demands, irritated. “It is obvious you have something to say, so spit it out.”
“It is nothing,” you say dismissively, and Aerion’s eyes narrow even more when he sees how you’re fighting a smile, bracing himself for whatever you’re about to say, because it’s certainly going to be infuriating, and he is far too tired to argue with you right now. “It’s only that I thought you, too, would prefer your hair at a longer length. It is the typical style Valyrian men wear their hair, but the Andals do prefer their hair cropped short—or so I’ve heard—so I suppose it makes sense you prefer it that way.”
Aerion stares at you, blinking once, slowly, as your words process. It takes a second for him to realize what you’re implying, and when it does, his pride flares violently, teeth grinding together as you give him that despicable smile.
“... You think me an Andal?” he asks through his teeth. You said it earlier, too, didn’t you—your Andal customs. He should have your tongue. You irritate him terribly. You call him an Andal, you claim his fish as your own, you tell him—
You shrug lazily, brushing the sand from your palm as you say, “I think that if the look suits—”
He catches your wrist before you can finish the sentence, fingers warm and tight as he yanks you closer to him. You let out a delighted laugh as he pulls you half into his lap, and Aerion has half a mind to wipe the smile right off your face. He would, he determines, if you were worth the effort—and if his chest didn’t flutter at the sight of it, but he won’t admit that. You make yourself comfortable on his lap, to his displeasure, settling there and draping your arms around his shoulders, toying with the ends of his hair, leaning in to brush your lips against the corner of his mouth, his jaw, beneath his ear.
He shudders, but he pretends he doesn’t.
“Do not finish that sentence,” he says, voice low.
Your lips curl up tauntingly, and you lean in to finally ghost them against his. Aerion almost lets out a sigh when he feels you bite down lightly on his bottom lip. You are despicable, and he cannot stand you. Still, he brings his hands to your hips to hold you close, one hand sliding around to your lower back.
“Or what?” you breathe out.
For a moment, he only watches you. The sea wind lifts strands of his silver gold hair from where they’ve fallen loose around his face, and you lift your hand to tuck them behind his ear. He should bat your hand away, but he decides against it—not worth the energy. Instead, he lets his lashes flutter as you brush your fingers lightly through his hair once before cupping his face between your hands.
“You are insufferable,” he murmurs, though there is little heat behind the words now, and he feels as though he’s half a second from dozing off again, letting the weight of his head fall heavy in your palms.
It is not his fault, he tells himself, exhaling heavily as his head lolls between your hands.
He is exhausted—he spent all night trying to write a letter back to his father, unsure what to say in response to the news that his grandfather and his cousins, Valarr and Matarys, have all passed. Maekar did not even ask how he was doing. Did not spare any pleasantries. It was a clipped message, a report, if anything. Devoid of heart, devoid of care. Aerion almost doesn’t want to respond at all, but he needs to know if he’s being called back to Westeros any time soon.
Then, to top it all off, Magister Vyrano had woken him up at the ass-crack of dawn to join him and his daughter when he finally started to fall asleep to break fast, and then you showed up, far too energized as you dragged him to the square to find a merchant from Qohor who evidently only makes it to Lys twice a year, and then, you had the nerve to all but challenge him to a fishing competition when he off-handedly mentioned he used to fish.
But you were a welcome distraction from the letters in his chambers, unlike Vyrano and his irritating daughter and even more irritating attendants. You are always a welcome distraction, he thinks, bitterly, adoringly, warmly—even when you are lying through your teeth and claiming to be better than him.
He cannot stand you, and he cannot get enough of you.
After a long moment, he opens his eyes again, studying the oddly open expression on your face, and then decides, “You may braid my hair.”
You blink. “Really?”
“I will not say it again, wench,” Aerion mutters, but he leans his face into your hand, lips brushing your palm once before he raises his eyebrows at you, waiting for you to get on with it.
A smile splits your face, and Aerion falters, eyes softening as you shift off his lap to sit behind him, immediately getting to work at combing your fingers through his hair. His throat feels terribly tight for a second before he forces the feeling away.
“Nothing too ornamental. I am a dragon, not a Lyseni whore,” he barks after a moment, but you only wave him off dismissively. He shudders when you drag your nails against his scalp to part his hair. You are oddly meticulous in your efforts to section it off evenly—sighing and picking at individual strands if you feel one section is smaller than the other. “I did not take you as the type of person to enjoy styling hair.”
You let out a huff of laughter through your nose. “Not my own,” you admit. “But I often braided my brother’s hair back home. He was a terribly whiny little thing—after our mother died, he would never let anyone else touch his hair besides me. When my father sent me away to deal with pirates or bandits or a khalasar that rode too close to our city, I would come back to his hair so knotted that it took hours to untangle.”
Aerion pauses when he hears the wistfulness in your voice—open and vulnerable as it always is when you find yourself talking about home. You don’t often; he doesn’t think you like talking about it, and he can’t necessarily blame you. He does not like talking about Westeros either, and he loathes how much you had gotten him to say earlier, so perhaps you will let him make it even now by answering his questions.
He hears you sigh lightly, running your fingers through his hair before you start to braid it.
“Are you the elder?” Aerion asks after a moment, eyes sliding shut as he lets you do what you please with his hair. He assumes that you are the eldest from the way you talk about him, but he is curious to know for sure. “Between you and your brother?”
“We are twins,” you say simply after a moment, and Aerion rolls his eyes. He knows that.
“Yes, but you did not pop out of the womb at the same time, did you? Which of you came out first?” Aerion asks dryly, scowling when he feels you pointedly tug at his hair in response to his attitude. “It is a genuine question, wench, answer it or not.”
“I am the elder,” you say after a moment, “by less than an hour, according to my father.”
Aerion hums. “I thought so,” he says, pleased with himself, sighing lightly when he feels you tie off his hair.
He tilts his head to the side slightly to look at you when you smooth your hand over the finished braid, and then both down his shoulders before you shift closer to slide your arms around his waist, propping your chin on his shoulder. He hates that as soon as he’s resting back against your chest, his eyes feel heavy again.
Fuck, he’s exhausted—he can feel it in his limbs, sluggish and weighted, unwilling to cooperate when he has half a mind to push you away. He should have just gone back to his chambers instead of following you out to the market and then to the beach, but he can never seem to help himself when it comes to you, and he fucking hates it.
“What gave you that idea?” you ask dryly, burying your face into the crook of his neck and inhaling deeply.
Aerion lets out a slow breath, eyes still closed, head tipping back just enough to give you more space without quite meaning to. He murmurs, “The way you look when you speak of him. It is—” The same way Baelor used to look at Maekar, before Maekar caved his skull in while trying to protect Aerion. The same way Valarr used to look at Matarys, before they both succumbed to fever. The same way Daeron used to look at Aerion, before everything changed. “It is telling.”
“Telling,” you echo, and he can hear the mockery in your voice, but you kiss the crook of his neck before he can make a complaint. You sigh, and then say quietly, “He has always been mine—to protect, to scold, to drag back by his collar when he forgets himself.” There is a smile in your voice, but he can hear it fading as you add, “To stand in front of things he should never have to face.”
Aerion’s brows furrow faintly, though his eyes remain closed. He remembers, “Your brother was the spare. You never told me his name. Tell me about him.”
You hum in agreement, nipping playfully at his neck before you rest your forehead against his shoulder.
“Viserys,” you say softly. Aerion is unsure why something ugly and green pits in his stomach when he hears the warmth in your voice as you say his name. You always sound this way when you speak of him, and Aerion inexplicably hates it. “He loves music and reading—wine too, even when he was far too young to be drinking. He spent so much time in the library when we were children that my father had to drag him from the cushions, kicking and screaming, when it came time for war games. My mother would try to convince him to let Viserys sit them out—said it was not for him and that there was no use forcing it —but our father would not have it. It’s one thing for the Maegyr family to have a useless son, his words, not mine, but it’s another thing to have a son who wouldn’t even try. So, he would try. He hated it, of course—and he was terrible at defending his territory, I would have to fight my way to him every time—but he tried.”
Fathers can be cruel, you had said. Fathers in power with high expectations for their children are crueler, you had not said, but he supposes you must be intimately familiar with that, more than most, more than Aerion, probably. A daughter of a Triarch of Volantis and the second son of a fourth son of the late Lord of the Seven Kingdoms—the two of you make quite the pair, don’t you?
Aerion hums, deciding to prod some more since you’re in a talkative mood. “And your mother? What happened to her?”
“She died,” you say after a moment, fingers stilling against his body. He shivers when you slip your hand into his silks, palm flattening against his bare abdomen, nails scratching lightly at his skin. “Childbirth. Viserys and I were ten. It was a boy—he was small. Quiet. He didn’t cry.” You pause, and then you add, “Didn’t survive either. My father refused to deal with funerary rites, shut himself away for weeks after she and the baby died, and Viserys was hysterical, so it fell on me.”
Aerion exhales, hand sliding to his abdomen to rest over yours, palm covering the back of your hand, fingers entwining with yours. He swallows thickly and says, “My mother died the same way. Also, when I was ten. I—”
He shouldn’t have said that. The moment it leaves his mouth, Aerion knows it—it feels sharp and wrong, something that should have stayed tucked neatly away. He doesn’t like speaking of his mother, doesn’t even like thinking about her. He can still feel the ghost of Dyanna’s hands running through his hair, can still hear the softness in her voice as she pulls him into her lap and calls him her little star.
Eight years later, and his mother’s death is still an open wound.
“It does not matter,” he forces out, voice much too weak for his liking. “I do not wish to speak of this. Tell me more about your family.”
You do not push the way you usually would; instead, you hum lightly and return to nosing his neck. And then you speak—you tell him of the gardens in your family’s palace, the trees of blood oranges that you and your brother loved, the fountains of fresh water and pools that looked like liquid gold under the setting sun. You tell him more of cyvasse, of the first time you beat your father and the last time you ever lost, and then tales of war games where you would bring all of the other Tiger children to heel. You speak of the heat and palaces and long, languid afternoons spent draped across marble, listening to your brother play the harp or the lyre.
Aerion listens as you tell him all of this, and Aerion also—he also remembers.
His mother used to do his hair like this, too, Aerion realizes dully as he lifts his fingers to trace the braid you created—an old memory he’d locked away, resurfacing with a vengeance as you tell him a time when you and Viserys pretended to be one another to trick your peers during a war game.
His throat bobs as he swallows, and something hot presses behind his eyes as he squeezes them shut. He blames you for forcing him to remember these things—you prodded at him all day with questions about Daeron and Maekar and Baelor and the Trial, and now it’s all hitting him at once. He tries to push the memories away, desperate, but he cannot.
He used to sit on a stool too tall for him, he remembers against his will, legs swinging, impatient and fidgeting, until she tapped his shoulder and told him to be still. Her hands had been gentle, brushing through his tangled hair, the same way yours had moments ago. He kept it long back then, longer than it is even now, long enough to brush his waist, soft and silky, bright when it catches the light.
She had liked it that way, said it suited him, called him pretty, and kissed the crown of his head before she braided it neatly and sent him off running after Daeron.
He had cut it the moment she was gone. He remembers the way the blade had slipped in his hand, cutting through his palm; he remembers ignoring the blood and the pain, tears streaking his face as he cut it to his ears. It was uneven and ugly, too short and too jagged, and he had thrown up the moment the silver hit the floor, because he looked at himself in the mirror, and he knew his mother would’ve hated it.
He had kept it that way for years, because it was easier to manage, easier not to have to look in the mirror and be reminded of his mother, and yet now, it brushes past his shoulder blades again. He should have cut it already—he had meant to, he had taken his blade to his ears multiple times with the intention of cropping it short again, but he had set it aside.
Why hadn’t he?
“If you cut your hair, I will cut your throat, dragon prince.”
It’s you, he thinks bitterly, eyes sliding shut again as he sinks back into your chest. It’s the way your fingers always find his hair, absent and instinctive, toying with the ends when you sit too close, winding a strand around your finger as if it belongs there. It’s the way you smile when you see it loose over his shoulders, eyes flicking over it with something that feels far too much like approval.
It’s always you, he thinks again—angry, bitter, yearning, wanting, adoring. He hates all of the things you make him feel. You make him want to carve his own heart out of his chest just to stop the way it jumps whenever you’re near. You make him want to hurl when he finds his lips curving up into a smile while he watches you argue with someone from afar. He wants to wrap his hands around your throat and squeeze until your eyes bulge, and he wants to cradle your face between his hands and press his lips to yours. He wants to lay you back against the sand and run his hands over your body, mapping out every inch of you until he knows you better than he knows himself. He wants you to know all of him—the good, the bad, the mad—and he wants to know you the same. He wants to stop fearing that one day you’ll see him the same way everyone else does, and he hates that he fears it at all, hates how much he relies on your promises, the way you brush your fingers against his face and tell him, iksan aōhon, iksā ñuhon. Hates that all he wants is to be with you.
You infuriate him, and you terrify him—he has never felt so intensely like this about anyone before, and he doesn’t know how to cope with it.
For now, he settles for letting himself fall asleep in your arms, head rolling back against your shoulder as he listens to you tell another story, a soft puff escaping his lips as the last of the tension bleeds out of him, the exhaustion of the day and lack of sleep finally catching up with him. He can feel your hands on him as he drifts, fingers absently tracing along the braid, across his face, outlining the shape of his lips and the slope of his nose, and he is much too exhausted to make a snide comment or put up a front of prickliness like he usually would.
“Jaelan ra umbagon bisa ñuhoso syt mirre,” he hears your murmur as you ghost your lips beneath his ear, but the words blur together, slipping through his mind before he can grasp them as he finally dozes off in your arms.
