⊶⊰ Twenties | She/Her | INTP ⊱⊷
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I read The Plagues and oh man, that reignited so much of my theater kid memory days. Such beautiful writing. Going from that tangent, how would a genshin duo of your choice + Zhongli and Barbara react to Bells of Notre Dame and its reprise and/or Hellfire?
Zhong and Barbs feel like they would definitely recognize the religious warning undertones and add more monikers to the list of their deity's names (i.e. 'Beata Maria,' 'Notre Dame'). The Latin parts maybe a variant of old languages?
mea maxima culpa
a/n: hubris is a funny word.
word count: 2k
-> warnings: religion is prominent, mentions of specific details from the christian canon are present in the song and hence i elaborate on them. the church of favonius is heavily idealized and probably unrealistic. heavy over analysis -> i used the genius analysis for this bc i suck at picking up on theme. google translate. latin. unedited because i am Tired of looking at this piece.
for the sake of this, let’s assume that zhongli has at least a base understanding of latin. there’s a lot of it in genshin, from the adventurers guild’s trademark ad astra abyssosque! to constellations—his specifically means ‘stone of god’ or something similar last i checked. now, the direct translation of this is some sort of confessional prayer, specifically to god, mary, archangel michael, and to ‘all the saints’. he’s gonna sort through this and draw some conclusions: one, that you have a collection of angels of which you are the head, two, that people in your world also practice confessions, and that three you’re playing a song of a confession, for whatever reason??
barbara, on the flip side, likely has little exposure to it at all. maybe in some religious texts from the church? it’s been a while—read: literal years—since i’ve been to a proper cathedral, and though i’m pretty sure they have some latin chants.. she has no incentive to learn, really. zhongli’s an archon and old as dirt, hes likely encountered or needed it before, while barbara is a deaconess. maybe she’ll pick up on ‘omnipotenti’, but that’s sort of cheating because it’s one letter off from the meaning. whatever the case, she’s entering this with the idea that this is a song of worship. she’s half correct.
Beata Maria,
You know I am a righteous man
Of my virtue I am justly proud
(et tibit pater)
this is a hell of a verse, pun slightly intended.
neither of them know how to tackle it initially. barbara’s assigning you the title of ‘beata maria’—strange, but not outlandish—but that only makes the rest of the verse worse. why would somebody praying to you describe how good they are? of their pride?
zhongli is caught off guard on multiple fronts. ‘beata maria’ is a… translation(?) of the first verse, where ‘beatae mariae’ meant blessed mary. while the first verse could be reread to assume mary was a secondary or auxiliary title, such as the rex lapis vs morax thing, it didn’t make sense for you to be blessed. blessed by who? there was no god higher than you. and that doesn’t even begin to tackle the ‘of my virtue i am justly proud’- this was a confessional song! it was one meant for repentance and apology, not to brag! and the last line, ‘the father trembles’? who was that? was the father mentioned who blessed mary? were you the father and mary was a lesser deity? but then why pray to maria during a confession-?
Beata Maria,
You know I'm so much purer than
The common, vulgar, weak, licentious crowd
(quia peccavi nimis)
barbara is able to pin down the perspective of the song from this. she’s heard many things, both as a deaconess and an idol, and this sounds like somebody trying to convince themself more than you. her confusion washes into pity, a slight frown crossing her face. she hopes that whoever this is comes to terms with their wrongdoings, and will apologize to you properly.
zhongli is doing mental gymnastics trying to rationalize this, his brows drawing together in a frown. he, like barbara, has pinned that the singer is trying to convince both himself and you, but the repeated title of beata maria still confuses him. if he squinted—and hard—he could attempt to work under the idea that they were alternate titles for you despite the fact that clear differences were marked between them. working under that incredibly fragile, skin deep assumption, the latin made more sense this time around: ‘because i have sinned too much’. at least he got the confessional part right, but for you to play a confession from somebody that had yet to come to terms with their sin…
Then tell me, Maria,
Why I see her dancing there?
Why her smoldering eyes still scorch my soul?
(cogitatione)
hear that? it’s every alarm in barbara’s head ringing all at once.
the language being used here is very alarming for her, as somebody who has to deal with people being… overly interested, let’s say, in her life. not to make any names, especially those that start with an a and rhyme with elbert, but she’s had experiences with people that spoke like this, over-infatuated people whose morals are rotted by the acid of obsession. her mind is split, split between this either being a song of compassion or warning for her situation. we’re you trying to warn her of what somebody would try to do? or was this your way of extending an apology? was this even meant for her?
zhongli is… hm. setting aside the everything wrong with the titles for a moment, he’s trying to find some sort of meaning within the few words he has to work with. he knows this is a confessional. he knows the singer, at least subconsciously, knows of his sin. he knows he’s trying to convince you of the opposite. and now… he’s blaming somebody else for his wrongdoings? ‘thinking’? did you want him, zhongli, to take accountability for something he’s done? or somebody else? but there had to be meaning in you playing this now..
I feel her, I see her
The sun caught in her raven hair
Is blazing in me out of all control
(verb o et opere)
click! it’s everything coming together in zhongli’s mind!
with those—checks notes—21 words, all of his confusion aligns. it’s pretty impressive, really, the way everything fit together, but he finds more beauty in the unfinished puzzle. for example, the subtle distinction between you and maria, hidden within latin—an allegory for the subconscious, naturally—and yet vital to the message. the conflicting statements, the twisted morality of whoever wanted to blame somebody else for his sin.. he crossed his arms with a smile, wondering if every piece of literature in your world is as complex as this. surely, if a song can pin down the feeling of praying to a lesser saint to evade punishment—without any visuals, either, such as in an opera—then your reading… he wishes you would share some with him sometime.
inversely, could somebody get barbara some water? please?
she knows that she doesn’t have ‘raven hair’, but her heart hurts with sympathy for whoever the poor girl is. she hated to think of dealing with her fans—she shouldn’t think of it like that, she shouldn’t be afraid to talk to people that loved her—without the help of either her sister or the church. she couldn’t look into the minds of her fans, but to know that somebody was thinking like this about somebody else- that somebody could think like this about her… she might have to ask jilliana to switch duties.
Like fire
Hellfire
This fire in my skin
This burning desire
Is turning me to sin
barbara doesn’t want to know what this means.
she doesn’t want to know what ‘fire’ he’s talking about, she doesn’t want to know what sin is being referenced, she doesn’t. she just wants to know why you’re playing this. is it a warning? a prophecy? an apology? there’s so many possibilities, and not for the first time she wants to be angry at the discreet nature of the divine. what do you mean?
It's not my fault (mea culpa)
I'm not to blame (mea culpa)
It is the gypsy girl, the witch who sent this flame (mea maxima culpa)
It's not my fault (mea culpa)
If in god’s plan (mea culpa)
He made the devil so much stronger than a man (mea maxima culpa)
zhongli puts a hand to his chin, ancient eyes sparkling with interest. the contrast between the denying statement of ‘it’s not my fault’ and the subconscious calls of ‘it is my fault’ are so interesting. it seems that everybody, across realities, was in the practice of refusing guilt, of finding every single possible excuse even as they themselves know it is fruitless. even those in your world are not immune to the fallacies of the mind, and that is a detail he knows he will repeatedly come back to in his mind. and the subtle yet startlingly loud nature of the details in the song, of the slowly picking up tempo and the frantic speech as if the singer knows he only has a few moments longer… he finds delight in picking apart the details, in examining the way he tries to squirm out of punishment despite knowing it’s in vain, the way he blamed her, resorting to accusing her of a higher crime to resolve his.. zhongli is fascinated.
Protect me, Maria
Don't let this siren cast her spell
Don't let her fire sear my flesh and bone
Destroy Esmeralda
And let her taste the fires of hell
Or else let her be mine and mine alone
esmeralda.
that was her name. it sounded vaguely from natlan, maybe, or somewhere around it, and barbara sent a quick prayer that the wind led her from whoever this was. that somebody dare to use your name to ask for forgiveness for such a thing lit a spark of anger, but was doused by the overwhelming wave of fear. fear for her, for this poor esmeralda that had to live with this, fear that her own situation could devolve into something even remotely similar—more paranoia, since she knew and trusted both the knights and the church, but still—and fear that your choice to play this now was a warning. fear that she’d be praying at your altar to be saved from such a person.
Hellfire
Darkfire
Now gypsy, it's your turn
Choose me or your pyre
Be mine or you will burn
oh. that’s… that’s interesting.
zhongli’s face twisted into a frown, some of his curiosity dimming. that was.. unfair, to say the least. blaming another- daring to condemn another for your sins.. to try and punish another because they refused to bend to your selfish will… passing off guilt to another was unforgivable, in his opinion. he supposed that was why he wasn’t a god with much power: you had the resolve to allow this scenario to be a lesson to learn, to be put to a tune and demonstrate the fallacies of a guilty conscience. this was why you were his god, and he would not have it any other way.
Kyrie eleison
God have mercy on her
Kyrie eleison
God have mercy on me
Kyrie eleison
what would he ask mercy for? from? whoever this was didn’t deserve your forgiveness, in barbara’s opinion, nor deserve to even ask for it. anybody that crossed lines like this and behaved so rashly didn’t have the right to ask to be spared. and to drop the title, to refer to you by position rather than name… barbara was still fearful, yes, but now that fear had bubbled into anger. there were proper ways, proper rituals and prayers and offerings to truly earn forgiveness, and that was putting aside the crime of trying to trick a god. as if you didn’t know everything that happened, as if you didn’t know everything that he did. as if you weren’t the creator of all. as if you weren’t the god he claimed.
Occasionally I’d play music in the background while playing the game. Now on this fine day, I’ve played ‘The Plagues’ from the prince of Egypt. I have a certain two brothers on my team. One of them being my main, Kaeya. “This seems too familiar,” I said aloud. In SAGAU, what would their reactions be?
plagued
a/n: voidless, words cannot describe the jealousy i feel knowing you are a diluc haver. also, i had kinda a hard time with this one, so let me know if this isn’t what you wanted!
word count: ~2k (the song itself is abt. 300)
-> warnings: major spoilers for kaeya and diluc lore, biblical references (quotes from the song are used, which itself is an interpretation of the bible), the brothers think you’re the ‘lord’ being referenced, heavy angst, this got so sad so quickly—
-> lowercase intended!
< masterlist >
taglist: @samarill || @thenyxsky
i don’t think it would register the first 10 seconds or so. they might be interested from the haunted whispers, or wonder how your device managed to capture a choir. they would pause on ‘this saith the lord’ but would get over it quickly. naturally, they would assume it was referring to you, and everything after carries a bit more weight. what if it was a command of yours?
‘Since you refuse to free my people
All through the land of Egypt’
they’d be curious about where ‘egypt’ was, and whether or not you lived there. why were the people captured? were they prisoners of war? they knew how deadly a fight between gods could be- was your world in the midst of war?
‘I send a pestilence and plague
Into your house, into your bed
Into your streams, into your streets
Into your drink, into your bread’
all of a sudden very worried. they’re gonna assume the worst case scenario and worry that you’re suffering through a plague. diluc’s making plans to offer more food the next time he has dinner at the manor, and kaeya’s concerned you might get sick from the poisoned food. they don’t have the most advanced medicine, and certainly not medicine fit for a god.
‘Upon your cattle, on your sheep
Upon your oxen in your field
Into your dreams, into your sleep
Until you break, until you yield’
this will give them pause, if only until they think it over. cattle? ‘oxen’? how could your world be so advanced as to have a device to peer into theirs and yet rely on these animals? they quickly get ahold of it though, don’t worry: naturally, your device was a holy item, only to be used by you, a god. it made sense that the people you ruled over would rely on cows and sheep to live. but then.. was this song one of warning? warning whoever the other party was of your divine retribution?
it makes more sense to diluc than it does kaeya.
’I send the swarm, I send the horde
Thus saith the Lord’
this only cements in their minds that it’s a song of warning. your people there must call you their lord—it made sense, perhaps they should adopt it?—and you were threatening to send a swarm of… something. they hoped they would never have to know. the haunting beauty of the chant is not something they’re keen on ever experiencing.
‘Once I called you brother
Once I thought the chance to make you laugh
Was all I ever wanted’
this hurts.
badly.
horribly, an ache immediately burning their chests. the tired, saddened voice of the brother will echo inside of kaeya’s head, likely long past whenever the song ends, and diluc’s tripping—literally, if you’re mid-battle his model will freeze in place for a few moments—over the realization that this is a hymn meant for brothers.
they refuse to meet each others eyes, each focused on the task you’ve given them. the other members of your party look away, giving them space even if they’re not the type to usually do so. i ask that you leave the brothers off-field, as they’ll surely be delayed in following your commands and will likely get hurt because of it.
’I send the thunder from the sky
I send the fire raining down’
the eerie enactment of your voice suddenly carries so much more weight. in your world, at some point, two brothers had fought over ‘egypt’, and you had sent down plagues in punishment. surely you knew this, right? was this a warning to them? were you angry with them?
’And even now I wish that god had chose another
Serving as your foe on his behalf
Is the last thing that I wanted’
you can’t see it due to the camera being permanently set behind the character—provided he’s on the field—and diluc certainly can’t, since they’re facing away from each other, but kaeya’s eyes are quickly turning glassy. it hurts, the weight of his promise to khaenri’ah, to his father—to both of his fathers—manifesting as a hollow ache in his chest. it’s getting harder to breathe through the block in his throat, and he wonders if you’re intentionally playing this because of him. it wouldn’t be so surprising; he knows he’s not the best or the most devoted, he knows that you likely look down on his lying and secrecy, he knows, he does, but please don’t remind him of it. it already haunts him when he tries to sleep.
‘I send a hail of burning ice
On every field, on every town’
diluc has a better handle on his expressions—read: he’s better at suppressing them—but anybody who looked could see he was distressed. his jaw is tense, every muscle in his body taught. he didn’t move an inch when he was off-field, and he relied heavily on the binds of your device to move him on-field. he feels like a live wire, buzzing with energy and yet no way to vent it. he can’t cope with these feelings the same way he normally would, he can’t throw himself into paperwork or into battle. he can’t stomp through mondstat’s plains, he can’t call flame to his fingertips and burn out the pain. your presence, the heavy air of divinity around him, barely does anything to soothe the ache. if anything, it only burns brighter.
‘This was my home
All this pain and devastation
How it tortures me inside
All the innocent who suffer
From your stubbornness and pride’
oh.
it’s like the words were handcrafted, bent into a hook and cast on a line that swiftly caught kaeya’s soul. he tries to remind himself that it’s not about him, it’s not about diluc and it’s not about khaenri’ah and it’s not about crepus, it’s about some nation in your world called ‘egypt’-
he can’t. the words resonate with his very essence, the core of his being shaking alongside the swelling music and tragic melodies. he feels like a glass in the hand of an opera singer, quivering in place and unable to move an inch, just waiting for the right frequency to make him shatter.
as he chokes on his own air, he wonders why you played this song specifically. did you know how much it would rip him apart? did you realize how much it hurt, to see himself reflected in its lyrics? did you know that it would send him back to his youth, did you want him to relive that pain?
over the turmoil, he can hear your voice. “this seems too familiar..”
so you were aware.
he supposed he deserved it.
’I send the locusts on a wind
Such as the world has never seen
On every leaf, on every stalk
Until there's nothing left of green’
diluc also caught your little comment, and he might have laughed would it not have come out watery. of course you knew. of course you chose this song specifically. of course you put him on the team with your beloved, of course you made him work with his brother, the one you’ve poured the most of your time and effort into. of course. of course. this was all just a jab at him, wasn’t it? perhaps he was being a touch self-centered in that assessment, but really, it wasn’t that far-fetched. he knew his brother was your favorite. he knew that, despite his own feelings about him, your opinion stood higher than any other. no matter how hard he tried, he would always fall to second place.
it made sense that you wanted to remind him.
’I send my scourge, I send my sword
Thus saith the Lord
You who I called brother
Why must you call down another blow?’
cryo vision or not, kaeya’s skin is burning. his heart is thundering at twice the pace it should, his skin flushed with both blood and embarrassment. he couldn’t help but feel like you were directing this at him specifically, like you had picked this song specifically to get under his skin. he didn’t doubt that diluc was affected as well—time apart didn’t change either of their habits—but didn’t dare to look over. surely, if he saw how disheveled mondstat’s cavalry captain had become after a simple few verses, his words would once more line with fire and flame. he knew his brother resented his position as the one in your favor, but now, with this further context…
it feels like you only picked him to fix him.
‘I send my scourge, I send my sword
Let my people go
Thus saith the Lord
Thus saith the Lord’
dilucs mind is racing, trying to pick out the meaning behind the song. it’s a tale of two brothers, that’s obvious enough, and it’s clear you mean for a parallel to be found between those sung about and him and kaeya. maybe- maybe if he can find it, if he can find the message you want them to learn, he can act on it and maybe he could fix whatever you hated so much about their relationship. he wanted to, desperately, because surely there was a reason you chose to play this with them on your team. there had to be meaning in this, there had to be a reason you insisted on placing him besides his brother even when you made it clear which you favored, there had to be a way to fix whatever he did to anger you. he refused to believe otherwise.
‘You who I called brother
How could you have come to hate me so?
Is this what you wanted?’
no, no, it wasn’t, kaeya never meant for this wedge between them to drive so deep, the chasm that separated the two brothers was never meant to be deeper than his pinky was long. he wanted to reconcile, he wanted to reconnect, this was never what he wanted, he never meant to dissolve his relationship with his brother like this. there were days he spent at the bar, bottle in hand and filled with regret over his decisions, wishing for anything to fix it. he would never want this. but of course, as always, your omnipotent presence dared to accuse what mortal men could never speak.
‘I send the swarm, I send the horde
Then let my heart be hardened
And never mind how high the cost may grow
This will still be so’
diluc’s eyes close, his thoughts a swirling mix of the words he’s hearing and memories of stormy nights. memories of blood on his hands and the glinting light of a fatui insignia burn behind his eyes, the implications of your playing this song knowing that it resonated with the two of them lost in the chaos. his mind echoes words back at him, an apparition only there to eat at him. ‘never mind how high the cost may grow,’ it spits, taunting, and he doesn’t have the energy to retaliate. why would he? hes in no place to protest, not when it’s right.
summary: as dottore's assistant, you run into a variety of creatures. however, this one seems a little too human for your taste...
word count: ~3.4k
-> warnings: major dehumanizing language and behavior (towards character, temporarily by reader), minor mention of a (presumed to be) dead body, mentions + minor depiction of blood, titles of two harbingers not shown in game (written pre-natlan), some sort of weird power dynamic going on but neither of them are winning
dottore worked with a myriad of strange and wondrous creatures, both with and without natural origin. on the tamer side of things, you’ve been called in to inspect slimes with weak or nonexistent elemental charge, a crystalfly with six wings, and a strangely docile lawachurl. on the other end, you had to tear apart ancient ruin machinery, pistons firing to grind moss-covered gears against each other. you’ve even fixed up your fair share of segments, one of the few entrusted with their delicate circuitry. hubristically, you thought you’d seen it all, because what could surprise you more than the blue heart of an abyss lector placed in your hands?
you flash your keycard in front of the reader beside a thick steel door, the hallway light creeping along the floor as it slides open. the room is dark, with a large cloth covering the back half. it’s roughly taped up, with dark… mystery liquid bleeding out from the bottom. it’s surprisingly empty, with neither person nor furniture to keep you company. you’re left with a covered cart, the tools strapped to your sides, and the paper in your hands. your target is behind the curtain, it seems.
you don’t think too hard about it, instead pulling the cloth off the cart and messily pushing it through the handle on one side to keep it off the floor. the door shuts and plunges the room into darkness, so you take a small penlight from your pocket and tuck it behind your ear, reading the paper on the board.
you’re to study a specimen from the sea, strangely. the doctor usually kept his study to terrestrial creatures, an observation already noted on the page. a fishing party had reported something strange in the water, which had only turned into a concern once it had attacked one of the fatui’s ships. commoners were able to sail through the area fine, even in small fishing dinghies, but it chose to specifically attack the ship sent for negotiations with mondstadt. il capitano had expended several dozen squads retrieving both the mora lost and the beast itself, which was wounded by the ship’s anchor and made for a fierce capture, blah blah blah. you couldn’t care less about the details. instead, you skip to your short list of duties at the bottom: repair the enclosure, determine the intelligence of whatever you’ve caught, and establish a line of communication if sufficiently advanced.
you’re not sure why they think you’ll be able to talk with whatever’s in there, but that’s a problem for later. you take stock of what you were left, searching in the thin beam of your penlight and squinting through the light reflected off the steel cart. the lights haven’t turned on yet, so they must have either been manually set to off or damaged when the subject was brought in. not including your pen, the only light is from the card reader behind you and what slips through between the cloth and the walls, both a pale blue that do little to illuminate the room at large. you give up on the cart and scan the walls for the light switch, finding it closer to the door than normal. thankfully, it was just set to off, but the lights flicker when you turn them on. you click off your penlight, looking up at them oddly. why would they be flickering?
having apparently given its answer to your unspoken question, the cloth trembles with a dull thud. the liquid at the bottom spreads out a bit further, looking clear now that the lights are on. your instinct says it’s water, but it could just as easily be alcohol or gasoline. the cloth itself is already dark, so it’s hard to tell how much of it is soaked.
then again, it is a supposed sea monster, right? it makes sense that it would be held in a tank, but the water spilling doesn’t reflect the loudness of the thud. if it had rammed the glass, then the water splashing over would have been visible as it hit the cloth. on the other hand, you were told to repair the enclosure, so-
another thud, louder, the water spreading out in another surge. you quickly discard your train of thought, tucking away your pen and checking over the cart with much more ease. there’s a first-aid kit, silicone sealant, and a roll of thick, clear tape that you grab. it’s a temporary fix, but you need to get a grasp on the situation before you can decide on a proper course of action. you push the tape into the large pocket of your lab coat, freeing both of your hands to grab the cloth over the mystery tank. you pull, quickly yanking it off and letting it drop. it doesn’t feel soaked yet, so it can hopefully absorb some of the water on the floor.
the tank itself is… boring. the water is murky, a tumultuous mess of air bubbles and thick black strings of something. chains? no, then it wouldn’t have been able to hit the glass. you wouldn’t be surprised if it had broken the chains, however, as the cracks spiderwebbed through the glass are alarmingly thick. you unspool some of the tape, sticking strips over the sections where the cracks intersect. water still drips through, but at a far slower pace. it’ll do for now.
as you patch up the glass, the water slowly begins to settle. sediment falls to the bottom, and you can’t tell if the shine is natural or because it’s reflecting the light streaming through from the ceiling. the tank is still dark, though, a deep fog covering the back half. there should be lights all the way to the far wall, so they’re likely damaged.
as if it heard your thoughts—were you superstitious, you’d be worried by now—one of the lights on the near side breaks with a shatter, glass and sparks falling into the tank below. you step away, moving well out of range of the puddle on the floor despite the minuscule charge. the other light breaks in a similar fashion, though this time you catch something small and dark being flung at it. you bring out your penlight again, crouching beside the glass to catch a glimpse of whatever it is. you’re expecting a link of the chain-like structure you saw before, maybe a rock or shell, so of course it’s none of those things. there, at the bottom of the tank, is a single coin of mora. it shines as innocently as the glass slowly sinking around it, oblivious to the gears turning in your mind.
you can’t believe that a sea creature would have want for terrestrial money, but you can believe that it’s attracted to the glimmer. it’s smart enough to use one of the smaller coins, though you’re not sure if that’s to make it harder to see as it flies or if it knows its value. you don’t hold your breath about it. if squid can open jars and slimes can plan ambushes for their prey, you don’t expect anything impressive from whatever this thing is.
the glass and mora are still there, so it didn’t care about either enough to actually grab it. it’s either waiting for you to back off, dislikes the light, or both. you stand, making your way back to the cart. you trade your tape for the proper sealant, scribbling a small note about your findings on the second, blank page on the clipboard. you reread the original file, this time catching that a non-insignificant amount of mora was missing from the wreckage. it was packed in sealed bags, so it wasn’t as if it was carried away by the tide. your mystery friend was in possession of ten thousand mora, give or take, a fact you tuck away for later. there’s plenty of scrap metal to be found around the lab, which can potentially be used as bribes if your theory proves correct.
the tank thuds again, and you turn quickly. you’re only able to catch a glimpse of black retreating into the fog, though, the flash of scales a microscopic indication of what you’re dealing with. plenty of sea creatures have scales, though this eliminates most of the ones with tentacles. scales, with enough force to crack the glass of its tank. what are the chances it’s just a particularly aggressive shark?
none, of course—capitano’s squadron’s could likely take down a shark one-handed and half-blind—but it’s fun to play pretend.
you approach the tank, pulling the tape from the bigger leaks and put it over the thinner cracks instead. silicone is scraped over the main breaks, the excess smeared to the edge of the tape. you peer into the tank as best as you can, but it’s too dark to see anything. even with the broken lighting, what does get through isn’t diffusing naturally. the darkness seems to swirl, collecting the dirt off the floor-…
the mora’s gone. so is the glass. you stare at the place they used to be, briefly lost in the sight of the concrete flooring. you hadn’t noticed any movement, so it was either masked by fog or a sufficiently slow creep. both? the ‘mist’ inside seems to ripple and flutter with invisible currents, never parting to let anything through.
another coin of mora shoots through the veil, hitting a weak spot dead-on and pushing the cracks higher through the glass. you’re starting to suspect the thing can read your thoughts… or it can just use whatever brain is left to know that you’re watching. what’s gotten into you?
you shake it off, pushing sealant into the new fracture. some of them spread too high for you to reach without a stool, though they’re fairly thin. you’ve been pretty lucky, not having to put yourself in a vulnerable position yet—unless, if you step back, it was intentional? you’re only halfway across the tank, but you take a break to do just that, actually taking in the patterns of the rifts instead of logging them as another problem to be solved.
the room is fairly tall, though the tank doesn’t stretch all the way to the top. you can only reach about three quarters of the way to the top of the glass, and there’s a sizable space of air above the tank. instead of focusing at the top and trying to widen that opening, the damage is nearly entirely in the bottom third. everything that reaches higher are hairline, not intended to spread that high. whatever it is, it wants to flood the room, enough that it’s prioritizing that over escape.
definitely smarter than a squid.
you approach your cart to make note of your realization, using your penlight to write. you angle yourself so you can barely see the tank out of the corner of your eye, sketching a rough diagram of the room and marking where the major breaks are. like last time, the water begins to twist, the mist receding from the glass. you draw random shapes on the side of your paper to stall, interspersed with writing-like loops in case it’s somehow able to understand the difference. the sides of the mist curl in, forming a bubble in the middle. it swells, rushing forward, and you quickly flick on your light and point it toward the tank.
your light is weak, obviously. it’s a pen, a focused beam meant to fit in tight spaces and illuminate them efficiently. it’s dispersed somewhat by the distance, glass, and water, but you know what you see no matter how unclear. a large, glittering tail lashes forward, wrapped in heavy gray chain and dense fog. it’s yanked back as quick as it came, but you’re no fool. the weight of the ship’s anchor hitting the glass makes another low thud, barely-there crackles heralding new fissures. it was softer this time, likely thrown off from your light.
smart enough to use tools. scaled. deep-dwelling, or otherwise nocturnal. you don’t know much about the sea, but that doesn’t seem to add up into anything remotely normal. sea lions don’t have scales, neither do dolphins, whales, or squid, and none of fontaine’s aberrants could survive either the cold or the salt. snowstriders are large, but they’re naturally a bright white. whatever you have, it’s an anomaly.
you shouldn’t be so surprised. since when did the doctor deal in the mundane?
you leave the rest of the tank’s cracks as is, instead picking through the lower level of the cart. there’s a small slate and marker, a larger light, some gloves, and a bunch of other stuff you don’t bother with. you tuck the slate under your arm and put the marker with your pen, pulling off the large light and a battery pack. it’s heavy, but you manage. the water agitates when you set it by the tank, as close as you can without risking water damage. it should be water resistant, but you’re not about to test that theory and get yourself in trouble.
the thing must have an idea of what you’re doing. it also must not be native to too deep waters, or else it’d be blind. but if it was in the shallows, how did it manage to grow so large without ever being seen?
you insert the battery, hovering your hand over the knob. there’s no telling if it’ll get aggressive in the light, so you prime yourself to run just in case. you look up into the dark fog of the tank, twisting the light to full power.
your first, horrific thought is that it’s somehow brought a corpse into the lab. sure, the fatui aren’t exactly known for their top care of fallen soldiers, but surely it would have been separated from one before being put in its tank. the body is half-hidden behind a mass of scales, a deep violet that shines despite the fog—which itself isn’t fog. you’re not sure how or why, but it’s shifted from black to brown, clearly just dirt constantly kept in motion. your light cuts through it easily as it begins to settle, the tail shifting to hide the body. you can’t see a head yet, is it an eel of some kind?
and then you understand. the body’s shoulder moves, led by a black hand. dark ink stretches up their forearm like an infection, leaving behind claws instead of nails. it reaches down, behind the wrap of scales, and flicks another coin at the glass with far too much strength to be puppetted.
that’s its body*.* you physically recoil from the realization, hand tightening on the light and dimming it a little more in the process. black scales shine purple as it approaches, ripped and jagged fins twitching and sweeping the dirt away from impossibly far off. still likely an elemental, you think dully, watching as it approaches. another coin of mora flashes between two long claws and flicks towards you quick enough to leave a small trail of vacuum bubbles behind it. it hits the glass with a sharp click, right over the light.
you know what it wants. you’re still reeling from the idea that something can look so human when deep beneath the sea, struggling to fit its silhouette together in your mind, but you can still think properly. the dirt continues to sink, revealing more paper-thin fins shredded by the anchor’s chain. the floor is marred from thousands of claw marks, though you can’t see the full extent of the damage. its curled up over the well, wrapped tightly in its tail. all you can see are purple scales and lavender fins, waving gently in the water. if you’d seen a picture of it like this, you’d only assume it was a strangely large eel that had been unlucky enough to wander into the wrong side of a harbor.
but you knew better. the scales shift and a dark claw sticks out, another mora flung towards you. it hits with more force than last time.
you don’t know what to do. it’s hurt, obviously; dark blood seeps from between every scale, whether because of the anchor or the torn fins or something else you can’t see. you’re surprised it was able to whip the anchor as fast as it did. with how dark and blurry everything is, you can’t help but wonder if blood was a substantial part of the mist you saw before. not many morals last long under the doctor’s instruction, but you don’t like seeing it recoil from the light. maybe it’s another hallucination, maybe it’s pulling on your neurons to make you do what it wants, but the end result is the same.
against your better judgement, you lower the light just slightly, keeping your hand on it in case things turn south. the monster’s tail slowly unwinds, revealing more of the body within. their skin is bluish, with dark streaks across the ribs. you watch in a daze as it crawls forward, finally coming face to face with the monster in the tank.
it looks painfully human. bright yellow eyes, the same color as the mora it not-so-discreetly swipes off the floor, surrounded by a cloud of black hair. you could almost fool yourself into thinking its a free diver, a particularly foolish one who left his wetsuit on the shore and was slowly succumbing to hypothermia. blackish gills flutter along his neck and ribs, your hand unthinkingly turning off the light when its scales press against the glass. he seems perfectly human from the waist up.
and then it hisses at you. his lips pull back over layers of shark-like fangs, your hand alarmingly twisting forward instead of back with the rest of your body. the knob clicks under your fingers, the light entirely turning off, and the thing has the gall to look proud.
right. dangerous sea-thing that risked its life to try and flood the lab. you’re usually better under pressure than this, but to be fair you usually don’t deal with subjects that can maybe-probably read your mind.
you pull yourself together, pulling the cap off your marker and writing a simple question across the slate in your neatest handwriting. your hand is strangely shaky. when you’re done, you turn it towards the glass.
‘can you read common?’
his eyes flick first to the slate, and then to yours, his hair shifting in an invisible current. it parts enough that you can see his ears have elongated into spiny ruffs, each flared out wide. you don’t know what that means. you go to write as such on the board, and a sharp click draws your attention. he waves at the slate, then nods.
what was his previous reaction, then? if he understood that nodding was an agreement, then why not do that to begin with? if you mapped the movement of his ears onto another animal, would it be a stretch to interpret it as annoyance? could he be offended you thought he couldn’t read?
another coin shoots toward your face, the click startling you out of your thoughts. you blink, and he waves to your board again, with more emphasis. was he used to this style of questioning, then? you’ll have to ask the segment who was in charge of him prior about what they did.
‘what’s 2 + 2?’
how many times have you been shot at since you’ve come in here? you should start a tally.
you continue with basic questions, slowly increasing their difficulty. he looks almost bored through all of them, laying over his tail. you can never see further than his waist, irritatingly, and he keeps summoning more mist when you aren’t looking to further fog the transition. you’re tempted to go get your clipboard, but figure that’ll break whatever rapport you’ve built up. he’s not aggressive anymore, so you’ll settle for sneaking glances at the patterns of his fins.
‘do you know the name snezhnaya?’
he’s rather fond of giving you looks you’d dare to call condescending, your only answer coming in irritated ruffles of his spines until he gets tired of waiting and nods again. you somewhat wish you could give him a slate to write on himself, but he could easily break it into dangerous shards. not that it would matter much, considering his claws…
he clicks two fingers together in an unmistakable snap, and though the snap is lost in the water you know you’ve been caught. you quickly write down some random question about the capital to distract him, but it doesn’t work. his teeth flash in the light, though it seems to be more of a smile than a jeer. his shoulders bob, unnatural fangs gleam beneath a sharp cupid’s bow, and you’re not sure when he stopped being an eel and started becoming a person.
summary: a minor mishap in the lab leads to a chain of.. interesting events with the second harbinger
word count: 4.8k
-> warnings: reader is badly burned + mentioned blood + somewhat graphic description of injury, dottore + his reputation, you think you're going to die at one point (not serious, in passing, you don't)
-> gn reader (you/yours) and non-canonical segments
you weren’t an earnest follower in celestia by any means, but if they could get you out of this then you would happily spend the rest of your life devoted to being a pastor.
mostly because that’s the only way you’d live to see the light of day again, but that was besides the point.
on a good day, working for any harbinger came with a lot of challenges, but you had ended up with the most ruthless and least rational. every time you walked into the doctor’s lab, there was a healthy amount of fear that it would be your last. at least one fight was going on at any given point, trying to read their horrendous handwriting gave you a headache, the constant mood swings and volatile behavior just the tip of the iceberg. on top of that, you also had to deal with being dragged into every idea and whim they had; your technical job title was merely ‘assistant,’ but that was far too narrow a band to cover everything you did that wasn’t in the fine print.
like this. standing with your hands shoved deep into the chest of a skywatcher ruin drake, fumbling for a casing supposedly “just a little further,” if beta’s continued pressuring was anything to go by. he was standing somewhere behind you, theta on the other side of the drake trying to figure out how to pry off the thick bolts sticking out of its spine. theta you could understand. he was mostly machine himself, so it made sense he’d be the one to pull apart the touchier components, but beta? beta, fussing with the wings of the drake, doing a whole lot of nothing while you shoved your very human and non-replaceable arms into a tangled mess of gears and wiring. you’d already gotten burned once, a thick droplet of oil falling onto your wrist from above that theta apologized profusely for, and you weren’t eager to do so again.
sure, if your arms did get ripped from their sockets you’re fairly certain you’d receive prosthetics in return, but that didn’t excuse anything. just because they were capable of amazing feats of science didn’t mean you wanted to be another test subject.
“you can do it,” beta ‘encouraged,’ leaning on your shoulder and not at all making it more difficult to strain for the part he wanted. “you saw the plans.”
of course you did, you were the one that had insisted he look them over again before ripping into the machine. behind the chest plate, behind the core, straight to the back was a wide bundle of wires. in the very center was a segmented strip of chained together casings shaped vaguely like dumbbells, supposedly easy enough to pull out. what was inside? who knew. probably beta. you’d found the wiring just fine—not just fine, you’d scraped yourself along far too many gears and raw edges to be entirely intact—but there was nothing inside it. you picked out the thinner wires one by one, and while you’d succeeded in finding the structure they were supposed to be in, it was empty. yanking it up had rewarded you with a bruise on your forearm and nothing in the slot below it, so you fed it back down and prepared to pull.
“please behave yourself, beta.” theta’s voice comes from higher than it was last time, a loud bang from above you reverberating through the entire machine. you try not to think about it.
“i’m supervising-”
“i’m supposed to be supervising,” you interrupt, gripping two bars of the structure and preparing yourself. “i don’t get paid enough for this.”
you breathe, your grip tightens, and you pull with everything you have. above you, something pops, and the frame in your hands is suddenly very slack. you don’t even have a chance to feel for the capsules before something hot and burning poured on your arms, a thick oil that clung to your skin and refused to leave. beta moved quicker than you could think, grabbing your sides and practically carrying you away from the machine. the sludge was forming a wide pool on the floor now, a dark lumpy black that stretched all the way up to your elbows and made you painfully aware of that fact. beta had grabbed a roll of mechanic’s towels and roughly wiped off the excess, the drag of the napkin on raw skin making you hiss. it left a reddish residue behind, though the sight of your hands quickly blurred with tears.
“theta, we’re leaving.” beta puts one hand between your shoulders and quickly pushes you out of the project room, a sliding door opening into the upper lab. you blink out your tears as best you can, mostly relying on beta to guide you past the maze of tables and machinery. this section of the lab didn’t have a medbay since the segments allowed up here never needed one, so it meant you had to walk all the way down to the lower lab for first aid. how fun. you weren’t keen on letting this stuff stay on you for any longer than it had to, but since when was any dottore known for his safety measures?
even in your limited vision, you see more heads turn toward you than usual as the door hisses open. beta don’t stop to pay them any attention, walking you straight through to the door marked with a red cross, hand tightening in your shirt when you stumble on the slight step.
“careful,” he says, like you’d ever be in this situation of your own accord.
the faucet hisses and so do you, gritting your teeth at the pressure on your hands. you blink rapidly, struggling to find the soap before he puts it right in front of you, pressing down the top and letting it fall into your hands. your skin is bubbled and angry, shaking hands and blurred vision making it impossible to figure out where anything was. instead of doing anything remotely helpful, beta just stands at your side like the world’s worst lightpost, providing no insight and only unnerving you further with his presence. the only indication he’s not lost in some manic daydream is occasional mumbling, though that may actually be evidence the more you think about it. you’re not sure how much time passes, just running water over your skin to stave off the pain. eventually, he sighs, “fine, i’ll go,” a nonsensical statement you almost don’t notice wasn’t meant for you before he speaks a little louder.
“i need to go, but i’ll get kappa for you.”
like he wasn’t already there to see you walk in. “sure.”
he lingers, then leaves. you continue washing cold water over your skin to keep the burning at bay, knowing full well its a superficial solution. best case, you’re burned severely and are either fired for incompetence or made to work through it. worst case, whatever chemical that was made its way into your bloodstream through one of the many scrapes you got and you were about to drop dead from a heart attack any moment now. neither option was rather thrilling.
your palm can’t take much more of the water pressure, but the thought of trying to twist the valve off is equally unappealing. pain, or slightly adjacent pain: a typical day in dottore’s lab. you never thought you’d be on the receiving end.
the door doesn’t creak as it’s pushed open, but the sound of boots on the floor gives it away. who you can only assume is kappa turns off the water, blotting up the excess on your arms with a soft towel that still felt too harsh.
“i know, i know…”
you watch through blurred vision—was that the cause of your headache, or was it the stress?—as he reaches into his pocket, pulling out a small tin. he moves delicately, barely a whisper across your skin as he spreads the salve over your arms. soft gel pads his fingers, a cushion of translucent silicone over everything sharp edge or hard plate. you could barely pick out the seams between the layers of his hand, each of them slipping and melding together in one fluid movement. the salve leaves a cool numbness wherever it touches, your pain swiftly becoming a faint memory. you’re somewhat surprised by how quickly it works, though you probably shouldn’t be. if they could figure out delusions, they could figure out an effective topical pain reliever. he gently twists your arm just enough to see if he’s missed anywhere, not pulling any of the irritated skin. once satisfied, he makes quick work of wrapping it, white bandage spiraling up your arm faster than you can blink. he tapes it shut just below your elbow, and the process begins anew.
there’s not much else to do but watch him work. your tears are finally starting to recede enough that you can see clearer, gauging the damage on your arms. it’s… well, terrible, if you’re being frank, skin peeling and blood smearing into the pale beige salve. you're definitely going to blister, and there’s no way you’ll be able to so much as pick up a pen in this condition. hopefully prime accounts for that when he decides your next shifts, though anything you do is realistically going to hurt. you’re pretty useless like this, even as a proper supervisor you couldn’t exactly take notes. you don’t have an ancient supercomputer in your brain like kappa or theta, and even the most basic of tasks involved your hands. no matter how good kappa’s medicine, there’s no way you’ll be in well enough shape by tomorrow.
“you’re worried,” kappa says, neither a question or a statement. an explanation, maybe, but to who?
“pardon?”
he ‘looks’ up (you’re fairly certain he only does that for your benefit) though his hands don’t pause, the red diamond on his face plate pulsing faintly. like his hands, the seam between black metal and bluish silicone is so small it might as well not be there. the silence stretches for longer than you know what to do with, long enough that he finishes with your arm, wiping off his hands on the towel from before. “your shirt has holes in it,” he says like it explains anything, ‘looking’ back down to wrap your hand. you’re able to watch this time, the roll weaving around your fingers and hand before being quickly spun along your arm, perfectly taut. he cuts it with his nail and tape dispenses out of his thumb to seal the end. he lingers there for a moment, thumb pressed on your inner elbow, before finally backing away. “you should change. there’s a closet behind you that should contain a spare shirt if you’d like."
you look down, noticing that he’s right. some of the goop splashed onto your shirt, leaving a smattering of holes. the skin beneath was fine, thankfully, but he was right. definitely not lab-safe, though not many of the actual substances you worked with were safe either. you were surely under-qualified to be handling khaenri’ahn machinery.
that’s beside the point. you turn around, finding the cabinet he’s talking about easily. shirts, pants, even a spare set of shoes. they seem to be mostly for the younger segments, but you pick out a shirt your size easily enough. you check behind you, seeing kappa turned away politely, and carefully pull off your shirt. you put it aside, silently thanking whoever decided to leave the shirts unbuttoned in the cabinet. probably kappa. it’s softer than you expect it to be, smooth blue that you’d almost mistake for some sort of fine silk if you didn’t know how resilient it was. every one of the segments wore them, fire, acids, and even beta’s occasional scalpel all deflected as if they were never there. it probably would have survived the corrosive from earlier, really, which makes you a bit bitter. the buttons close easily even with your limited dexterity, leaving neither bumps nor gaps down the front because prime was too good to be caught with a straight shot to his heart. if he was worse at his job it might be easier to be upset, but you couldn’t feel anything but begrudging respect about the man that hid a tie in the cuff to keep the sleeves secure around your elbow.
not for the first time, you wish you were given your own designated set. that would mean acknowledging you as more than an assistant, though, and prime seemed to be allergic to calling you even that. it was always either your name or ‘help’ with such a specific lilt that you couldn’t even describe it, something unique to whatever thoughts bounced between the precious few marbles still left in his head.
you liked to think you were more than just a standard helper. if nothing else, then the fact that you’d been working with him for as long as you had with your sanity intact had to mean something. according to rumors of payroll records from the ninth’s workers, the longest a previous assistant had lasted was barely a week over six months, and you had survived in this lab for more than a few years without getting fired, killed, or worse.
that could always end today, though. ruin drakes were endemic to sumeru and had to be carried across half of teyvat to make it to prime’s door, let alone the time spent finding and disabling them. failing a simple task on the first day was likely a perfectly fine reason to have your head on a pike. never mind that it wasn’t your fault, that it wasn’t your idea, or that you were grossly underqualified to supervise disassembly of khaenri’ahn machinery in the first place. since when was any segment known for his rational thinking and level-headed nature? fun joke.
you pick up your discarded shirt and thumb one of the many holes with a sigh. the edges were coarse and likely would only worsen in the wash, so there goes your uniform. the least of your worries, really.
“prime wants to talk to you,” kappa starts, drawing your attention towards him. his hands are folded neatly in front of him, mechanical voice slow and almost hesitant. you never knew a segment to be unsure of himself before, though you suppose prime is as good a reason as any. “but i can tell him you need rest. i understand today has been stressful for you.”
that was one way to put it. putting off talking with prime and going back to your quarters to avoid the problem for twelve hours sounded ideal, but you weren’t a fool. if prime was asking you to see him immediately after the incident, he had something to say, and denying a harbinger was a surefire route to whatever afterlife awaited you.
“thank you, but i’ll go see him now.”
his shoulders visibly fell, but he nodded. you dropped your shirt in the trash can as you followed him out, again ignoring the various other segments scattered throughout the lab. none stopped whatever they were doing, but you could feel their eyes on you, see their blue hair twist in your periphery. they’ve probably seen injuries far worse, and yours were already covered up… it was probably kappa, really. he rarely left phi’s side for any longer than he had to.
kappa input his access code without looking. or, you could only assume he wasn’t looking; even though his head was turned toward you, it didn’t mean anything. which was worse, that he could act without looking like he was, or that he acted like he needed to look?
his finger hesitates over the enter key. “you’re nervous,” he says again, this time actually feeling like it was directed at you. you never asked about before and probably never will. “he doesn’t seem upset at you.”
you bite your tongue to keep from being mean. you know he means the best—he was literally coded to be an empathetic caretaker—but prime wasn’t known for broadcasting his heart on his bloodstained sleeves. he could seem anything he wanted and it never had to reflect what he was actually feeling.
“thanks,” you reply instead, and he nods, the door sliding upward with a hiss.
the upper lab is empty. all the equipment is still there, of course, glassware and sealed jars littering the countertops, but all of the chairs are pushed in and vacant. nobody besides you walks along the tile, and the hallways beyond this section are empty too. stretches of white floor and steel doors your only company, the fluorescent lights buzzing above you.
it’s unnerving. have you written a will yet?
you turn to the right, towards prime’s office. it looks like all the rest, with a clear plastic bin hanging next to it and a keypad below that. you knock with your entire fist, two bangs that are a little too loud on your end but likely barely audible on his. his doorway is a foot thick, a well-defined border between the harsh lighting of the hall and his deceptively welcoming office.
whoever the fatui hired as interior designer deserved a raise. a nearly black wood bookshelf covers the entire left wall, volumes packed together with remarkable efficiency. on the right, a large map takes up most of the space, notes and string marking plans you don’t try to read. shelves of files and pinned up diagrams surround it in equally dense displays. the floor is a well-buffed dark wood that clicks under his heels as he rounds his desk, silent. the pristine white papers spread across his desk are the brightest thing in the room, interrupted only by the backs of the two chairs in front of his desk. he doesn’t pull one out, nor tell you to sit, only approaching you quietly. you can’t remember the last time someone dressed business casual was intimidating, but there’s a first time for everything. his gloves are a thick mystery fabric that barely a suggest a touch on your arm, blue palms carefully following the bumps and valleys of the bandage. you raise it, letting him inspect kappa’s work wordlessly. he doesn’t comment on the shake to your hand you’re certain he can feel, and in fact doesn’t give much of any indication at all. his face is unreadable behind the mask, a detail you’ve yet to determine as a good thing or not.
“theta analyzed the substance that fell on you.” his voice is quieter than you’ve ever heard before, like he’s uncertain about breaking the silence. he doesn’t let go of your hand. “it was mostly oil, yes, but it also included a mixture of slime condensate and some sort of elemental anchor. his working theory is that when the core collapsed, the slime mixture first spilled into the oil line, then that burst. the anchor dissolved into the oil, releasing its energy, and the slime helped it stick.”
dottore has a reputation well known across the entirety of teyvat and beyond. he was irrational, heretical, setting up seemingly nonsensical lines of dominoes that led up to a crushing wave of death. he did not care, he did not feel, he held no mercy. his office was more mystifying than the abyss, and a non-zero amount of his subjects had chosen the latter rather than stay. within the fatui, within his very lab, this fog did not lift. even theta and his khaenri’ahn brain couldn’t reliably track the thoughts behind prime’s actions. that thought at least made you feel a little better, because there was no way in a thousand years that you could ever rationalize prime explaining himself to you.
“you have experienced, in essence, a severe chemical burn.” finally, he lets go, stepping back and turning away to dig through the files on his desk, the rustling sounding too loud after he spoke so.. did you dare say softly? your skin prickles where he touched and you don’t know what to feel.
he comes back with an inch-thick stack of stapled papers and a pen, holding out both. you don’t dare flip up the blank cover page yet. “you will stay with kappa and phi until you are better, and follow whatever treatment plan he prescribes. you will fill one of these out three times a day: at morning, at noon, and at night. am i understood?”
paperwork? was that all? a lot of it, certainly—was there even enough time in the day to complete three of these stacks?—but far less than you were hoping for, let alone expecting. regardless, you nod, “when would you like me to start disassembling the ruin drake?”
the silence stretches. you can feel his eyes on you and you’re certain the weight isn’t phantom, even despite the mask. you run over your words again, searching for fault and finding none. you’d hoped by presuming you’d be working again you might save some of his anger, but did he not want you to? was that something he expected you to know already? did he not want the drake disassembled at all? the delicate wiring was certainly ruined by the waterfall of whatever anchor he said fell on you, and even if theta had somehow managed to salvage it there was no way it could be up to par.
“what?”
ever a man of few words. his fangs catch the light and you regret talking more with every second that goes by. “i assume you can no longer run any of your tests on it, so-”
“when did i mention the drake?” he shakes his head and crosses his arms with a surprisingly neutral sigh. “i give you explicit instructions to stay with kappa, yet barely a moment later you’re talking like you’re going to do something else. here i thought you showed promise…”
his words hold no bite. his arms, though crossed, are not taut with anger. you liked to think you’d gotten pretty good at being able to read the various segments’ moods, but that meant you’d either severely miscalculated or prime was teasing you, and you couldn’t decide which was worse.
you were lost, and the silence was continuing for uncomfortably long. “i’ll.. go see him right away, then?”
you can’t keep your voice from tilting into a question, having wandered neck-deep into unfamiliar territory, but he blessedly doesn’t comment on it. he waves you away with a stiff nod and you half-bow before turning around, not stopping until you’re safely down the hall and in the main lab with two doors between you. you leaning against the cool wall and stare at the packet in your hands. paperwork in exchange for an indefinite time off proper work sounded more than uncharacteristic to you, especially when a prized machine was damaged in the process. you turn over the pen kept beneath your thumb, seeing the ink inside slosh around within the glass chamber. it was one of his pens, not the standard practically indestructible ones kept around the labs. maybe that was why you were thrown off, he just really lost it this time. was this the calm before the storm?
you don’t stick around to find out.
the upper lab is still empty, an eerie feeling following you as you walk past the lines of tables and equipment. all of the actual chemicals are put away, which is a little reassuring, but it’s still wrong. even if the others are out, at least theta is normally sat at his desk. you walk a little quicker.
kappa is obviously awaiting your arrival, only idly watching phi mesh together gears on the floor—isn’t that a safety hazard for someone so young?—and perking up the moment you walk in. he waves you over to him, sitting on a large couch in phi’s play area. you cross the striped tape and enter the protected space, feeling only slightly like a criminal seeking sanctuary. kappa is sitting with feet propped a small coffee table in front of him, one you set down papers and pen on before joining him.
he notices the different pen. you can tell by the way his glance turns into a stare, ‘eye’ locked onto it with a slightly brighter glow. he sits dead still, transfixed… then his chest rises in another faux breath, his attention shifting to you instead. “see? not too bad.”
“i have to complete three of those a day.”
his head tilts, smile growing. “i’m glad to see he’s finally acting in accordance in his thoughts.”
before you can even begin to dissect whatever that meant, phi calls his attention from the floor. kappa’s eye flashes as he takes his feet from the table, standing.
“forgive me, i have to go. why don’t you get started on your paperwork?”
there it is. you almost forgot he was an identical copy of the guy who made you dig through a ruin machine because ‘it’ll be good work experience.’
you settle the stack of paper on your lap, uncapping the pen and flipping away the cover page to reveal the dense form beneath. your name, easy enough, then the date below that. next was the… approximate time of injury? why had he given you an incident report? he probably slipped it in on top of the other stuff for filing purposes, though you don’t know why when he would have gotten all of that information from theta. maybe he wanted to see if you’d lie? you may have willingly signed up to work under him, but you weren’t so stupid as to lie to a harbinger.
you described what you saw as best you could while not having any sort of medical training beyond ‘blood should stay inside the body,’ then treatment from kappa. your hand was already beginning to ache a bit from having to hold the pen, but it was tolerable enough when the page was finished in less than a minute. you let it relax a bit as you flipped the page, skimming the questions. your name, of course, then the date…
you flip the first page back to double-check what you already knew. they were the same. did he think you’d run out of space? it couldn’t be a fluke, surely—was one for kappa? questions fill your head, ones you ultimately decide to shake away. whatever the case, you didn’t need to touch this page, so you moved onto the next.
the next was the same. so was the next. you used your thumb to flip through the entire stack rapidly, confirming that yes, the entire packet are one-page incident reports, what’s going on? prime’s not careless enough to make a mistake like this. maybe beta, trying to one-up his past brilliant idea by sabotaging your work, or perhaps the goop had sprayed up to theta and fried his circuits.
“uh, kappa…”
he looks up from the elaborate string of gears phi has set up, smiling. “are you done? if you are, you should come over here and see what phi’s made.”
the younger boy visibly perks up, red eyes shining. his hands tap against the floor eagerly, “would you? please?”
you pointedly look at the stack, peeling up half of it so kappa can see your dilemma, but he only laughs in response. “come, dear. let’s leave that for later.”
you hesitate, unsure. there’s no reason kappa would have to lie to you. he has a direct line to prime in his head and was probably told to make sure you stayed on task, so… if he doesn’t see a problem with it, then that must mean this is how it’s meant to be, right? carefully, you set down the stack on the coffee table, capping prime’s pen and leaving it on top. prime had, for whatever reason, given you an unexpected out.
I don't know when, i don't know how, but SOMEBODY has ruined my day by giving me flashbacks of my most embarrassing moments from years ago.
Tongue frozen on the iron bars, check, had to alert the peeps to get the teach to bring hot water and she kept giggling at me.
The first time i tried proper kissing? Fucken awkward.
Accidentally mixing my coca cola glass with dads wine glass, and spurting it out with ews in a FUCKEN BUFFET?! FULL OF PEOPLE?! WHO TURNED TO LOOK AT ME AS MY FAMILY LAUGHED AT MY MISFORTUNE?!
Getting whacked in the head by a ball during gym class when a classmate threw it? AND they had the AUDACITY TO LAUGH AT ME! (And people wondered why i skipped that class-)
But honestly, i want schadenfreude and a creator x a hot guy (you can choose who, i'll take anyone at this point to ease me) with just these scenarios in mind, if you could.
i have found that even forced exposure can help with younghood embarrassment.
-🥘Stew
tongue tied
a/n: maybe this isnt what you wanted. maybe it is. idk i have writers block like you wouldn't believe man.
word count: ~6.5k
→ warnings: none? mention of alcohol and injuries but nothing awful or severe. just nice :]
he’s led the dawn winery for many years and have taken hundreds of shifts at the angel’s share, every item on the menu practically muscle memory by now. he knew the regulars and their typical orders, he knew the quickest way to strip mint stalks of their leaves, how to stack wine barrels most efficiently and how hot he could make his flames without getting burned, practically every skill he could reasonably need mastered when he was young.
…practically was the operative word, of course.
in business, it was practical to learn how to perfectly sign his signature. it was practical to know how to be diplomatic, practical to know how to properly tie a tie or check if a suit was fitted properly, practical to learn all of the skills he’d need to be the head of the dawn winery when he was young, so that by the time it was him sweeping a heavy coat over his shoulders for a meeting, he’d have every ability necessary to tackle whatever faced him.
but of course, his “training” didn’t cover more… personal things. he was too busy learning dining etiquette to know how to make small talk—that didn’t revolve around one party trying to get something from the other, that is. he knew how to set tables and properly pour wine, but his greetings were industry-approved stiff, responses a standard dialogue that he had nearly memorized. everything he said was mapped out in his head far before he’d say it, neatly laid out in his mind as he guided the conversation where he wanted it to go. efficient for formal meetings, but it left him… he didn’t like the word ‘lost,’ but it was the only one he could reasonably apply.
diluc set down the glass he was cleaning, picking up another to keep his hands busy. yes, there was a formal dishwasher hired, but he didn’t like being idle. he didn’t quite know what to do or where to put his hands, feeling a bit exposed without his coat. the bar provided a wide berth between him and any customers, but he couldn’t quite get a handle on the easy banter charles had with the patrons during his shift. it was like he was locked in an odd limbo between work and rest hours; without his gloves, vest, or other protective layers, all shed to prevent them from being stained in the case that something went awry, but still needing to keep face in front of others. he didn’t have his gloves to pull down, no comforting weight of his coat, his vision on a clip on his belt instead of the knot it usually hung from. everything wasn’t quite where it should be, and he was reminded of that every time he reached or twisted in the right way and the small spikes on top of his vision pressed through his shirt and into his side.
he felt… exposed. lost. and he didn’t know what to do about it.
he looked up as the tavern door opened, whatever expression he had before falling away as he was brought out of his thoughts. relax, he tried to tell himself, but it’s hard to believe that when one of the worst reasons for his confusion just walked in.
you.
archons, diluc was awful when it came to interacting with you. his heart beat too quickly and a shockingly large part of his brain thought that this meant he was in some sort of stressful meeting, all of his words coming out flat. while in its intended environment that would keep him from losing his temper or showing any weakness, in here it just made him feel more weak.
your head dipped. “master diluc, captain kaeya.”
and his brother certainly didn’t help the situation.
kaeya had turned when you entered, and greeting you with a sweeping arm and a cheery call of your name. “i didn’t think i’d see you so late; how kind of the heavens to bless me with your presence once again.”
diluc’s jaw tensed, and he traded glasses again. the pile of dirty cups was quickly dwindling, in no small part due to his own thoughts. he tended to be a bit quicker at the rhythmic movements of washing when he was caught up in his own lackluster abilities.
you laughed, taking the seat next to kaeya at the bar. all at once diluc was hyper aware of every action he made, from the change of towels to wipe off the water lingering on the cup to the smallest twitches in his expression or shifts in his weight.
“got caught up in some last-minute stuff, a coworker needed my help. i do hope you weren’t waiting too long?”
kaeya’s eye flashed, and he downed the rest of his drink before launching into a clearly fake story, talking about how actually, in the half hour or so delay in your appearance, the angel’s share was stormed by hundreds of fatui.
as if either of them would let that happen.
you played along, though, asking questions in the right spots and getting him to spin the story further. diluc exchanged his glasses again, doing a double take at the empty rack once he did.
that was far from ideal.
“-right, diluc?”
he looked up in an instant, eyes flicking about as he assessed the situation. clearly, he’d missed some part of the conversation, but what?
you, blessed you, had noticed his confusion, a smile on your face as you rested your hand on your chin, leaning on the bar. “i don’t know, would you really waste a bottle of dandelion wine like that? surely your claymore would do just fine.”
with a sharp swallow and a quick prayer—not that that would do much, knowing the archon he was praying to—diluc took a chance.
“of course i would. one bottle is worth it to defend mondstat, and it’s quite unwieldy to use a claymore in such a confined space.”
he fought a grimace the second the words left his mouth. his tone was too flat, his words uninteresting, certainly less entertaining than whatever fantastical tale kaeya had spun.
you nodded, and he could thankfully see amusement in your eyes. “how noble, master diluc.”
kaeya cut in, picking up his empty cup. “if you can spare a bottle for the fatui, then you can spare a glass for the cavalry captain, can’t you?”
he took the cup, but added it to the dirty rack alongside the one in his hand, taking a new one and wiping it to remove any water despite the fact that he knew there was none. archons, when had he gotten so…
he pushed away that train of thought, pulling out a bottle as he set the fresh glass down. “certainly not. wine is to be drank and paid for, that bottle was… an unfortunate accident.”
“my my, you’re no fun.” diluc poured his glass quickly—”not too much, not too little, okay? a little more, a bit… there, that’s good. well done, son.”—and moved it in front of him, pushing the cork back into the bottle with the heel of his palm. he set it back in its place, and noticed kaeya’s eyes on him as he took a sip.
no, not him, on-
“not worth a bottle, but worth a new glass? perhaps i am a hero after all…”
why was he unsurprised he noticed?
“i don’t want it to stain,” he lied, knowing damn well that stained glasses was something he was more than capable of handling. kaeya hummed, swirling his cup once before you prodded him about his day and he was back to his usual self, talking with significantly less grandeur than his tale from before.
diluc tried to pace himself, being extra meticulous in his cleaning, but there was only so many times he could twist a glass before he had to accept that he was done with it. an odd sort of dread settled over him as he reached for the last cup. today was a slower day, and he normally didn’t run out of cups until everybody was too drunk to notice how awkwardly he stood behind the bar. but kaeya was too smart to get properly drunk, you’d just arrived, and the night was far younger than he’d like.
he was cleaning too quickly again. normally, getting everything he needed to done with fast was a good thing, but now it just left him uneasy. charles didn’t have this problem, and he didn’t even clean glasses during the downtime. no, he struck up conversation with every single person that sat at the bar, no matter how downtrodden or celebratory. he was naturally friendly, always knowing exactly what to say despite the fact that diluc would bet serious mora on the fact that he didn’t have the faintest idea what he’d say until the other person was done. if he thought about it… even kaeya had a script of sorts, a certain way to twist the situation back in his favor, but he managed to talk to people just fine. no, that wasn’t the problem.
the clatter of the cup in his hands on the drying rack pulled him from his mind. he shouldn’t be zoning out so much on the job, but what took his attention first was the fact that he was now seriously out of tasks to complete.
…beautiful.
“diluc? is everything alright?”
it’s your voice, surprisingly, that asks for him, and he fixes his expression in the split second it takes to look at you instead of the glasses. his mind reaches, grabbing the familiar sentence that must have left his lips a thousand times.
“everything is as it should be. why do you ask?”
a defense of his position, dismissing any ideas of weakness, and a prompt as to why that line of thinking was in discussion at all. part of him recoiled at the idea of treating you with the same recited lines he did a business partner, but he genuinely didn’t know what else to say. he was distracted, to come up with another acceptable response would make him hesitate, which would set off yours or kaeya’s alarms- or both, if he was particularly clumsy with his speech.
“did the glasses offend you, or something? you’re glaring.”
and yet, despite his prerecorded reliability, he is at a loss once more. genuine inquiries about his well-being were rare in the spaces he typically interacted in, and it didn’t help that he was still stuck in work mode.
“…they have not,” he decides, picking his language carefully. “i am simply thinking about something else.”
horribly vague, and would almost certainly warrant a follow-up question. before you even opened your mouth, he knew what you’d say.
“what are you thinking about? do you need help?”
the second part was a shock, but he blessedly had an answer for the first. “nothing important. it will be handled in due time.”
kaeya raised a brow, and diluc pointedly ignored his questioning look. it wasn’t often that he resorted to diplomatic language in the presence of civilians, but you… he could never quite think right when you were around. he could only hope you never misinterpreted his odd words as mistrust.
you hummed, changing the subject shortly after with a question about the vineyards, something about a particularly bad season for crops you’d heard from sara. he paused for a moment—an acceptable pause, he told himself, as most people did think before speaking—before settling on giving you an update on the winery as a whole. anybody that listened in would only find what they could learn by asking his workers, and no trade secrets were to be found in the fact that his grapevines were regularly checked.
with the slightest twitch of his hand, he realized he was speaking to you like a businessman again.
kaeya’s cup had emptied at some point, and diluc reached for the bottle of dandelion wine without stopping his sentence, a small nod from kaeya the only confirmation he needed to pull off the cork.
“the staff have been doing well, though this is shaping up to be a rather warm summer.” not that you asked, he notes, internally chiding himself as he pulls over kaeya’s glass. he considers swapping it for a new one to give himself something to do, but decides against it. he rattles off a few details about some dahlias that adelinde is trying to grow, how they keep seeming to wilt. he doesn’t stop talking to pour kaeya’s wine, eyes focused on his task as he continues talking nonsense about flowers. flowers. since when did he talk about the hobbies of his staff when asked about the vineyards?
he twisted the bottle as he pulled away—“this way any wine that drips will land on the back label. you don’t want the front to look messy.”—corking the bottle and forcing himself to finish this childish line of speech.
it wasn’t childish, not if you seemed genuinely interested, but any more and kaeya would have too much to leverage against him later. granted, he likely knew more about diluc than he’d like given how irritatingly good he was at reading people, but that was a problem for another day. for now, he let kaeya grab his cup on his own, wiping his hands of nothing as he waited for your response to what had certainly come off as nervous ramble.
your head tilted. “has she asked flora?”
“assumedly, or she had another worker do so for her. it’s not like her to let something rot like that.”
“that’s good to hear. and you?”
“pardon?” his hands had frozen, towel still in his hands, and he turned your words over in his mind. his reply had been instinctual, mostly to buy him time to think.
“how are you doing? don’t get me wrong, it’s nice to hear the winery is well, but you seem nervous.”
kaeya chuckled into his wine, and diluc’s jaw ticked.
“i am well, my apologies if i have worried you.”
“oh, alright… it can be hard to tell sometimes with you, i wanted to be safe.”
he knows. he’d meant his apology, but any sincerity was likely lost in whatever filter was placed between his mind and his mouth.
the air was awkward, and he didn’t know how to fill it. kaeya was looking at him, clearly expecting him to continue whatever tentative conversation was lingering, but he greatly overestimated diluc’s ability to do so.
he hung the towel back in its place, finally meeting his brother’s eyes. “behave.” they flicked to you, and his words were slower coming out. “make sure he doesn’t steal anything.”
you smiled, swearing on it even as the three of you knew kaeya wouldn’t do such a thing. diluc stepped out from behind the bar, grabbing a large serving tray and walking from table to table, collecting empty glasses.
maybe he was a coward for avoiding conversation- scratch that, he definitely was, but what was he to do about it? talk? that was already established to be off the table, and one could not typically make conversation without talking.
diluc shook off the topic, climbing the stairs to the second floor of the bar. all he could do was hope you didn’t hold it against him, or archons forbid think it were somehow your fault. hopefully you wouldn’t hate him by the time he managed to get his words in line with his thoughts.
diluc stared at the empty page in front of him, twisting the pen in his hand.
another skill he didn’t have. informal letter writing.
letters to merchants, fine, letters to buyers, he had a standard template for. letters to and from employees, informing him of upcoming leave or similar work related matters, all of this he was prepared for.
but this…
he sighed, watching as ink dripped onto the page, setting down his pen.
what did he say? what did he want to say? what was appropriate to say? you were rather close to his heart but how did he come across? would an inquiry about your well being be too forward? was a letter at all too forward? friends- no, you didn’t consider him a friend, right? or did you? how did people act around their friends? how did you act around your friends?
he tugged at his gloves, fiddling with the hem nervously. he’d finished most of his paperwork and had intended to take a break by writing you a letter, but… was it even a good idea? he- oh archons, he didn’t even know your address-
diluc crumpled up the paper in one hand, throwing it in the trash with the beginnings of an embarrassed blush on his face. writing a letter and not even knowing where you lived- he could count the amount of proper conversations he’d had with you that had progressed past basic small talk on one hand, and he wanted to write you a letter?
he covered his face with his hands, resting his elbows on his desk. papers shifted beneath him but he didn’t pay attention, his thoughts in circles.
he wasn’t an idiot. he knew exactly why his heart picked up when you were around, why he had to default to more familiar speech to not make an utter fool of himself. the entire reason he’d tried to write you a letter was because he wanted to clarify his behavior towards you, to hopefully build a prior relationship with you instead of learning about you by proxy from your conversations with kaeya. yet, in his hurry to fix what probably wasn’t even broken to begin with—he knew of his reputation, in reality you probably weren’t at all surprised at his inability to make small talk—he’d forgotten the most important detail.
on one hand, he probably could ask kaeya, or poke around in other ways, but that felt disingenuous. if he was going to try and… for now he’d call it making a friendship with you, then he wanted to do it right. of course, he didn’t know exactly what ‘doing it right’ entailed, but… he supposed he’d just have to guess.
diluc had learned a considerable amount in his childhood, yet none of his lessons taught him how to pursue a partner.
diluc swept his cloak around his shoulders, fastening the clasp with one hand and reaching for his vision with the other. with practiced movements, he undid the knot tying it in place, attaching it to the back of his other hand. he hooked his mask onto his belt and closed the door of his room behind him, walking down the stairs quickly.
“be safe, master diluc.”
“master kaeya has kindly informed us that the knights have a patrol for the whispering woods, so it would be wise not to stray too far.”
diluc paused at the door, mentally rearranging his patrol route with a nod. “thank you adelinde, elzer. pass on my gratitude, please.”
he pulled open the door to the manor, walking up the familiar trails and into wolvendom. his vision lit his path as his eyes adjusted, free hand affixing his mask to his face as he walked. since he couldn’t head as far north as he’d like, he’d settle for a loop around windrise and then one in wolvendom. not ideal, but it would have to do.
windrise was lighter than expected. a budding camp of hilichurls here, an abyss mage to the east (thankfully hydro, he’d been on a bad streak with pyro mages for a few days now) and a few slimes that got a bit too close to the merchant trails for his liking.
speaking of the trails, those were clean too. he snuck around springvale, keeping the hand with his vision on it tucked into his cloak to mask its light. hilichurls didn’t hang around this part of wolvendom, so unless he wanted to go shoving through wolf hook bushes for the chance to knock out a camp or two…
he looked between the two paths back to the winery. he could go through the gorge, or the typical way taken by his suppliers. the former was mostly guaranteed to have at least one or two monsters picking about, but it would be better if he cleared his trade routes…
it didn’t matter, in the end. he stepped out from the shadow of a tree, boot barely making contact with the dirt before he picked up the sound of another’s footsteps. heavy, quick, rapidly coming his way-
he summoned his claymore, turning north toward the sound, seeing a figure stumble from the bushes of wolvendom. they were wrapped in a too-thin jacket considering the weather, arm pressed to their chest. details were lost in the darkness, but he could see their head twist, how it snapped to him.
the figure waved with a shout to get his attention, and his heart dropped.
you. what were you doing up so late?
you jogged up to him, clearly out of breath, and he could see that you were holding an armful of unripe wolfhooks. “do.. do you know the way to springvale?”
by the archons, abyss, and celestia above-
“what business do you have there? it’s late,” he said, keeping his voice low. his hands trembled slightly in his gloves, eyes searching your figure for any injury. you had a nick or two on your arm, thankfully not bleeding, but everything else was obscured by shadows. you had clearly been running for quite a while, judging by how harshly you breathed, were you running from something? had you ran into trouble?
“i gotta get back to the city,” you explained breathlessly. “i kinda got lost in the forest.”
“lost?” his hand tensed around his claymore, the action reminding him it was still there. he dismissed it, crossing his arms to try and stabilize himself.
“long story, not worth telling.” you waved your hand, and he could see how it shook a bit. whether from adrenaline or exhaustion (both?) he knew he couldn’t point you toward mondstat in good faith. what if something happened to you? what if he’d missed a camp and you were attacked? you were weakened, tired, and his mind raced with all the potential injuries you could sustain just trying to go home-
“uh, stranger?” your hand waved again, this time to get his attention. “you with me?”
“the city’s too far. you’re better off seeking shelter at the dawn winery just up the road.” what was he saying? “besides, you could be injured, and not be feeling the pain due to adrenaline. let me walk you there.”
his heart hammered against his ribs, every single way you could reject him and then some swirling in his head. he was a stranger to you, you were clearly scared by something, and he directed you elsewhere out of what, selfishness? he knew that springvale was likely closer, that someone would be up and willing to help, and yet he was asking to walk you to the winery?
“are you sure? you don’t have to.”
“i’d rather not send you off when i’m not certain of your safety.” your eyes widened slightly, surprised at the care in his voice, and he forced his tone to flatten before you recognized him. “besides, the staff are friendly and willing to help. they’ll understand.”
you hesitated for a moment, then nodded, holding your wolfhooks closer. absently, he wondered if he had any at the winery. probably not, but he could likely ask-…
in barbatos’ name, how was he going to explain this to the staff?
“alright. lead the way.”
he turned before his expression could change, keeping his steps a bit slower than usual so you could keep pace easier. he wanted you inside as quickly as possible, obviously, but you had clearly strained yourself earlier. going quicker would only hurt you more, and it wasn’t as if there was any immediate threat. even if there was, he was confident in his ability to keep you safe. the trees lining the path were large, wide enough to protect you if trouble came up and he needed to use his vision.
he set aside that line of thinking, sparing a glance at you. you’d switched which arms held the wolfhooks, and in the more open light, he could see the small pricks on your skin where the points dug in. you winced when the fruit resettled, moving one away from your inner elbow, and he stopped walking.
“give me those. you’re hurting yourself.”
“it’s fine, don’t worry about it. we’re nearly there, right?”
“wolfhooks aren’t clean, you could get an infection. you’re supposed to harvest them with a basket and gloves, not carrying them bare armed.”
“you don’t have the thickest clothes either, what’s to say you won’t get hurt?”
diluc searched the small area of the path you were on, trying to find a compromise. his first instinct was to use his cloak, but his hair was tucked into the hood, and that with his silhouette would certainly give him away. his eyes caught on a tear in your jacket, just below the shoulder, and he held out his arms.
“use your jacket as a sling. it’s already torn from the forest, so it’s not the worst loss.”
firm solution, reasonable and immediate justification. he was doing it again, no matter how well it disguised itself as casual speech.
you gave in, thankfully, and he didn’t let the minor pain from the wolfhook’s points show on his face as you removed your jacket. it was as thin as it looked, and he found himself frowning as he helped you stow the berries inside.
still, it wasn’t his business. maybe if he were your friend he could suggest that you purchase a heavier coat, but… you were getting a new one anyway since this one was ruined, so that seemed like a null point to bring up.
he settled your stuffed jacket into your waiting arms, hands lingering for a moment to ensure your grip was stable. “better?” you nodded, and he began walking again. “good. and don’t forget to mention your wounds to the staff, the last thing you want is an infection from… why did you need wolfhooks?”
“bennett asked me to get some for him and his friend… i think razor is his name? but with bennett’s luck, he didn’t want to risk going in himself, so he asked me to help.”
diluc frowned. “why does he need wolfhooks?”
you shrugged. “he offered some mora in return, but i mostly accepted because i felt bad. his luck seems to ruin everything for him, the least i could to was try.”
“even at the risk of your own health?”
“the things you do for friends, you know how it is.” his hands twitched at his sides, curling into loose fists. did he? “but what about you? why are you out here?”
he thought over his answer carefully, mixing various bits of his typical sentences to craft a half-truth. it was getting easier, he noticed, but put that thought aside just as quickly as it came. “wandering, doing my part to keep the area safe.”
“that’s noble of you.”
it wasn’t. would you believe the same if you knew how selfish he was in his desires? he kept mondstat safe for himself, so that he could rest knowing he’d done what he could—he patrolled not out of some moral righteousness, but because it made him proud to know that he’d chipped in to the city’s safety, that he was handling threats the knights didn’t, that he could keep his staff, his brother, his life, keep you-
“have you considered joining the knights? i’m certain there’s some night patrols, and it would surely be nice to have backup.”
he almost responded, almost said that he was in the knights, at one point, before he remembered where he was. who he was. to tell you that would be too much, too much information and too much for you to identify him with.
when did he become so loose with his words? normally he was so uptight around you… was it the fact that you didn’t know he was him right now? did.. he seriously operate best under anonymity? archons, how weak was that, to only be able to say what he meant when you didn’t know anything? was he that socially inept? so desperate for a proper conversation that he’d nearly slipped a major part of his life to you, just based on an offhand comment? how pathetic was he?
he forcefully shut down that line of thought and grit his teeth, well aware it had been too long since you’d spoken. “i’ve considered it. it’s not for me.”
not an entire lie, at least.
you were silent, and he knew he’d ruined the atmosphere. crystalflies fluttered in the trees, lazily flapping through the air, but he couldn’t appreciate their beauty like he typically could. the walk all the way down to the manor was spent in silence, and aside from a minor stumble you had on a jutting rock, it was as if he was walking back on his own, as he typically would. he even began to reach for the doorknob, then caught himself and used the knocker instead.
it was weird. he knew the door wasn’t locked, yet he waited for footsteps to approach the door, seeing elder’s worried face greet him. “master diluc, are you-?”
elzer’s eyes found yours, a tiny hint of shock crossing his face before he settled it back into the same polite smile he always used when greeting guests.
“ah, my apologies. i wasn’t expecting visitors at such a late hour.”
diluc bowed his head in what he hoped came off as a thankful action. “my apologies for disturbing you.”
he explained the situation as swiftly as possible, elzer urging you towards adelinde to treat your injuries. the medical supplies were just inside, near to the door for the sake of diluc’s own health.
“and what of you, stranger?” elzer asked, a bit louder than necessary. “will you be staying?”
diluc sees you look up, understanding clicking in an instant. “no, i won’t,” he answers, “but i thank you for your hospitality.”
elzer reached for the coatrack, pulling down two, both his and diluc’s, keeping the door propped open and passing him his where you couldn’t see. “then let me walk you to the edge of the vineyards, in exchange for your chivalry.”
“it’s alright, thank you. have a nice night.”
“the same to you, stranger.”
the door closed, and diluc relaxed, clutching his coat close as he turned away from the manor.
that was too close. he shouldn’t have suggested to bring you here in the first place, and thank the gods that elzer was so quick on his feet. he’d completely forgotten that he would have to return to the manor as diluc at one point in his rush to get you here.
he ducked behind a tree at the edge of the winery, exchanging his cloak for his jacket. he folded it neatly, stowing his mask and gloves inside. he didn’t have his usual clothes on, but… he could make do. he’d lied before, he’d lie again… even to you.
his grip around his cloak tightened. especially to you. you had no business in his shady practices, in what he did in the dark. it was impossible to keep you entirely safe and sheltered, nor was that healthy or his place to do, but he could at least keep his darkness from encroaching upon your light.
by the time diluc returned to the manor, you had already been sent on your way to a guest room. blessedly, neither adelinde nor elzer were in the front room to make a remark to him about it, likely busy with other work or asleep themselves. he locked the door and hung up his coat, heading up to his room after a swift double check of the first of those facts.
he went about his night, changing into sleepwear and setting his boots by his bed, his vision on his nightstand. it was admittedly a little more difficult falling asleep than usual—were you comfortable? did you like the guest room?—but he managed, waking up with the sun. his routine was the same, but when he arrived at the bottom of the stairs, he paused, looking up at the guest rooms. it… was strange, to know you were here. he felt like he should be doing something, whether saying goodbye or good morning or-
he looked away and shook his head. or nothing. he wasn’t as close to you as you were to him, how did he keep forgetting that?
“is there a problem, master diluc?”
he turned, seeing adelinde setting down his breakfast on the table. “nothing at all, and thank you for the food. did you sleep well?”
“i was a bit late in going to bed, a strange guest brought us some worry.”
he smiled at the pointedness to her tone, “really? how odd, to have a visitor so late.”
her mouth opens, but another speaks before she does.
“sorry if i caused any trouble.”
he paused. blinked. took a moment to register the fact that he just heard your voice in his home.
then he turned, attempting a smile. “it’s alright. your being here is unexpected, yes, but not unwelcome.”
you had clearly just gotten up, clothes rumpled and pillow creases along your hands. you nod, stepping closer, and he grasps for any viable threads of conversation.
“is the manor to your liking?”
“it’s beautiful.”
pride bloomed in his chest. “i’m happy to hear it. come sit, have some breakfast.” adelinde excused herself with a bow and he moved to pull out a chair for you, praying the action looked as natural as it felt. you accepted with a smile, and he pushes you in with relief in his when he sits. “she should return shortly with your food, apologies for the delay.”
“it’s fine,” you said, looking around the main room. he tries to find something else to talk about, already feeling the awkward silence set in, but fumbles. the last time he had someone at his table was with the traveller for the weinlesefest, and they and paimon mostly carried the conversation along. he only ever heads business discussions, or staff meetings, or interrogations, and this was certainly none of those.
“are you alright?”
he blinked away his frown, realizing too late he’d been glaring at his cup of grape juice. an instinctual response rose to his tongue, but he hesitated. maybe it was the early morning hour, maybe it was the genuine concern on your face, maybe it was the light of dawn streaming in from the windows that fell across you so delicately, as if it knew how beautiful you were.
he discarded that response, but exchanged it for another. “are you? adelinde told me you were injured.”
a lie. he hadn’t spoken with anybody about your injuries. archons, was this worse?
your smile grows. apparently not? “just a few scrapes,” you say, lifting your arm to show where adelinde bandaged you. “wolfhooks are a lot sharper than they look.”
“wolfhooks?”
you waved a hand. “i needed some for bennett, long story. don’t worry, adelinde gave me a basket for them.”
“that’s good to hear.”
and just like that, the topic was exhausted. did he bring up something else? how much was too much? what was even an appropriate topic? what did the average person talk about? not that you were average, he’d never dare-
he’s talked himself into a corner in his own head. how in teyvat did that happen?
“you’re frowning again.”
“my apologies, i’m lost in thought.” he was quiet for a moment, then continued, “a problem i’ve encountered before is more prevalent now.”
…it wasn’t the most eloquent of phrasing, but it should do.
“do you want to talk about it?”
does he? how would he even put this into words that didn’t make him sound… is pathetic the word?
‘i can’t talk right around you because i’m not used to talking with someone that does so in good faith’? yeah, that’s something a well-adjusted adult says.
“i don’t have the words for it,” he decides. “the words…” he takes a quick glance at you to gauge your reaction but regrets it just as fast, whatever he had to say next vanishing into thin air. it’s unfair, really, how pretty you are, his eyes fixed to yours. “t-they-“
adelinde set your plate down in front of you, blessedly saving him from the situation. “thank you for your patience. please let me know if anything is unsatisfactory.”
diluc grabs his cup as you thank her, turning away to hide behind the grape juice. he can’t even really taste it, focused on how clumsily he had spoken. were he anywhere else he’d surely be laughed out of the room, and he’s certain adelinde’s going to tease him for it later as it is.
“diluc?” he looks over at you again, keeping his gaze quick before he fumbles again.
“what is it?”
too harsh, too cruel, he’s being cold to you again-
“are you busy today?”
he thinks over his schedule. no meetings that he can remember, nor any deadlines. he’d prefer to finish up some forms sooner rather than later, but if you need him for something…
“no, i’ve got time. what do you need?”
“would you like to go to good hunter for dinner later today?”
he can only hope you accept his nod as an answer because between the knowing smile on your face and the bright blush on his, there’s no way he’s getting a word out.
Hi! Normally I’d like to remain anon, but since I took great interest in your bird!xiao sagau stuff, I thought I’d gift some art of the tweety boy!
Have a good one!
oh my god he’s such a creacher…….
the idea of him having a teeny necklace in his bird form (unless this is like. Biblically Accurate Bird!Xiao in which case just drop the word teeny) is so funny to me. “this is my human form gear and this is for my bird form” he’s so. silly <3
“losing centuries off his (immortal) lifespan” hi were you aware you’re the funniest person on my blog
now. objectively. birds don’t have fangs. but this looks cooler and adepti don’t follow typical conventions anyway (“tsk, you think i’d be identical to a bird? do you have no respect?” okay bby whatever you say)
summary: Young Prince Baelor,heir to the Iron Throne, comes of age and is granted a rare privilege by his father: to choose his own bride and future queen, trusting his son’s judgement. He travels the realm on his father’s behalf while he searches, combining two duties at once. During his circling progress through the Riverlands to secure peace among the lords, he stays at Raventree Hall. There, Drogon—his beloved friend and horse—breaks free and escapes from the stables into the Whispering Wood, where you are walking in peace. Out of the mist appears an impossible image: a royal stallion lost in unfamiliar terrain, utterly out of place. It is you who guides the steed back to the prince and makes sure he does not forget it.
a/n: I’ve set up the scene for the story and can fully proceed! In this chapter I introduce new characters, and I’ll introduce even more: both existing characters and ocs. I’m so glad this fic has found its small audience. This is a dense, plot‑heavy story and a big investment but trust me... it's worth it. This chapter is quite long. Enjoy!
P.S: This whole fic will get freaky af, I promise. Alexa, play Freek'n You by Jodeci
Blackwood in a Targaryen’s mouth was not an unfamiliar thing.
It was a word your ancestors had killed for, bled for, clung to through feuds, kings and usurpers, long winters and brief summers. It had weight.
Lord Blackwood decreed you must hold on to your gift for a while longer, and that a stranger should not ride the horse to the capital.
“You must have time to make him reliable.”
“You are to ride him yourself to King’s Landing.”
“When the time comes.”
You heard Baelor in that, even if you had not been there to hear the discussion between your father and him. The turn of phrase, the courtesy that folded calculation in velvet. All these months the same words circle-jerked in your mind with relentless persistence. It was reasonable — the horse was green and the road long. A horse tasked with carrying a lady of Raventree to the Red Keep would require a robust constitution, encompassing more than just sound legs and wind.
Word spread faster than preparations.
It started small, as such things did. A stableboy sent to buy extra grain whose mother repeated something in the village; a maid who happened to pass the open solar door at the wrong moment, a steward unable to resist the temptation to let slip, in the kitchens, that the prince had personally requested Lady Blackwood’s presence. A familiar precedent. By the end of the week, everyone in Blackwood Vale knew.
“Prince Baelor’s horse,” they said in the smoky taproom at the edge of the village, “ran wild into the woods, and our lady brought him back under her like it was nothing.”
“He watched her work in the paddock,” they said.
“Watched her all morning, freezing till his shoulders shook.”
It flowed smoothly from mouth to mouth, ear to ear, until a simple debt paid became a tale of a prince in awe of a lady from a lesser house, inviting her into the royal court. With each retelling, the story’s tail grew longer. By the time you left Raventree, there were those who half-believed you were his possible betrothed, and that everything else had been a polite disguise.
“Targaryens have a special eye for Blackwoods,” someone else would add, and the table would laugh. “I guess an apple does not fall far from the tree.”
An old woman, her voice a low murmur beside the splashing of water at the washing stones, informed her neighbour, “Prince Baelor has personally summoned Lady Blackwood to the royal stables,” peaking as if she had overheard the command firsthand.
“No Bracken girl could do that. They’d break their necks before the horse bowed its head.”
“I hear dirty wet stallions of the Riverlands aren’t enough for her anymore,” a Bracken retainer muttered in a tavern three villages over. “Now she wants dragonstock between her legs.”
“She’s willing to bite off more than she can chew,” another said, cruder.
Lord Blackwood heard versions of all of it. He heard about the praise and the snickering, and the insinuations, about the farmwives who smiled when they spoke of his daughter and the lesser lords who sneered over their cups. He heard and, for once, he did not bother to cut any of it off at the root. He let them talk. Let them say whatever sour, clever thing they wished, as long as they said it with your — his daughter’s — name in the same breath as the heir to the Iron Throne. Let them exhaust their wit on obscene little jests while he did the arithmetic that mattered.
He could work with that. He would work with that until there was nothing left to squeeze out of it.
Your father ordered new gowns — a modest few — as too many would be crassly obvious. He sent for a seamstress, one who understood city cuts and how silk sat differently from wool and rough thick leather. He stood, arms folded, while they measured you, and pretended not to see the way your jaw set and your hands curled into fists at your sides when they talked about colours that would flatter you at court.
“You will not look,” he said, without preamble, “like a stray dog that ran into the Red Keep by mistake. You are a Blackwood lady, with a beauty that rivals your aunt’s.” He raised his chin in vanity.
You did not argue.
Baelor, meanwhile, sent no more letters — he had already made his request — and was in no rush; outwardly, at least. The realm was restless in those years with all the aftermath of Aegon the Unworthy and his rivalling mistresses, the great bastards that trained with Targaryen heirs, the sympathisers muttering in corners like splinters in the Targaryen foot. The prince had duties: he could not be seen to spend too much time in the Riverlands for one lesser house’s daughter, even if you were a Blackwood — one of the fiercest, most severe and oldest houses of the Trident, a name no one had dared ignore in a thousand years. Not with marcher lords in the south who were watching every move for signs of Dornish favouritism and Blackfyre leniency.
So Baelor did it properly.
He escorted Lady Blackwood from Raventree Hall to the Red Keep in King’s Landing, so the story would go. Not for his own hunger but as part of a strategic, princely gesture: securing the loyalty of an ancient, prickly house in a region where Blackfyre embers glowed with Bracken loyalists. Putting the dragon’s wing over the ravens as a counterargument — for all to see.
“Prince Baelor is generous,” the Riverlands would declare.
“True chivalry.”
Baelor knew what else they would see.
They would see a Blackwood lady riding, day after day, astride the stallion he had chosen and sent to her; a young lady on a horse with his eyes, and him beside her mounted on Drogon — the horse she saved — matching pace.
They would notice the elegant curve of your form as you sat in the saddle, your effortless synchronicity with the horse’s rhythm, and how the freshly tailored gown draped distinctly across your shoulders while you rode.
Balor would see more than that.
He would see, from his own saddle a length away, the way you sat his gift: calm, unhurried, every correction so clean it barely showed. The awareness of knowing what you were rubbing against, all those miles; he would know the shape of the saddle under you, the leather, the give. Baelor had chosen it himself, not just for comfort or quality, but for what it would do to you. He would watch, and the watching itself would be a claim, a private one. No one else needed to know. They would see only courtesy, escort, propriety: a prince honouring his promise to guard a vassal’s daughter on a dangerous road. He would know the other layer, the one under the silk and leather and miles.
It was selfish, even petty. It was not princely in the way his father would define the word.
Baelor did it anyway.
* * *
You trained the horse as slowly as you could.
Lord Blackwood had set the outer limit for you: early spring, when the river roads were passable but the worst of the winter mud had not yet turned them to soup.
“He will see winter,” you had told Father at the paddock fence, one hand on the stallion’s neck, the other on your hip. “If he is to carry me south, I need to know what he does when the wind cuts and the ground bites.”
“That is reasonable,” Lord Blackwood replied, hiding his satisfaction as best he could. “We will say as much in our reply.”
“And we go in spring, not before. The road in deep winter is harsh. Dangerous.”
“The prince will not risk you. Nor his horse.”
So winter came, and for the first time in a long time, you hated it.
You typically relished the cold, appreciating how the crisp air felt almost sharp in your nostrils and the way the forest’s voice shifted, its ground narrating tales of ice and frost distinct from those of mud and decaying foliage. The way the horses’ coats came in thick and their breath made ghosts in the mornings.
This year, winter was a countdown.
You rode the stallion in sleet and in snow, took him through frozen streams, breaking the thin ice with his front hooves and feeling the cold shock of the water up your own legs. You taught him what a wind that came down from the north felt like when it had gathered speed over a hundred miles of nothing; and that snow sliding off a tree onto his withers was not a dragon falling on him from above. He learned fast. A sense of stubborn pride and untamed spirit marked him as his own master, yet his intelligence and love for work were undeniable. Each ride forged a stronger, deeper bond between you, even as you resisted it.
You loved him. His silver‑gold mane, powerful hindquarters, noble neck, and driving hooves made him an anomaly of a horse, equally at home in the opulence of the royal stables and in the unforgiving mud and cold, especially with a character like his. It helped distract you on some days.
But each time you looked at the horse, you saw him. You wanted to deny Baelor, to refuse to be caught in his nets of vanity, but he had chosen well. You could not think of a single argument against it: the prince’s knowledge of horses was vast, and his love for the craft and the animals was plain to see — something you could respect, even as it made something in you wince.
Your love for that horse twisted the knife in your stomach. Each time that blue eye looked at you, you remembered. Every time the horse looked back, you saw Baelor’s face in your head: a stunning young man, strong, regal and competent, skin so smooth and tone so even, its warmth could draw ladies in like moths to a flame. Dragon flame. The hair on that head was luscious in a ridiculous way.
You hated it — hated how your mind put him in the same frame as a horse. A broad back built to carry weight without complaint, solid shins and calves that could drive a body deep into unknown territory, a chest made for feeding power and endurance into everything behind it. The long, strong spine and the way it ran down into a round, heavy-muscled haunch. You had to drag and tear yourself away from the thought, not because you were infatuated, but because you didn’t know how not to see the world this way. You loved horses, and they were the lens through which you saw everything else. And you did not need to see Baelor in that way, for he was a dragon.
“You don’t deserve my anger,” you’d tell the horse as you placed a kiss on its soft, velvet nose.
“I’d never treat you ill for something that is not your fault. You are my friend now.”
The blue‑eyed stallion rocked his head as if in agreement, one forehoof stamping once in the dirt; he loved you in the simple, absolute way a good horse chose his person.
“No matter what happens, we’ll stand by each other, and you’ll be there to whisk me away.”
He let out a neigh in response and tossed his head.
“You and I, Lionmane.”
* * *
You missed home months before you left it.
It was a low, constant ache in your chest, like the nagging soreness that came after a deep bruise. You would be in the paddock with the horse and look at the dead heart tree over the outer wall, its blackened branches thick with ravens, and feel something in your lower belly twist.
This is mine, you would think. This is where I know who I am. I am protected here.
You did not know what you would be on the other side of the Kingsroad. A curiosity? Perhaps a tool or political token? Or simply an entertainment.
You hoped, harder than you admitted even to yourself, that the horses would be enough. There were a thousand horses in King’s Landing. More. Warhorses, palfreys, hacks, destriers, carriage teams, cheap nags bought by men who needed to get faster from one punishment to another. The royal stables alone would be an entire world: campaign mounts, tourney chargers, mares in foal to stallions whose sires had come over from across the Narrow Sea. A mind could drown happily in that work. You hoped fiercely to drown in all of it — to lose yourself in the kennels and the mews and the endless, always-urgent business of keeping that many animals sound and sane. To be so useful and so drenched in the scents of your work that no one would even think to drag you into the hall unless it was to ask something practical.
“Prince Baelor would never,” you told yourself, late at night, wrapped in furs with the cold seeping through the stone, staring at the ceiling. “He is… he is what they say. Honourable. He does not play with ladies’ names when there is no intention behind it.”
You had seen him — in the mist, stiff with worry for his horse, his anger held in check by sheer will. In the paddock, watching you with that frowning, intent concentration that had unsettled you more than you wanted to admit. Baelor’s eyes were honest, no matter how hard he tried to project an aura of a prince. But there was no viciousness in them.
Baelor wouldn't toy with people.
You stared at the chandelier.
Or would he?
A smaller, colder thought whispered. Would he, if he wanted something badly enough? If he could properly hide it?
You threw that thought away when it came. Each time, it kept coming back. In the village, in the hall, in the yard, they repeated the same refrain:
“Prince Baelor requested Lady Blackwood in the royal kennels.”
“Prince Baelor and Lady Blackwood, riding together to court.”
“Prince Baelor… Lady Blackwood…”
Your father’s chin went a fraction up with carefully hidden triumph every time he heard it. You wished, some days, that no one would say your names in the same sentence again.
Meanwhile, in King’s Landing, the Hand of the King finished explaining a proposed levy schedule for the Riverlands, and waited for the heir’s thoughts.
In Baelor’s head, a Blackwood girl pressed her hand into a blue-eyed stallion’s neck and said, He needs to decide. He won’t be hurried past himself. The Hand was talking about levies and timetables; Baelor found himself thinking that horses were not the only creatures that broke if you shoved them faster than they could go.
Baelor dragged his attention back up from that image, up through the layers of his own planning — the road, the escort, the way his horse would be placed half a neck ahead of yours at formal entries and half a neck behind you in quiet stretches. The way he would watch without staring, speak without crowding, offer his charm like a series of keys to see which, if any, fit whatever lock you were carrying around in her chest.
“Baelor, are you listening?”
He blinked, tasting a memory of autumn mist braided with a whiff of wet wool in his mouth, and smiled with the faint, apologetic tilt he knew took the sting from such lapses.
“Could you repeat that, my lord?” he said. “The road from Raventree Hall was long. I barely got any sleep.”
The Hand nodded, indulgent. The lords around the table chuckled, understanding. No one questioned the wisdom of the journey.
Baelor had ridden through worse mornings than this one.
The early spring road from King’s Landing to the Riverlands was a muddy mess, punctuated by slippery frost and puddles, with some sections that blurred the line between path and waterway. His escort was travel-worn, horses splashed to the belly, the outriders’ cloaks carrying the particular grey-brown shade that Riverlands mud gave everything it touched.
Baelor rode through the entire scene, his thoughts a jumble that no observer could decipher.
Raventree Hall came into view in the grey mid-morning, its towers dark against a sky the colour of old pewter, the great dead weirwood visible above the walls: black and enormous, stripped bare even by early spring standards, its leafless branches holding a parliament of ravens that stirred but did not scatter as the column came up the road. Baelor knew the hall now. He had slept in it, sat in it and untangled a river dispute that had been killing people since the dawn of time, and had stood at the fence of its paddock watching its lord’s daughter lay a proud stallion down in the dirt.
Baelor thought he knew what to expect.
The gates opened.
The column rode in.
He did not see you immediately.
He saw Lord Blackwood first, standing at the head of the yard’s welcome, broad-shouldered, greys in his beard, wearing the expression of someone who had done everything correctly and was aware of it. The household arranged behind him: servants, men-at-arms in deep Blackwood colours — the usual architecture of a prominent house receiving the second most important man in the realm. Baelor brought Drogon to a halt, raised his right hand in greeting. The familiar courtesies began their necessary unfolding.
Then Lord Blackwood stepped slightly to the left.
And there you were.
For a heartbeat, his thoughts… stopped, as if he’d stepped from a dim passage into blinding sunlight. His breath checked; his body lagged a moment behind his eyes’ swift recognition, caught in that stillness before sensation rushes in.
Crimson.
Not the harsh, bright, shouting red of a Lannister banner or the washed-out wine of old fabric. This was a deep, cooled crimson caught by spring’s first warmth, garnet held up to firelight. It sat against your skin as if whoever had chosen it understood exactly what it would do. It was a shade that spoke of understanding, perfectly chosen to harmonise with your complexion and hair.
The gown was a riding cut — sensible, softer, and more forgiving for the road — but the practicality was only a frame. Baelor’s gaze slid around the edges of that excuse again and again, because the frame was not the point.
The corset.
He found the corset the way you find a bruise — his gaze moving lightly over you until something gave under it, marked by the faint, involuntary catch of his own breath before he even knew what he’d seen.
A riding corset, laced at the front.
This was not a corset for brief and casual sidesaddle riding, but a proper riding corset that gave more freedom of movement and let the body bend. Laced at the front, again, and not at the back like the court ladies’ armour of modesty; these laces faced the wearer — and anyone standing in front of you — with an invitation his fingers itched not to answer.
The prayers that flooded Baelor when he saw you wrapped in that corset like a gift were not pious; none of them were the kind he ever managed to utter in the Great Sept. His hand tightened on the reins until the leather creaked, knuckles filling the gloves, as if the sensation might drag the thoughts back into safer channels. Someone in this household had made a deliberate decision about where those laces should sit, and Baelor had an idea whose decision it had been. He was going to be briefly, silently, indecently grateful to Lord Blackwood for the rest of this visit.
It was not tight in the way that spoke of discomfort or constraint. It was — the only word that came, and it was not a courtly word — snug. The syllable lodged in his mouth like something he would never say aloud. Softer and more yielding than most, it bent itself to your curves instead of forcing your body to bend to it, unlike the usual kind that broke ribs and wills. It cinched at the natural place, following the line of your waist with the precise, attentive fit of something made by a seamstress who had been given a very particular brief.
How would it feel?
Under his hand.
He knew, with an immediate, traitorous certainty, exactly how your laced body would feel under his hands, how his fingers would meet that line if he set them there and drew you in — how little effort it would take to close the small distance the garment so helpfully mapped out.
Baelor dismounted.
He did it smoothly, without looking like he needed the ground under him, though his boot hit the earth a shade harder than usual. His body had remembered how to move before his mind caught up. The nearest groom took the reins as he tilted his head toward Lord Blackwood, his expression that of a prince who had absorbed the entire greeting with utmost care. Lord Blackwood looked pleased.
Baelor had heard none of it.
He was finishing the calculation his body had begun without his permission the moment you stepped into his sightline. It was thorough and unhurried, making excellent use of the four years of patient, practical education he had received from women who had taught him, among many things, to look at a woman the way a craftsman looks at a fine piece of work: without haste, with full attention, with the specific, devastating patience of a man who was in no hurry at all to be done.
It was the same patience with which he assessed a spirited horse: tracing every line, testing every give, learning instinctively where it would yield, where it would fight him, and what he would have to do — and be — to earn the right to lay a hand there at all.
You were not looking at Baelor.
You were looking somewhere else, or at the ground, or at a point in the middle distance that had apparently become very interesting. Your face was slightly turned so that the line of your jaw was visible with the oval of your cheekbone, but everything below it was claimed by crimson: no teasing glimpse of collarbone, no bare throat. The gown rose cleanly to your neck, buttoned and edged just so. It was, Baelor realised with a slow, disbelieving twist low in his chest, indecently correct.
Lord Blackwood and his seamstress had understood something most of the court never did: that no skin was needed — the cloth did all the work. It lay so flawlessly over you that it might as well have been poured on; the cut was a map he could read because he had already walked the country under rougher weather. That knowledge made the demureness feel like a dare.
Baelor knew your form. Not in the way he wanted to know it, not yet, perhaps not ever, but he had spent days watching you in paddocks and fog and muddy yards, in mushroom-hunting clothes, or whatever you preferred to call it, that showed more structural honesty than most court gowns ever permitted. He had a working knowledge of the geography of you under practical circumstances. Now practicality had been wrapped in tailoring, and his mind was annotating the differences with a care that made his mouth dry.
He knew the shoulders; he had seen them set and brace against a horse’s weight, bunch and release under damp wool. In crimson, with the sleeves fitted down to the wrist, they were less armoured, the line from shoulder to elbow softened and made deliberate, as if the gown were laying out an argument for what the muscle underneath had done all winter and what it might do now, at rest. The fabric did not cling obscenely; it merely followed, leaving just enough give that his imagination slid into the small spaces and filled them.
Baelor knew the waist, broadly speaking, from the dozens of times he had watched you twist and pivot and crouch. The corset described it with a precision that “broadly speaking” did not. He read the written account of the waist while on horseback, then dismounted to read it from the ground as he crossed the yard, finding quiet confirmations in the measurements and the way the fabric fit. The line it drew from the base of your ribs down toward your hips was exacting; it told him, without mercy, where his hands would fit if he set them there and pulled you in.
And, of course, he knew the hips from the saddle — he had watched them with no shame, and knew exactly how they moved when a horse beneath them shifted its weight. In the gown, the riding cut allowed just enough fabric to show where the corseted waist ended and the hips began their particular geometry — flared, solid, the kind of architecture that was not decorative but structural, built for use, for weight. The way the skirt fell from that point, heavy and obedient, caused his nostrils to flare with an inhaled breath. There was nothing improper to look at, nothing anyone could fault; everything improper was happening in the distance between what the cloth showed and what he already knew it was covering.
Baelor realised, with a flush he was glad no one was close enough to see, that he had been undressing you in his head from the moment he laid his eyes on you. Not crudely, not even consciously; just… removing layers, testing cuts, fitting imagined seams to remembered movement. This gown had been made to accommodate that kind of looking, to give his mind something exact to work with while leaving his eyes blameless. It was a garment tailored as much for him as for you, and the knowledge twisted something in him so sharply he had to swallow. An involuntary flex of his fingers at his side, as if to grab something, was quickly suppressed as they balled into a fist. He kept his face smooth, his gaze elevated, every inch the prince who admired fine workmanship in horses, in armour, in cloth.
The true object of his veneration, his body registered, wasn’t the garment’s fabric or design, but the intimate, unbidden fantasy of shedding it that bloomed in his inner vision — a desire he could summon in vivid detail without a single touch.
He thought about the front lacing.
Baelor did this briefly, involuntarily, with the exact, unhelpful clarity of knowing from experience how a front‑laced corset came off. It was more interesting than its back‑laced counterpart and far more direct about what it showed as it loosened. For an instant the thought swallowed him whole: his hand in the cords, the give of fabric as he drew you in, the small sound you might make if he lifted you towards his chest and his mouth. He smothered the image with the practiced efficiency of a seasoned undertaker.
He was not entirely successful.
You had not looked at him.
This should have been cooling. It was not, quite. He found — and this surprised him — that it did not dim the wanting so much as redirect it. The hunger for your eyes was still there, only postponed, a challenge to be met properly on the road ahead. Each moment your eyes lingered elsewhere felt like another slow turn of the screw that went deeper inside, tighter and tighter. How much of it would he bear without bursting out of the opening?
Will she look now?
Will she break and peek?
Baelor knew ladies played that game: glance at Baelor when he could not see. He played it better than any of them, with a near‑unnerving sense for when a gaze settled on him. He never lost, catching every guilty, enamoured look, one at a time. The agonising wait for your eyes made even the briefest flicker in his direction send a hard, traitorous jolt through his body, forcing him to shift his weight more often. Underneath that, alongside it, was something else: a slow, detailed, unhurried pleasure in looking at you while you were not watching. In investigating you without the pressure of your gaze, with no need to perform indifference or arrange his own face. Just — looking.
You were wearing house colours. Blackwood crimson and the black of the ravens above, the corset’s lacings a dark cord against the deep red. It was functional, house‑loyal, exactly the thing a lord’s daughter wore to receive a prince without pretending she was anything other than what she was.
And yet.
A thought arrived, uninvited and insultingly complete: you looked indecently good in those colours. They were dragon colours too. It was not a thought about a gown at all, and Baelor knew it. With determined effort, he pushed the intrusive thought far down, beyond the realm of reason and into a secluded area for notions he wouldn’t entertain or even admit to having. He forced it down far enough that it blurred into a dull, constant pressure instead of a clear picture.
He was only partly successful. The pressure remained.
You finally turned.
Not a greeting glance — you turned because your father had said your name, probably, or because the pause in the courtly welcome had reached the point where you were required to take part. Baelor felt it coming the way a cliff feels the sea: saw your chin begin to move, the line of your jaw shift, braced himself for the moment your eyes would lift. They came to him with the same clean, unhurried directness they always had, found his face without drama and settled there without the particular glimmer other women’s eyes usually acquired when they found his. His heart hit his ribs anyway.
Baelor looked at you.
He let you find a smile already in place — not the formal one, not the court-polished one, but the smaller version, the one that admitted something real without specifying what.
“Lady Blackwood.” His voice had dropped a register of its own accord, the way it did in small spaces. The yard was not a small space, but the distance between you had become one.
“You look well.”
It might have been the most inadequate sentence in the history of the language, considering what he was actually looking at. He was perfectly aware of that, and he chose it.
You dipped your chin in a nod that acknowledged the greeting and nothing else, and said,
“My prince. How was the road?”
Practical. Immediate. Already somewhere other than this, behind your eyes, counting miles and horses and work before the column left. No flutter, no feigned warmth, no attempt to make yourself smaller or softer for him. Baelor found, not for the first time, that he did not mind it in the slightest. In fact, it made the small of his back tingle with a shiver.
Baelor mused, with the impartial focus of someone negotiating a truce with himself, that Lord Blackwood ought to dress you more often.
And then, with a sharper edge, No. He should not.
Because the problem — the real problem, the one he could not bury no matter how deep he tried — was not the crimson or the corset or the front lacing. It was that the muddy, dog-printed, sweat-damp, hay-smelling version had been just as consuming. You had done nothing different today: you had simply arrived, self-possessed and uninterested in what that self-possession did to him.
The gown was almost beside the point.
Almost.
Baelor smiled again, wider this time: the easy one, the one that was a little dangerous when he aimed it on purpose.
“Long,” he replied, choosing his next words with precision. “But the destination improves it considerably.”
You looked at him for a moment. The spike in his blood pressure felt like his heart testing the inside of his breastplate for weaknesses.
He watched the corner of your mouth make a decision: not quite amusement, not quite suspicion. Something in between, something that weighed the sentence and filed it under noted before you looked away again.
Baelor drew one slow breath and turned back to Lord Blackwood.
The pressure behind his chest did not ease.
The stallion with the mismatched eyes waited near the mounting block, held by a groom who looked as if he scarcely needed to touch the lead at all. In four months the young horse had changed from the raw, sharp‑boned thing Baelor remembered into something broader across the chest, the neck fuller, the quarters rounder with work. He stood square and still, weight evenly spread, ears pricked, calm in the way of creatures who knew their own strength and saw no need to waste it.
Baelor slowed without meaning to, his mouth parting just a little.
“A job well done,” he remarked, sidling up to the stallion on its left. His hand brushed the crest of the neck, feeling the clean line of muscle, the relaxed skin over it, the easy reach of the shoulder. “The horse is filled out — more depth through the chest, more substance behind. Its legs are much stronger now. A very pleasant transformation.”
There were braids in the mane. Small, neat plaits laid in along the neck, each finished with a red bead that flashed when the horse moved his head. It should have been frivolous but it was not. It was a marker, a caretaking; a way of saying this one is seen and loved.
Baelor had never thought to dress a horse like that. He liked it immediately.
“My duty is to treat him well, Prince Baelor,” you replied, coming to stand on the stallion’s other side. Your hand found the same place on his neck where Baelor’s had rested a moment before. The horse’s ears tipped toward you. “Why would I not fulfil it? I would never fail him like that.”
Him, Baelor’s mind echoed, catching on the pronoun. Ah. Yes. The horse.
“And his name?” Baelor asked, still stroking the stallion’s neck, as much to cover that stutter in thought as anything. “What do you call him?”
“Lionmane.”
Baelor’s eyes went at once to the mane: the light striking silver‑gold waves along the braided hair, the suggestion of a ruff around a proud head. Of course.
He let out a breath, the beginning of a laugh he kept mostly inside.
“Fitting. His mane does have ideas above its station.”
There was a brief, pleased stir among the Blackwood men and boys standing nearby; when Baelor spoke well of a horse, they understood the weight of it. Several of them straightened, as if the compliment lay as much on their lord’s house as on the animal. The groom holding the lead could not quite stop himself from grinning.
Lord Blackwood stepped closer, approval clear in the set of his shoulders.
“The stallion seems fond of my daughter,” he observed. “He only lets her approach, let alone ride him.”
The words were straightforward, and they hung in the air between them like a horse’s breath in the frosty morning light. Baelor felt the edges of his mouth threaten treason. He allowed himself the smallest curve, there and gone.
“Much like your Drogon is with you, is he not, Your Grace?” Lord Blackwood added, eyes mild.
“Indeed,” Baelor met the older man’s gaze evenly. “Wilful stallions only choose those who are akin to them. Equal.”
The self‑indulgence of it thrilled and shamed him in the same breath.
“Is that so, my prince?” Lord Blackwood asked, one brow tilting the slightest fraction.
“A man may hope,” Baelor answered lightly.
“In any case,” your father went on with a nod toward the stallion, “he seeks out my daughter’s hands every time she is near. A testament to her work.”
As if to prove the point, Lionmane nudged at your elbow with a soft, insistent push, tossing his head once as if to say, enough human talk, when do we run? The sound he made was almost a harrumph.
The little crowd that had gathered — grooms, stable boys, a few older retainers — let out an involuntary oh, like children at a puppet show when the strings disappear. It was the sound people made when they saw something honest. They laughed a little, warmed, as if the horse understood and had chosen that exact moment to agree.
Baelor smiled then, with genuine without calculation. He could feel it widen his face, pull at his eyes. He loved horses. For a moment, the simple fact of this one’s trust and the way it bent its head toward you was enough to loosen something knotted in his chest.
Even you betrayed a change: the barest curve at one corner of your mouth, your eyes dropping to Lionmane’s mismatched gaze with what looked suspiciously like fondness. It was an expression that seemed to say, you didn’t have to say that, but… thank you.
Baelor watched it, felt the answering warmth rise in him, and filed both the name Lionmane and that fleeting softness into the same place: things he intended to remember, turn over later, and, if the gods were kind, test the truth of at closer range.
Spring had not yet fully arrived, leaving the air with a lingering chill. The air in the mornings was still frigid, the sky a pale, reluctant grey-white, and the mud from the rains had not finished its argument with the road. By midday, when the light came through properly, it softened into something almost pleasant: the hedgerows committing to their cautious yellow-green, the fields on either side showing the low fuzz of new growth, the air carrying that sharp, wet-earth smell that meant the world was deciding to continue.
Baelor led the column, Drogon’s dark coat catching the mist, forming tiny beads of water that trickled down his neck.
You rode at his left.
His prior night’s quiet word with the captain of his escort, just before departure, had been the key to arranging this with no hint of pre-planning. The escort would flank the column on both sides. The prince would ride at the head. Lady Blackwood would ride alongside, where the prince could ensure her safety on the unfamiliar road.
Entirely proper. Strategically sound. Nobody needed to know that he had lain awake calculating the precise logistics of it.
Lionmane carried you well. He had broken properly over winter; you had done that, month by month in frost and sleet and the hard silence of a green horse learning patience. The contrast was clear in how he relaxed beneath your weight when navigating an unknown path, his ears swivelling while his body remained at ease, drawing his guidance from you instead of his surroundings.
Baelor had watched this for an hour before speaking. The watching had a steadying quality; whenever his mind tried to run ahead of itself, the sight of that easy balance pulled it back.
“Are you tired?” he asked. He had timed his question: he knew, for a stretch of slightly rougher track where the road had been churned, then frozen and then partially thawed, and the footing was a series of small, lurching corrections.
Your eyes remained locked on the road as you uttered a simple, “No.”
“It is a long road. Most riders—”
“I have been in the saddle since I was four. The road is fine, Prince Baelor.”
He nodded, looking back at the track ahead. In his peripheral vision, your body followed each jolt with the same unthinking precision: weight dropping where it needed to, shoulders loose, hands doing nothing unnecessary. No woman he was acquainted with rode horses in such a manner. The sight of it transformed the road from a burden to a pleasure.
Such precision.
The broken trot was the pace you rode now, over a stretch of road so uneven that walking would have been merely unpleasant for longer; better to take it a little faster and be done with it. The horse’s gait produced that specific, forward-and-back, rocking rhythm in your seat. You sat to it naturally, barely posting — just absorbing, letting your pelvis follow, your weight distributed, easy and continuous. Good endurance, Baelor thought, and heard the observation in his own mind for what it was. It was not a princely thought. He had a great many of those lately.
Baelor looked at the road for a while. Then, because he had not entirely purged the thought and the road was very long, he let his gaze drift back.
Your riding gown was practical, and he was grateful for it in ways he refused to examine. The skirt’s crimson hid your thighs’ curves and the form below; it concealed what he had noticed and committed to memory from the paddock, from riding leathers, and from those unhurried days when you moved as if unaware of any observers.
The skirts were a mercy, technically.
They were also, he discovered, no less affecting. Because it was the obstruction, the way the fabric draped and swung and settled over what he already knew was beneath it — that was the worst. The knowledge without the view. The map without the territory. The gate without permission to enter. Baelor’s mind supplied the rest without requiring proof. He knew where the waist went, how the hips spread from it, solid and sure: he had memorised the shape of your seat. As Lionmane moved beneath you, he noticed where your corseted waist transitioned to your skirts, which flared slightly over your thighs, offering a glimpse of the curves he’d been wanting to explore for days.
Each shift of the stallion’s gait rocked you in the saddle Baelor had chosen, on the horse he had chosen; the leather under you creaked on the longer strides, an intermittent, maddening sound — a soft, rhythmic squeak that made his fingertips tingle as if he were the one bracing his hands there, feeling the give and take of each motion. His body logged every small adjustment of your hips, every time your weight rolled with the animal and brought the line of your back fractionally more into view.
Baelor should have been looking ahead. Instead, he was tracking the subtle rise and settle of your hips the way he once would have tracked an opponent’s sword hand: alert, unwilling, unable to stop.
The awareness came with a cost, and the saddle under him seemed narrower than it had that morning, its familiar leather suddenly abrasive where it had never troubled Baelor before. The new, nagging sensitivity that had begun when you first mounted Lionmane had not faded; it rubbed now with every jolt and sway, a rawness he could not shift away from no matter how often he adjusted his seat. He did it more than he liked: a small, controlled change of posture here, a tightening of his thighs there, each one justified by some imagined flaw in the road, none of them fooling his own body. Sweat gathered under the edges of his collar and at the small of his back, more than the mild spring day warranted. The light thinned, slanting lower through the trees, and the world narrowed to the steady roll of the stallion ahead, the sway of crimson, the soft, relentless squeak of leather that sounded like it begged for something.
When the sensation had built to something close to unbearable, when each additional step felt like another test of how much composure he could keep pinned in place, Baelor lifted a hand.
“Enough for today,” he called, and his voice came out even, as if the decision were purely logistical. “We make camp here. We ride on to King’s Landing with first light.”
As the column slowed, the rhythmic clatter of hooves mingled with the calls of men, creating the familiar hum of an organized halt. With unwavering resolve, Baelor’s eyes centered on the chosen clearing, his mind occupied with the pragmatic matters of securing water, firewood, and organizing guard patrols.
Baelor watched you the way other men watched fire.
As the camp settled, you stayed close to your group of women: maids arranging cooking pots, an older servant grumbling about kettles and firewood, and one girl giggling too heartily at nothing. You avoided the common practice of highborn ladies on the road: approaching the nearest man with a sword to ask trivial questions about the route, weather, or their duties. You stood with your sleeves rolled half an inch for work, your hands full of practical tasks, and if you killed time, you killed it with your maids.
Baelor noticed how you never quite met any man’s gaze. Not with a flutter and not with shy avoidance either, but with a kind of pared‑down efficiency: you gave them what civility required and not a hair more. Answers, yes. Orders, when necessary. But no idle questions, no gentle pressing for stories, no reaching across the gap just to see what happened. It was not coyness but absence. As if that whole avenue of possibility did not exist for you.
With the women, it was different.
You stood a fraction closer to them than formality demanded. Your hand brushed a maid’s shoulder to steady her when she stumbled with a bucket; you let an older servant tuck a stray strand of hair back for you and did not step away as quickly as rank would have excused. Your smile, when it appeared, appeared there: lopsided, brief, for something one of them said under her breath. You touched their sleeves when you wanted their attention. In the Red Keep, noble bird‑ladies did not do that with their maids — they saved their lightest touches and easiest smiles for men who might be useful.
Baelor watched this, quiet, his velvet dragon cloak over one arm and the cold doing what it could through his shirt. His thoughts argued amongst themselves.
She speaks only when spoken to. Is she distressed?
Dry as old bone, not a flicker shown, not the smallest slip. Is it some game?
Or have I mistaken her heart entirely? Does it lie elsewhere, where no man’s hand may reach?
The last thought landed with unexpected weight. More than his desire, the realisation pricked at Baelor’s pride, which vexed him with a keen edge. A part of him, the part that hoarded attention like trophies and secretly appraised every woman who responded to his charm, felt a spike of annoyance at being overlooked by you. Another part, colder and more disciplined, pointed out that his wounded pride was not the point here, and assuming anything about you on the strength of one evening’s aloofness was beneath him.
He watched you take a folded blanket from a maid, your fingers brushing, your mouth easing into that small, unguarded curve again — and felt both parts of himself dig in.
If she is simply disinterested in my kind, the colder voice said, then adjust and leave her in peace.
If she is dispassionate towards me, that is another matter entirely, the other, impatient voice answered, with a thread of humour that did not quite hide the hit.
Either way, he realised, he had been proceeding as if your silence meant the same thing it usually meant at court: invitation wrapped in pretense. If you never looked at men because you did not like what men had done with their looking, he would need to find that out without becoming another item on that list.
He’d need to alter his approach.
Not to press harder — the very thought made him frown — but to watch more carefully. To see when, if ever, you stepped out of your circle of women on your own terms; to offer chances to speak that were not traps, and see which of them you took; to find out whether your distance was defence, disinterest, or simply the shape of you.
While the camp bustled with warmth, Baelor stood exposed to the night air, his damp, unlaced shirt clinging to his skin as the coolness soothed him. The chill worked its way through fabric and skin, needling at the heat that had built in him all afternoon, scraping it back to something he could carry. His breath left in faint white clouds. Men moved past him, someone laughed near a pot; horses stamped and settled on their picket lines.
Baelor fixed his eyes on the ordinary, necessary motions of making camp and let the cold do its slow, meticulous work, sharpening his thoughts. A corner of his mind remained fixated on your presence in the dim light, where you sat with your women, head bowed, blissfully unaware of the prince’s persistent fascination and the sting of your disinterest.
Baelor chose his moment when the camp had settled into that soft, busy quiet. Smoke hung in the air, thin and dry, carrying the faint tang of fat and wool.
Braziers that breathed heat kept nobles’ tents, made of canvas for privacy, warm and comfortable. You were sitting on a low stool by the open fire with your Blackwood women, a thin wool blanket around your shoulders and the hem of your gown drawn off the mud. The firelight danced across the crimson of your skirts, making them glow and fade with each crackle and shift of the burning logs. One maid was in the middle of a story when Baelor approached; he knew that because the sound of their laughter cut off as cleanly as a knife through string. Heads dipped. Hands stilled, fingers still curled around spoons and blanket corners.
Baelor saw the sequence: the first reflex of deference — all of them rising, curtseying, eyes lowered — and then, after that, the stolen looks. The younger maid’s eyes flicking up to him too quickly and away again, lashes still trembling; the older one’s mouth twitching despite herself. The sideways glance the two exchanged in the half‑second before they mastered their faces. It was nothing.
It was everything.
It told him precisely who they had been talking about. Heat licked a little higher under his ribs.
Baelor had left his doublet elsewhere, wearing only his riding leather breeches that were on a tighter side, and a linen shirt, the laces at the throat loosened as far as propriety allowed. The neckline gaped just enough that the dark curl of chest hair was visible under the dip between his collarbones, catching the firelight in a way polished armour never could. The younger maid’s gaze slid there and stuck for a second too long, her lips parting on a tiny, involuntary inhale before she snatched her eyes back down to her hands. Baelor knew that look; he knew exactly what effect he had when he was less prince and more man, less coiled into ceremony and more… unfastened.
Baelor had rolled his sleeves earlier when he helped with the camp, the linen creased, sweat-stained and a bit dusty. The fire picked out the hair on his forearms as well — and the heavy line of muscle beneath — lighting each flex and shift as he moved. When he adjusted the cloak on his arm or spread his hands in a simple gesture, the cords in his forearms tightened, tendons standing out for a heartbeat, thick shadows cutting between each muscle and bone, veins illuminated under olive skin warmed by the flames. Those were firm, strong hands; the kind a lady would always welcome around her waist.
The younger maid’s throat worked in a quick swallow; the older one pretended not to see. Baelor saw all of it, felt the way their eyes travelled over him like a roughened touch, and let the awareness sit under his calm as one more quiet advantage.
“Lady Blackwood.” He gave you the good version of his smile — the one with just enough warmth to be felt and just enough distance to be safe — and inclined his head to include the maids. “Ladies.”
“Your Grace,” they chorused, bobbing like startled birds, skirts whispering against one another.
You had started to rise with them. Baelor raised a hand, palm out, before the movement could complete.
“Please, I did not mean to disturb your fire.”
You settled back slowly, more from obedience than comfort, the stool creaking faintly under you as you resettled your weight. One hand re-smoothed your blanket at your throat; the other stayed curled around a wooden cup, tendons shifting under the skin as you tightened your grip. The maid nearest you stared at the ground with unnecessary intensity, cheeks still warmed from laughing and fire. Baelor let his attention pass over them all with the same easy courtesy he used in the hall, but he did not miss how the girl’s lips pressed together as if holding back the rest of a smile.
“How are you faring?” he asked, and turned the question to you, as if the others were incidental to the answer. The smoke roughened his voice a little; it came out low.
“The road has been long. I find myself glad we are nearly done with it. I hope you do not find our accommodations too poor a reward for your trouble.” His gaze flicked to the travelling tents standing dark and not yet used behind you. Canvas shifted in the breeze, a faint flap of cloth. “If your pavilion is wanting, say the word, and I will have it altered to your liking.”
You blinked slowly, like waking from a comfortable dream into a more serious reality. The muscles at the back of your jaw tightened; your shoulders gathered themselves beneath the blanket.
“My pavilion is more than sufficient, Your Grace.” Your voice was level, but there was the faintest rough edge to it, the echo of recent laughter and a smoke‑dried throat. “I prefer the air when it can be borne. The fire is generous enough for us all.”
One of the maids made a slight, strangled sound that might have been a cough. Baelor saw the flash of your eye sideways toward her, the wordless contain yourself in it, and felt something in his chest expand and warm. The fire popped; a shower of tiny sparks jumped and died between you.
“The fire is generous,” he agreed. “It seems I have been remiss in not availing myself of it.” He shifted his cloak over his arm, the luxurious fabric rasping against his sleeve, as if suddenly remembering he was holding it. The cooler air along his back made him more aware of the heat rolling off the flames — and off the small circle of bodies gathered close to them. “I had wondered only whether you were cold. It would sit ill with me to find my guest shivering under my banner because no one thought to fetch another blanket.”
At that, the younger maid did laugh, a brief huff she smothered with her hand an instant too late. The sound skittered over his skin like a thrown pebble on still water. Colour rose in her cheeks, bright even in the firelight. The older maid shot her a look fit to curdle milk. You, caught in the splash of it, let the corner of your mouth climb before you pressed it down. The movement was tiny — just a softening at one side, a brief deepening at the edge of your lip — and then gone. Baelor’s body reacted as if it had been a touch.
“I assure you, Your Grace,” you said, and now there was a thread of humour under the dryness, “if I am cold, half your camp will know of it before you do. My ladies are very diligent in their complaints.”
That bought you another betrayed giggle, this one from the older woman, quickly swallowed. Baelor let his own smile widen by a fraction, turning some of it on the maids as if they had just said the wittiest thing he’d heard all day. Baelor watched the way their fingers fumbled with their skirts, the way their gazes darted to him and away, how the nearer one’s breath hitched just slightly when his eyes landed on her for more than a heartbeat.
“Then I am relieved,” he said. “I am in safe hands.”
The younger maid’s blush deepened at “his hands”, which was not what he had said. Her throat moved in a hard swallow. The older maid’s eyes narrowed at her. Your glance slid between them, amused, exasperated, fond; your brows lifted a fraction in a look that said are you serious? without needing words. The corners of your eyes creased for a heartbeat. Baelor felt that little private joke you shared with them like a warm draught against his own cooled composure.
There it was — the proof he’d been waiting for. They had been talking about him. Not in the frightened, sour way people whispered of kings and wars, but in the small, bright key of women by a fire discussing something — someone — they had all been watching. He could almost hear the ghost of those whispers under the quiet: his name in their vowels and how their lips formed to breathe out its soft shape — Baelor; their hands painting shapes in the air where his face should be. His chest felt, for a moment, almost too full. The pressure that had been sitting under his sternum all afternoon shifted into something lighter and sharper. His shoulders set back half an inch; the linen at his collar rasped against the skin of his neck. His smile turned a little more precise.
“The road has not been overkind,” Baelor went on, tone mild, as if he had noticed none of it. “If there is anything you or your household require before we ride out tomorrow — any horse needing better tack, any servant overburdened — you have but to tell me. I would rather hear of it now than discover later that my guest endured more than she needed to.”
Your eyes came back to him properly then, not because court required it, but because the offer brushed up against something you took with all seriousness. Firelight caught in your irises, turning them briefly into something darker, deeper. You weighed him for a moment in the heat and smoke: the words, the tone, the way he had addressed your maids as if they were part of your “household” rather than furniture. Baelor could see you thinking, feel the slight shift of your weight on the stool, hear the soft rasp of your gown as your knee moved under the skirts.
“My household is well enough, my prince. They will tell me if they are not.”
Your gaze briefly landed on the giggling girl, whose body seemed to fold inwards before she pulled herself together, looking abashed. “And I will tell you if there is a need for your intervention.” A beat, the faintest loosening of your shoulders. “I thank you for the thought.”
Baelor inclined his head, accepting the limits and the opening both. Heat from the fire stroked across his shins; his hands remained loose at his sides, but his fingers wanted to curl.
“It is only thought, for now,” he said. “We will see what the morning brings.”
Baelor shifted the cloak on his arm as he spoke, the velvet heavy and warm where it lay across his forearms. Then, without making a ceremony of it, he let it slide open and stepped in behind you, so that his shadow briefly fell across your shoulder in the firelight.
The maids went still again. He felt their attention sharpen like pricked ears.
Baelor did not touch you.
He leaned down just enough to bring the cloak around you from either side, careful, deliberate, his hands keeping the fabric between his fingers and your body. The movement pulled his shirt lower on his chest; the loosened laces gaped an inch further. From where the younger maid sat, he knew exactly what she would see: a glimpse of his chest, the shallow hollow between, and the beginning of the fine, dark curls that ran down from it. Her breath caught almost audibly; her lips parted in a small, startled “oh” she did not quite let out.
From your angle, it was... worse.
As the cloak settled over your shoulders, you looked up — reflex, politeness, something — and your face came nearer to his throat than you had ever allowed it. The side of his chest was right there in the corner of your vision: a slice of skin bared by the dropped fabric, the curve of a pectoral, the edge of a nipple visible for a heartbeat before the cloak’s fall hid it again. The hair. And the smell of him, which had been a faint background fact at a distance, hit you fully now: clean sweat dried by the day’s ride, the natural scent of warmed skin, a trace of oiled leather and wood smoke caught in the linen at his collar.
It was too intimate. The scent beckoned, the smell itself an invitation, luring you closer, urging you to unravel its intricate composition — a complex puzzle of notes waiting to be deciphered, understood. You did not need to know how Baelor Targaryen’s body smelled at the end of a long day on the road.
Now you knew.
His intention had never been to touch you — not here, not like this — but proximity was its own touch. Baelor let the cloak settle with a final, slight adjustment at your throat, his fingers brushing only the cloak’s fabric, his thick, bony wrists briefly level with your cheek. The younger maid stared, wide‑eyed, in open awe; the older one looked away as if the sight itself were immodest. Straightening up, Baelor noticed all of it: the fleeting stiffness you experienced with the new weight, the way your breathing became a little less deep, the change in the air around you, how little was the space that separated you.
This was the only time anyone would see him like this: dressed for a journey, his hair slightly damp from the day, his shirt unlaced enough to reveal the warmth of his skin. The maids could look; he let them. The scent, the nearness, the detailed knowledge of him was solely for your possession — his silent offering; a gift and a truth you were powerless to relinquish.
“My lady, I’d rather ensure you’re kept warm than risk you catching a chill before we reach the south’s warmth,” Baelor finally explained. Like a gentle breeze over the cheek, his voice was smooth and unhurried, suggesting he had merely granted a minor favor, not undertaken a sensitive experiment to impose proximity without causing disturbance.
He let a last, easy curve of his mouth rest on the group: a touch of charm for the maids, enough to make them duck their heads and steal that one more look at him as he turned away. He did not need to see it to know it was there; he felt the weight of it on his back, a pleasant pressure, as he stepped back into the cooler dark beyond the fire’s reach.
Baelor sensed the evening’s subtle change, a quiet understanding settling deep within him. The taste of smoke on his tongue, the memory of your suppressed smile, the knowledge of whispered laughter that had stopped for him and would begin again when he was gone — all of it settled under his ribs like banked coals.
This was his answer to all the questions that had been gnawing at him by the road and under the trees. Whatever else you were — guarded, dry, crackless on the surface — you and yours had spent your firelight on him.
Mhm.
He could proceed.
As Baelor stepped back from the circle of light, the fire caught him in fragments: a flare along the fine details of his shirt, a brief burnish over the dark fall of his wavy hair, the hollow at the back of his knee as he shifted his weight. Then he turned properly, and the heat of his presence moved from your face to the length of his back.
You watched him go.
The line of him was for all to see, an unapologetic silhouette of his body: the broad set of his shoulders and upper back muscles outlined with white linen, fabric tapering down and tucked to a narrow waist of the leather garment that clung to the small of his back. Firelight slid over the curve where his spine dipped and shoulder blades moved under cloth, the fabric pulling and releasing with each stride. Below the belt, the worn leather of his riding breeches followed the long, strong line of his hips and thighs, the curve and flex and bunch of muscle as he picked his way. From the waist down, the tailoring left no doubt about the contours of his lower body, offering quite a direct impression of his form and bulk.
Baelor's boots sank a little into the softer earth beyond the trampled ring, rolling his hips gently with each step. It was a slight movement, nothing at all — and your eyes tracked it anyway, the same way the rest of the world tracked comets or a Targaryen procession.
For a moment, the camp seemed oddly quiet: the crackle of the fire loud, the night pressing in. You felt your maids’ gazes slide past you, following the same line your own had taken, their awe as bright and silent as your own. A dragon prince, close enough for sparks from the same log to touch you both.
When you knew Baelor was far enough for your privacy to be restored, a shared exhale, laced with laughter, escaped into the space where the fire popped. The maids watched you, hands pressed to their lips, eager to hear what you would say next. You remained silent, your fingers tightly gripping Baelor’s shimmering velvet cloak as if the weight of the event still pressed upon you. Then, one of the maids, eager to fill the quiet, asked, “What was that?”
The rest of them followed.
“To see Prince Baelor that close, in my lifetime,” one of the younger maids breathed at last, the words escaping as if she had been holding them in her cupped hands.
“No one will believe he smiled at us,” another whispered, eyes still fixed on where he had vanished into the dark.
“We have to thank our Lady Blackwood,” the bolder one said, grinning sideways at you.
You squinted at the fire as if it had offended you and scoffed. “I am but a humble servant to your indulgence.”
The group laughed at that; the sound loosening the air again, shoulders easing, hands uncurling from their death‑grips on skirts and cups.
“Forgive me,” the silent maid ventured, emboldened by the laughter, “but that rear…”
The gasps were delicious. The oldest of them slapped at her with a dishcloth, scandalised and amused in equal measure. “You harlot, in front of our lady!”
You snorted, unable — or unwilling — to feign outrage. “It is a good rear,” you said, dry as old wine. “But mere flesh is not enough to tempt me.”
The maids giggled, their breath catching in their throats as they stifled a wet laugh.
“Such strength, my lady. You possess a firmness that the First Men haven’t seen since their arrival.”
That did it. They covered their mouths and cackled, some bending over their knees and giggling into them, the sound hissing through fingers as if that could keep it from flying up to the prince’s tent. Your eyes crinkled with a smile as you observed them, a sense of calm washing over you. Laughing with them was a favorite pastime, a familiar way to shed the weight of a long, exhausting day, listening to the men’s boisterous calls, barks, and grunts.
“Perhaps my lack of restraint, unlike our esteemed lady, is why the gods deemed me a peasant rather than nobility; I would drag my house into a fresh scandal the same way a cherry tree blossoms each spring.”
A burst of laughter escaped them, one woman dabbing at a tear near her eye. Your composure finally broke, and a quiet, open laugh mingled with theirs.
“My lady,” the bold one said when the laughter settled, eyes bright, “if that is not enough, then what is?”
The women hunched forward, their ears straining to catch every syllable.
“That,” you replied, turning your cup between your hands, watching the firelight catch in the dregs, “is knowledge I myself do not possess.”
A wave of seriousness washed over the group, their eyes clouding with concern, and then the maid spoke again.
“We hope Prince Baelor will help our lady find out.”
Once more, the group gasped, this time with a performance of exaggerated shock. Your eyes snapped open, your mouth hanging agape in scandalized disbelief, then curving into a smile.
“Oh, stop it!”
You rolled your eyes, but your mouth would not quite straighten. “I would rather break my back in the stables than entertain a vain prince.”
“Then we should be watchful and shoo away the prince with brooms, like a fox from a hen coop, should he ever again dare to show such kindness to our lady.”
Their laughter erupted, deep and hearty, a sound unburdened by pretense, born from bodies accustomed to toil. The flames danced higher as if alive, casting shadows that climbed the tent walls, transforming stark edges into fluid, golden shapes.
The echo of it reached Baelor’s ears like distant music as he walked away, a blurred, bright ribbon of sound carried on the night air. He did not catch the words, only the tone — warm, irreverent, threaded through with his title. It slipped under the canvas of his thoughts and settled there.
He slept like a child that night, with the pressure behind his breastbone eased into something he could finally rest on.
* * *
They came to King’s Landing on the third day, late in the afternoon.
As the column advanced, the dim light illuminated the swirling dust, causing the road-grime on the horses’ legs to shine like polished metal. The city announced itself in its usual way, smell first: wood smoke, fish, salt, the complicated human residue of two hundred thousand people living in close proximity; then sound, the ambient roar of it, and then the walls.
They entered through the River Gate.
The column had strung itself into its ceremonial arrangement at Baelor’s instruction a mile out, Blackwood outriders flanking the Targaryen escort, the two sets of colours interleaved: black and red dragon against red and black raven — Blackwood crimson and Targaryen scarlet. His captain had done it right; it looked deliberate. It looked, Baelor had to admit, quite good.
You rode at his left, where you had been for days.
The people of King’s Landing were never indifferent to a royal column. They lined the route out of habit, as they always had, finding entertainment and occasion in the spectacle of liveried riders and banners, a free show for all: children climbed things, tradespeople leaned out of their stalls, dockworkers stood back from the road with arms folded.
They looked.
Their eyes scanned the familiar Targaryen banners, then rested on Drogon, before finally settling on Baelor’s imposing figure, his back straight and broad beneath a traveling yet still royal surcoat emblazoned with the three-headed dragon.
Then they looked to his side.
The ripple was visible — he could see it from the front, the almost imperceptible shift in the crowd’s focus as their eyes swept from Baelor to you by his side, and finally to the magnificent, almost ethereal horse you rode. They saw the strange, dark-coated, pale-maned stallion with his blue eye, bridled in Blackwood colours, carrying you in deep crimson, sitting like you owned the road: spine easy, hands low, the strange horse reading the crowd’s noise without a flicker of panic.
Baelor heard them.
Not words at first. Just the quality of the murmur, the shift from routine curiosity to something more alert. Then words, filtering through the noise:
Blackwood, that’s Blackwood colours—
Who is she?
—beside the prince, that’s not a Targaryen woman—
Is she—is she his—
Has he chosen, then? Has he finally—
A woman at the edge of the crowd caught your eye by accident and said something to her companion, a quick private exclamation, hand over her mouth. A man standing on a cart craned his neck to track you as the column passed.
Whose horse is that? He gave it to her, they say—
What has he—who is she—
Baelor rode on and kept his expression in the neutral, measured cast of a prince performing the passage through his own city: present, acknowledging, composed. He nodded at the right intervals, and did not look at you. His awareness of you, right there next to him, was as automatic and ever-present as the thrum of his own pulse, a bodily fact, not a mental one. He noticed your measured stride as you navigated the procession, and how you met the onlookers’ gaze: not with the performative charm of a socialite, nor the feigned humility of someone shy, but with the same focused, unruffled composure you applied to all your endeavors. The city captured your attention in the same way the forest had, with a similar intensity. As a place with its own story. Reading it.
The people were reading you back: the jaws that dropped, the stares that lingered, the women who tracked you and then tracked him and put them in the same sentence — Baelor saw all of it, and something in him was not displeased.
She is his? they were asking.
She is under his protection, was the true answer.
He let the other answer exist in the gaps between. Just for today. Just for the length of the road.
* * *
Baelor did not go to the hall.
The escort that had ridden out from the city parted around him in the yard like a stream dividing around a stone: banners dipping, courtiers smoothing wind-ruffled hair and rearranging their faces into the expressions they thought a returning prince wished to see.
Baelor’s hand tightened once on the reins, and the pressure within him was palpable — as if an unseen bruise were expanding. The ride back had been punishment: three days of measured pace and proper distance, of his leg brushing your stirrup once by accident and his whole body answering like a struck bell, of your laughter carrying back on the wind when you cantered ahead with the outriders, sleeves unbuttoned, hair half-loose beneath a man’s cap. The ache had settled low and heavy, an iron weight at his root, and stayed there, grinding against every step of the horse. When he’d called the last halt before the city walls, his hands had shaken on the travelling waterskin. No one had remarked on it. No one saw him at dawn anyway.
“Your Grace?” one of the Kingsguard murmured now, white cloak stirring in the courtyard’s wind. “The king waits—”
“You will conduct Lady Blackwood in,” Baelor said, without looking away from the Keep. His voice was steady; it always was, now.
“Announce her as my guest. Present her to the king and the queen.” A slight pause. “They will be eager to make her acquaintance.”
The knight hesitated only a breath. “And you, my prince?”
Baelor swung down from the saddle in one fluid movement, boots hitting the stone harder than he intended. The jolt travelled up his spine and lodged behind his teeth.
“I am dust and road sweat. I will not stand before my king in this state. See my apologies offered. I shall join them shortly.”
Baelor did not have to look to feel your gaze catch on him from across the yard — he felt it like the touch of fingers between his shoulder blades; the way he had felt it in the paddock at Raventree when you had looked at him over the blue eye of a kneeling horse. He tightened his grip, pressing his palms together.
Do not turn.
He inclined his head the bare fraction courtesy demanded — toward the assembled court, toward the banners, toward your dark figure among them — and then he was already in motion, taking the side door that servants used when great lords were not looking. The Kingsguard exchanged glances and fell in behind him without comment. He shed them three corridors later with a simple, “Leave me. I know my way.”
Baelor knew it too well.
The hall was too big for three people.
The throne room, free from the clamor of nobles, resembled a cavernous skull; its vastness and shadowy rafters created an echoing emptiness. Sunlight speared through the narrow windows, casting long, cold beams that pooled on the floor. At the far end, the Iron Throne loomed, its sharp edges and stature conveying not comfort but menace.
King Daeron sat upon the throne, his bearing suggesting its true, imposing burden.
Queen Myriah sat beside him on a lower seat, her red and orange silks a vibrant splash of color against the room’s predominant bleak tones. Somewhere in the shadows to the left, half‑hidden by a pillar and his own dark cloak, a tall, thin figure watched. The herald’s voice bounced off stone.
“Lady Blackwood of Raventree Hall.”
Your boots made a soft clicking sound on the floor as you walked the long way in with no one to escort you inside. You had never seen so much empty space under a roof. You remembered, absurdly, the way your brother had once described the throne: “made of swords that belonged to better men, melted for a worse one.” Now a better man sat there — you hoped.
When you reached the foot of the steps, you bowed.
“Your Grace,” you stammered, executing a hesitant and profound bow that gave away your uncertainty. Queen Myriah’s lips quirked upwards at the sight.
“Lady Blackwood,” Daeron nodded.
His voice was mild, unlike his gaze. His eyes moved over you with a kind of quiet, measuring attention that missed nothing: the cut of the too‑new gown you wore, still stiff at the seams; the muscle on your arms that no silk could hide; the way your shoulders sat, not in courtly ease, but in the unconscious brace of someone who expects to have to move quickly. Daeron noticed the cover laced at the front, and his eyes lingered there with a thoughtful expression, not of something improper, but as if he was taking note.
“How was your road?” he asked. “I trust my men did not let you freeze or starve on the way.” A faint smile. “The Kingsroad can be less forgiving than the river tracks.”
“It was long, Your Grace. But uneventful. Your men were vigilant and kind.” Your voice only caught once, on that last word.
King Daeron didn't respond, as if some deep thought pulled him away into the echo of the past as his eyes remained on you, almost absent. Queen Myriah watched his face with a knowing expression, her hand tightened for a heartbeat on the arm of her chair.
“You have not been to King’s Landing before,” Daeron finally said. Not a question.
“No, Your Grace, I’ve never left the Riverlands. I have heard of it. I did not imagine…” You glanced up at the ribs of the roof. “So much space.”
“It grows on you,” he said dryly. “Or it eats you. We shall hope for the first.”
You managed, somehow, a ghost of a smile.
“I have been told,” Daeron went on, “that you work wonders with horses. Unprecedented to bring a lady from an old house here to break and train war mounts. Though House Blackwood surprises the realm with a prodigy in every generation. A thousand years, they claim, and the blood of the First Men still hasn’t run cold.”
You glanced down at your boots, feeling the heat surge into your throat. You remained silent. Something behind your ribs quivered.
“But someone who knows of you assured me the tales are true. And I trust their judgement.”
The cloaked figure lingered.
“You saved Baelor’s horse, did you not?” Daeron asked. “A winter ago.”
“Yes, Your Grace,” you uttered, grateful for a question you could actually answer. “Not quite saved. Just led him back into the castle. I met him deep in the Whispering Woods — all by himself.”
Him.
“A treacherous forest,” the cloaked figure said, voice cutting through the quiet like a low harp string.
A man stepped forward. The hood fell back.
White hair caught the thin light: not the Targaryen silver, but the distinct, colorless white that rarely occurred in nature. Beneath it, a long, stark face: sharp‑boned, skin thin and pale, as if it had given all its pigment to the red splash on his cheek and to the eyes that stared, unblinking, with unintended menace.
The man’s appearance was so spectral, you thought, one might imagine him conjured to his earthly duties.
Your blood ran cold.
“Brynden Rivers,” Daeron said. “Your... cousin.”
The words hung in the air.
You had known, in the abstract, that he was here. That your aunt’s son had grown into a man under this roof: trained with the princes, lived as a great bastard. Knowing was one thing. Seeing him step out of the dark with your aunt’s bones and Aegon’s stamp on his face was another.
Your hands shook. You fought it, hard, claws of will digging into the tremor. A sudden wave of realisation and terror washed over you: you were no longer in the protective comfort of your home. As soon as you crossed the threshold of the castle, you became a target, subjected to a barrage of scrutiny. And you stood there — alone — like a last autumn leaf in the biting wind.
Prince Baelor, where are you?
A thought you never expected to have, now echoed in your mind as you stood trembling before his father, King Daeron the Good. He was supposed to be here with you, explaining the arrangement and not leaving your exposed bones for dragons to feast upon. You wanted to go home. Your nostrils stung from fear and embarrassment. Your gown’s cloth betrayed you, showing the tremble of your fingers clenched in front of you. When you noticed the king’s quick glance at your hands, you put them behind your back. Your shoulders were too still.
You bowed again, buying yourself a heartbeat.
“Pleasure to meet you, um—” you faltered, not understanding what title to give him. Lord? Ser? Rivers? None fit, or all did.
“Just Brynden,” he said, saving you. His voice was oddly gentle. “If I am allowed.”
“Brynden,” you repeated.
Your eyes met for a fraction of a second: his bright red and knowing, yours wide and trying hard not to be. Brynden inclined his head in return, a little lower than he needed to. This, Daeron knew, was a demonstration as much as an introduction. It was also, more pointedly, a test.
“I believe my son, Baelor, brought you here,” the king said, breaking the charged silence, “to work on our horses. Unusual but necessary. Our remounts disgrace us; my sons spend more time correcting their beasts than training with their men.”
His mouth twitched.
“Brynden tells me you are an excellent trainer. And I have learned to trust his eyes in such matters.”
It was quite peculiar that the king would make such a statement, especially given that the two of you had no prior acquaintance.
Daeron looked back down at you.
“It is not…fitting, in the minds of some, for a lady to do such work. But we are past the point of worrying over fitting. We need good horseflesh and better minds.”
“You Grace, I only intended,” you said, words coming a little faster now, as if you had to justify every breath you took here, “to bring the creature back to safety. In the Whispering Woods. That was all. The decision was made without my attendance.”
“To do that with a horse like Drogon,” Brynden said, “lost and scared in those trees, is a deed that speaks for itself.”
You glanced at him; he did not smile, but there was something, almost like warmth, in the strange depth of his gaze. That of kin.
Your heart still thudded too hard, palms were damp. A dry, rasping sound filled your ears as breath struggled through your throat. Every part of your body felt acutely out of place: the dress you hadn’t chosen, the hall you’d never imagined, the king who could decide the course of your life with a word, and the ghost of a brother you’d never met standing like an exclamation mark. Just a few days ago you had been in the shadow of a dead heart tree, mud on your boots, hands in a dog’s fur — unbothered. Today you stood in crimson you didn’t want, under a dragon’s gaze, being measured and weighed whether you should be eaten, burned, or spared.
Myriah saw it: she had watched your hands shake and eyes skitter from throne to bastard to king and back. She had seen this kind of scrutiny before, turned on women not asked whether they wanted any of it.
“The lady is tired from the road,” Myriah stepped in, cutting gently across whatever Daeron was about to say next. “Let us shown her about and let her rest. We can talk more later.”
Her tone was mild and the decision underneath was not. Daeron looked at his wife, then back at the girl. He nodded.
“Of course. Forgive us, Lady Blackwood. It is a hard habit to break.”
“Your Grace,” you bowed again, shaky voice revealing you.
Myriah rose in one fluid motion. “I will send a maid to show you your rooms. And perhaps, when you have slept, we can speak of Dorne. Our horses are different there. You may like to hear of them.”
A flicker of something — almost childlike — passed over your face at the mention of other horses, other stables, far from this cold hall.
“I would, Your Grace.”
Daeron watched you bow once more and turn to go, the line of your back stiff with the effort of not running. Beside him, Brynden remained still, eyes following you until the door swallowed your silhouette.
“Find Baelor, please.”
“At once, Your Grace.”
The king, the servant relayed, was waiting in the smaller chamber, a space more suited for father-son discussions than royal pronouncements between king and heir.
Baelor dawdled on his way to the council wing, taking far too long. No one who looked at him now would know it: his shoulders were free from the road’s tight grip, settling into a comfortable, level posture; his hands hung loosely at his sides, an unforced stillness that spoke of a peace found after the storm. Baelor had changed his clothes. He wore a green doublet that made his darker complexion glow; a golden dragon embroidery adorned the fabric — a stark contrast to the dulling effect of the heavy black-red. Something cleaner replaced the smell of horse and dust. Almost. There was the faintest trace of something else, warm and faintly floral, barely there — only for the trained mind to catch it.
Baelor stepped into a smaller chamber off the council room. Sunlight, in straight shafts, cut through the room from a tall window, illuminating dust motes that whirled in their usual calm, dance-like manner, creating a hazy golden glow. Maps rolled and stacked along one wall. Daeron stood with his hands braced on the table’s edge, head bent as if studying nothing in particular.
Brynden waited by the window, half‑turned toward the light with his hood down. His hair, as pale as frost, framed eyes of a startling red that, in the bright day, took on an unsettling, rat-like glow.
Baelor entered at his father’s word.
“Son.”
“Father,” Baelor said. “Brynden.”
Rivers inclined his head once. “Your Majesty. Prince Baelor.”
The door clicked shut behind Baelor, its gentle thud echoing in the profound silence of the room. Daeron did not waste time.
“I’ve just met the girl. Trembled like a leaf in the wind.” He let the words hang, testing, gradually redirecting his look toward his son. Daeron’s gaze traced the lines of his doublet, eyes catching on the rumpled linen at his elbows. Baelor’s jaw clenched. He knew the look. The silent scrutiny.
He could see you as Daeron spoke: small under that ceiling, too stiff in your shoulders, hands betraying more than your face. He swallowed hard, the image burning in his mind and hitting him with the force of a hammer blow — a dawning awareness of his choice. He ought to have been there to present you to the king, to make sure. But he wasn’t.
“And ridiculously beautiful,” Daeron added, with a note that might have been weary humour, might have been a warning. Baelor’s face twitched. He made a sound low in his throat, half scoff, half protest, and pulled his mouth into a brief, incredulous grimace, as if his father had just suggested something beneath both of them. Brynden peered through the window, a mere fly on the wall, witnessing the events unfold.
“Father, you can’t be serious.” Baelor’s tone came out sharper than he’d meant. A little too quick. A man over‑correcting. Daeron’s brows lifted a fraction.
“The whole seriousness of it is standing in the room with us,” the king replied. His gaze flicked between son and bastard. “Forgive me, Brynden.”
“No offence taken,” Brynden replied as he turned to face them again. His tone was flat and neutral, hands folded behind his back, shoulders relaxed. His face — long, pale, half‑in shadow — gave away nothing. That was Brynden’s unmatched talent, a unique gift: he could observe you with a detached focus, like a naturalist studying a specimen, neither condemning nor excusing; not judging, not forgiving — simply seeing. Baelor felt, rather than saw, those keen red eyes on him, registering the minute tension at his mouth’s edge, as if Brynden could sense the thrumming within his chest at a distance.
“You should’ve seen the horse he gave her, Your Majesty,” Brynden went on.
Baelor’s gaze darted sideways, betraying him before he could school it. You treasonous man.
Brynden caught the glance and met it with no response in his flat expression. The faint flare in the prince’s nostrils. The look that said as plainly as any words to someone who knew how to read it.
“You know Drogon,” Baelor said, words coming faster now, as if to get ahead of the conversation. “How he is.”
“He?” Daeron repeated, interest sharpening.
“It,” Baelor corrected that very instant. “The horse. It’s a magnificent steed, but no one could manage his outbursts in the stables. You know that. Drogon’s… temperamental.”
Memories rose unbidden: Drogon pinning a groom to the wall with a shoulder; the whites of the stallion’s eyes when a saddle girth bit too quickly; the way he’d thrown a lesser man clear over a stall door once.
“And she,” Baelor continued, “just brought him through the dark forest as if it cost her nothing. Mounted on top.”
He heard the word as soon as he’d said it — mounted — and almost winced. His throat worked.
“No one rides him,” he pushed on. “It. You know that.”
Daeron’s expression stayed bland. Brynden’s did not change at all. They let him talk, remaining silent for as long as possible. Baelor heard himself, and hated what he heard: the way he had to circle around the point, as if sheer volume of neutral detail about horses could disguise the shape of his want.
In his mind’s eye, images layered over the words like handprints on glass. Your thighs in the saddle, firm around Drogon’s barrel. The first time he’d seen you in the rain, garments soaked, clinging to muscle and bone as you swung down with a fluidity no fabric had any right to accommodate. Steady hands on the reins, fingers digging into Drogon’s thick, damp mane, scratching small circles into the dock of his neck. The way the horse — his horse, his wild, untrusting Drogon — had melted under your touch, those sharp, black eyes of his softening, ears flicking back to catch your voice. The sight of you leaning forward to murmur good boy into a black mane that should have snapped at you. He swallowed again, harder this time.
“After that,” he said, clinging to the safer facts, “I brought her the wildest horse I could find. As a… test.” He heard Brynden’s faint, dry inhale at that word.
“She made it fall into her lap,” Baelor went on, another unfortunate phrasing, “like a babe who’d found its lost mother.” Daeron’s mouth twitched ever so slightly.
“Yes, I was there on Blackwood business. I seized another opportunity. You will see, in no time, it is a fruitful thing. For House Blackwood’s loyalty. For the crown.”
He added the last quickly, stacking politics over the mess of his thoughts like armour over bare skin. Daeron watched him build his little barricade of reasons and did not interfere. Brynden stood motionless, absorbing every choice of word, every stumble, each too‑fast transition.
A thick, awkward silence descended, making the room feel tense. Brynden observed the father and son’s exchange, a gradual, unavoidable collision.
“It truly is,” Brynden began, his voice a low rumble that cut through the stillness, “a solid method for securing their allegiance. If it’s handled with due diligence.” Both father and son turned toward Brynden.
“Aegor’s bond with Daemon is something we can no longer manage. It’s wiser to secure the house that is known for its fierce loyalty than the one easily tempted by ambition or circumstance. Since both are unattainable, it’s better to embrace the option that guarantees success.”
Brynden locked eyes with Baelor, allowing a single, revealing expression to flash across his face: only this once. With a slight dip of his head, the prince conveyed a silent understanding, a wave of relief passing through his eyes.
“If it’s handled with due diligence, then I have no doubt it is so,” the king said at last, straightening from the table.
“Good,” he added. “I trust your judgement.” Daeron moved closer to his son and took a sudden, deep breath, his nostrils flaring as the scent filled them. He met Baelor’s gaze, fixed on the lilac iris of his eye.
“And I would like to see that horse.”
Baelor gave a solemn nod, his gaze locked onto his father’s face.
Daeron looked between them.
“I’ll leave you two. I imagine you have… angles to consider.” He clapped Baelor once on the shoulder and left by the inner door, robes whispering.
The latch clicked, and the silence fell, heavier now that the king was gone. Brynden did not move and let the space breathe. Baelor released a long, weary sigh.
“So,” Brynden uttered at last.
“Don’t even start,” Baelor said, letting a slight irritation ring in his voice. He turned away, half, as if to reach for a jug of water that wasn’t there, then stopped, fingers curling on empty air.
“Start what?” Brynden inquired. His voice was cool, almost bored. His posture hadn’t changed: weight even on both feet, hands still folded behind his back, face composed. Only the red of his eyes gave him away; its gaze too intent to be idle.
“Just say what you want to say,” Baelor snapped, more defensive than he’d planned.
Brynden’s head tilted a fraction. “Do you expect me to insult the crown by scolding the heir to the Iron Throne like some boy in the stables?”
The corner of Baelor’s mouth tightened.
“I know better.”
There was a brief, treacherous show of dignity in Baelor’s chest at that — being treated as a man, a firstborn son of a king and not a child — even here, even now. He lifted his chin a little, as if to prove the point.
“Though.”
A slight pause. Baelor leaned into it before he realised he was doing so.
"I will watch with great attention. A man who wrongs a raven does not wrong one bird. He wrongs every raven that has ever lived — even if that man is a dragon."
The words landed with more weight than a shouted threat. With weariness clouding his eyes, Baelor now met Brynden’s gaze with profound seriousness.
I should’ve been there.
“I pray that you will,” Baelor said. It came out low, a little rough. Half challenge, half plea.
“Good.”
“Just know,” Brynden added, after a beat, “she doesn’t want to be here.” It was not an accusation — not quite — nor a warning either. More like a statement of fact laid gently between them, or perhaps a sharpened stake planted right in front of the prince.
Baelor’s mouth tightened. “I understand.”
“Do you?” He did not press the point and simply let the question hang, a weight that would not go away. He turned his head toward the window again, giving Baelor the mercy of looking elsewhere. Baelor knew him too well; the implication of his silence. The careful lattice of horses and politics was not enough to conceal the rawness underneath.
“The only thing I cannot fathom is... how Benji has allowed it.” A betraying glint of contemplation.
“Who?” Confusion creased Baelor’s forehead.
“Her brother, Benjicot Blackwood. Lord Blackwood's heir.”
“I haven’t been introduced to him. Perhaps he was away.”
“Without a doubt."
“Does this pose an issue?”
"Only time will tell."
Brynden approached the door.
“Thank you, Brynden, for—”
“I do what’s best for the crown. You are the crown, Baelor — don’t ever forget it.”
🀢 The Loyal Knight - Having a loyal, faithful King's Guard is supposed to be good. He is there for your protection, your constant shadow. But why does having Ser Roland always there feel like such sweet torture?
🀢 The Prince and the Wildfire - Prince Valarr Targaryen expected his marriage to Maekar’s unruly daughter to be a lifetime of headaches and humiliation. Instead, he finds a woman who defends him, challenges him, and reminds him how to breathe beneath the crushing weight of the crown.
🀣 Warmth - Valarr has always been wary of his soon to be wife. but after darkness strikes ashford, she shines a light.
🀤 Wearing a revealing nightgown after an argument/being apart
🀥 Another knight crowning you
🀢 Spice tolerance
🀣 How they’d react to you hold their face within your hands, claiming you could hold all that you hold dear within them
🀤 Exhaustingly Perfect - You are set to marry Valarr Targaryen. He is kind, handsome, and perfect in every conceivable way. He also bores you absolutely to death. Weeks of encounters have left you knowing less about your future husband than when you first arrived. Aka, Valarr fell in love with you at first sight and has since completely forgotten how to be a person.
🀥 A Little Bit of Skin - You wear something a little scandalous and they can barely handle it.
🀢 Lose My Mind - The things you do to cause these men to lose their absolute minds.
🀣 Were you SILENT or were you SILENCED - The reader is a foreigner, i made sure not to describe where she's from.
🀤 The Perils of Betrothal to a Man So Pretty He Must Be Gay - In which your fiance is so perfect he MUST be gay.
🀥 The Dragon's Secret - In which your husbands dragon knows something you don't.
🀢 Mutual Hatred and Other Courtly Traditions - You have a talent for frightening away every eligible lord in Westeros, Valarr has a talent for reminding you about it. You absolutely hate each other. Unfortunately, you've also been in love since you were twelve.
🀣 W.A.P. - When various characters are magically transported to the modern world, you take them to the mall in your car. Halfway there, Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion's "WAP" comes on shuffle. Your phone is locked and you're driving, so they are forced to endure the entire song.
🀤 Godzilla, King of the Monsters - In which you show them Godzilla and tell them it's a real story.
🀥 Rollercoasters & theme parks - In which you bring them to a theme park.
🀢 She's My Wife - At prince valarr’s name day feast, ser duncan makes the fatal mistake of assuming his terrifyingly composed wife must be another of maekar’s daughters.
🀣 The Woman After the Dead - You were the first wife, and nothing could come after you. When Lady Y/N Royce dies, bringing forth Prince Valarr’s twins, their dragon eggs hatch beside the cradle, and grief turns her into something the realm never lets rest. Years later, the court still wants her back. The city still wants her back. Valarr still loves her like an open wound. And Keira, the dutiful second wife sent to him for politics and peace, finds herself trapped in the shadow of a woman so beloved that even death could not make people stop choosing her. Some women die and become memories. You died and became the measure by which every living thing was found wanting.
🀤 Being your lover while you’re in an unhappy marriage
🀥 Looking for this? - Wanting Valarr's attention...and you always get it what you want.
🀢 Replica - After giving your husband several sons, you finally give birth to a daughter who is an exact replica of you.
🀣 Lost Love - You return to your childhood castle with your Targaryen husband in tow for the celebration of your sister's wedding. However, a familiar face is unexpectedly in attendance.
🀤 Inserts Himself Where? - Prince Valarr and his wife struggle to conceive a child as months pass and everyone is starting to get worried. Eventually, his Lady Wife finds out that their previous lack of experience in the matter is to be blamed.
🀥 Blood of Two Joined as One - When Prince Valarr and his cousin were children, her twin brother Aerion held a Valyrian wedding ceremony for them in secret. What seemed to be an innocent game for her, turns out to be an oath for the Young Prince. And he is no oath-breaker.
🀢 Royal Seer!reader
🀣 Cryptic Pregnancy - How they react to your cryptic pregnancy.
🀤 Resting Bitch Face - How they react to your resting bitch face.
🀥 A Younger Them - How they react to you looking so fondly at their younger selves.
🀢 Being walked in on with their s/o
🀣 On HIs Knees - Aerion Targaryen has had a terrible day, and there is only one person in this world who can quiet the noise in his head. He goes looking for you. What he finds instead is Valarr, perfect, insufferable Valarr — and a version of himself he does not recognise and cannot look away from.
🀤 First Light - You and Aerion do your best to convince Valarr to stay in bed with you.
🀥 Loud - You've never been ashamed a day in your life. Why would you be, when they make you feel this good.
🀢 When Did You Get Hot? - Just friends wasn't cutting it anymore.
🀣 Checkmate - The frustration of not being so honorable and perfect as his dad but still going back to sleeping together despite trying to say it’s the last time.
🀢 I Can’t Help That I Need It All - (II) - Prince maekar targaryen’s younger wife is the feature of many a man’s fancy in the court, but more particularly her closest kin.
🀣 You Must Be His Nursemaid - A prince and a Dragon - Where Princes, Ladies, Lords, and Knights Gathered in Candlelight - Silk Morning, Bloodied Field - Where the Dragon Set Its Gaze and Bared Its Teeth - The Baby is Built Like a Royal Loaf - That Is Not My Baby, You Heathen - Upon arriving at Ashford Keep, Ser Duncan the Tall mistakes Prince Valarr’s wife — and mother of his child — for a nursemaid. Unfortunately for him, he says so aloud. Fortunately for him, she does not take offence.
🀤 Targaryen! husbands reacting to their wife hatching a dormant dragon egg - Reacting to a protective dragon
🀥 The Godswood Escape - A Walk in the Godswood - The Great Yard - The Great Sept of Baelor - A young lady resents her unwanted betrothal, and attempts to flee the Red Keep. Unluckily for her, even the most gallant of knights does not wish to aid her escape.
🀢 Modern!valarr going shopping with his girl at luxury stores - Mistaken Identity - Chosen Daughter-In-Law - Risque Polaroids - Stalker!Valarr
🀢 Foe to Many, Friend To None - ...except one, perhaps— though, Maekar would not describe themselves to be friends. The exception being, after all, his wife.
🀣 Dancing Deer - What's worse than one dancing Baratheon? One drunk, dancing Baratheon. What's worse than one drunk, dancing Baratheon? Two drunk, dancing Baratheon.
🀤 Life Goes On - Time away form your youngest, missing his adventures had proven harder than you’d expected it to be, but you lived for the moments he did return home.. and this time with a friend. and no hair?
🀥 Caribbean Blue - You and your brothers escape in the only way you know how.
🀢 Wearing a revealing nightgown after an argument/being apart
🀣 Another knight crowning you
🀤 Spice tolerance
🀥 The Farce - Ser Duncan only knows that you are Baelor’s daughter...
🀢 Before It Gets Too Warm - Aerion was once a glad child. He liked to go fishing.
🀣 Greatest Offender - You hear Aegon singing something in the yard and realize there is entirely too much foul language in your home. someone is going to answer for it.
🀤 A Little Bit of Skin - You wear something a little scandalous and they can barely handle it.
🀥 Lose My Mind - The things you do to cause these men to lose their absolute minds.
🀢 W.A.P. - When various characters are magically transported to the modern world, you take them to the mall in your car. Halfway there, Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion's "WAP" comes on shuffle. Your phone is locked and you're driving, so they are forced to endure the entire song.
🀣 Godzilla, King of the Monsters - In which you show them Godzilla and tell them it's a real story.
🀤 Rollercoasters & theme parks - In which you bring them to a theme park.
🀥 Our Wife - On your wedding anniversary, ser duncan makes a disastrous mistake when he assumes that baelor and maekar are merely your overprotective chaperones rather than your husbands—yes, both of them.
🀢 Being your lover while you’re in an unhappy marriage
🀣 Like Father, Like Son - When you give birth to a son, everyone can tell how much he resembles your husband. Everyone, apparently, except his father.
🀤 Replica - After giving your husband several sons, you finally give birth to a daughter who is an exact replica of you.
🀥 Lost Love - You return to your childhood castle with your Targaryen husband in tow for the celebration of your sister's wedding. However, a familiar face is unexpectedly in attendance.
🀢 Safeguarding Peace - You finally begin to feel safe and happy after a politically advantageous marriage to your husband. Of course, your father has to dampen it during a visit.
🀣 Cryptic Pregnancy - How they react to your cryptic pregnancy.
🀤 Resting Bitch Face - How they react to your resting bitch face.
🀥 A Younger Them - How they react to you looking so fondly at their younger selves.
🀢 The Walls of Summerhall - The stormy marriage of Meakar Targaryen and his fiery wife, ignites a powder keg of desire, daily battles of words, wills and whimpers in the night.
🀣 Landslide - Out of your siblings, there was always the three of you, but as the years passed childhood play turned into feelings they competed over, all for your hand.
🀤 It All Comes Back to You - Things had proven tense in the family, you and your closest brothers at an odds and end with each other— fighting and bickering until only one thing brought you together, love.
🀥 Baelor and Maekar giving oral in tandem
🀢 Being walked in on with their s/o
🀣 Loud - You've never been ashamed a day in your life. Why would you be, when they make you feel this good.
🀢 Spinster - (II) - His pov - What if reader returned home before the scandal? - His pov - What if reader saved him instead? - Reader makes the first move - Jealous husband - Mornings in bed - Reader not realising she is being flirted with + defending husband - Reader is super competent and that really turns her husband on
🀣 I Can’t Help That I Need It All - (II) - Prince maekar targaryen’s younger wife is the feature of many a man’s fancy in the court, but more particularly her closest kin.
🀤 Shut Up, Sir - Only Teasing - Dunk meets what looks like Egg’s sister for the first time.
🀥 The Baby Project - Allow Me to Assist - Just for Tonight - A Moment Away - When Maekar agreed to have a baby, he thought it a reasonable undertaking. He was not an old man. You were young and healthy and wanted a child of your own and he loved you, so he said yes. Simple enough. He was a fool. Aka you run your poor husband absolutely ragged in the name of family planning.
🀢 Targaryen! husbands reacting to their wife hatching a dormant dragon egg - Reacting to a protective dragon
🀢 Storms and Dragons - You sneak away for one reckless night of freedom, only to wake in the bed of Lyonel Baratheon— who is now very much besotted with you.
🀣 Lyonel's drunk wife who is fascinated by Dunk's height
🀤 Settle This Like Stags!
🀥 Name the Riches - Lyonel plays a game of provocation to stir some audacity in his newlywed wife, but she is quick to catch up after realizing the position she holds. Lord Baratheon’s assurances that he is not a jealous man turn out to be dramatically untrue.
🀢 Faint Memory, Promising Pathways - Lord Baratheon is too occupied with the presence of his darling wife to follow his companions. He claims to remember the way… Well, nature isn't so bad, after all, then why not spend the whole day away from the castle?
🀣 Fair Trading - The fierceness of a storm and dornish habits don’t seem to match each other very well, but perhaps Lyonel Baratheon is not that much of a true abrupt stormlander. Or maybe it’s just that you, a princess of Dorne, can find it in your heart to accept such a stormlander as your man.
🀤 Baby Built Like a Fortress - Lyonel Baratheon had announced the birth of your child like a victory won in battle.
🀥 His Drunk Lady - Lyonel witnessing his wife getting drunk for the first time.
🀢 Wearing a revealing nightgown after an argument / being apart
🀣 Another knight crowning you
🀤 Spice tolerance
🀥 How they’d react to you hold their face within your hands, claiming you could hold all that you hold dear within them
🀢 Lose My Mind - The things you do to cause these men to lose their absolute minds.
🀣 W.A.P. - When various characters are magically transported to the modern world, you take them to the mall in your car. Halfway there, Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion's "WAP" comes on shuffle. Your phone is locked and you're driving, so they are forced to endure the entire song.
🀤 Godzilla, King of the Monsters - In which you show them Godzilla and tell them it's a real story.
🀥 Rollercoasters & theme parks - In which you bring them to a theme park.
🀢 She's My Wife - After dunk mistakes you for lyonel’s daughter, your husband notices how much the hedge knight seems to like you, so he offers him to spend a night with both of you—poor dunk doesn't know if he's being serious or if it's just a cruel joke, either way, he's down for it!
🀣 Fight for the Hand
🀤 Being your lover while you’re in an unhappy marriage
🀥 Like Father, Like Son - When you give birth to a son, everyone can tell how much he resembles your husband. Everyone, apparently, except his father.
🀢 Replica - After giving your husband several sons, you finally give birth to a daughter who is an exact replica of you.
🀣 Safeguarding Peace - You finally begin to feel safe and happy after a politically advantageous marriage to your husband. Of course, your father has to dampen it during a visit.
🀤 From Fawn to Stag - Unbeknownst to you, your husband has allowed your freshly six-and-ten son to enter the lists at The Tourney of Stonehelm.
🀥 Cryptic Pregnancy - How they react to your cryptic pregnancy.
🀢 Resting Bitch Face - How they react to your resting bitch face.
🀣 A Younger Them - How they react to you looking so fondly at their younger selves.
🀢 Wine, Women and Wonderful Vices - You decided tonight was the night to loosen up and ride a stag...
🀣 The Hunt - “Set yourself free in the forest and I will do nothing but hunt and eat you all day”
🀤 Checkmate - Baratheons are famously stubborn and prideful, and to make matters worse, a particular Baratheon called Lyonel married a woman after his own heart, much to the misfortune of all around them.
🀥 Bedding Ceremony - It's your honeymoon with your husband, lyonel. both inexperienced in this to a certain extent, but desire was often enough when lack of practice was the problem...
🀢 Fire in My Heart - Lord Lyonel Baratheon and his beloved wife become taken with the same night he'd met nights ago, offering him company in their friendship and their bed.
🀣 Being walked in on with their s/o
🀤 The Helm Stays On! - lyonel baratheon's pretty little wife can't get enough of her storm lord. when her need for him grows teeth in the middle of a highgarden celebration, she's wroth to leave it. but lyonel would give you anything you wanted, including stuffing you full beneath your skirts right there at the head table for all to see.
🀥 Holding the antlers while you ride him
🀢 Spinster - (II) - His pov - What if reader returned home before the scandal? - His pov - What if reader saved him instead? - Reader makes the first move - Jealous husband - Mornings in bed - Reader not realising she is being flirted with + defending husband - Reader is super competent and that really turns her husband on
🀢 Wearing a revealing nightgown after an argument/being apart
🀣 Another knight crowning you
🀤 Spice tolerance
🀥 How they’d react to you hold their face within your hands, claiming you could hold all that you hold dear within them
🀢 A Little Bit of Skin - You wear something a little scandalous and they can barely handle it.
🀣 Lose My Mind - The things you do to cause these men to lose their absolute minds.
🀤 W.A.P. - When various characters are magically transported to the modern world, you take them to the mall in your car. Halfway there, Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion's "WAP" comes on shuffle. Your phone is locked and you're driving, so they are forced to endure the entire song.
🀥 Godzilla, King of the Monsters - In which you show them Godzilla and tell them it's a real story.
🀢 Rollercoasters & theme parks - In which you bring them to a theme park.
🀣 Being your lover while you’re in an unhappy marriage
🀤 Like Father, Like Son - When you give birth to a son, everyone can tell how much he resembles your husband. Everyone, apparently, except his father.
🀥 Replica - After giving your husband several sons, you finally give birth to a daughter who is an exact replica of you.
🀢 Lost Love - You return to your childhood castle with your Targaryen husband in tow for the celebration of your sister's wedding. However, a familiar face is unexpectedly in attendance.
🀣 Cryptic Pregnancy - How they react to your cryptic pregnancy.
🀤 Resting Bitch Face - How they react to your resting bitch face.
🀥 A Younger Them - How they react to you looking so fondly at their younger selves.
🀢 Conversations in the Garden - At a garden party with your husband Daeron asleep in your lap, you discuss the past and finding love with your good brother Egg.
🀢 The Brothel - Despite being the most beautiful girl in the suns end brothel you only have one customer. one customer who does not care to share despite how many men wish to.
🀣 Being walked in on with their s/o
🀤 All Men are Fools, and All Princes Too
🀥 So Come Inside and Be With Me, Alone With Me
🀢 5 times you were caught with Daeron and the one time you weren’t (in a way)
🀢 Targaryen! husbands reacting to their wife hatching a dormant dragon egg - Reacting to a protective dragon
🀢 Tedious - It was clear to any who had eyes that Prince Baelor was a man with many duties, and as serious man, he took his duties seriously. Let it be never said that the gods don't have a sense of humor, for the Targaryen's wife was as facetious as they come.
🀣 Caribbean Blue - You and your brothers escape in the only way you know how.
🀤 Wearing a revealing nightgown after an argument/being apart
🀥 Another knight crowning you
🀢 Spice tolerance
🀣 How they’d react to you hold their face within your hands, claiming you could hold all that you hold dear within them
🀤 Haros Bartossi - Baelor is singing under his breath. You always found his mother tongue beautiful. Though the song is for taming dragons, it seems to rile you up just fine.
🀥 Sorely Mistaken - Ser Duncan the Tall should not be allowed near the royal family.
🀢 A Little Bit of Skin - You wear something a little scandalous and they can barely handle it.
🀣 Lose My Mind - The things you do to cause these men to lose their absolute minds.
🀤 W.A.P. - When various characters are magically transported to the modern world, you take them to the mall in your car. Halfway there, Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion's "WAP" comes on shuffle. Your phone is locked and you're driving, so they are forced to endure the entire song.
🀥 Godzilla, King of the Monsters - In which you show them Godzilla and tell them it's a real story.
🀢 Rollercoasters & theme parks - In which you bring them to a theme park.
🀣 She's My Wife - Ser duncan the tall thinks you're just a beautiful girl close to his own age, but his innocence is his undoing when he mistakes you for just another targaryen cousin. the only problem? you are actually the lady of dragonstone and baelor’s wife.
🀤 Our Wife - On your wedding anniversary, ser duncan makes a disastrous mistake when he assumes that baelor and maekar are merely your overprotective chaperones rather than your husbands—yes, both of them.
🀥 Being your lover while you’re in an unhappy marriage
🀢 Like Father, Like Son - When you give birth to a son, everyone can tell how much he resembles your husband. Everyone, apparently, except his father.
🀣 Matters of Merit - After someone makes a snide comment undermining your husband's honor, you defend him (unknowing that he can hear every word).
🀤 Replica - After giving your husband several sons, you finally give birth to a daughter who is an exact replica of you.
🀥 Lost Love - You return to your childhood castle with your Targaryen husband in tow for the celebration of your sister's wedding. However, a familiar face is unexpectedly in attendance.
🀢 Safeguarding Peace - You finally begin to feel safe and happy after a politically advantageous marriage to your husband. Of course, your father has to dampen it during a visit.
🀣 The Unbowed - You sail to King's Landing because you are invited to your Aunt's name day celebration. Once there, you get a crush on your eldest cousin. The problem is that not only you are being treated like an outsider with your Dornish ways but he also has a marriage contract already prepared with Lady Jena Dondarrion. It takes one tournament to change it all.
🀤 Royal Seer!reader
🀥 Cryptic Pregnancy - How they react to your cryptic pregnancy.
🀢 Resting Bitch Face - How they react to your resting bitch face.
🀣 A Younger Them - How they react to you looking so fondly at their younger selves.
🀢 The Prince's Siren - The prince’s wife enjoys pushing his buttons and she has just found her new favorite one.
🀣 Consequences - You've been purposefully provoking your husband in the hopes he'd have his way with you, but he doesn't necessarily fulfil your fantasy. Still, mission failed successfully.
🀤 Landslide - Out of your siblings, there was always the three of you, but as the years passed childhood play turned into feelings they competed over, all for your hand.
🀥 It All Comes Back to You - Things had proven tense in the family, you and your closest brothers at an odds and end with each other— fighting and bickering until only one thing brought you together, love.
🀢 Baelor and Maekar giving oral in tandem
🀣 Being walked in on with their s/o
🀤 Every Promise - You spent fifty-seven days sending your husband the most sinful letters you have ever written in your life. How could you have known he would actually expect you to follow through?
🀥 Welcome Home - Your husband comes home from Ashford with bruises, a cracked rib, and something to prove.
🀢 Just for Tonight - Baelor has always wanted you. Maekar's wife. He has wanted you since the first moment he saw you, and he has been very good about it. Until Maekar takes him up on an offer Baelor had made "mostly in jest", and one night turns out to be so much more than he bargained for. Aka, you are between the hammer and the anvil.
🀣 Loud - You've never been ashamed a day in your life. Why would you be, when they make you feel this good.
🀤 Happy Trails - On your wedding night with baelor, you finally discover from where valarr has inherited that pretty white streak of hair.
🀢 Spinster - (II) - His pov - What if reader returned home before the scandal? - His pov - What if reader saved him instead? - Reader makes the first move - Jealous husband - Mornings in bed - Reader not realising she is being flirted with + defending husband - Reader is super competent and that really turns her husband on
🀣 I Can’t Help That I Need It All - (II) - Prince maekar targaryen’s younger wife is the feature of many a man’s fancy in the court, but more particularly her closest kin.
🀤 Horsebreaker - (II) - (III) - (IV) - Young Prince Baelor, heir to the Iron Throne, comes of age and is granted a rare privilege by his father; to choose his own bride and future queen, trusting his son’s judgement. He travels the realm on his father’s behalf while he searches, combining two duties at once. During his circling progress through the Riverlands to secure peace among the lords, he stays at Raventree Hall. There, Drogon—his beloved friend and horse—breaks free and escapes from the stables into the Whispering Wood, where you are walking in peace. Out of the mist appears an impossible image; a royal stallion lost in unfamiliar terrain, utterly out of place. It is you who guides the steed back to the prince and makes sure he does not forget it.
🀥 Targaryen! husbands reacting to their wife hatching a dormant dragon egg - Reacting to a protective dragon
🀢 The Marriage Without Exit - What Stays - You thought you could leave baelor targaryen. you had the lawyer, you had the papers, you had every reason in the world. what you didn’t have was any idea how far he was willing to go to make sure you didn’t.
🀢 I'm Your Man - The entire kingdom dislikes him but loves his wife.
🀣 Wearing a revealing nightgown after an argument/being apart
🀤 Another knight crowning you
🀥 Spice tolerance
🀢 The Summers He Fell in Love With You - Aerion falls in love with you more and more each summer.
🀣 A Little Bit of Skin - You wear something a little scandalous and they can barely handle it.
🀤 Lose My Mind - The things you do to cause these men to lose their absolute minds.
🀥 W.A.P. - When various characters are magically transported to the modern world, you take them to the mall in your car. Halfway there, Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion's "WAP" comes on shuffle. Your phone is locked and you're driving, so they are forced to endure the entire song.
🀢 Godzilla, King of the Monsters - In which you show them Godzilla and tell them it's a real story.
🀣 Rollercoasters & theme parks - In which you bring them to a theme park.
🀤 'Aww So Cute!' 'Get The Fuck Away From Me' - In which you find your little brother cute.
🀥 She's My Wife - While lunching in the red keep’s gardens with the targaryens, ser duncan spots prince aerion behaving like a civilized man beside a kind, sun-bright lady. bewildered by the rare sight, poor dunk assumes she must be prince baelor’s daughter, patient and too compassionate—because surely no woman of sound mind would choose to spend time in aerion’s company on purpose.
🀢 Being your lover while you’re in an unhappy marriage
🀣 Like Father, Like Son - When you give birth to a son, everyone can tell how much he resembles your husband. Everyone, apparently, except his father.
🀤 Replica - After giving your husband several sons, you finally give birth to a daughter who is an exact replica of you.
🀥 Lost Love - You return to your childhood castle with your Targaryen husband in tow for the celebration of your sister's wedding. However, a familiar face is unexpectedly in attendance.
🀢 The Dragon's Courtship - Prince Maekar agrees to take his sons to a tournament in Highgarden under one condition – Prince Aerion must finally ask Lady Tyrell to marry him. The problem is that she doesn't believe he is fit for any sort of romantic relationship and takes his courtship for a cruel game.
🀣 The Lady of the Tides - As the young Mistress of Driftmark with no male heirs of the family left, you have to ensure your position by marrying someone powerful and noble but also willing to be an independent woman's husband. Prince Aerion seems like a perfect victim.
🀤 Teach Me - Teaching Aerion how to kiss.
🀥 Cryptic Pregnancy - How they react to your cryptic pregnancy.
🀢 Resting Bitch Face - How they react to your resting bitch face.
🀣 A Younger Them - How they react to you looking so fondly at their younger selves.
🀤 The Dragon's Tempest - You’ve been dragged to the Tourney at Ashford by your elder brother and run into your betrothed Aerion.
🀢 Lovers of Lys - When he returns from a campaign with the Second Sons, he finds his lady-love waiting in nothing but silk and Lysene moonlight.
🀣 Draconic Stillbirth
🀤 Like-minded Twin
🀥 Being walked in on with their s/o
🀢 On HIs Knees - Aerion Targaryen has had a terrible day, and there is only one person in this world who can quiet the noise in his head. He goes looking for you. What he finds instead is Valarr, perfect, insufferable Valarr — and a version of himself he does not recognise and cannot look away from.
🀣 First Light - You and Aerion do your best to convince Valarr to stay in bed with you.
🀤 Loud - You've never been ashamed a day in your life. Why would you be, when they make you feel this good.
🀥 A Prize to Be Collected - After winning the tourney, aerion calls you to his chamber to collect his prize.
🀢 Flames and the Morning After - You are to marry a prince of dragon blood. Fearing for your life as your wedding night approaches, what happens when a fierce dragon wraps his sharp claws around you, leaving you nowhere to escape?
🀣 Thank You - Aerion getting off on your gratitude.
🀢 I Can’t Help That I Need It All - (II) - Prince maekar targaryen’s younger wife is the feature of many a man’s fancy in the court, but more particularly her closest kin.
🀣 Targaryen! husbands reacting to their wife hatching a dormant dragon egg - Reacting to a protective dragon
🀢 Targaryen!reader
🀣 Wearing a revealing nightgown after an argument/being apart
🀤 Another knight crowning you
🀥 Spice tolerance
🀢 How they’d react to you hold their face within your hands, claiming you could hold all that you hold dear within them
🀣 Dragon Rider - The reader goes out on a dragon ride for the day, leaving Duncan to worry about her. When she comes back, she decides to introduce the knight to her dragon-- the two things sworn to protect her.
🀤 Lose My Mind - The things you do to cause these men to lose their absolute minds.
🀥 W.A.P. - When various characters are magically transported to the modern world, you take them to the mall in your car. Halfway there, Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion's "WAP" comes on shuffle. Your phone is locked and you're driving, so they are forced to endure the entire song.
🀢 Godzilla, King of the Monsters - In which you show them Godzilla and tell them it's a real story.
🀣 Rollercoasters & theme parks - In which you bring them to a theme park.
🀤 Being your lover while you’re in an unhappy marriage
🀥 Like Father, Like Son - When you give birth to a son, everyone can tell how much he resembles your husband. Everyone, apparently, except his father.
🀢 Replica - After giving your husband several sons, you finally give birth to a daughter who is an exact replica of you.
🀣 Cryptic Pregnancy - How they react to your cryptic pregnancy.
🀤 Resting Bitch Face - How they react to your resting bitch face.
🀥 A Younger Them - How they react to you looking so fondly at their younger selves.
🀢 Fire in My Heart - Lord Lyonel Baratheon and his beloved wife become taken with the same night he'd met nights ago, offering him company in their friendship and their bed.
🀣 Being walked in on with their s/o
🀤 Loud - You've never been ashamed a day in your life. Why would you be, when they make you feel this good.
