she | 20s here to read and appreciate quiet scrolling watching the world through your posts collecting small things I love here to enjoy, not to perform
Hot as balls rn and all I can think about is sweaty summer sex with my dornish king ser Baelor breaks beds 🥵😪
Thinking about Baelor teasing his wife in the midst of a hot night (18+)
It is far too hot in your chambers, that even the lightest breeze shakes the curtains where you have the doors swung open at the balcony. Somehow the heat doesn’t affect Baelor as much, through dornish blood and his ever present ability to be collected, he can bear it. However it makes him run hot. Tanned skin scorching to the touch, brow more furrowed and eyes sharpened, and just as, if not more attentive with you.
The bed sheets are ruffled, tossed from side to side in a heap, and yet he’s still on top of you, muscles flexing as he drives into you. It’s an aching slowness, teasing and agonising in the most delicious way, because he takes his time purposefully. He works you up with his fingers, tracing over your skin so intricately it pebbles under his hands, your breasts peaked and swollen from his mouth and his touch, the heat between your thighs dripping wetness as you attempt to rub them together.
But he holds them open.
“Now now, my love. Just feel..” Baelor coos, kneeling between them as he fucks himself inside of you.
And that’s the worst part, because he can feel how much you need it, already knowing how much he wants it as well, you even see it in the reflection of his eyes. Golden amber and violet lidded and blown with lust casting tenderly over you, though hunger sits beneath it.
A few thrusts is all he gives, raising his hips just to drag his cock further into the wet heat of your cunt. And you suck him in greedily, enveloping him around the burn as you take him, hands reaching out at his ribs and shoulders to pull him closer.
He obliges.. eventually. His nose nudging your own as he nestles completely, the tip of his length reaching the plug of your cervix in one final drive. The moan you let out is guttural, punching from your lungs in a jolt that he captures with his mouth, humming into the kiss like it’s something he savours. And he does, rocking into you as he begins to move. Taking his time to set a merciless pace that has you keening and your bodies dripping in more sweat that had covered you to begin with.
“There you go, my girl. So well for me..”
He thumbs at your clit shamelessly, rubbing circles so sharp that it has you arching and clenching around him. His groans brush over your jaw, his breath sweeping at your neck as his teeth bare. And he has the nerve to only keep going, to push you to your edge like he isn’t chasing his own, like he hasn’t lusted over the thought of having got come undone on his cock since dawn.
Like the heat doesn’t even make the greatest man, your own husband, crumble being able to have his wife.
Because it does, and in the very moment, he himself can’t find it in him to repent for such a thing. Your moans fill the space, punctuated in little “uh uh uh’s” with every pump of him deep inside of you, the tip of him throbbing around the pulse of your walls. And he moves faster, not unkempt, but rougher, hands clamping down to take fistfuls of the fat of your hips, tugging you carefully back down onto him.
“Let go for me..” He rasps, skin slapping into yours as his eyes flutter, head falling to his chest before rising again, utterly lost.
“Baelor..” Your thighs seize, fingers fisting the sheets at whatever you can grab as you whine, your mouth parted. The pressure builds with every movement, pleasure coiling a hot, blinding ache in your belly and you feel it ready to snap.
“Hush, I know.. let go for me, my heart. Come around my cock.” He shuffles closer, pressing your knees up to his chest as his lips brace your forehead, shushing you in encouragement.
Just feel, just take me. Take what you need..
And you do, the tender cruelness of his voice, and the relentless stroke inside of your cunt he continues to give, it throws you over the edge. Your hands wrap around his pack, tightening around the taut muscle as you tense, orgasm wracking your body as you shiver and moan. But he doesn’t slow, he continues fucking you through it, thrust after thrust, pulling from you only to settle himself fully inside once more with a sharp groan.
“Good girl, good girl..” He whispers as his hands find your hair, bringing your lips to his in a seering kiss. His hips stutter, spilling as you pulse around him in short bursts, your chest heaving where you glow under the candlelight.
Your mind at last taken away from the heat that has only left you both restless.
Hi can you do one where the reader and baelor wake up slowly in the morning and spend ages cuddling and kissing and what ever else you feel comfortable writing. I want something sweet and romantic but passionate.
AKOTSK || Baelor Targaryen || Morning Storms.
────୨ৎ Pairing; Baelor Targaryen x fem!Reader.
Setting; Stormy morning in the castle and a plead to spend it cuddling.
Warnings; none.
Please like, comment, reblog and share with friends!! Every interaction is appreciated. I will NOT tolerate hate or bad words. Anything in that nature will be deleted.
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────୨ৎ Author’s note; i have missed writing for my AKOTSK cast 🥹 I loved this idea!! As always, I wrote what first came into my head. I hope it what you expected and enjoy!
Requests - OPEN.
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Word count; 1k
THE CHAMBER SHUDDERED BENEATH THE STORMS CURRENT FURY.- Each lance of lightening tore from the blackened heavens above and flooded the room with a white harsh glow. The chair cracked beneath my weight and rocked with every sky splitting crash. Outside, rain fell in merciless torrents, drumming against battlements and pouring across the earth in murky streams.
What had once been solid ground was now a drowned wasteland.
I reached beyond the window, yearning for natures cold embrace. The rain met my skin like a thousand fleeting touches, each droplet carried upon the winds restless breath. My hand drifted through them, weaving and turning with a measured grace, like a seasoned swordsman dancing beyond the reach of a foe's blade. For a moment, amidst the rain and darkness, I found a sense of solace.
Rain pooled into my cupped palms, each drop disturbing the fragile surface, sending tremors across the delicate water. Then, a violent crack of thunder tore through the clouds like the screech of a dragons call. I flinched, my breath catching in my throat as I snatched my hands back beneath the fur draped around me. The storms roar lingered in the air, low and ominous, and a sharp gasp escaped me before I could swallow it.
From behind, came a soft rustle, my lord husband waking from his slumber. I glanced over my shoulder slightly, enough to see the flutter of his eyes against the gloom of the chamber. "Baelor" I whispered softly. "Have I woken you?"
He let out a low, groggy groan, rubbing a hand across his face before looking towards me. "No," he murmured, "The Gods. They're restless this morning." His words lingered between us, I looked back out towards where the dark clouds rolled, and their bellies swollen with rain. After a moment, I gave a small nod, I could not wholly disagree.
When I turned back, Baelor had pushed himself onto one elbow, watching me with the faintest smile. His expression had softened and without a word he held out his arms to me, a silent invitation to leave the storm outside and come back to him.
A smile stole across my lips before I knew it, and a soft laugh escaped me, born of nothing but simple happiness. I sprang to my feet and, with more joy than dignity, skipped the few steps between us before throwing myself upon the bed and into his waiting arms. "What is it the gods could be angry with?" I murmured against his chest. "We have done no wrong."
His hand came to my cheek, gentle as a feather and tipped my face upwards until our eyes met. "Do not fret, my love," he said softly. "I do not believe we have earned the gods displeasure. There are those I could name who have stained their souls..but us?" He smiled, small and certain. "We have known nothing but our love."
Silence lingered between us once more, broken only by the faint shift of furs and the steady breath of the cold beyond the walls. Baelor's grip tightened, drawing me nearer, as though the world outside the blankets and warmth had no claim upon us here.
His eyes closed, and for a moment, he seemed a man unburdened. "Does this mean we might linger here a while longer?" I said at last, my voice low against the stillness as my hands idly smoothed the thick spread of furs.
"And my duties?" Came a reply.
I exhaled faintly, smiling wearily "what of them? I do not think any duty will be served in weather such as this."
He remained firm, though his voice carried the steadiness of habit and oath. "I am the King's hand, my love. Weather bends not to me, nor time. Duties remain whether the world freezes or burns."
Without warning, I shifted, settling astride him as my knees pressed into the feathered mattress. His eyes flew open at once, surprise giving way to quiet curiosity. I found his hands before he could stir, weaving my fingers through them and guiding his arm gently above his head until they rested against the carved oak of the beds frame.
A faint smile tugged at my lips. "Are you truly denying your wife of simple pleasures?" I asked. "I do not wish for much, not jewels nor castle, only a few moments of your precious time."
He answered only with a low hum, the corner of his mouth curling into a knowing smile. His lips parted, no doubt to speak some clever retort, but I silenced him before a single words could escape. "Surely even a son of the king can spare his wife that much?"
For the briefest heartbeat, surprise flickered across Baelor's face. Then, with a laugh warm enough to banish the morning chill, he slipped free from my grasp. In one swift motion, his arms swept around my waist, drawing me close as though I weighed no more than a cloak. The world spun before he tumbled us both into the feather stuffed mattress, him now looming above as the blankets swallowed me whole.
His brow raised, mirth dancing in this eyes. "Who am I," he murmured, "to refuse my wife, when she has asked with such grace?"
A soft laugh escaped me. I raised my hands to cradle his roughened face, my palms brushing against the coarse stubble upon his cheeks. Raising upon one elbow, I pressed a tender kiss to his lips.
He answered it without haste. For a lingering moment we remained together, neither eager to part. At last, Baelor let himself fall back upon my side of the bed, the mattress sighing beneath his weight as the warmth of him lingered close beside me.
In all our merriment and play, I had near forgotten the cries brewing beyond the castle walls. Then, the heavens split asunder with a blinding bolt, and the thunder that followed shook the very stone beneath us. The bed trembled, and despite myself I flinched, startled by the fury.
Baelor gathered me close without hesitation, wrapping me in the warmth of his embrace. He pressed a gentle kiss atop my brow. "Fret not, my sweet," he murmured. "No harm shall come to you whilst you rest in my arms. Between the furs, you are safe. I shall remain by your side for as long as you desire."
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Previous short - Practice, Dunk and Egg (!Targaryen Aunt)
a/n: thank you my friend, hope this was sweet enough for you! (I may have gone a couple words over 1k, but I’ll get better!)
Dryer Cycle (Fluff)
Modern Baelor Targaryen x F reader
”this isn’t a habit of mine…” he informed you, for likely the fifth time, since leaving the cafe and traveling the two blocks back to his townhouse.
“I’ve gathered that,” you laughed slightly as he fumbles momentarily with the keys. The line between his brows told you that he did not normally struggle with this task. So he was a bit flustered? Earlier you’d explained away him nervously tapping at the side of his latte as a personal habit, not wanting to jump to thinking you had some impact on him. Now you were reconsidering that. Especially when his eyes cast over at you and his fingers twisted the key the wrong way before he corrected things: “Though if you were capable of manipulating the weather to get your date back to yours that would be quite the superpower.”
“Sounds quite villainous actually.” Baelor’s hand touched between your shoulders urging you to head inside and get out of the rain.
The sky had just open up out of nowhere approximately ten minutes into the date that he had been enjoying immensely. He hadn’t decided yet on if the weather was determined to help or hinder him.
Baelor put his keys in the bowl by the door and took his soaked coat off holding a hand out for yours as well. You groaned peeling the cold thing off of you. He’d insisted you at least come over to his to dry off because he had been the one to suggest the table outside to begin with. He thought sitting outside might give him more things to distract himself with and that the cars would overpower the conversation. He hadn’t dated in so long he just even assumed things weren’t going to go well. Five minutes into the conversation he almost opened his mouth and insisted they head inside so he could hear you better but just as he thought it you’d sat back in the chair and tipped your head up to the sky and commented on how glad you were that this had landed on a sunny day in February His mount shut at once and he just enjoyed the additional five minutes of chatting, tuning the cars and people and the world out to focus in on you. He hadn’t wanted the date to end, even if he had felt bad about being the reason you were drenched he probably wouldn’t have allowed himself to so boldly suggest you should come home with him. It just fell out of his mouth, like a hiccup, something that his body just did without consulting him!
He got the jacket into the dryer first knowing they’d take the longest.
“That jacket getting a little dry will do the trick.” You assured him, not wanting to be a nuisance, you diddnt know him well enough yet to understand that taking care of people was a train embedded into him. It wasn’t a bother. There had been Ten minutes of coffee and a rain storm and you’d already secured a spot that meant you would never be bother to him.
“I’m not sending you out there in a soaked sweater and rainlogged socks, it’s not a problem. I’ll go find you something.” His smile was soft but wide enough that it showed all of his front teeth and for some reason that settled you.
“okay?” He confirmed and you looked around his place before nodding in agreement. “Okay, it’s just back here.” He said leading the way down the hall to his bedroom.
Baelor opened his closet and glanced at the rack before looking at you as if he was trying to figure out what the best thing for you to wear might be.
“the pants might be a bit big.” He said as he handed over some sweats. “But they have a draw string.” He placed them neatly in your arms and then took a grey sweater off a hanger: it was soft and had four buttons at the top of the chest so it would be modest. He did not want you getting the impression that he was trying to be some pervy guy.
“thanks,” you pointed to the bathroom and he nodded you to go ahead. While you were in there he stripped his soaked clothes off and put on new ones. When you came out of the bathroom he was sat on the end of his bed putting a sock on.
“the draw string wasn’t helping much.” You admit holding out the pants for him to take. Luckily you’d wore very regular underwear and so if by chance the very long sweater came up a few inches he’d not be flashed due to a thong.
“whatever your comfortable in is fine.” He assured and stood up quickly after securing the sock up around his ankle. He was trying not to let you see how affected he was by seeing you in his clothing. How your figure filled out some parts and that fabric pooled in others.
“let me fix those up and we can attempt a at home coffee?” He had nodded to the sleeves that hung a few inches past your fingers at the moment.
“that would be nice.” You smiled watching his hands gather the fabric and then nearly fold it in until it rested snuggly halfway up your forearm.
“I can be quite the barista.” He joked.
“good, I can probably drink a few of your masterpieces while the dryer cycles.” You hold up your other arm so he can do the same with that sleeve. This time you noticed how his knuckles moved under the skin, and how his veins produced up his arm. You swallowed before following him down the hall to the kitchen for that coffee.
You sat on a stool near the island as he got everything he needed out while explaining how he’d ended up with such an elaborate espresso machine to begin with. When he was turned to actually pull the shots you lifted the neckline of his sweater up and placed it over your nose. Breathing in what you assumed was the lingering smell of his cologne and natural body scent.
He caught you and his hand trembled a bit with the cup spilling some out on the table and you struggled to drop the shirt back down quick enough since it got stuck around your fingers. Each of you flushed and the joint nervous rambling began instantlt, continuing on until normal composure could be regained!
Some girl dad!baelor headcanons!! For my targaryen reader au.
NO INCEST (sometimes a girl needs paternal love😔), really sweet, i made this as background for a fic i have in works.
TW: wholesome dad-daughter relationship, actually beating myself on the ground while writing this, sickly sweet honestly, GRRM should've give baelor a daughter tbh
Posting this on father's day hell yah
Girl dad!Baelor who was contented with his sons, at the end of the day he had done his duty having an heir and a spare. So when, Jena got with child again he didn't felt indifference –not at all, he would always love his children– but he felt no need of going down the path his brother was going, already having a fourth child on the way.
Girl dad!Baelor who was convinced this child was going to be a boy too, as it seemed it was the only thing he sired. But then the maester walked out of his wife's room, immediately after the noises inside where over, and announced the birth of a girl.
Girl dad!Baelor who tried to act indifferent to the news (a girl or a boy. It was all the same, right?) but he couldn't pretend that his heart didn't made a funny move or that his posture didn't straightened immediately.
A girl? Not a boy like he expected.
Girl dad!Baelor who walked into the room, the smell of incense and the grusomeness of birth gretting him, and as he crossed the few steps to the bed where his wife laid he couldn't stop thinking –a girl, a princess. A little girl of his–. He kissed his wife tenderly, for Jena had done a third time something he thought fascinating, and he tried so hard not to stare at the bundle in her arms. To not seem so eager, so fascinated. It worked until Jena raised her arms up.
Girl dad!Baelor who felt like he was seeing a baby for the first time. He knew it was irrational, he had children already, he had had his fill of babies –both his own and his brothers'– but this felt different; this wasn't a boy he could train in swordfighting or put the pressure of the Realm on, this was a girl –a princess of the Realm– he was supposed to see being taught needlework and table manners.
He did not know what to make of it.
Girl dad!Baelor who delighted himself with every single thing his infant daughter did.
"Oh, look at her eyes, Jena, they're so big."
"Look how she stares at you, Maekar. She's really perceptive."
"Let her have your book, Valarr, don't you see she's already investing herself in the intellectual world."
Girl dad!Baelor who allowed his toddler daughter to stay by his side as much as she wanted. Jena scolded him, saying it wasn't proper for a princess –such a little one, nonetheless– to wander around the Council chamber or the Throne room while important matters were discussed.
"How else is she suppose to learn?" He had said, as his eyes trailed behind his daughter toddling around his solar with something in her hand– his brooch it seemed.
"Wouldn't Valarr be a more resonable choice?" Jena retorted. And she was right.
Baelor did not answer.
Girl dad!Baelor who was always busy with his duties but still found time to spent with his daughter. A small habit he started cultivating: five more minutes during breakfast just to speak with her (even if a toddler's conversation subjects didn't go beyond ponies and endless why's), walking her back to her rooms because she had lessons with her septa, letting her nap in the cushions of the couch in his solar, or simply allowing her to play near his feet as he worked.
Girl dad!Baelor who spoiled his daugher rotten, as much as Jena's despair. She liked a ribbon in one of the Court's lady's hair? She had a box of them the next day to put on. She laughed too loud at some jester's jokes one night? That jester had a secure spot every gathering. She wanted to take her father's Hand of the King's brooch? She could have it.
"Don't you think she has enough dolls, husband?"
"One more can't hurt."
Girl dad!Baelor who kissed scrapped knees and palms after she feel while playing with her cousins. They were far too rough, as they were not only older but boys.
"Let's get you a treat for being so brave, yes, firefly?"
Girl dad!Baelor who woke up one night because something –someone– was trying to climb the bed by using him as a rung. He opened his eyes and sighed when he saw his daughter trying to pull herself up the bed, little hands pulling at the blanket, unintentionally digging into his leg. A futile attempt.
"Want to get in, firefly?" He asked softly. He couldn't refuse her, not even then.
Her face turned to him and he saw clearly the reason why she was there: her tiny face was scrunched, nose sore from scrubbing and she still had stray tears in her lashes.
"What happened, firefly?" He sat down, back against the headboard and picked her up. As he pulled her into his lap, she curled herself against him, wiping her face against his shirt.
"Bad dream."
"A bad dream? Well, do not worry about that now." He leaned down and kissed her soft hair. "You're safe now, firefly."
Girl dad!Baelor who took the work of teaching her not only how to read and write but also to teach her high valyrian. Yes, dragons were long gone and so were the golden years of their House, but she was a princess, his little girl who was still not spared of the worlds expectations.
Girl dad!Baelor who saw her grown up into herself. Toddling legs and puffy cheeks changing into long limbs and the sharper face that came with age. To say he was heartbroken would be an understatement, he was proud –of couse he was, his little girl growing everyday– but years passed by and left tiny drops of melancholy behind.
Girl dad!Baelor who, with the years, had made more time for his daughter. She was growing up, getting older and her attention was starting to get divided with her own duties as a princess, and yet they both found time to sat down every evening together. Sometimes it was tea, sometimes a quiet moment in Baelor's solar, but the time was there. And Baelor couldn't be happier.
Girl dad!Baelor who asked the servants to always have a plate of pastries just for her in his solar.
Girl dad!Baelor who was his daughter's biggest supporter. She wanted to learn falconry? Of course. She wanted to learn to paint? Everything she needed was already there.
There was no limits.
Girl dad!Baelor who loved all his children, but his heart had a soft spot for his only daugther.
Okkk, so this was shorter than I wanted but I had to post something gor father's day and baelor was the man, so here it is
summary: your marriage with prince baelor has been less than a thrill. he offers you an escape, despite his desperate need for you to stay
word count: ~12.3k (my longest fic<3)
tags: angst but also good stuff, yearning, fem!reader, names like “my wife”, medium paced burn?, briefly describes reader being accepting of her death (like… if the ocean were to take me that would be okay), i did not proof read so please tell me if something needs fixed </3
notes: i think i lost my mind writing this, i was so obsessed... please let me know if you want more
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The opportunity is here. Right now. Sail the restless waters, find your way across the Narrow Sea, never turn back. Take the opportunity to forget all the troubles, all the duties. He isn't stopping you.
"The path to the ships is just along this wall," Baelor's back faces you as he talks, voice despondent. "No guard would see you leaving if you were to go in the night."
Compassion consumes his personality, it seems. Showing you an escape route, as the idea of your absence eats him from the inside out. It is a sweltering pain, too. A pain that could not be perceived from his placid disposition.
"This is a trial?" The question begs, your mind carnally craving the answer.
It confuses Baelor. A trial?
"What purpose would I have for a trial?" He faces you now, willing to feed the hunger of curiosity even as he shoos you away.
It feels pathetic, but your shoulders shrug. "I do not know. I am only trying to make sense of your intention."
"And you think it is to test you?" His eyes are tracking you, you feel it.
"Conceivably." You admit.
The prince, being greatly knowledgeable on many subjects, has yet to figure you out. He enjoyed the search for your being, though. Learning the things that make you tick, make you laugh, make you smile. You had not done much of that as of late, though.
While it may not be so sweet to learn of the bad as it is to learn of your honey coated laughter, Baelor craved to be versed in anything involving you. It occurred to him, early on, that you did not have that same craving in him. Feasibly, you may already grasp the concept that is him. But he knew the truth.
"You professed that you would flee if given the opportunity," he reminds you, walking around to give you space for your considerations of departure. "Inasmuch as, I have been pondering the possibilities of your… freedom."
The word is not uttered with spite, or fury, nor unknowing. But with hurt. It had maimed his heart to hear you talk of liberation, as if you were some trophy predator mounted on cold castle walls and left to collect dust. This is the conclusion he came to always in the end.
"I will not keep a wife that does not want to stay." Baelor says it more candidly. "If it is truancy that will bring your life happiness, then I had to think of your way out."
It is genuine, as it always is with him. It damages your heart too.
"How can you offer me this?" You search his lovely, haunted eyes.
Only his tongue answers. "How could I not?"
Of course. Baelor calls out your woes, refuses to let you cower beneath a rock. He may wish that you could stay, that you love him. A wish is not equal to reality, he knows.
You falter, one foot catching you in a quick step forward. Air catches your lungs, tugging them forward too. Leave, the winds whisper in your ears.
Feasibly, embarrassment stops you. The thought of being recognized across the water, 'How could you be such a coward?'. Being taken by the arm, tossed back across the sea to face everything you tried to abandon. Be forever known as the woman that ran from such a unique, rich lifestyle.
Try again.
Fine, it is his gaze. If you face him, he will surely have disappointment seeping from his very being. Judgment of your short comings. Baelor is the best of the dragons, after all. He had faith you might make it, but you would be failing that if you left.
No.
It is the Seven, then. Ocean waves thrashing against the stone, warning you against the escape. How can one deny the storm that makes way? And who would be fool enough to tread waters the Seven were manipulating?
Just fucking say it.
"Tell me to stay." You command.
Standing in his place now, eyes scanning along the route he has revealed, you cannot face him. He does not shy away.
Baelor speaks softly, "I will not. Not anymore."
A tear falls. "Why?"
He cannot answer. All you hear is the crashing of the violent sea. Thunder rumbling beyond the water's edge. Winds howling against the cold castle's walls.
It is possible he cannot find reason. What did it matter? Come, go, stay, leave. Your creativity concludes; Baelor's life will go on. You are not his wound to heal.
"You would not listen." The voice of reason finally stands out. His voice."Nor should you, if it is a betrayal to your heart."
Anger comes to you so easily, with equal amount of ease that surety came to him. Idealistic words find him so freely. He never wills them, never puts his palm out for their retrieval. They just… spill from him. Yet you stumble over yourself, emotions too high.
"You want me to go, then?" You face him, your eyes still water.
"No." He is still certain.
His face does not hold the gaze you had so feared. No trace of disappointment. No telling of judgment, and certainly no doubt. As if he knows how all of this goes. If only he felt that internally.
You laugh, "You puzzle me, my prince."
He does not laugh. "Perhaps I can provide clarity?"
Perhaps. Though, you suspect it will all end with a deeper uncertainty. Every conversation you have with the Prince Baelor Targaryen ends that way. A pit growing in your stomach. Large enough that it took over your heart, too.
"You will not tell me to stay, yet you do not want me to go?" You gesture helplessly. "What sense am I to make of that?"
"I never asked you to make sense of my emotion. I believe it is you that needs help doing so, yes?" His calmness irritates.
"You insult me now?" A sniffle. You discern he is right, but ration was not finding you. You would not allow it to.
"I am no willing participant of your insecurities." Baelor shakes his head, but stays right where he is.
"My insecurities?" You do allow fury through.
He just looks at you. His eyes sear into you, but his gaze holds yours with such care. It is nauseating. Everything else is background noise when he looks at you this way. You hate it always, but most of all now when you are trying so hard to be angry with him.
He speaks carefully, knowing he is treading a fine line. "You puzzled me too, for quite some time, you know?"
"Ah, yes. Me and my insecurities."
"Yes," he admits with the tilt of his head.
Your jaw clinches as the salty air grips your throat. He allows it to choke you. You do too. There is nothing Baelor Targaryen says without reason, and it might just do you well to listen. Part of you knows you are only listening to have something to bite back with.
"I have been trying to understand you." Baelor makes it sound pragmatic. "I do believe it takes exploring insecurities to truly understand a person."
This peaks your curiosity. "And what conclusion did you come to?"
"None."
What?
He said it so modestly, with his lips turned down in a dramatic frown. He has no intention of hurting you. Your shoulders relax, and Baelor rolls his head as if he is centering his thoughts. So much of your time has been spent knowing one another that it is easy to forget how much of him remains a mystery to you.
Eventually, he shrugs. "It was a fruitless effort, as I do not have access to your wits, and you are unwilling to speak with me."
"We are speaking now."
"First time through the week, which we are well past half way through."
He is right again.
Seeing it now, he is only speaking his observations. If they hurt, it was of no fault but your own.
You bade him to go on with a slight upturn in your chin. He reads you with ease.
"You wish for me to make you stay, but it is not of my nature. Perhaps…" he offers a palm. "Might it be you presume that if I command it, I would be every bit as awful you had wished me to be from the moment we married? Then you would have reason to run."
Your knuckles ache as you squeeze your fingers into a fist. It is undetermined who you are angry with now. He breathes in, fingers curling back into his palm and falling to his side again.
"Or if I say 'go', I am every bit as good you had hoped before we married, and you would be permitted to leave?" He is making known, his wandering intellect. "I do not suggest you need my permission, Seven know you will do what you please. It is only the theory I have run through my mind."
Your lips feel cracked. You leave them. "You ponder this deeply over me?"
"Of course I do," his hands go behind his back. "You are my wife, my love."
The name holds your heart hostage. Using it almost feels to be a trap. It certainly would be one, if you were not so well informed of his qualities. Some parts of him are not so mysterious. You have spent years bouncing between the lives of one another, after all. It is how you are sure that, to him, these are all simply facts of life.
"Then why do you not tell me to stay?" Your tongue wets your lips.
Baelor watches your reaction. "Why do you ask me to?"
"I do not know." You sound stuffy now.
The prince hums, nodding slightly. He is never one to prey on one's moments of weakness. Seven Hells, Baelor would not even see your crying as weakness, but as a strength to show your emotion in a vulnerable time. There is no winning with him.
"If I get on my knees to beg you," he inhales slowly, "you would either maintain a great annoyance that would drive you away, or you would be overcome with a pitiful sorrow that would force you to stay. I could not bear to live being the cause of either inconvenience."
"I would not." You finally challenge him again. You swear you see him smile.
"Would not what?"
"Run, or stay for sorrow." You explain, not sure how even these few words were finding you.
"You would not run, but you would not stay?" He shakes his head at this irony. "Then what is it you would do? Vanish?"
Droplets of rain run along the weaved fabric of your dress. It is only a sprinkle, but in time it would soak you to the bone. You had not realized how heated you had become, either, until the cool water ran down your warm skin in its reminder of your placement.
"I…" your eyes are searching again. "I might stay."
"To spare me my grief." His tone is too certain now. Assuming.
"To spare me my own," you speak with conviction.
He swallows. "And what grief would that be?"
The question does no harm to your being. You consistently remind him how you hardly have a home to miss, and the only relationship you have built in King's Landing was within hay scented walls of stables with the horses. What was there to grieve when you had refused to live your life?
"You, husband." The answer found you.
Baelor blinks, head slanted as if trying to catch sound. As if he did not hear you. With the wind, waves, and sprinkling water hitting the stone, it may be that he couldn't.
"I would grieve y—
"I heard." He cuts in.
You sharply inhale. A rejection, then. He will do nothing with this confession of yours.
Honestly, what else could you expect? After icing him out for so long? For him to weep, be overly joyed? Hold a smile as he pulls you in his arms in a grand victory! No. You deserve none of that, and those theatrics were unlike either one of you in any matter.
You didn't what to expect beyond something that will weigh down your heart for eternity, yet he still shocks.
Baelor steps closer, enough that you sense the constant heat radiating from his body. The coveted heat you so wanted to soak in from your sheets, even if only one time. The heat you had felt when brushing shoulders through the halls, and when he put his cloak over you only on that one eve. An eve you were fool enough to hold on to.
You assume his movement is for practical reasons, as the dark clouds looming over your heads grow heavier and let rain fall as quickly as your tears felt to be leaving your eyes. The rain muffled everything. His beating heart desires to be heard, almost as much as he desires to hear the beating of yours.
The rain does not muffle the sound of Baelor dropping to his knees, right there in front of you. As if he is at the Septs, head hanging in his confessions—or grief? Or… some thing you lack the nerve to recognize.
He is here. Right on the stone, water soaking his trousers with no patience. Sopping his clothing, splashing onto the skirt of your dress. Red. The color meant to represent you are his, but most days only stood for your resentment. And now? It is your pain.
"Do not go." Baelor speaks from below, decisively breathing the words.
Your head shakes, your feet trying to flee as they step away. "Do not be mean to me, Baelor Targaryen."
His hand stops you, gripping the fabric of your dress just above your knee. It is a delicate hold, even in his desperation. "Do not falsely accuse. I am doing what was asked."
"Do not do it only because you were asked. Your acts of kindness make you seem malleable." You stay in his touch.
"Let them." He muses. He did not mind to be shaped by you. "It may only be the truth."
Humidity swells in your chest with a deep breath. "You are a Targaryen, it is unbecoming."
"As is being on my knees," he cannot help but laugh. "And showing my own wife a way to escape me, whilst hoping she will refuse to run. I do not care to be a Targaryen right now, wife. I care to be your husband."
What is he saying? Can he hear the words that are slipping past his lips with such a blithe disregard? Thank the Gods, no one else was around to hear his carelessness.
"You are making a wretch out of me," your chest falls. "You are making me cruel. For who else could possibly walk away from a prince—Our future king-whilst he begs on his knees?" Your inhale is sharp, fast. It pains your chest. "I did not ask for this."
His hands frees your fabric, falling onto his lap. Sitting on his heels, he looks up at you with his palms turning to the skies. "There is chance that I took liberties, but that does not take from the legitimacy of my words. End this game. Stay."
Eyes focusing on the puddles gathering in his hands, you feel violence. Angry that he presented you with this opportunity to run, furious that you wished for him to command you to stay. What sort of command would it even be? You know that you cannot pretend that if you stay it will be for any other reason than it is your desire.
"Stay." He repeats in your stillness.
He does not move. He waits. Watches. He has practically rolled over, shown you his stomach in submission. All you must do is pet the dragon.
"What for?" You seethe. "For… for your crowning glory, and your tourneys, and and…" your head is shaking senselessly. "Your lords, your ladies, your rule?"
"For me, wife." He pushes up onto his knees again, hands landing on your hips in a careful hold. "Stay for my confession. Stay for my apologies. Stay… because I am telling you to. Just as you wanted. Stay, because you belong right with me."
Breath hitching, your throat bobbing as you swallow. To hear it, to hear him want you so plainly… it is near convincing.
His fingers dip into your plush hips, thumbs skimming, catching over the dampening scarlet fabric. "Stay. For it is me you say you will regret leaving, and I am here."
Your own fingers entangle themselves through his peppery hair, and he is more than willing to lean into your touch. The heat seeps through. It is everything you had been craving, warming you straight to your bones. Lasting.
"So are my faults." You whisper, hoping the rain will cover your voice. It does not.
"Faults follow," his head tilts back in your hand, eyes closing. Whether it is the avoidance of rain or sensation of your fingers tugging at his hair, he will not confess that now. "Here I can help you."
"You have so much to care for as it is." Your fingers flatten out, running back again.
He hums, pleased by your touch. If anything, you are with him right in this moment. "I will care for you whether you are here, or clear across the Narrow Sea. Do not think your physical absence would expel you from my mind."
Denial is no longer an option for the sorrows of your situation. Baelor's hands move up along your ribs as you fall to your knees right with him. His grip only tightens enough to steady you.
You weep.
"I wish you did not care for me." Your selfish confession spews out with your cries.
His hands smooth around to your back as you collapse into him. He holds you with finality. As if he has been waiting to take you into his arms.
Had it hurt his knees as greatly when he landed? Bruises feel like a promise.
"I don't believe I know how not to care for you, my darling." Muffling of the rain is no issue as he murmurs into your hair, lips sealing a kiss just behind your ear.
"Don't say such an awful thing." You hold him too, against the pleading of your heart.
"I wish this truth did not pain you." His confession is more magnanimous.
As his hands soothe your back, your lungs allow you to catch your breath in a stuttering reset. Why are your arms wrapped around him so crushingly? Why is he allowing it?
He needs it just as much. You don't know it, facing opposite of one another, but his eyes cry too. Beautiful as they are, they cry.
Chests rising in parallel, brushing your skin over the leather of his vest. It pulls you from your spiral just a little more. A rotten mind is something so unfair to live with. Just once, couldn't you share the burden with one another?
"I cannot go." Finally you say it with earnest. "I cannot leave you, I will not leave you."
In desperation, such words fall so harshly. They fall as if a lie, or that they are a thing to be convinced of. You are convinced.
His fingers stutter their movements on your back. "Is this said with certainty?"
It's no wonder he is not convinced. What with you pleading his command one moment, then crumbling with such ease the next. Baelor does not act as if he knows you inside and out, he has only ever dreamed that. He had to be sure of you. Always.
Trouble is, you are no longer sure of yourself. You haven't been in years. Yet still, with your eyes locked straight ahead in a blurred stare, you utter a reply found in truth.
"Yes."
—————
The walk back didn't seem to even happen. Minutes ago you were kneeling on rain soaked stone with Baelor in your arms. Now you are… here.
Arms and hands have left you, and you find yourself longing for that dragon-like heat once more. The cold of the rain overwhelms, yet the humidity of the air holds your throat hostage. How can one be shivering in such heat of a Kings Landing summer?
Lips falling open, you are attempting to regain some of your sense. The breath in fills you with some sort of hope. Salty air suddenly smells like home. I am here, it says. As if to speak the fact that… you are breathing, if nothing else.
Your hands come together, fingers fidgeting with the ring you had worn for… well, it has been years now you reckon.
Baelor had given it to you. The night you met again, for the fourth time. That time you were officially betrothed. The ring meant much less to you then than it did now.
Rain finds its path in the window of the castle's hall. The ocean still fights against the shore, and all your eyes can help to do is watch. The Narrow Sea suddenly seemed closer than it ever had.
You step closer, hand on the ledge to be coated in rain once more. There are times where the waves sound like calls. You almost want to follow.
"Princess!" A mousy gasp comes from behind.
Ah, always perfectly timed, your lady-in-waiting.
You don't bother to turn a shoulder, knowing you would only be fussed over more if spotted with glassy eyes.
"Heights have always done me ill, princess. Heights and rain, and the floor is soaked. You had better step away before you slip." She fusses anyway.
So be it, you want to reply.
Instead, "Oh, you know how I adore the waters. I could not help but glimpse at them roaring in the storm."
A truth, even if wrapped in a sheer cover.
"Well, the waters will pull you in without remorse." Her steps on the way over are chaos on the wet floor. "Come away now."
Your lips force a flat smile. She is only trying to care for you, and it is in good heart, you know. Still, her hand feels much colder than his when it landed on your shoulder.
"I'll have a warm bath made for you." Her nose is scrunched as she feels the fabric of your dress.
"No." Your response is immediate.
She looks with raised brows, as if to challenge you to say it again with just as much fervor. You have always begged her to challenge you.
"That is, I just…" your eyes squeeze shut as you consider yourself.
Don't want to wash him away? Hope to keep his warmth sealed beneath the corset? Don't have the energy or right mind for even a bath?
She does not pry, even in her disapproval of your attitude.
"Alright," she nods. "We will just get you changed for any early night." The softness in her voice is something you always fall victim to.
She reads you with such ease. That, and asks limited questions. It did not matter if you were upset for one reason or another, she just knows it is her job to support you and she always intends to do it to perfection.
"I will have broth brought up, and explain to your husband that you are in for the evening to rest. That you were caught in the rain on another one of your walks." She lacks judgment in her voice.
No trace of accusation, or pressure to expose yourself any more than you already had. Tears never seemed to finish leaving you. Your cold hand swipes them away, droplets of rain trickling down your wrist with the action too.
"Yes," your voice breaks. "Yes, thank you."
She offers a sure nod, hand on your back now as you walk together. There was no point in dragging it out when you would do that well enough on your own. Thank the gods someone just knows what to do here.
—————
He misses the cool that calms. What reminds him he, in fact, is not aflame. In all of the bursts of glory crowned upon his head by a public that craves a fair rule, Baelor often feels the burning of his skin as dragon's blood courses his veins. What he craves to soothe that fire is your touch to his palm, even if the grip was desperate.
Should he not be elated? The world would have felt so empty had you taken up his offer. His fevered blood could have—would have ruled him. Even with that flaming potential, he has no regrets of showing you a way to your own safety.
Your misery is so blatant. No one can blame you. You attribute your misery to the lack of challenge on your newfound royal status, but Baelor knows what it is. Not many people dreamed of sincerely being attached to a name that had such a weighted duty and charged council against it.
So, elation? No. Your decision to stay is no call for celebration, but he swears he can hear the ringing of bells in the distance. They sound as if they are chiming in a death march. He cannot help but feel he has led to your demise.
Who would you confide in? It certainly wouldn't be him. No, you had bolted your separate ways as soon as your foot landed on castle grounds, Baelor watching you flee. Letting you go.
What a victory this is. Standing at the edge of the entry, listening to the ocean roll just behind him. Alone.
Indeed, Prince Baelor has had a fair number of successes within his life thus far. Well known, well respected, well received. As he travels, hands oft reach up to him as they beg for his kindness, his generosity, of which he always gives. These qualities that he is so sweetly known for were going to kill him, he sees that now. Or worse, leave him lonely.
Amazement still comes over him at the thought of a lonely prince. How could one be so lonely when there was always someone. Someone to fetch his wine, someone to hunt his boar, someone to attend his feast, someone to beg his aid, to entertain his boredom, to mask his sorrows, distract his aching heart, remind him that there is something greater than the breaking of his own soul. How dare he be so bold to feel sadness?
To fault you for rejecting the same fate of meaningless companionship for yourself would have been overtly wrong. For Baelor to reject his birth-given right is an entirely different problem. He thinks, in truth, you are wise for wanting a way out. Get away before you find yourself neck deep, surrounded by a crushing pressure to be one of the few good people of power within the kingdom.
Your ambitions guide you elsewhere, he sees that. Inner personal ambitions of the arts, the world, the soul. Baelor cannot fathom keeping any person from their true life. Least of all you. Who is he to do such a thing?
The one to marry her, tethering her to a very public, permanent position. It is unacceptable. The truth, no matter how much it may wound, persists. This is no thing to be written on the pages of his achievements. The truth lays— Prince Baelor as been abandoned by his own wife, even as her heart beats within the same walls of his own.
"What the fuck are you doing?" The harsh voice of his brother pulls Baelor free of his mind.
Back to it, then.
He inhales, posture correcting and fidgeting fingers forced to be still behind his back. "Just watching the storm consume the sea."
Maekar scoffs, looking out at the horrid sight. "The rain seems to have consumed you. Why in the Seven Hells are you standing around in soaked garments?"
"Oh, you know how I ponder." A friendly smile.
His brother scowls. Of course Maekar knows. Most days it wouldn't bother him to listen, but he was feeling particularly self-interested as of the last hour. Baelor is grateful for the lack of care and notice this time.
"Get changed for supper." A smile of pride spreads across Maekar's face. "We will be having venison. Finally caught that bastard that has been slipping away. Not quick enough it seems."
"Ah, congratulations." His hand falls to his little brother's shoulder, stepping side by side as they made their way. "Tell me of your hunt."
Distract me. Even if it won't work.
Maekar's pride washes in, volume increasing as he tells his tale. His hands move with the story, too, once he is comfortable enough in telling it. It is easy with his brother.
Baelor laughs heartily when expected, asks for the perfect details at the perfect time. Of course, he teases his little brother as well, nudging his shoulder and earning a coltish push back. The perfect listener.
His eyes show less perfection. Or, more specifically, his gaze shows less perfection. It trails along the stone floor leading deeper into the castle walls. Taking in the rough surface splattered with careless drops of rain. Then… his gaze is taking in a trail of it.
Rain, smeared on the floor with haste. Your rain. His mind is so easily persuaded to think of you again.
So his eyes follow the reminiscence of your steps, imagination filling in the portrait of your pace. Maekar was plenty pleased hearing his own tale, too taken by himself to notice he was losing Baelor. Even if he had been caught, Baelor could not mind.
He follows on, thankful you left a trace of yourself behind. Whether intention was entirely there, or completely lacking, he had to know. Curiosity is quite consuming.
Especially upon seeing a puddle ahead. There are several steps to go, still, before reaching it on their stride. This gives his imagination time to conjure.
Had you considered turning around? To him? Were you stopped in your tracks to think of the consequence if you went? No. More likely he had overwhelmed you. You must have stopped to catch your breath, regretting your choice to stay.
Yes, he thinks as his foot lands right next to the water. Regret begged you to freeze. Called you to the window, asked you to look out to the sea and reconsider.
The window. He sees it now as he passes. You had stopped just at the window? Had you been looking out it, imagining the world that you had denied? Cursing him in your rightful vengeance? Hoping the storm would take you?
"And THUMP!" Maekar's voice crashing through, so loud that Baelor jumps. "The loudest crash you ever heard! The beast just fell!" He laughs, arms flaring out at the recollection of his victory.
Baelor's eyes break from the puddle, forward seeking once more. "You must have been quite pleased with your capture."
—————
"Your wife will not be in attendance, my prince." Your lady in waiting repeated.
"Yes, I heard." Baelor hummed. He hadn't heard, actually. Or… had not wished to. "Is she ill?" He questions, hoping for any scrap of information you had allowed the woman to share.
"Trying to avoid illness, more so." She has a pleasant presence. "You know how she enjoys her walks, but she was caught in the storm. She stayed in her dress for a bit too long, likely lost in watching the sea."
Her practice response is flows with such ease. The perfect cover. Better than the words that spilled from Baelor when his brother had asked. It was truly one of his most lacking performances.
His reaction now is no performance. "Then I should check on her, to be sure she is resting."
Gods, were you going to fall ill due to his own idiocy? He would never forgive himself. He had caused you enough trouble as it was, let alone to be the reason for your sickness.
Baelor is already moving, readying himself to be at your side. Hands smoothing over his clothing as his mind spirals over you once more. What would you need in a moment like this? For a possible illness?
"Oh," your lady murmurs to herself for a moment. Then, "That is very kind of you, my prince. However… should your lady be ill, you would not want to catch the same."
Baelor shakes his head, eyes darting about the room for… something. "Nonsense, it is my duty."
He hears a sigh from her, thinking little of it. For him to be sick would only cause disruptions to the ones around him, it is a partial reason for his tedious self care. He hates to be a problem for others, but now he had you to consider.
The room seems so boring, lacking any of the things that might interest you. It makes sense, being Baelor's study for his duties. Still, he makes a note to make it more inviting for you in the future. Everywhere he looked he considered how the hollow, haunted spaces could be cleansed just for you.
Ah, yes. A book would suit for your circumstance. A distraction from the treason your princely husband had nearly drowned you in. His steps guide him to his shelves, flickering through the options with a finger hovering across the spines. Most are stories of history. Tales of traveling men, pushing their way to places they did not belong. But there is one—
The sweet voice of your lady tries once more. "The princess asked for you not to trouble yourself, my prince. She truly just needs an evening in. She will be right back to herself come morning."
He fully picks up on the signals being thrown at him with an obvious delivery. Baelor is no fool. That being said, he is willing to play the part at his own convenience.
"I will have to remind my dear wife that I do not mind trouble when it is caused by her." He smiles down to the old book that lays flat in his left hand, right hand smoothing over the cover.
It is a rather old book now. Corners bent, edges worn, leather scratched. You would love the way its appearance spoke of its life. Likely, you would have a story for it upon seeing only the cover.
"And," he moves the book to hold at his side, beginning his walk to your chambers. "I will explain that caring for her in a time of need is no trouble at all. Rather, an act of which any husband should participate."
—————
"Is it?" You question his reasoning.
He had to have known you would not so easily accept that response. Perhaps he knew you wouldn't, and hoped you might bicker with him over the issue. You very easily could.
"I heard of Maekar's victory, your being here prevents that shared celebration. Your brother is sure to be seeking your company." You leave no room for his denial.
He came. He had the nerve. Of course he had, and likely with pure intention.
Before his intrusion, you had heard the rap on your chamber door and were thrown from your wandering mind. It was quick, ill at ease. Short after the knock, your lady in waiting rushed in, immediately closing the door behind her with a bow to the outsider before rushing over to you in her fit of muttering.
As she pulled you from your bed you both bickered at a whisper, trying to think of any way to prevent his entry. Clearly neither of you were successful at this attempt. You begrudgingly accepted your fate, allowing her to make the slightest tweaks to make you at least somewhat presentable. He is a prince, after all. It seemed that title felt of more value to you than his one of husband.
Now you are sat across him, at least having the comfort of your favorite reading spot. Your fingers work to destroy themselves as you await Baelor's response. Your nails are pushing at cuticles that were already destroyed. Your lady had tried to stop you, a gentle hand resting on your shoulder.
"I will still attend his celebration," Baelor's eyes flicker up from your restless.
That causes you to stop. Your cheeks burn at your own embarrassment. Why is it that he must observe every detail of your being? Your palms press into your lap, a less destructive distraction.
He does not press you. "While I do not possess the ability to be in more than one space at a time, I do have every right to be just a few moments late so I may check that my wife is well."
"I am fine, as you see." It pours out of you quickly. "My lady in waiting takes wonderful care of me. I am very lucky."
Lucky that she had not left you alone with him. She must have read it on you. Gods only knew how you may deteriorate if you were left again.
"I have no doubt of her attentiveness. It is something I am rather grateful for as well." He bows his head in her direction, just off to your side.
Must he be so kind? A part of your mind repeats over and over, it really is the bare minimum. Yet you have yet to see it from anyone else highborn. Not that you claim to have met them all.
Point being— he has fed your heart another slice of hope. Your consciousness will steal it away in no time.
"Then leave me to her care, and please do enjoy your brother's capture." You had tried to find the kindest way to say leave me be so I may suffer in private. "Send my apologies for my absence, and my congratulations for his winnings."
Have a congratulations for your own as well, you prick. Is that what this was about? Baelor coming to be sure you had stayed? To reward himself for being convincing enough to keep you?
Pride could explain his sudden demand to see you after being so quick to urge you away. The accusation is ill fitting, though. You may wish he was so selfish, but he had yet to ever be so.
His silence occurs to you. He only gave a simple nod, sitting on the edge of his seat as he continued his observations of you. It causes an awareness in yourself.
Your hair was damp now, having mostly dried from the rain that had poured over you. The weight of your soaked dress had actually brought some sort of comfort to your desperate soul, though you had peeled out of it near an hour ago. Now it was the weight of your blanket across your lap. The one from your home, from your grandmother. He would read into that too, no doubt.
You read him too. He had changed into something more fitting for a feast, likely whilst you were still captivated by the sea. He hated the feel of wet leather and cloth against skin, and always quietly fussed to himself about his concerns for the leather's care. It didn't do well to be wet, so you know his other boots are drying by a fire in his chambers.
While your own hands are empty, fingers somehow curled into a fist which you gently unfurl, Baelor's hands hold an occupant. A small, red leather book. It looked to be old. Probably from his personal collection, and likely his current read. What is he reading about?
What does it matter? You look to your own hands. "I do thank you for your kindness, husband. I simply ask that you extend it to those that must need it more."
Why is lying so easy with him?
"I believe you misunderstand me, wife." One of his hands smooths over his book, head tilting as he looks right ahead to you. "I am not requesting your permission to stay, or insisting that I will remain here for the evening. But my mind will not allow me to leave before I know that you are comforted enough to…"
"Stay," You finish his sentence.
He misunderstands. "I do appreciate if you would be accommodating to my request, thank you."
"No," your head dips.
Your lady in waiting's chest tightens. Why in the Seven Hells were you so freely telling the crowned prince of the Seven Kingdoms No? She would certainly scold you for this in private, and you would certainly take her scolding to do absolutely nothing with.
"That is," you allow your fingers to pick again. "I should no like you to remain here any longer, and I should not like you attempting to correct your mistake, my prince. I should like to be left alone, if only you would simply allow it."
Mistake. As if it can be summarized down to only that. Vagueness was in your favor, though, with the company hanging behind your shoulder.
"Then we will find ourselves at a standstill." Baelor is plenty capable of his possessing his own stubborn tendencies. No one but his family may believe it, but you had learned it to be true the first time you had met him.
The sea is roaring ceaselessly. It has been the entire time, you figure. You are only now refocusing back to the world around you in all of its terror. Thunder causing quakes through all of your bodies, the continued torrent of rain splattering across absolutely everything within its reach.
Your eyes sting again. How it is at all possible that you still have tears within your system, you haven't a clue. Baelor seems to have a knack for plucking them out from you.
"Your persistence on the issue is finding me with indignity now, my prince. I will be fine, and I do not think you should be taking my word so lightly." You somehow managed to choke out your defense.
Baelor does not seem so upset. No tears springing in his eyes, only a discomforted adjustment in his sitting. Did he not enjoy the tears he brought on?
"And your avoidance has always found me with a glimpse of your superiority." He rests the book behind him.
"My superiority?" You laugh, the lifting of your cheeks causing one of your tears to fall. Good. "I do not appreciate what your accusation implies, as I could never be superior to the blood of the dragon, my prince."
"Is that why you requested my command, wife?" He questions, elbows resting on knees so he may be closer to your conversation. "Because of my blood? It would have been impossible for one to flee when commanded by a dragon, yes?"
You swallow. You hadn't known Baelor to be cruel. If that is what this even was. It certainly felt it compared to any other way you have ever known him.
He continues. "No, we both know our ranks to the world, and you lack the vile nerve to commit going against that role. It is not about my blood, it is not about any crown. You find yourself superior in that you run from every situation as if you are the only one involved. You hide away in your silence, in your chamber, in your chair," he gestures to your current position. "And you do it because you can. Who will ask a lady for her company beyond the performance of her most basic duties?"
It is perplexing. He has no hint of anger, or disapproval, or criticism. He voices these things with a total lack of hesitance, but a complete presence of distress.
"You are faulting me for my lack of socialization?" The tears fall heavier now, spite adding to their volume.
"No." He pushes his elbows off his knees, leaning back against the chair.
"Then you find yourself jealous that your role matters so much more? I assure you, my prince, that being a ghost within my own life does not cause my heart to swell with contempt." It is you leaning forward now. "Do you believe I revel in the fact that when I disappear there is not a soul to notice?"
"People take notice, do not be so ostentatious." One of his hands waves away your remarks.
"Oh, yes!" You huff a laugh. "Then worse, they do notice, and they do not care."
"You believe I do not care when my own wife vanishes?" Baelor's eyebrows knit together, leaning forward again at this offense.
You scoff at his query. "Do not play some hero knight, as I cannot recall any instance of you seeking me out from my hiding."
"I have never claimed to be a hero," he holds up an impatient finger. "And just because you did not see me, does not mean I wasn't there. I was. I was there every time, whether it be myself or my sending of your dearly trusted lady—" he points to the woman you had both nearly forgotten was still in the room. "I have always been sure of your well being. Always."
Another bead of water slips down along your cheek as you turn to face your lady. While it is apparent she would prefer to not be a part of your exchange, she gives you a stuttered nod. It is true, then.
Your shaking hand lifts to swipe away your tears, hopefully quick enough to go unnoticed in all this fury. You sniffle, posture straightening. Going down so easily is non-optional.
"I am well aware of my occasional envy of you." Baelor rubs his hands together, having a guilt for his knee-jerk reaction. He feels like a child. "But I do not regret the life I have inherited either. I know the pleasures my position brings, just as well as I know the opportunities I must cease with my power, and—" he laughs quietly. "This conversation is straying heedlessly. My point is being lost."
"What is your point?" You push. "Why did you bring yourself to my chambers, knowing so well how I run from everything?"
Mismatched eyes are looking at you again. Not observing, just… looking. His eyes had darkened, the way they do when he is surrounded with chattering woes of the kingdom that he is expected to fix. One as dark as the ocean that threatened your shores, then other like the mud that had stained your dress.
Baelor's need to solve is incessant. You allow him the grace to think it over. Truthfully, you were thankful to have a moment to gather yourself just as well.
He sighs, eyes falling to the floor and fingers splaying on his cheek. There is no escaping your need for answers. He does not wish to.
"Because I wanted to thank you for staying." His palm offers up. "In your grief, you stay. Even when you run from me, I know where to find you. You must know it, too. I know that I do not do well in hiding my interest when it comes to you."
You hadn't known. You used to. Years ago, when everything between the two of you was new. When the ocean was calm, and the skies matched that brilliantly blue eye of his. When the sun felt like your friend, and the moon brought quiet nights you had shared.
"My previous offer was hazardous, I was senseless for putting you in such a position…" he shakes his head. "But I would have aided you, if it was what you coveted. I suppose I came to say that I am glad it was not your want."
There was only the winds now, and a modest pattering of the rain against the stone walls. You are angry with the Gods for their timing. The drop in noise made the severity of the situation… different. It suddenly didn't feel so violent. It feels mournful.
"Leave us, please." You whisper to your lady in waiting.
Always astute, she gives a curt nod and proper dismissal before closing the door on her way out. She not only trusts you have your situation handled, but also is aware Baelor will do nothing to harm. And, she was relieved to be free of whatever was about to happen.
Your eyes have not left his form, and his have not dared to meet you anew. "Speak plainly, Baelor. Talking through suggestions and extended speech has done nothing for us."
A sigh falls from his chest, conscious that you are correct. He feels the book pressing between the cushioned seat and his lower back. His feet push himself further back, as if trying to hide his offering.
"I dare say I have spoken plainly." He huffs. This is unlike him.
You sigh too. "Then I ask you to do me the kindness of speaking even simpler."
Glance shooting your direction through the corner of your eyes, he runs his tongue over his teeth. This is no trap. You have no intention to cage him, or for him to dig himself a pit he would have zero hope of climbing from. Each of you simply wants one thing: the truth.
"It would have broken me if you left." His confession feels too condensed, but he is trying.
"I did not leave," you point out.
"But had you," he stresses. "Had you left, I would not have known what to do with myself."
He eyes the rings on his fingers, twisting them about in the manner conducted only when he could not bare his entire mind to the world. You watch him too. He is growing impatient.
"Life would have gone on." You inhale, lifting the blanket from your lap and tossing it over the arm of the chair. It was creating an overwhelming warmth.
"You cannot say that," he disagrees.
"But I have." You shrug. "Surely you are not so self-centered to believe the world would have stopped for you. You would have mourned because it is the humane thing to do, of that I have no doubt. But you would also move on because it would be the just thing to do for those that you serve."
He just shakes his head, irritated that you are not hearing him. "It was the wrong choice of words, it seems. We could sit and discuss possibilities all day."
"Then what would be the right words?" This puts knots in your stomach again. Perhaps this would not be so easily debated.
"You told me that you could not leave me." He begins again, fact checking. "That you will not leave me."
Oh, right. "Yes."
"It gave me hope." He lifts his shoulders, ring lifted halfway up his finger in its next twist. "I have known for the last few years that you will never love me, and while it was a hard truth to accept, I did it."
"I have never claimed I do not love you. You are my husband." You are only talking to talk, whether it is true or not.
"Love is not always found in marriage." He still shoots back, though with a casualty that does not drag that issue out. "It is not a requirement that you do love me. I just regret that your life became uncomfortable since our marriage."
The arrangement was not of truly either of your wills. Categorically, you could have married into a much worse life. Baelor loves you, has shown you nothing but kindness and compassion, has given you every ounce of patience he has to offer. Most of all, he has been here, through your temper and sorrow.
You know there is no denying his statement. Your life had become uncomfortable, and you had no issue with making that incredibly known. Being highborn, you had always had eyes on you. But this? This is incredibly different.
"My discomfort is not due to you." You try your best to comfort, as hard as you find it to do.
"A farmer's drought is not caused by hand, yet I still do what I must to aid." It is in Baelor's nature. "I know you have not requested my help, but I plead you to accept it."
This is no simple ask. There is some snarling resentment in you each time his hand is offered. To accept his aid felt as if you were accepting your fate. That you knelt to the life you were handed off to, and you gave up your own will.
"I find pleasantries in my life, I do not need you to make myself happy." You cannot help yourself.
"No, you do not." He agrees. "And, if life is as you say it will go on and you will learn to accept your life as it is. Or perhaps you already have; I am not pretending to know. I just mean to say, it may not be a need of yours, but I do think it is a one of my own."
Baelor sees the shift in your posture, readying yourself to dispute. But he doesn't allow it.
"You owe me absolutely nothing." Clarity tries to find his words. "It would only be a kindness to me if you would allow me in, even if it is just a crack in the door. We must tolerate one another now, whether we like it or not."
Hot air huffs from you. This is beginning to feel like a business deal. For the last several years you had it in mind that ithe relationship might come easier if it was pure negotiation. But there are strings tethered between the two of you that have been knotted since you met. It felt clandestine at times, though you could not stomach that possibility.
"I quite like the way things are." You cannot look at him when you lie.
The rejection hits him harder than he had thought. He hadn't expected it.
"Why are you presenting me with this falsity?" Before he knows it, he is standing. He didn't know what to do with himself.
"It is not a falsity. I do enjoy my own company, the gardens here are quite lovely. There are aspects to this life that I have come to enjoy." You watch his quick steps.
"But there is a general unhappiness, you had said it yourself. Discomfort." His hands hold the back of the chair as he stands behind it. "You said we are to speak plainly. I did, so it is your turn. Why is it that you loathe me now?"
"I do not loathe you, Baelor. I—
"Please, do not shield me with another lie. Everything has changed between us, everything." His hand swoops in front of him. "Six years ago you would have married me with a smile on your face. Even if to stave off the suitors that would never be worth your time, you would have been happy in the marriage. We occupied one another's time selfishly, we wrote letters perpetually when we were apart. We laughed together!" A fit of it bursts from him, though he sounds absolutely mad.
"I extend my apologies for my making your experience so difficult, husband. Is that what you want to hear?" Your hands wring in your lap.
"I want the truth. I want you to say whatever it is I did to drive us apart so viciously." His knuckles turn white with his grip.
"You accepted the arrangement." Your reply comes much quicker than you knew it would. So be it.
"Because it made sense, I knew we could be happy." He doesn't his knowing about your lack of involvement, just moves on.
"So you believe that justified the absence of my choice?"
He stares ahead, right at you. His head is angled, though, so he can easily glance away if he gets too uncomfortable. Red creeps up his neck, heat burning him in such an unfamiliar way. He feels so cruel.
The silence he was facing you with feels insulting , aggravating, unfair. He was denying nothing, but he was not accepting any ounce of responsibility either. He just stands there, thinking.
"No, you have known it doesn't." You speak with absolute surety. "It is the reason you have not looked at me the same since that night in the field."
"That was so many years ago, we were so young." His voice is the smallest you have ever heard.
You laugh bitterly, "You do not get to blame youth, nor time. Not when you stand demanding reasoning from me for the same span."
He pushes off from the chair, turning away from you in his sudden… embarrassment? You haven't found the right label yet. It does not matter, you decide to double down on him as he had you.
"You, my prince, knew well that I hadn't so much of a whisper in the matter of our marriage. You made that decision for me—for what you call us- and you did it because you could. Because you presumed it would be no insult for me to marry a prince, a man whom had presented himself as caring and trustworthy and kind. How could I have been anything but relieved to marry the one man who had made it safe to offer for me to offer my life?"
Baelor has a tendency to hide behind his own tail when being faced by you. As if he could handle the push to get you to the edge, but the moment you bite he whimpers. You could act as if you did not understand, waste time blaming it on petty things while skirting around the truth. You have always known you hold his heart, though.
What a fragile thing it is. Rage entices you to close your fist around it, beating and bloody. The heart within your chest refuses to allow it, pulling back at your muscles with a habitual sadness.
Pain finds you with just as much ease as it had found him. It hurts to hear this perspective. After years of his begging, knees sore from kneeling at your alter, awaiting your mercy, he is finally receiving it. It is not as freeing as he had hoped.
And you, on your pedestal with bloodied edges from your attempts to crawl off the top. You are hanging off the edge, voice hoarse as it finally speaks of your woes. Your fingers are tensed, pain shooting from your knuckles with your grip.
You are seething. "No more of your well thought defenses?"
He is sheepish. "You avoided marriage for so long, I thought that marrying me would relieve you of that pressure. You knew marriage was inevitable, you spent years saying that yourself."
"You blame me?"
"No, I'm—" his eyes squeeze shut. "I just thought I was doing the right thing. Saying yes because I meant it, and because it meant preventing the possibility of some loathsome marriage of misery."
"You felt as if you were saving me, then?"
Yes.
"No." His head shakes like it will be a safeguard for his downfall. "No, no. I was only trying to help. Your circumstance was not one with time to mull things over. It was marry the woman I had spent years yearning for, or lose her to some desperate man."
"So it was to save yourself." You are relentless, it seems.
"You would have been the one married to some man you could hardly tolerate." He points out.
"It would have been impossible for me to find a match that was not miserable if it was not you?" Vitriol drips from your words.
"You had rightfully sworn off marrying some wretched man that would only view you as livestock to breed. That does remove over half of Westeros." Baelor does not like how desperation sounds from his lips, nor the way it makes him feel so ashamed. "Your family would have done as they pleased regardless. It could have been any old man, it would not have mattered so long as they had you tamed and free of their name."
The accuracy does sting. It no longer pains you to remember that your family only ever wanted to be rid of you. It was never a surprise, given the way you so publicly detested and defied expectations of a lady.
"It does not put me in the right." Baelor turns around to see you again. "I am sorry for it."
Tears had finally freed you, making their way to haunt him. His eyes are glassy, holding his grief just there for the both of you to see. If you looked hard enough you could likely see every thought held in his eyes, behind the watery sorrow that refused to fall.
"For assuming. I never should have assumed a single thing about you." His head dips into a nod. "I never should have taken your freedom, and I regret that I cannot give you back the time that I stole."
It was the reason you denied his escape, he realizes. There was no justice for what he had done. There was no undoing, or getting back. There was only getting on with life.
"You resent me." Baelor's fingers trail the wood of his chair again. "I will spend the rest of my life making it up to you, though I know I never can."
"I do not want you to make up for anything." You whisper, chin trembling.
The blanket hanging from your chair pools to the floor as you stand. It is you turning away from him now. Understanding is always your downfall with him.
"Is that why you treat me so coldly now? Because you do not seek righteousness?" He uses sarcasm.
Trying to find balance, one hand holds the back of your chair. The other runs over your stomach, feeling a very familiar sickness returning from your soul. Your eyes refuse to see him.
"You cannot make up for something so personal." Your body chills, like a fever trying to free the sick. "And I cannot stand the look of your regretting gaze."
Seeing Baelor damaged never feels natural. Be it viewing a frown brought by his brother stealing the last pie, or watching tears swirl in his eyes for the years long problems he had been the root of all along. He is not meant to be hurt.
The pressure on your chest is just a dagger now, stinging through your bones and trying its way to your heart. "I do not want your pity, I do not want your acts of forgiveness. Please, do not be sorry for me. Do me the decency of neglecting my trouble."
"I cannot neglect you." His voice whispers gently.
"I need you to, husband." Your palm tries to soothe your pain. "You must not torment me with your penitence. I cannot stand to think I have hurt you."
"I would deserve any strike you deal." He comes around his chair.
Your palm can't make the stinging fade. "I wish I could feel the same."
"This is nothing for debate. The Gods will be punishing me for my theft for the rest of my life."
Your eyebrows knit together, looking at him questioningly. "Must you be so dramatic now?"
Cheeks rising in a grin, a tear flows from the ocean blue of his eye. "The dramatics will always find me when I am talking with you. How I love to get your attention with a bit of theater."
Vibrations pacify the dagger in your chest, laughter falling out despite the desolation between the two of you. Baelor allows himself to smile at your acceptance, regardless of the way he will reprimand himself for it later. You are happy, even if only for this second.
Missing this hurt more than you knew. Having this reminder was sharp, glaring. Things really had changed. You hate it.
Air finds your lungs with less reluctance. "I have held a grudge against you for years."
There is no need for his response. It is a statement, one you both know to be incredibly true. He just invites you to say what you will.
"I think that in doing so, I have wounded my being." Your shaking hand glides over the waist of your dress. "I know I have wounded our relationship, and I am truly sorry for that because I do love you, Baelor."
A tear flows from his opposite eye now. Your fingers twitch with a desire to wipe his cheek clean. Thankfully, and regretfully, you are too far to do so. It wasn't likely he would want your touch anymore either.
You sniffle. You don't feel any less nauseous, but you feel a great deal more relieved.
"I would have married you with a smile if you'd have just asked." Your lungs rattle beneath your ribs.
He is nodding profusely, hand swiping his own cheek off. He understands. He doesn't push.
"You knew how much my liberty meant to me, and you treated it with the cruelty of assumption." Your eyes are flickering, surveying for reason. "Why did you not just ask?"
Tears cascade down both your faces, like the retreating waves of the ocean down the rocks of the shore. It is helpless.
"I don't know." Baelor is choked by his shame.
You refuse this. "Did you not love me?"
"You know I did, before you ever even paid me real mind."
"Then why?"
"Because I thought I knew, I did. It truly is that straightforward." His palms are dishing outwards.
The answer should have felt impossible when it felt as if he knew you entirely. Since the day you met him, he knew you. You offered him your whole self, bared your truths and your shames for him to take with his open hands. He accepted them.
It did not seem so impossible now. Your heart has been closed behind a door too heavy to open, and your willingness to be held in his hands had all but evaporated. Yet you love him.
"If you could have loved me then," Baelor begins, looking at you with intimacy that melts your guard, "do you think you could love me now? If we were to talk through it all, if I was to own up to all of my faults. Could you?"
It comes as no wonder that he doesn't see your love for him. You had done too good of a job holding your grudge. It felt right at the time, but now it only burns.
"I do love you, just as I said." Your head falls, looking at the ring upon your finger.
He steps closer. "But could you love me beyond some stilted act? Could you love me how you might have?"
The flickering light of the candle shines on the metal of your ring. It is a nice distraction. Or, would have been had Baelor not taken yet another step closer.
"Baelor…" you whisper, throat feeling tight.
"Please, tell me that you could." He takes a risk, gently taking hold of your cold hand with his hot fingers. "I need to know that it is possible, that I have not ruined everything."
"Of course you have not ruined everything." Your chest sinks with a huff. "Theater does not suit someone so serious, I do wish you would end the dramatics."
"I am not being dramatic now." His head dips down, meeting your eyes with his own seeing as you were avoiding him. "Please, wife. Tell me where we may stand, if I were to mend all of your wounds. Tell me that you may open your world to me once more, but only if it is the truth. I can no longer life off of false hopes and dreams."
Damn him for his beautiful gaze. And damn him for his good intentions. Unfortunately for your heart, your brain knows he means every word that he speaks. It knows that he does not say such things lightly, nor does he say them if it is not something he would be anything but guaranteed to put in action.
"I want to love you again." The final truth comes out in a whisper, hot breath ghosting over your lips with the confession.
You see it immediately. The relief that washes over him, the excitement that feeds his heart. His shoulders relax, his hands squeeze yours gently, and his eyes soften from their deep state of worry they had held for the last few years.
"I want to share joy with you, and feel your laughter rumble from your chest." Desires you had forbidden yourself to think of spill out with a trembling hand and shaking laugh. "Please, won't you love me too?"
"Yes," he cries, laughter mirroring yours as you both melt into one another. His forehead rests on yours. "Yes, of course I will. I will do it right this time."
Four eyes closing, letting the last of their tears slip away, there is nothing but delieverence lapping over the both of you. Silly fits of laughs come out with hot breath, fanning over one anothers faces. Your hand must have been squeezing his, though your grip relaxes as he kisses the back of it over and over.
"Thank you for staying." He kisses your closed lid, tears wetting his lips. "Thank you for giving me this chance. Thank you."
A slight shake of your head, your nose bumps his. This is the closest the two of you have been in so long, and your heart is reaching out for more. Hold him. Hold me.
"I am so sorry," you sob, kissing right above his thumb, then his cheek. "I am sorry for what we became."
His lips land on yours cheek too, holding place there for nearly a minute, you swore. You wanted it to go for longer. Your head follows his when his lips part from their place, causing your noses to bump again. Neither of you minds, wanting any bit of contact you could get.
"I will love you," Baelor's lips seal his promise in the corner of your own. "I will."
"Please…" you whisper, cupping his cheek, feeling the roughness of his beard over your palm.
His eyes are on your lips, tongue smoothing over his bottom lip as he considers. He knows what you are requesting. "It wouldn't be right. Not now."
"I do not care," you say it, hand going round to the back of his neck.
One of his hands brings your hand to his chest, the other rests on your waste. His fingers twitch here, wanting to melt into your body forever. He needs this just as desperately.
The heat of your breath on his lips lulls him closer, a careful, cautious kiss landing on your top lip. Your lips return the favor, something tender and a bit more lingering pressing into his lip too. His eyes flutter shut, nose pressing into your face as he goes in for a much hungrier kiss.
His chest rumbles against yours palm with a satisfied affection. It's encouraging, sending you back for another kiss… and another… and another. The tears of your faces wash together, slick cheeks brushing.
"Thank you," he says it again between more kisses.
Your fingers curl in their place on his neck, nails lightly scratching into his hair and earning another pleased sigh. You smile into the next kiss, proud. He has plenty to be proud of too. Your seeking touch, and prolonged replies of your kisses.
What you both feel to be the final kiss is held with tender care before the soft pop of your lips parting brings it to an end. Foreheads rest for just a moment as you both catch your breath and your right mind. Baelor gives your hand a careful squeeze, and his fingers smooth over to your back, pulling you just slightly closer.
"You will miss Maekar's celebration," you hum, eyes opening into his.
His hand raises, thumb swiping over your cheek to wipe off those lingering tears. "Yes… I ought to go, give you space and give him his attention."
You lean easily into his touch, and his thumb responds by pressing softly into your skin. You both know it is only a reason to give you both time. Something you had spent years wasting, but now needed desperately to sort things out the right way.
You kiss his lips softly. "I am pleased that you came."
He chases with another kiss. "I am pleased that you accepted me."
A few more pecks, and you are separated. He almost hesitates to go, his heart desperately wanting more. But he promises to return, you promise to have an open door, and those threads tying you together have no where else to be.
He does not look back at you as he exists, but he does freeze at the door. You watch him inhale, making himself taller and more sure. His foot pauses in its next step, head lowering briefly before walking out the door. A reset before reentering reality.
The waves had settled, and the rain had found its end. You tried your best to ignore that coincedence. You are not so self-centered to believe the weather depends on your emotion. Regardless, life feels calmer now.
In the silence of your bed chambers, you question what it was that could have possibly been worth missing out on him for so long. The only answers that find you are embarrassment, stubbornness, and animosity for what your life was forced to become. Perhaps the anger had been worth it. Perhaps it only made this that much sweeter to have.
The only lady deemed worthy of marrying the newly crowned king of Westeros was you, shy and scared of intimacy you must battle the court as a new wife and queen
Baelor Targaryen x Lannister! Reader
Word count: 3,900
CW: MDI, 18+, age gap, arranged marriage, fertility issues, pressure for kids, miscarriage, talks of stillbirth, angst, reader is described as having golden hair and implied as being shorter than Baelor. no other physical descriptions.
Authors note: please read the tags! fertility issues and stillbirth/misscariages are the main themes in this! this is linked with my other series pretty in pink. if you do not wish to read it all you have to know is : lady florent is married to maekar and they have two children together, Daenys and Maegella and makear recently returned from stoping the 2nd blackfyre rebellion.
not proofread cos i cried writitng this so sorry for any mistakes
Masterlist | one | two | three
212 AC, three-year time skip
“I'm sorry, princess,” the maester smiled gently, reaching for the hand that hung loosely at your side. “Some women struggle more than others,” he sighed, taking in the blank expression on your face. He had been a comfort the past few years. Master Bromwell had cared for Lady Florent after her first pregnancy, and since then had been employed fully at the red keep. You found a friendship in the man, three years of seeking his advice, his guidance in convincing a child. Three years of endless letters from your family hounding you for news of a pregnancy. Three years and all you had to show for it was a child born silent. A child you had prayed to every god that would listen for, three years of hearing Maester Bromwell say the same things in reassurance. Three years, and each time your moon blood came, each time you heard the court whisper of your fallings, a little part of you died.
“And some women cannot bear children,” you whispered, a bite to your words, “some women fail at their duties,”
Maester Bromwell shook his head, squeezing your hand in reassurance, “Let us not jump to that outcome, not yet. You are still young.” his smile remained soft, reassuring.
But in truth, his soft words and soothing smile had begun to do little to quell the anger in your heart, the fury you felt at yourself. For how you had failed your father. How the last letter he sent you before he passed was words of disappointment. How the court called you a failure and dismissed all the other words you had done as queen. Disregarded the orphan houses you had built, the work you had done for the small folk. No, everything else was so easily dismissed when you had failed to succeed at the one task that actually mattered.
“Just have some faith,” he said, as he stood slowly. Dropping your hand as he walked over to his desk. “I have been in contact with one of the archmasters at the citadel, “ he began, rummaging on his desk, “he has advised me on some herbs that may help…i took the liberty of making you this,” he presented the vile to you, “i hope it will be of use, he has advised that two drops in your moring and evening tea should help, but take no more than six drops a day” you nodded, taking the vial of green liquid and smelling it. Your nose wrinkled at the smell of it.
“I pray it works, Maester Bromwell,” and you did, you couldn’t bear to be a failure to the realm or Baelor. No matter how many times Baelor told you that he loved you, with or without a child, you still did not wish to fail him.
The tea was repugnant in taste as it was in smell. Your morning tea was ruined, and your appetite was gone after tasting whatever concoction the master had conjured up this time. Baelor watched you scowl as you drank your tea, his brow perking inquisitively as you forced yourself to take another sip.
“What is that?” He asked, taking a bite of food as he waited for your reply.
“A tea with some tonic that Maester Bromwell got from the citadel,” you reached for another sip, only stopping when Baelor reached and pulled the cup from your hand.
“A tonic for what?”
You sighed, forcing your gaze to your plate, reaching for your fork as you tried to gather the will to eat, “a fertility tonic,”
Baelor hummed, reaching for your hand and squeezing it softly, “My love, I do not want you to get stressed over this again.” Your eyes snapped to his, “we have all the time for children, and if no children come i have four brothers, and gods know Maekar has eight children…and counting,” he smiled softly, it was clear he meant to add some light to his words, but you found little lightness to the reminder of lady florent and her fertile womb. She had been your friend for years, letters exchanged weekly before you were wed to Baelor, and yet now you hated her. Not for who she was but for the mere fact that she had succeeded where you had failed. How she didn't even try for a babe either time and still got pregnant. And how you, you had tried nonstop, taking tonics, making sure you follow every single bit of advice. Whether it was fucking in a certain direction, a certain position or keeping your legs in the air for minutes on end to stop the seed spilling out. Envy ate you alive every time you saw her. When she had gotten pregnant just over a year ago, you had avoided her like the plague. Not only had she gotten pregnant so close after you had lost your babe, but she glowed. She had jested how it wasn't planned, how luck was just on her side, and it had destroyed you. You avoided her. Hated her in silence. That was until her last few months of pregnancy, where loneliness seemed to destroy her as much as her pregnancy destroyed you. You had offered yourself to remain by her side, even if you hated every second of staring at her bump.
“But the realm, the court, they all see me as a failure.”
“I don’t see you as one,” he stood up slowly, kneeling before you, clasping your hands tightly, “I will and have never seen you as one,” Your head dropped down, tears welling in your eyes. “I love you,” he spoke the words like a prayer, and you worshipped the words from his lips. “Don’t force yourself to drink the tea. If children come, they come. I will not pressure you for them.”
You nodded, your head leaning against his in your lap, “I love you,” you whispered into his hair, praying he would never change his mind about children and the love he bore you.
Three moons had passed since master Bromwell had given you the tonic, three moons of forcing yourself to drink it despite Baelor's words. Three moons and Makear had returned from crushing a blackfyre rebellion before it could even truly start. The keep was full of celebration. A feast was called in his honour, lords and ladies coming from across the realm, your own brothers Tybolt and Gerald included. The halls were alive, filled to the brim with gossiping lords, who either watched her with pity, envy or something in between. The whispers of the courts became shouts. The words that haunted you daily, of your failings, of how sorry they were for Baelor to have a wife like you.
Anxiety gnawed at your chest every time you left your rooms, your feet quiet as you wandered the hall, hoping to go unnoticed by the preening ladies. Had you not been so stressed by their gossiping, but planning the event and all it entailed, you might have noticed your moon blood was late.
You were never late, always so regular that you had little need to keep a diary tracking your cycle. You only noticed when your maid had asked if you needed your red petticoat.
Your gaze flittered over to her, watching as she pulled the dress for the day's events, finding jewellery to match. You sat on the bed, reaching to pull back the sheets. Expecting to find a patch of blood. A small sigh fell from your lips. You didn't wish to get your hopes up, but a small flicker in your heart at the sight of the unstained sheet, you knew your hopes were already sky high.
After that, you paid little attention to the gossiping ladies of the court, you had a small jump in your step, a smile always playing on your lips. You had spoken to no one, told no one of your suspicions, not even Baelor knew, nor the maester. It was your little secret. One you planned to keep until it was safe. Safe from disappointing yourself and everyone around you once more.
Baelor had noticed the change in you, and though you did not think he suspected why, a part of you hoped he did. That he, too, did not wish to ruin the illusion you were holding close to your heart, the hope you felt. But he did not know, mayhaps he suspected, he just treated you with the same love and respect he had throughout your marriage. He had always treated you the same, his feelings only escalating. His love growing fierce, and yours growing to match.
You had been hesitant the first year, eager to do your duty and caring little for the feelings that could come with it. But Baelor was a steady presence, quiet and respectful of your boundaries. Never prying nor overstepping. He embraced your quirks, how even after years of marriage, he knew you did not like to be hugged without initiating it yourself, how you would keep feelings to yourself. A practice your parents had drilled into you, and though Baelor had struggled with that, as time went on, he learned that speaking his own mind first, and reassuring the feelings he suspected, was what you needed whenever your emotions began to swallow you whole.
The change he had noticed, the change you had noticed in yourself, was how now you expressed your happiness more freely. Whereas before you smiled only behind closed doors, always guarded in public, emotions always restrained. Now you smiled more freely, a happiness noticed by the court, and how new whispers sprang from it.
One's less harsh, though still unkind.
Lady Florent, too, had noticed it. Though you were freer with your emotions around her, you seemed to wallow around her more than not the last few years. Now, however, you found comfort in Lady Florent's company once more, smiling at her children with unrestrained happiness. Jealousy faded into memory as you held little Maegelle in your arms. One hand holding her and the other your stomach as you thought of the babe in your belly. You and Baelor had discussed names in your last pregnancy, and though the child you had lost had not been given a name, too distraught over the loss and finding no name to fit your perfect, silent babe, you had both come up with a list.
Magelle cooed in your arms as you bounced her, pulling your hair for attention when your mind circled back to the list. You and Baelor had hoped for a girl, though the realm would expect a boy, a little girl to play with Maggie and Daenys. The Targaryen family seemed far too full of men these last few generations, another little princess would be welcomed.
Lady Florent sat on the floor with her eldest, Daenys. Her gaze, however, was on you, ” You seem happier,” she remarked, absent-mindedly.
You nodded, placing Maggie down on the mat beside Daenys. “I'm not an unhappy person,”
“No, but you have been saddened as of late…with the whole,” her finger circled you, or more of your stomach. Your smile dropped slightly, you knew she did not mean the words cruelly, did not mean any harm. Lady Florent had always had a more naive outlook on life, and though she had had her struggles, she was still someone you kept your own struggles from. Not from not wanting her to know, but because she had grown up in rose-stubbed gardens, with a family that adored her and worshipped the ground she walked on, guarded from struggles you knew all too well about.
“Well, that is…”You trailed off, struggling to find the words. You watched as she stood, motioning at the wet nurse to watch the children as she led you off into her husband's solar to speak privately. The door closed behind you softly. Her eyes hadn’t stopped watching you since you walked in. “It may not be a reason to be sad anymore,” you remarked softly, smiling at the smile that widened on her face, “though it is too early to say”
“Oh, don't be silly, I'm sure it will be okay!” She took your hands, “I told you not to worry, I got pregnant without even trying” It was like a stab in your chest. She meant no harm, no cruelty, but it didn't mean it hurt any less.
You kissed your teeth, “Yes, I know, I-it works differently for other woman i suppose,”
She nodded, her eyes now focused on the drawer of her husband's desk, rummaging for something, “I knew it,” she hummed, pulling out something pink. She hid it behind her back, her attention back on you, “Sorry,” she blushed slightly, already distracted away from their conversation.
You smiled softly, eager to move on, for fear of speaking of it more may make the entire situation disappear. “What is that?” Her blush deepened as she shook her head, shoving whatever flimsy material you had found into her pocket.
You shook your head at her antics, eager to follow her out of the room and away from your conversation.
By the time the feast rolled around, you had not bled in two moons, your breasts growing sensitive, and your mornings were spent bent over a chamber pot. You guarded these changes well. Waking after Baelor had left, bathing without the help of your maids. Fear of your little secret being discovered had replaced your fear of not having this little secret at all.
You were nervous to say the least, nervous over the feast of the hundreds of eyes on you throughout the night. Nervous about what could come from this pregnancy, whether anything would. But as your parents had taught you, you swallowed your fears. Hiding behind the practised wall you had spent years building. Years hiding behind.
The Lannisters had always been about appearances; their pride was always greater than the complexity of human options. You must always look your best, have practised nonchalance, to look perfect, act perfect and never show any emotion but pride and the knowledge that you were better than everyone else.
Your hair was perfect, not a hair lay out of place, with plaits at the crown of your head in the shape of flowers, red ribbon threaded through them, the ends of the ribbon flowing loosely with the rest of your hair. Your dress was made of crimson velvet panels across the torso and flowed down the side of your skirt, made of structured folds and with sleeves embroidered with intricate golden floral patterns. The body of the dress holds the golden ornate patterns.
Not a hair lay out of place, not a crinkle in your dress. You were perfect, looked perfect and matched Baelor's black and ensemble perfectly. But you felt anything but perfect. A sharp cramp hit you as you walked into the great hall. The last to arrive, bar the guest of honour, Prince Maekar and his family.
Baelor's grip on your arm tightened, squeezing you softly in reassurance, an acknowledgement that he could sense your pain.
A sharp pain hit you once more as you sat down. Your hand is gripping the table. Baelor’s eyes are on you, watching you closely. “Are you alright?” his voice low, his face was turnt towards the crowd, watching them as they feasted, but his eyes never truly left you.
You nodded, not allowing yourself to speak. You clenched your jaw, willing the tears that threatened to leave your eyes to stay put. Cramping was normal, you told yourself. Entirely normal. And that was the mantra you repeated, even as your eyes glazed over, the sound of the feast becoming nothing but background noise, the rounds of lords and ladies that came to greet them became a blur. The repeated greetings leave your mouth with little thought, little motion in your tone besides practised politeness. Baelor's hand gripped your thigh tightly. Squeezing it in reassurance that he was both there and could tell you were in pain.
He reached for the lemon cakes, your favourite food for when your moonsblood came. A food he knew to send to your chambers whenever it came, knowing you would devour the plate in no time. And your heart broke that that was what he thought. That you hadn’t told him you were pregnant, and that the pain was not from your moon blood, but your recurring nightmare.
Tears welled in your eyes as you felt another cramp wash over you, the feeling of something trickling down your legs. You tried to ignore it, to listen to whatever Aelinor Penrose spoke of as she sat beside you. But when your eyes turned to Baelor, locking in his presence, the dam broke.
Your usual practised efficiency was long gone as you slid your chair back against the hard tiled floor of the great hall. Standing up abruptly and ending whatever conversation Aelinor believed you were having.
Everything seemed to move in slow motion as you stood, as your eyes locked with Baelor. Your face filled with silent agony. You shook your head when he moved to follow you through the small, hidden door behind the iron throne.
You moved quickly, and yet every second seemed to take an hour as you pushed your way into the hidden room. Every second, taking every bit of willpower you had as you pulled up your dress, reaching between your thighs and feeling the blood that dripped from you.
You barreled over, a scream tearing from your lips. Your cries filled the room. Your tears falling in a bucket fall as you reach for anything to clear up your blood, brushing against your skin, wiping it away so roughly you were surprised you hadn't broken your skin.
The door opened behind you, strong arms stopping your hands. As they brushed away the remnants of your miscarriage. The word, even spoken in your mind, seemed to destroy any restraint you had left.
“No, no, no,” you repeated, staring at your bloodstained hands, as Baelor reached for your face, pulling it up to look at him, his arms wrapping around you, holding you tightly and not letting you go as you sobbed into his chest.
Soft kisses were pressed to the crown of your head, whispering his soft words of reassurance and love. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” he breathed, rocking you as you stood, pressing another kiss to your head.
“My hands,” you cried, “the blood, the blood” you whispered, your tears quieitng slightly as you leaned into him, “I can’t, I can’t do this Baelor,”
“It’s okay, i promise you,” his hands gripped the side of your head, forcing his face to be level with yours, forcing you too look at him as he spoke, “you do not have to do anything, i love you” tears welled in his eyes as he spoke to you, as he stared at your dress, that was still caught above your hips, at the blood the stained your thighs, “i love you,” he repeated again, “it’s okay,”
“It’s okay?” you repeated, your eyes wet, your face entirely flushed.
He nodded, covering your face in kisses until the only place left was your lips. He brushed his lips against yours softly, not lingering, but nevertheless full of love, “We will get over this.”
“I can’t…I can’t do this again, I can’t keep trying and failing, I can’t go through this…I can’t take another loss.”
A tear fell down his cheek, “Oh my love,” he cooed, “I never want you to go through this again, I can’t lose you, nor can I face another lose” he breathed, caressing your cheeks as he placed a kiss against your forehead.
Your eyes closed, a grimace painting your face as another cramp tore through you. “It hurts,”
“I know,” he cooed, leading you softly to a chair, placing you in his lap as he held you through the pain. His face fell against yours, his words of reassurance never once stopping, as his hand rubbed soothing circles against your stomach. Distracting you from the pain, your eyes never once looking down.
He held you there for the rest of the night, rocking you and keeping you close, even as sleep overtook you. He never once left your side.
You were an empty shell of yourself after that night. The pain took a few days to subside. Baelor not once left you as you recovered, his hand holding yours firmly as the maester examined you, and he gave you a tonic for the pain.
But after three days, duty forced the king away from you. And the feelings he had worked so hard to distract you from came flooding out. But not in tears, in anger or frustration. In emptiness, in nothingness.
Maids still went about their duties as you lay in bed, the covers pulled over your head, hiding from the world. But the world seemed to hate hiding from you, the maids spoke of the wshieprs surrounding the keep.
A demand that the king declare his succession, his heir.
An heir you failed to provide. An heir you and Baelor had decided you would not try for again, could not. For fear of another loss, of both a babe, and what that loss would do to you.
“The council are demanding he name an heir, or call a great council,” you heard them whisper, just loud enough for you to hear as they placed the clothes from the laundress away.
“The realm needs stability,” the other made spoke, you could feel her gaze on you even beneath the layers of blankets, “I do not blame them.”
“He should name Prince Maekar, “
“There are two brothers between them,” the maid dismissed.
“Perhaps but one childless, the other…is Rhageal”
You heard a small laugh at the maid's words, “and Maekarr has no shortage of heirs.” You flinched at the word.
Tears pricking at your eyes, you had failed the realm, failed your one duty. Failed, and now the stability of the realm would be called into question.
At least if Makear were named heir, his endless children would succeed him, his endless children witLady Florentnt. She grimaced at the thought of her. How she had succeeded where she had failed. So effortlessly. So perfectly.
They were the same age, and yet she had everything that you didn't.
Children, heirs, stability to the realm.
At least you had Baelor. Your husband, your love. He held you so dearly every night, so close as if you might disperse in the blink of an eye. You had him if nothing else.
He had given you everything.
And you had given him nothing, nothing warm body and your own heart. But to the realm that was worth nothing. You were worth nothing. A small footnote in history, the very words you had heard a maid say last week.
Cries racked through your body the rest of the day, only stopping when Baelor got in bed and held you closely to him.
Speaking nothing of the day he had had. Not speaking of the debates, the arguments and the declaration he had signed, naming his successor. And the fact that he had to accept the fact that his youngest brother would be his only heir.
Oh my god, I love it! There's so little fanfiction about female infertility, and even less about it in such a precarious position, under such pressure from the whole world... It's so realistic and tragic because, despite all of Baelor's reassurances, the reader remains a product of her time and environment, and seeing her destroy herself and drown for a child is so painful and so touching. Thank you so much for exploring this subgenre and especially for not giving it a happy ending. Even though everyone, including me, absolutely wanted one because Baelor and she are so sweet.
I want Baelor spiraling about the mere concept of lady in waiting!reader getting marriage propositions. I need him having 27 panic attacks.
This request was totally sending me— 😭 my poor man would've loved a xanax
done considering
Pairing: Baelor Targaryen x f!lady in waiting!reader
Warning(s): Baelor has anxiety (prob), but it has a happy ending!!
The first proposal arrived on a Tuesday.
Baelor knew this because he had been in his mother's solar when the messenger came — had been in the middle of a sentence about grain yields in the Reach, which was not a subject that had ever previously caused him difficulty — when Myriah had accepted the sealed letter, read it with the pleasantly neutral expression she deployed when delivering information she intended to observe him receiving, and said: "Lord Ambrose Celtigar has written to your father regarding a match."
Baelor had finished his sentence about grain yields. He had said I see with the composure that had served him in war councils and throne rooms and every demanding context his life had presented him with. He had excused himself at a reasonable hour and walked back to his solar and sat down and looked at the wall.
Lord Ambrose Celtigar was thirty four years old. Not unpleasant looking, by general report. He held a respectable seat, had no significant character defects that Baelor was aware of, and was by every measurable standard a perfectly suitable match for a young woman of good family and accomplishment.
Baelor sat with this information for some time. He thought about it with the same thorough attention he brought to tactical assessments and pieces of legislation that required careful consideration. He thought about Lord Celtigar's seat and Lord Celtigar's reported appearance and Lord Celtigar's presumably functional absence of character defects. Then, against his better judgement and with the inevitability of a man who has been trying not to think about something for several moons and has finally encountered a reason he cannot maintain the effort, he thought about you. He thought about the particular way you laughed when something actually struck you as funny rather than merely requiring a polite response. He thought about all the moons of carrying something carefully that he had been meaning to do something about and had not yet done something about, and he sat with the full uncomfortable weight of that gap until the candles had burned considerably lower than when he sat down. Then he went to bed and did not sleep particularly well.
The second proposal arrived on a Thursday. Ser Willam Waxley — twenty eight, well regarded, good family, reportedly personable in the specific way that made Baelor briefly and irrationally consider what reportedly personable actually meant in practice and whether it was a quality you would find appealing, which was not a line of thinking he pursued to its conclusion because he had more self-respect than that. He received the information from his mother over correspondence review, said I see, finished his tea, and continued with the correspondence. It took longer than usual. He kept losing his place.
The third proposal arrived the following Monday, and Baelor heard it from one of his mother's ladies who mentioned it to another in passing while crossing the training yard without any awareness that he was within earshot. Lord Patrek Mallister — young, wealthy, the kind of man described by other men as having prospects, which was a phrase Baelor had always found vague and now found specifically aggravating. He held his sword incorrectly for the remainder of the session. His master at arms observed this with the expression of a man who had seen many things in training yards and had made a professional decision to comment on none of them today.
By the second week Myriah had stopped pretending she was telling him incidentally.
She told him directly now, with the pleasant composure of a woman delivering information she had every right to deliver, and watched his face with the specific attentiveness she had been applying to him since he was approximately four years old and had not, in the intervening decades, become any less accurate. "Lord Rowan," she said one Wednesday morning, in the same tone she might use to note the weather. "He sent a very thoughtful letter. Apparently he is an articulate man — the letter suggested genuine consideration of the match. He mentioned his gardens specifically. Considerable, by his account."
"How nice for him," said Baelor, examining his correspondence with the focused attention of a man who was absolutely reading every word and not at all conducting a parallel and involuntary assessment of whether considerable gardens were a meaningful advantage in the context of a marriage proposal.
"They are in the Reach," Myriah offered. "Lovely climate."
"I am aware where the Reach is, Mother."
"I am simply noting that Lord Rowan appears to be a man of—"
"I am aware," he said, with the measured evenness that cost him slightly more than it usually did, "of Lord Rowan's considerable attributes."
Myriah looked at him over the rim of her tea with the serenity of a woman who had already drawn her conclusions and was simply allowing the conversation to confirm them at its own pace. Across the room you turned a page of correspondence with your habitual focused attention, entirely unaware that a man three feet from your queen was conducting his seventeenth silent assessment of the morning of whether the Reach's climate was in any way a disqualifying characteristic in a prospective husband and arriving, frustratingly, at no useful conclusion.
The problem — and he had examined this problem with the thoroughness it deserved, sitting with it in his solar across several evenings while the candles burned and the city went about its business outside his window — was not that the proposals were coming. Of course they were coming. You were accomplished and intelligent and the kind of person who made rooms better by being in them, and proposals were the entirely predictable result of other people having eyes and using them. The problem was that he had been meaning to do something about a feeling he had been carrying for far too many moons and had not done something about it, and now other men were doing something about it, and the window in which doing something felt like a considered and deliberate choice was rapidly becoming a window in which doing something felt like a response to a crisis. He did not want to do something as a response to a crisis. He wanted to do something because it was right and honest and because he meant it entirely, not because Lord Rowan had considerable gardens and the Reach had a lovely climate. The distinction mattered to him. The distinction was, currently, making his life significantly more difficult than it needed to be.
The fifth proposal was from a lord whose name he forgot immediately upon hearing it, which concerned him more than anything else that had happened so far. He had a good memory. He did not forget names. He went back to his solar and sat with the wall for an hour before acknowledging that the wall had never once been helpful and he should probably stop consulting it.
Maekar found him on the battlements on a Thursday evening, which was not unusual — Maekar found him in various places occasionally and delivered his opinions without invitation, which was simply a feature of having a brother that Baelor had long since accepted. "You look terrible," Maekar said, by way of greeting, leaning against the stone beside him with the air of a man who had come here with a specific purpose and was not going to be deflected from it by pleasantries. Baelor thanked him with the composure of someone receiving a compliment and returned his attention to the city. The city, like the wall, was not particularly helpful.
"The proposals," Maekar said.
"I am not discussing this."
"You have been discussing it with yourself for two weeks. Loudly, in the sense that everyone can see you doing it even though you have not said a word." Maekar paused, with the brief patience of a man making a concession to tact before abandoning it. "She does not know. She has no idea — she sorts the correspondence and answers the proposals politely and has absolutely no indication that you are standing on battlements losing your ability to remember lords' names because of it."
"I did not forget his name."
"You called Lord Fossoway Lord Forrest twice in council," Maekar said flatly, "and his name is Fossoway and you never forget names. Do something about it."
"It is not that simple."
"It is exactly that simple. You consider things until other men act and then you consider the consequences of other men acting. Do something about it." He let that sit for a moment, then pushed off the wall and left with the decisive efficiency of a man who had said what he came to say and had no interest in discussing it further.
Baelor stood on the battlements for a while longer. He thought about Lord Fossoway, whose name he had apparently been calling wrong. He thought about Lord Rowan's gardens and Lord Lyonel Tyrell, who had not yet written but whose existence as a potential candidate Myriah had mentioned with the casual precision of someone planting a seed and fully expecting it to grow. He thought about you sorting correspondence with your focused attention entirely unaware that he was up here mangling names. Then he went inside, because the battlements were cold and the wall had already established it was not going to be helpful and Maekar was right, which was an irritating thing to have to acknowledge even internally.
The sixth proposal arrived on a Friday morning and was, by his mother's assessment delivered with a serenity that he found specifically challenging, the most serious one yet. Lord Lyonel Tyrell. Young. Wealthy. The heir to Highgarden.
He sat in his habitual chair and looked at the correspondence he was not reading and thought about Highgarden with the sustained focus of a man attempting to locate a flaw and being unable to find one. Highgarden had gardens that made Lord Rowan's look modest. It had resources and position and climate that were objectively difficult to argue with. Lord Lyonel Tyrell was, by every measurable standard, an excellent prospect, and Baelor was a fair enough man to acknowledge this even when the acknowledgment was deeply inconvenient.
You were at the correspondence table. You were wearing the blue dress — you always concentrated better in the blue dress, he had noticed this some time ago, something in the colour seemed to settle something in you. You had a small ink stain on your left forefinger from where the quill had slipped earlier and you had not noticed and he had noticed and had said nothing, because saying you have ink on your finger would have been a reasonable and unremarkable thing to say and for some reason this morning reasonable and unremarkable things felt slightly beyond him. He was going to lose you to Highgarden. Lord Lyonel Tyrell was going to take you to his considerable gardens and his considerable resources and you were going to sort his correspondence and make his rooms better by being in them and—
"Your grace."
He looked up. You were looking at him from the correspondence table with an expression of mild concern, which meant the expression on his face had apparently communicated something he had not intended to communicate. "Are you well?" you asked, and he said yes, and you looked at him with that observational patience that had always seen more than he planned for, and said he had been quiet, a different kind of quiet, and he told you he was perfectly well with the composure he had left and you returned to the correspondence and he looked at the window and thought, very clearly and very finally, that he was done thinking about Highgarden.
He stood up.
He crossed the room.
He stopped beside the correspondence table and you looked up and he looked at you — at the ink on your left forefinger and the blue dress and the expression that was currently hovering between curious and concerned — and he thought about Maekar saying do something about it with the bluntness of someone who had run entirely out of patience for watching things not happen. He thought about Lord Fossoway, whose name he had been mangling. He thought about Lord Lyonel Tyrell's gardens, which he was done thinking about.
"There is something," he said, "that I should have said some time ago."
You put down your quill.
"Alright," you said quietly, a light frown appearing on your face.
He looked at you — at your face, which was giving him its full attentive consideration the way it always did — and he thought about how he had wanted to do this properly. Considered rather than reactive. Chosen rather than pressured. He had wanted the moment to be right and he had been waiting for the moment to be right and the moment had apparently decided not to wait for him and had gone ahead and arrived anyway in the middle of a Friday morning over a correspondence table with an ink stain on your finger, and he found, standing here, that he did not mind this even slightly.
"I love you," he said. Quietly. Plainly. With the full weight of the words and several proposals in his mind and one brother's bluntness behind it. "I have loved you for some time. I had wanted to tell you when the moment felt properly considered rather than — I had wanted it to be right rather than reactive, and in attempting to ensure that I have apparently been calling lords by the wrong names and holding my sword incorrectly and consulting walls, none of which has been productive. It has been brought to my attention, with some force, that I consider things at the expense of doing them. I am attempting to correct this."
The solar was very quiet.
You looked at him for a long moment, something moving across your face through several registers — the attentive reading quality, and then something warmer and more wondering beneath it, and then something that was almost but not quite a laugh — and you said: "Lord Tyrell."
"Has excellent gardens," he said. "Yes."
"And Lord Rowan."
"Lovely climate."
"And Ser Willam Waxley and Lord Celtigar and—"
"Yes," he said. "All of them. I am aware of all of them in considerable detail, I have been aware of all of them in considerable detail for two weeks, and I would like, if it is at all possible, to stop being aware of them."
The almost-laugh became something more definite, and he stood beside the correspondence table and watched you laugh softly and found that the moons of careful management had nowhere left to go except simply — out. Released. Like something that had been held very tightly finally being allowed to exist without the holding.
"I was not going to accept any of them," you said, when the laugh had settled into something quieter and warmer. "I had no intention of accepting any of them. For reasons that I think are probably apparent."
He went still. "How long," he said.
"Longer than two weeks," you said softly.
The solar was warm and golden and entirely, completely quiet. He reached across the correspondence table and covered your hand with his — the one with the ink on the finger, the one he had noticed and said nothing about, the one he was done saying nothing about — and felt you turn your palm and close your fingers around his with the ease of something that had always been going to happen and had simply required a Tuesday and too many proposals for his liking and one correctly remembered name to arrive.
"I would like," he said, "to have a conversation that is considerably overdue."
You looked up at him with that real smile — the one underneath all the others — and said: "Are you going to consider it first, or simply have it?"
He looked at you for a moment. "Simply have it," he said.
Outside the solar a Friday morning in spring continued with cheerful indifference to the fact that Prince Baelor Targaryen had just resolved moons of careful management in approximately four minutes. Somewhere in the castle Myriah Martell set down her tea with the expression of a woman who had been waiting for this particular Friday since approximately the third moon and found it entirely satisfactory. In the adjoining corridor Maekar, who had absolutely not been listening at the door, walked away with the expression of a man who had said do something about it and had been correct and intended to bring this up at the earliest opportunity and every opportunity thereafter.
You were still holding his hand across the correspondence table. Baelor looked at that for a moment — at your fingers closed around his and the ink stain and the blue dress and the smile that was still present in the corners of your mouth — and thought that he intended to do something about that too. Properly this time. Without the walls and the battlements and the involuntary memorisation of other men's garden statistics. Simply and directly and without further delay, in the manner Maekar had recommended and that he was now prepared to fully endorse.
He was, after all, done considering.
A.N.: I have been sitting with this request for some time. Sorry for being this late, I have not been as inspired as I would have wanted to. Some people have noted that the AKOTSK is kinda dying (or dozing off) and I think I have the same feeling, idk. Guess I need to take it easy for a minute or two. Thank you all for your constant support, you are all champs <3
Based on this request. I have been putting this poor man through the wringer on this blog. He deserves some peace. Thank you always for your comments, likes, reblogs, and requests. 🤍
The dust of the Kingsroad clung to the air in the courtyard of the Red Keep, a fine, gritty haze that turned the early evening light into something thick and amber. It had been a month. Weeks of an empty side of the bed, of silence in the solar, of holding a daughter who asked for her father every morning and a son who was growing faster than the weeds in the garden.
The party rode in in a disordered clatter of hooves and harness. The banners of House Targaryen and the men of your husband's personal guard were stained with the gray mud of the road, the horses lathered and heads low. The air smelled of sweat, horsehair, and the metallic tang of travel. You scanned the faces, looking for the one that mattered.
You found him near the back of the column, riding his black destrier. The sight of him hit you with a sudden release of tension in your chest that made your knees weak. He was upright. He was alive. The relief was immediate and overwhelming, washing over you in a cold wave. You started to step forward, a smile already tugging at the corners of your mouth, but then you looked at him properly.
You stopped.
He was slumped slightly in the saddle, a posture so uncharacteristic for a man who sat a horse as if he had been born upon one that it seemed wrong, a distortion of nature. As he drew closer, you saw the way his right arm hung stiff at his side, the way he favored his left stirrup. The light caught his face, and you saw the mottled purple and green bruising spreading across his cheekbone, the angry split in his lower lip.
The relief evaporated, replaced instantly by a cold, heavy stone of dread in your stomach.
He pulled the horse to a halt a few feet away, groaning slightly as he swung his leg over the saddle. He hit the ground harder than a man of his skill should, his boots sending up a small puff of dust. He caught himself on the pommel, his knuckles white, before he straightened up. He smoothed his tunic, lifted his chin, and looked across the yard.
His eyes found yours immediately. They were vivid against the bruising. Before you could move to him, Maester Yormwell hurried across the cobblestones, his chain clinking softly, a small bag of supplies in his hand. The old man intercepted Baelor before he could take more than two steps toward you.
"Your Highness," Yormwell said, his voice low but carrying an edge of scolding. "I told you to ride in the wagon."
"And I told you I prefer to ride my own horse," Baelor replied. His voice was rougher than usual, gravelly with exhaustion.
You moved to his side, close enough that your shoulder brushed his arm. He radiated heat, a feverish warmth that worried you more than the bruises. You looked at the maester, waiting.
Yormwell sighed, shaking his head. "A blow to the back of the head," the maester listed, ticking the injuries off on his fingers. "He must rest, Your Grace. No reading, no straining his eyes, and he must be woken every few hours to ensure he has not slipped into a stupor. Bruising at the rib, likely from being thrown or the impact of the fall. It is not displaced, but it will require rest."
Yormwell reached up, tilting Baelor's head back to inspect the face. "Bruising on the cheek where the visor of his helm shattered. And the cut on the lip, which required three stitches on the road."
Baelor stood still through the inspection, his face a mask of stoicism. He looked down at you, his expression unreadable, but you saw the flicker of discomfort in his eyes as Yormwell prodded his side.
"I am fine," Baelor said, the moment the maester lowered his hands. He said it with total composure, his shoulders squaring, his voice steady. He was performing for you, standing straight despite the pain you knew he was feeling, trying to be the unbreakable Prince for the benefit of his young wife.
You looked at him. You let your eyes trace the line of his jaw, the swelling on his cheek, the way his breathing was too shallow. You scowled, the corners of your mouth turning down, your brow furrowing. You did not try to hide it. You wanted him to see exactly how furious you were.
He looked back at you, his mismatched eyes were calm. He didn't flinch under your glare. He just accepted it, as he accepted most things from you.
"The maester will prepare a poultice for the rib," Baelor said, as if concluding a council meeting. "And a sleeping draught."
"You will take the draught," Yormwell said firmly.
"Of course," Baelor lied smoothly.
You barely heard the rest of the exchange. The fear had burned off completely in the heat of your anger, leaving only a sharp, brittle resentment. He had done this. He had chosen to put himself in harm's way, and now he stood before you broken because of what? A display of valor?
The walk to your chambers was a blur of torchlight. The corridors of the Red Keep were busy, servants and courtiers bowing as you passed, but you saw none of them. You felt the heavy thud of Baelor's boots on the stone floor beside you, slightly uneven. You felt the tension radiating off him. He knew. He knew he was in trouble.
The guards opened the heavy oak doors to your chambers. You walked inside, the familiar scent of candle wax and roses washing over you, usually a comfort, now doing nothing to settle your nerves. Baelor followed, and the guards closed the doors with a thud that echoed.
The silence descended, immediate and suffocating. He stood by the hearth, his hand resting on the mantel, his back to you for a moment before he turned.
"You are angry with me," he said. It wasn't a question. His voice was quiet, gentle, but it carried the weight of a man who had been married long enough to know the terrain.
"Of course I am," you said. Your voice didn't shake. You turned to face him, crossing your arms over your chest, a barrier between you. "You were reckless."
Baelor sighed, a long exhale that seemed to deflate him slightly. He walked toward you, stopping just outside your reach. "It was the right thing to do. The hedge knight — he would have died. Aerion was wrong."
"It was not your problem," you snapped. The words came out fast, sharp as a whip crack. "Surely someone else would have done it."
"This was my duty. It is not something I can set aside because it is dangerous, or because you might worry."
You were his wife. And you were tired of heroism if it came in a box with a cracked rib and a head injury.
You looked at him, feeling the sting of tears that you refused to let fall. You took a step closer, invading his space, forcing him to look down at you.
"I genuinely believed that one of the advantages of choosing a husband of your age and experience was that your days of senseless violence were behind you. That I would not spend my marriage frightened of losing you to a tourney field, or a brawl, or some misplaced sense of honor. I was apparently wrong about that."
Baelor blinked, his eyebrows drawing together slightly. He looked at the floor, then back at you. "There is a knight still competing at six and fifty—"
"Do not," you said, cutting him off, "finish that sentence."
He didn't.
"You find this amusing?" you asked, your voice rising.
"No," he said. "I only meant to say that—"
"I care not what you meant," you interrupted. "Your young children are innocent too, Baelor. Or have you forgotten them in your quest to save every hedge knight in Westeros?"
He flinched. It was a small movement, a twitch of the muscle in his jaw, but you saw it.
"Your daughter asks for you every single day," you said, the image of your little girl's face flashing in your mind; her eyes, so like his, filling with tears when you told her he wasn't home yet. "She draws pictures of you on the floor with chalk. She waits by the window. And your son..." Your voice broke. "Your son will not remember you if you are not there. He is changing every day. He is growing, and you are out there getting your head bashed in."
You took a breath, the air in the room feeling too thin. "Who would protect them if something had happened to you? Who would protect me?"
Baelor was quiet. He didn't look away. He didn't try to defend himself with chivalry or duty. He stood there, taking it in properly. He let your anger wash over him, accepting it as his due. Finally, he spoke. "You are right."
He reached out a hand, hesitating, then letting it fall back to his side. "I did not mean to make light of your fear. I only... I acted."
You looked at him. The bruise on his face was darkening by the hour, the gray streaks in his black hair seemed more prominent than they had weeks ago. At nine and thirty, he was not old, but he was not twenty.
You let out a long breath, your shoulders slumping. The anger was still there, a hot coal in your chest, but it was banked now, smothered by exhaustion and the overwhelming sight of him, alive and sorry.
"Sit," you said.
He obeyed immediately, moving to a seat near the large hearth. He sat heavily, a grimace crossing his face as his ribs protested the movement.
You turned to the table where the basin and cloths were already laid out, prepared by the maids who knew the routine of a returning lord. You poured water from the pitcher into the ceramic bowl, the sound loud in the quiet room. You picked up a linen cloth, dipping it into the water. It was warm, but not hot.
When you turned back to him, he was watching you, his hands resting on his knees, his posture relaxed despite the discomfort. He watched you the way he always did when you were concentrating on something. It wasn't just love; it was fascination, as if you were a complex map he was learning to read.
You stepped between his legs and brought the cloth to his face.
"I missed this," he said softly.
You moved the cloth to the bruise on his cheekbone. It was spectacular, a bloom of blue and green against his tan skin. "You missed having your wife clean your battered face?"
"I missed you," he said.
You rolled your eyes, but the gesture lacked any bite. You kept working, wiping away the grime of the road from his forehead, his temples, the line of his jaw.
"How were they?" he asked. "The children."
You paused, the cloth hovering near his ear. "Our daughter is exactly as hardheaded as you are. She decides what she wants to do and won't listen to anyone." Your voice softened. "She will be so happy to see you when she wakes."
A small smile touched his lips. "And the boy?"
"While you were gone, our son started crawling."
Baelor went still. The air in the room seemed to stop. He looked at you, his eyes widening slightly. "Crawling?"
"He pulled himself across the rugs this morning," you said. "He is determined to catch the cat."
Baelor looked down at his hands, then back up at you. The realization of time passing, of moments missed.
"They get their strength from their mother," he said quietly.
The corner of your mouth moved, almost imperceptibly, a traitorous twitch of amusement. You pulled it back immediately, to maintain your resolve. "I haven't forgiven you yet," you said.
"I know."
He reached up and caught your wrist as you reached past him to wet the cloth again. His grip was firm, his fingers warm and calloused. He turned your hand over, exposing your palm.
He pressed his lips to your palm. It was a soft, lingering kiss, his breath warm against your skin. Then he moved his lips to your wrist, feeling the frantic pulse of your blood beneath the skin.
"Baelor," you whispered.
He ignored you, pulling you carefully, slowly, into his lap. Then he kissed you. His lips were soft, despite the cut, tasting faintly of the iron tang of blood and the mint of the tea he must have had on the road.
You were stiff for a moment, your hands on his shoulders, ready to push him away and remind him of his injuries. But then you weren't. Your body betrayed you, melting into the hardness of his chest, the familiarity of his embrace. You had missed him. Your skin remembered him even when your mind was still furious at him.
He shifted his hips against you deliberately, a slow, grinding movement that made you gasp against his mouth. He made sure you felt what your presence did to him, the hard length of him pressing against your thigh, undeniable and insistent.
His mouth moved from yours to your neck, finding the sensitive spot just below your ear. "I missed you," he whispered, his voice vibrating against your skin. "Every day. Every night."
You pulled back, your hands moving to cradle his face, thumbs brushing the uninjured side of his jaw. You looked him in the eye, seeing the desire there, mixed with the pain and the exhaustion.
"I do not think you are in any state for this right now."
He raised an eyebrow, a familiar, arrogant look returning to his face. "Because I am injured," he said, "or because I am old?"
"Both," you said without hesitation.
A low chuckle rumbled in his chest, and he winced slightly. "Oh really?" he said.
"Really," though you made no move to slide off his lap. Your fingers tangled in the black hair at the nape of his neck. "You are a concussed old man who should be sleeping."
"And yet," he said, his eyes darkening as he looked at your mouth, "here I am."
Before you could draw another breath to scold him, the world tilted. Baelor's hands clamped around your waist, grip firm and unyielding, and suddenly the floor was gone. A sharp, startled yelp tore from your throat, half-laugh, half-gasped protest, as he hoisted you into the air.
"Baelor! Put me down!" you cried, but your hands betrayed you, wrapping around his neck.
"As you wish."
He crossed the room quickly and dropped you unceremoniously, letting you bounce slightly against the mattress, the breath leaving you in a rush. Before you could scramble up, he planted a knee on the edge of the bed, looming over you, a cage of muscle and intent.
"I am up for it," he declared, his voice dropping to that low, rumbling register that never failed to make your thighs clench. "And I am not that old."
He leaned down, bracing his weight on his hands beside your head, his nose brushing yours.
"I have been thinking about coming home to you since before Ashford was finished." He paused, his gaze searching yours, intense and unblinking. "And I would very much like to give you another child, if you have no objections."
The raw honesty of it, the way he stated his desire so plainly, stripped the air from your lungs. You reached up, threading your fingers into his hair, and pulled him down to you, crushing your mouth against his. It wasn't a gentle kiss; it was a collision, a desperate meeting of lips and teeth and tongues after weeks of starvation.
"None," you breathed against his mouth, your hands already tugging at the laces of his doublet. "None at all."
Clothes became an impediment, a nuisance to be discarded with reckless haste. You fumbled with the fastenings of his tunic, your fingers trembling with impatience, while he worked on your gown with practiced efficiency. Fabric tore in his haste, the distinct sound of silk giving way to his strength, but neither of you cared. He shoved the layers down, baring your skin to the cool air of the room and the scorching heat of his gaze.
When the last barrier fell away, he settled between your thighs, the heavy weight of his cock resting hot and hard against your belly. He didn't enter you immediately. Instead, he braced himself on one arm, using the other to guide himself to your entrance, teasing your folds with the velvet head of his length. He watched your face, his expression unreadable save for the intensity in his eyes.
He pushed forward, sinking into you inch by inch. It was a slow, deliberate invasion, a stretch that burned in the best possible way. He filled you completely, burying himself to the hilt before stopping, his hips flush against yours. You gasped, back arching off the mattress as your internal walls fluttered around him.
He began to move, withdrawing almost entirely before sliding back in, a slow, gentle glide that stoked the fire in your blood. "I am sorry I frightened you."
He thrust again, deep and measured, his pubic bone grinding against your clit.
Your hands roamed over his back, feeling the damp heat of his skin and the tense bunch of his muscles. "Baelor..."
"I love you," he said, his voice cracking slightly on the words. He punctuated the declaration with a roll of his hips that sent a jolt of pleasure racing up your spine. "I love you so much."
His pace picked up, the slow, torturous rhythm giving way to something more urgent. The gentle apology in his touch shifted into a desperate need to reclaim. The wet, rhythmic slapping that filled the room echoed the pounding of your heart.
"Harder," you begged, your nails digging into his shoulders. "Baelor, please... fuck me harder."
He groaned, a sound torn from deep in his chest, and obliged. He withdrew until just the tip remained inside you, then slammed forward, burying himself to the hilt. The force of it knocked the breath out of you, a sharp cry tearing from your throat. He did it again, and again, setting a punishing pace that had the bedframe rattling against the wall.
He drove into you. His strokes were long and deep, hitting a spot inside you that made your vision blur. "Is this what you need?"
"Yes... gods, yes," you sobbed, head thrown back against the pillows.
But as the pleasure built to a crescendo, a spark of lingering anger flared within you. It was hot and bright.
You planted your feet against the mattress and pushed.
Taken by surprise, Baelor allowed himself to be rolled. Suddenly, you were on top, straddling his hips, his cock still buried deep inside you. You looked down at him, seeing the shock in his eyes, the flush on his cheeks, the sweat beading on his brow. He looked wrecked, but he was yours.
You didn't give him time to adjust. You planted your hands on his chest and began to ride him, hard. You rose up until he almost slipped out of you, then slammed down, taking him to the root. You used your thighs to drive the movement, setting a steady pace. This wasn't about making love; this was about taking what you needed, about exorcising the fear of the last three weeks with the friction of his body against yours.
You rode him fiercely, your movements demanding. You let your nails rake lightly down his chest, leaving red trails on his skin. You wanted him to feel it. You wanted him to feel every ounce of the terror he had put you through.
Baelor didn't fight it. He simply lay back as his hands came to rest on your hips, his fingers digging into your flesh as he watched you, his heavy-lidded gaze filled with a mix of awe and lust. He moaned, a broken, needy sound, as you clenched your walls around him.
He gasped, his head pressing back into the pillows. "Take what you need, love. Gods... you are beautiful."
His encouragement only fueled your fire. You moved faster, feeling the tension coiling in your belly, the pressure building to a breaking point. Baelor's breathing became ragged, his chest heaving beneath your palms. His hips began to jerk upward, meeting your downward strokes, a desperate, instinctual bid for more friction.
You bore down on him, grinding against his pelvis as you took him deep. With a hoarse shout, Baelor found his release. His cock throbbed inside you, pulsing as he spilled himself. You felt the hot rush of his seed coating your insides, triggering your own release. Your cunt clenched hard around him, rippling and spasming as the pleasure washed over you in waves. Your vision went white, your body trembling as you rode out the aftershocks.
For a moment, the only sound in the room was your combined panting, the air thick with the scent of sex and sweat. But Baelor wasn't done. Before you could collapse against him, he rolled you again, flipping you onto your back without pulling out.
He was still hard, a testament to his vigor and his determination. He hooked his arms under your knees, lifting your legs and pushing them up until they rested against his shoulders, folding you nearly in half. The position left you completely open, completely vulnerable to him.
"Baelor, wait, I—" you started, but he cut you off with a sharp thrust.
He picked up the pace immediately, his hips snapping forward with relentless precision. You were oversensitive, every nerve ending raw, but the friction was intoxicating. He pounded into you, the wet sounds of his cock driving into your cum-filled flesh obscene and loud. The bed shook, the headboard slamming against the stone wall.
"You feel so good," he groaned, his eyes locked on your face. "So fucking tight. So wet."
"It's too much," you whimpered, your hands clutching at his forearms. "Baelor, I can't..."
"You can," he commanded, his voice rough with exertion. "You will." He bent his head, sucking a bruise onto your neck as he continued to hammer into you.
"I'm going to fill you," he growled against your skin. You clenched involuntarily at the words.
He felt it and he laughed, a dark, breathless sound.
"You like that?" pulling back to look at you, his hips never ceasing their rhythm.
"Yes," you sobbed. "Please... I want it."
"Good girl," he praised, his thrusts becoming erratic, losing their rhythm in the face of his impending climax. "Such a good girl for me."
He shifted slightly, changing the angle, and suddenly the head of his cock was battering against your cervix with every thrust. It was a sharp, intense pleasure that bordered on pain, pushing you higher and higher.
You couldn't form words. You were babbling, incoherent noises falling from your lips as your brain short-circuited. All that existed was the feeling of him; the thick, hard length stretching you, the weight of his body pinning you down, the friction of his coarse pubic hair against your sensitive clit. Your legs were spread impossibly wide, opening you up completely to his onslaught.
He groaned, a sound of pure satisfaction. He released your legs, letting them fall loosely, and leaned forward, bracing his hands on the mattress above your head.
He reached between your bodies, fingers finding your swollen, sensitive nub. He rubbed it in tight, harsh circles, the added stimulation pushing you past the point of no return. You let out a high-pitched keen as your body arched off the bed, the orgasm crashing over you.
"Yes... just like that," he encouraged, his own rhythm faltering.
Your walls clamped down around him, rippling and fluttering as the pleasure tore through you. The sensation was too much for him. With a guttural moan, he buried himself deep inside you and ground his hips against yours, his cock pulsing as he found his release again. He pulled away and collapsed next to you.
You lay there for a long time, tangled together, your heartbeats slowly synchronizing. You could feel the evidence of his passion slowly beginning to seep out. He rolled onto his uninjured side and pressed soft, lazy kisses to your temple, your cheek, and your neck, his breathing gradually returning to normal.
"I missed you so much," you whispered. "Every moment was an eternity."
It felt good, releasing the last of the tension in your shoulders. Baelor smiled, a genuine, crinkling-around-the-eyes smile that made your heart skip a beat, and carefully reached out to pull you closer against his side.
You traced idle patterns on his chest, your fingers drifting over the bruises that mottled his skin, careful to avoid the worst of them. The silence was comfortable, filled with the sounds of the night outside the window and the steady rhythm of his breathing.
"I cannot believe the boy started crawling while I was gone," Baelor murmured into the quiet, his hand stroking your hair.
You smiled, continuing your exploration of his skin. "You will be the first thing he crawls to tomorrow."
"Good," Baelor huffed, a note of pride in his voice.
Your splayed, oiled palms ran down the hard planes of Baelor’s back, his muscles rippling and tensing beneath your touch as you massaged the knots that had formed over the past several weeks with reverence.
You were seated atop his backside, knees pressing into the bedding below while your calves hugged the sides of his waist.
“How’s that?” you murmured, admiring the way his tan skin glistened in the candlelight.
The tops of your fingers would occasionally trace over one of the many scars that had been etched into his body; the sizes and colours of the faded lesions varied, some the length of your forearm and a lighter hue, while others were as small as a quill tip and similar in tone to the surrounding skin.
Baelor hummed in reply before a muffled, “perfect,” left his parted lips.
The right side of his face was pressed into a cushion below, providing you with the alluring image of his open mouth, flushed left cheekbone, and fluttering, dark lashes.
He made a content rumbling every time you worked out a stubborn lump, the hand he had resting around your calf tightening in appreciation of your efforts.
A raspy, dizzying moan left his throat in a long exhale when your hands kneaded at a particularly sensitive wound–one that, despite being eleven years old, would periodically still flare up and throb.
The sound made your legs constrict around him and eyelids flicker as arousal settled thickly at the base of your spine. You lingered around the edges of the aged laceration, evoking another low, unconstrained noise from deep within his chest.
Slowly, your fingers dragged upwards, leaving a trail of long, red welts that took their time to vanish, along the length of his shoulder blades.
The dark grey and silvery hair that rested around the nape of his neck and ear was sleek from a coating of oil, darkened from when you had earlier threaded through the strands in a besotted manner. They had looked enticingly cute; their naturally curled shape too tempting for you to not reach up and twirl them around a single, slick digit.
“Turn around,” you commanded once you had managed to get all of the painful nodules out of his shoulders, your hips rising to provide him with room to flip over.
Once Baelor was comfortably facing you, you sat back down over his pelvis, legs tightening around his body once more when he peered up at you with a knowing smile.
This part wasn’t for him as much as it was for you.
He had gained a thickness over his muscles as the years passed, a supple, malleable layer of meat that easily surrendered to your ministrations.
You poured more lotion over your palms, rubbing them together until the liquid was warm, and then placed them atop his torso.
The hair that was scattered over the stretch of his chest immediately darkened as the balm coated his skin; the glossy sheen that enhanced the bulkiness of his upper body caused heat to unfurl within your lower abdomen, drift up, and settle in blotchy, tingly patches over your throat and face.
Baelor’s own hands were resting over the upper part of your thighs, his new position supplying him more access to you.
His body jolted forward when one of your nails accidentally scraped his dusky nipple, eliciting a startled intake of air from the older man. You bit the inside of your cheek to refrain from remarking on how sensitive he was, despite knowing that he would never retaliate even if you were to do it again.
“Enjoying yourself?” Baelor inquired after several minutes of being thoroughly prodded, scraped, and tugged at.
His scarred brow rose in response to the engrossed, fixated look on your face.
You hadn’t noticed how drastically your breathing had changed; immersed with the way his short, coarse hairs felt when you combed through them, and how every sinewy ridge of his flesh pliantly absorbed each stroke and squeeze you delivered.
“No,” you lied, fingers following the silvery-dark trail of hair that led downwards, to the top of his linen breeches, “but I will be soon enough.”
Summary: Showing Baelor how much you loved his happy trail.
Warning: (18+, nsfw, mdni)
You hadn't been able to explain it to Baelor properly when he'd asked about his grooming. Every time he complained about the discomfort of hair beneath his gambeson or spoke of having a servant trim it, you stopped him.
You forbade it with a passion that left him bewildered. He'd only laughed and asked why you cared so much. He didn't understand the craving, the visceral need to feel that roughness against your skin. It was primal. Something that bypassed logic entirely and reached straight into the darkest corners of your desire.
So you showed him instead.
You asked him to lie on his back, and he did so without hesitation - with both arms tucked behind his head, a curious smile lingering on his lips.
Your gaze traced the length of him: from his face, down the line of his jaw, to his chest where dark hair sprawled, then lower still, narrowing into a dark line that disappeared under his breeches.
How could he be completely unaware of the effect it had on you?
The mattress dipped as you climbed onto him. Baelor’s hands settled on your thighs, steadying you as you lowered yourself against his lower abdomen, caging him beneath you. The position placed that dark line exactly where you wanted it. Your eyes fluttered shut.
You could feel its faint texture against your skin, coarse strands brushing in a way that sent a sharp, unfamiliar signal through your senses. Every nerve seemed to respond at once, the sensation unlike anything else you had known - a stripe of ruggedness you found utterly intoxicating.
Slowly, you began to move. Drawing pleasure from every stroke. The roughness created a steady, simmering heat between your legs. Leaning forward, you rested your forehead against his - breath breaking in short, uneven bursts.
"Is this it?", he whispered. "Is this why you wouldn't let me trim here?". He watched you with open fascination, his gaze following the sway of your hips and the gradual unraveling of your composure.
A soft groan escaped you as you shifted your weight, moving in circles and savouring every sensation. Ensuring that every single hair of that happy trail rubbed against your slickness. You could feel yourself opening up for him, the natural lubrication of your arousal soaking into the coarse hair, making it slide and pull in a rhythmic, maddening cadence. The pleasure was intoxicating.
You couldn’t stop moving. Your motions creating a gradual vertical line along his lower abdomen. Each time that hair grazed the damp area at the base of your opening, it triggered another surge of warmth between your thighs.
Baelor's hands roamed upward, skimming along your ribs. His touch was light, almost teasing, a counterpoint to the increasing desperation of your movements.
"You have a strange obsession with this, darling," he whispered, pausing for a fraction of a second to look up at you. His eyes were dark, blown wide with lust, but his expression remained one of pure, unadulterated love.
Then your attention drifted to his chest, fingers sinking into the thick, dark hair that spread across his pectorals and tapered toward his sternum. It softened the hard lines of muscle beneath. You traced through it lazily, relishing the coarse strands against your skin.
The contrast of tanned muscle and untamed growth left you feeling small against him, enveloped by his scent and strength. It deepened the hunger already coiling within you. The sight of him alone left your mouth dry. You loved every inch of him.
"You're so wet for me." His eyes never left your face. The slickness between you had grown impossible to ignore, easing your movements while somehow heightening every sensation.
"Tell me what you're feeling." The amusement in his voice had softened into something far hungrier.
"Full." You rocked faster, chasing the feeling. "Even though you're not inside me. I feel so full."
Baelor continued to watch you with naked admiration. His hands never stopped their gentle guidance, never tried to rush you or take control. He simply held you while you used him, patient and attentive, those dark eyes drinking in every reaction.
The coil in your belly tightened. Your thighs trembled with the effort of maintaining the rhythm. And still, that trail provided the perfect friction, the perfect texture, everything you needed to spiral higher and higher.
When you started to feel the pressure build, a golden heat radiating from the centre of your being, his name was all you could manage.
“Baelor… Baelor… Baelor.” His name was a prayer on your lips now.
“I’ve got you,” he murmured, his voice steady and grounding. “Just let go.”
And so you did. You ground down hard one final time, pressing yourself against that trail, against his navel, riding out the waves until they finally began to subside. Your body went lax, and you slumped forward. Baelor’s large arms catching you before you could collapse fully onto his chest.
A few moments passed before he cupped your jaw, tilting your face up to his. “My heart,” he whispered, planting a kiss on your lips.
“I’m definitely never trimming now,” he said quietly, his eyes bright with amused disbelief.
“Good.” You laughed weakly, fingers returning to his chest. You spread your hands across him as though trying to absorb every part of him at once. “Because I never wanted you to. Ever.”
pairing(s): baelor "breakspear" targaryen x fem!reader
summary: When Prince Daeron Targaryen refuses your hand in marriage, it puts you between a rock and a hard place. The rock being a deadly sex potion, and the hard place being the heir to the Iron Throne.
words: 21.1k (ahaha. wtf)
cw: explicit, smut, sex pollen, fuck or die, piv sex, unprotected sex, fingering, oral sex (f receiving), virginity loss, hand kink, fluids, belly bulge, mild exhibitionism, implied voyeurism at the end, somewhat forced proximity, brat taming, soft dom!baelor, big dick baelor, baelor is a munch, older man/younger woman, age difference, discussions of pregnancy, breeding kink, mild coercion, this is all very gratuitous, marriage, possessive behavior, noble!reader, reader called 'lady' and 'girl', yearning, poisoning, magic potions, suicidal ideation, sickbed, canon typical sexism, i love you daeron baby but you very much caused this to happen, mildly edited, not beta read
a/n: i made the executive decision to use american english for this instead of the canonical british english of the books. found very little information on the dragon's breath flower as it appears in canon, so i made some bullshit up and based it on devil's trumpet. don't ask me about the capitalization of nothin. Mircalla is named for Mircalla Karnstein from Carmilla by J. Sheridan Le Fanu. Maester Florin named bc I couldn't just call the fucker Thorin Oakenshield. whatever
thank you again to my babes @urhoneycombwitch and @runawaywerewolf for being so nice to me while i lost my mind about this <3
ALL MY WORKS ARE 18+ MINORS DNI
The Targaryens believe that they have the fire of dragons coursing through their veins, but you aren't certain that it's true. If they did, you don't see how they could get anything done, at all. Because right now you do, and it's agony.
Everything hurts. From your head to your toes it feels like your body is filled with venom, burning beneath your skin, your muscles all convulsing in waves of destruction that leave you all but incapacitated. Milk of the poppy does not help, and nor does wine. If you were delirious it would probably be more bearable, but unfortunately your mind is devastatingly sharp. It feels like you have even more awareness of everything than you normally do— your skin is so hypersensitive that you can feel every fibre of your sweat-drenched chemise, and you can feel the temperature of every breath you take as it fills your lungs. The lights are too bright, sounds are louder, flavors more vibrant on your tongue. Every little thing that is happening around you gets filed into your mind so that you feel, in no uncertain terms, like you could fight an entire army yourself and survive. If you were able to move beyond the pain.
You've really done it this time. You didn't believe that the potion was anything dangerous; otherwise you wouldn't have put it in your wine. You were under the impression that it was just a little charm, something cooked up by a wise woman to make lovesick people sleep better at night. You expected it to put a gleam in your eye and a skip in your step, but not this.
"Put this in your wine and watch your love blossom like a rose in bloom," the old lady had told you as she pressed the vial into your outstretched hand. She had taken your coin readily enough and ignored the skeptical look that your lady's maid, Mircalla, had given her. "Drink deep. Enjoy the fortune of love."
Fortune of love, indeed. You're dying. You can tell just by the look on Maester Florin's face as he tests the remnants of the bottle in the corner with some convoluted apothecary setup he's constructed on your vanity table. You feel as though you have one eye on the bubbling beakers, and another eye on Mircalla as she sits by your bedside and dabs a damp cloth over your forehead.
"Is there anything I can get for you?" she asks quietly, and you know that she means well, but you have to physically stop yourself from smacking her hand away. The cloth is too rough on your forehead, scratching and squelching in your ears with the sound of the water, which smells of ale and sour fruit. Perhaps the bucket she used to bring the water in previously had been used to brew cider, but now it just makes the water stink.
"Nothing else, please," you croak at her with as much grace as you can muster. You lightly grab her wrist, squeeze it. "Thank you, Mircalla. Your services won't be needed anymore today, I think. I would not want you to see this any further."
"I am not certain that I should—"
"No. Go, please—" You just barely manage to turn your head away before a spasm of white-hot pain rips through your body, and you scream as you plant your face into your pillow. Both Mircalla and the maester jump at the shrillness of it.
"They're happening more frequently," you hear her mutter to him as she carries the bucket toward the door. "Shall I send for someone? A septon, perhaps?"
"Not yet, thank you. I must discuss the lady's affliction with her privately."
You close your eyes as if to block out the rush of sound that comes from the hall upon Mircalla opening your chamber door. You know that most— if not all— of your own family members, have retreated to other areas of the Red Keep. You assume that it's because you've been screaming loud enough to wake the dead, but perhaps there are other things happening in the castle that are more important than you managing to poison yourself.
"Maester," you grumble out dryly, your voice crackling in your throat. Now that the water is gone you aren't being assaulted by the smell of old cider, but the air still reeks of incense and acrid fumes from whatever his alchemy wrought. "I know I am dying. Just tell me why."
Maester Florin clears his throat and shifts on his feet, holding the little glass vial in his fingers. "My lady. You say that you bought this from a market stall?"
"Yes."
"And… did the seller tell you precisely what it was?"
"She said it was a potion," you tell him, tensing as a wave of pain swells up but then recedes before it can hit its peak, "to bring fortune in love. Nothing more."
There is a long silence, and you wonder if the maester has gone back to his work. You open your eyes a crack to look at him, but he is still standing in the same spot, seemingly deep in thought. Finally, he chances, "It is… not for me to ask what use you have of this potion…"
You groan, and it has nothing to do with the pain coursing through your body. You can't even gather the strength to cover your face in embarrassment, so you simply close your eyes.
It is common knowledge within the castle walls that Prince Daeron refused your hand in marriage after you were presented to him. He cited 'conflicting personalities' as the reason for his refusal— however, you had never had a complete conversation with Prince Daeron. There was no possible way that your personalities could be in conflict; you'd barely met him. Which meant that there was another reason for his refusal.
You knew that neither the King, nor the Crown Prince or his brother were pleased about it. It caused immense trouble for House Targaryen; your own family is one of the Targaryens' greatest allies, so it would only cause a rift between the two households if you were to be turned away with no good reason. House Targaryen could not afford to lose your family's alliance, and so you were asked to remain in King's Landing for another two weeks— or, to put it more plainly, until Prince Maekar or another of the Targaryens could convince Daeron to change his mind.
All of the muscles in your abdomen lock up, and what feels like a roaring hot fire rushes through your body all at once. You scream again, your back threatening to arch off the bed with your convulsing. It hurts so much. How could it possibly hurt so much? How could this little vial of fluid be enough to make you feel like you're burning alive from the inside out? You can hear your own scream ringing around the stone walls of the chamber, loud enough to startle a couple crows off of the eaves outside the open window.
While you're still curled into a ball on the bed, catching your breath, you hear a swift knock on the chamber door before it creaks open. There, you catch a whiff of spice and musk, rich and full. Your eyes fly open in horror as the source of the scent steps into the room with all the lordly grace of the seven kingdoms.
"Maester Florin," comes Prince Baelor Breakspear's voice, usually grounding and calming, but right now it hits you like a lightning bolt in the chest, knocking the very wind out of your lungs. "There seems to be much commotion. May I inquire as to how the lady is faring?"
Maester Florin bows. "Your Grace, I—"
"No."
The word tumbles out of your mouth before you can even stop it. Everything was manageable, more or less, until the Crown Prince entered the room, but now… now, his scent fills your lungs, his words are in your ears, you can practically taste him on the air, like peppercorn and sweet juniper. Your heart pounds in your ribcage like it's trying to escape, your blood singing with fire and your skin prickling with sweat.
You don't want to think about Prince Baelor right now. Each time he comes to mind, it's with an enormous wave of pain ripping through your entire body, as though the very thought of him causes the affliction to double its efforts to end you. Even so, in your mind you see the image of the Prince's concerned face when he stepped into your sick room one day ago, to make the same inquiry and send for a maester to attend you.
You have to get out. You have to leave before the next wave of pain kills you.
You're so tense that when you try to flop over on the bed, you look like a cockroach trying to right itself. "No. No no no no—" In spite of the pain in your muscles, you grab the corner of the goose down mattress and pull yourself toward the edge of the bed, until your upper body hangs off the side, limp as a wet rag.
"My lady, that is inadvisable—" Maester Florin rushes towards you as soon as your fingers meet the stone floor. "You will hurt yourself without assistance."
"Has she been like this the entire time?" Baelor's voice remains steady, but there is a newer, sharper quality to it: he's displeased. If you were to chance a look at him, you would see the carefully concealed worry beneath his practiced diplomacy, but you cannot bring yourself to look his way for fear that it might end you.
Instead, you continue trying to throw yourself from the bed, while Maester Florin actively tries to put you back in it. "No, Your Grace. Aside from the— the screaming—"
Florin's hand connects with your shoulder, and you just about punch him, the pain is so excruciating. Instead, you whack your hand against the front of his robes and bunch them in your fist to pull him close to your face.
"I asked you a question, Maester," you growl at him with a livid expression, watching his eyes widen at your sudden outburst. "Why is this happening?"
"You consumed a powerful aphrodisiac." He swallows, his eyes nervously flitting in Baelor's direction.
You make the grave mistake of following Florin's gaze, and you look at Baelor. The Hand of the King stands at the foot of your sickbed, his eyes focused on you, and only you. His face remains impassive, yet his fingers twitch as though he is contemplating what he can do to intervene.
You push Maester Florin away and begin frantically clawing your way back up the bed towards the headboard. You can feel it: the next wave of heat and pain, building in your toes and hands, inching down your limbs. "Nonono— Maid and Mother's fucking tits."
You manage to plant your face in the pillow before you let out another scream, but this time it seems worse, like you might actually split in half from the pain. You don't know how much more of it you can take. You've drenched your threadbare chemise in sweat, to the point that it doesn't really preserve your modesty anymore. All it does is stick to your damp, oversensitive skin, irritating you and making the sensory overload that much worse.
Once the pain subsides, you begin to rip at the offending garment in an attempt to draw it over your head. You're babbling nonsense, fragments of sentences and profanities that you don't even remember having in your repertoire, but you can still hear Maester Florin as he rattles off technical explanations to his Prince.
"—was purchased from a market stall— seems to be a tincture of moonbloom and gilliflower— another ingredient I have not yet identified—"
Before you can manage to muscle the useless chemise over your head, a hand settles on your back directly between your shoulder blades.
"Don't do that, my lady."
Baelor's voice is directly over your shoulder, gentle but stern. His hand presses solidly between your shoulders, holding the fabric of your chemise against your overheated flesh. You blink, seeing nothing but the headboard of the bed and cream colored linen, but feeling surrounded by him. His scent, his touch, his voice, so close and so strong, should hurt. It should hurt, because until now the barest touch has been agony, exacerbating the pain and torment.
But Baelor's touch does nothing. It's the oddest thing, enough to make you stop moving and tensing up for just a moment. You are still too hot, your skin is still too sensitive, but the only warmth and sensation that Baelor's hand brings is… comforting. Relief emanates from the single point of contact, bleeding through your body in tangible ripples that seem to stretch out down your spine and along your limbs.
That is, until the relief settles low. And then it becomes something else, something arguably worse than the pain. Your core muscles draw up tight and aching, and the heat and agony is replaced with devastating, almost crippling arousal.
You gasp, your back arching dramatically like that of a frightened cat, and you practically throw yourself away from Baelor with all the grace of a scared animal. Or, at least, you try to leap from the bed, but your body is sluggish, and Baelor Breakspear is nothing if not a quick combatant.
As soon as you try to take off, bouncing up like one of the crows into the air, Baelor's arm comes around your waist and drags you back down to the mattress. Try as you might to wriggle free and fling yourself to the floor, Baelor is strong, a force to be reckoned with.
"Stop this at once." Baelor's voice is still just as firm, but the gentility with which he orders you is… it's awful. He commands you with kindness and patience. "I will not abide you hurting yourself."
"Already hurts," you argue, although it's more of a lie the longer Baelor holds you.
It's as though he has the cure to your ailment within his very palms. But, while he holds you down, cradling you with your back to his chest, your arousal grows to a horrifying degree. You can feel your core muscles contract and release, the wetness between your legs smearing your thighs. There is a very likely chance that you may cum without any other form of stimulation, and you will not be able to survive that amount of humiliation. Perhaps he cannot abide you hurting yourself, but you cannot abide acting like a whore in the Prince of Dragonstone's arms.
You make a small, frantic noise in the back of your throat, and whimper, "I have to go. Let me go. Please. Please— Please. My lord, let me go. I have to go."
The small skirmish nears its end as you plant your hands on his forearm and try to push it away, but your hands are too weak and his arm is like a steel belt holding you down.
"Go where?" His voice is too close to your ear. You shiver in his arms, clamping your thighs together to stave off the new waves of heat coalescing between them. Goosebumps break out across your skin, and you feel your eyes widen. He sounds so fucking calm when he says, "There are several flights of stairs to descend before you reach the ground floor. Your only other option is the window, and you will break every bone in your body no matter which way you decide to go, unless you can walk. Can you walk?"
Only if you're touching me. You grit your teeth. "I have to try."
"No." It's Baelor who says it this time, and in spite of all your fighting, you can't seem to drum up any more of it.
You have to admit that it's a relief to not be in pain anymore, even if you have an entirely different set of problems to contend with, now. You slump forward in his arms, hanging your head as you dumbly squeeze at the fabric of his sleeve. "It is not proper for you to be holding me this way, Your Grace."
"I fear that it would be less proper of me to allow you to throw yourself from the window," Baelor explains rationally. Still, he releases his arm from around your waist, only bringing a hand up to move your hair away from your face. You have to physically fight not to press your overheated cheek into the cradle of his hand, like a cat seeking out affection. He pauses, and then says, "Maester, you said that you had not identified an ingredient of the tincture. Could it be dragon's breath?"
"No, Your Grace." Maester Florin speaks from across the room, where he retreated back to his apothecary setup. "With respect, I am familiar with dragon's breath. I would have been able to identify its presence with relative ease."
"She smells of it." Baelor does not say it unkindly.
"It is possible that while the tincture is in her system, the aphrodisiac effects may occur outwardly as well." Florin pauses, then clarifies, "That is, it will cause her to look, smell, or sound in ways that… some may consider… attractive, Your Grace."
Baelor remains silent. The implication hangs solidly in the air. You notice almost immediately that the maester did not include taste in that assessment, although it lingers in the subtext. The Prince is being effected by your presence, even if it is not to the same degree that you are being effected by his.
"You never answered my question, Maester," you finally interject. "Why is it killing me?"
You feel Baelor's fingers tense on your shoulder just slightly at the question, but he doesn't say anything. Instead, he waits while Florin seems to flounder for a moment, and then gently supplements, "Please answer the lady's question."
Florin looks deeply uncomfortable. "Your Grace, it's… of quite a delicate subject matter. I hesitate to cause yourself or the lady any offense—"
"Seven above, just spit it out, already!" You swipe your arm across your sweaty forehead, desperate to put an end to the hedging about. "I've been laying here dying for ages! What is it, what?"
"That's enough, now." Baelor holds a hand up to silence you, and you almost think you might bite it, except that he has such beautiful hands. You wouldn't want to mar them. You stare unabashedly at his silver ring and the lines on his palm, and you start… salivating.
Gods be good. You're going to eat him.
Florin hesitates only a second more. "This aphrodisiac… although the recipes differ across various regions, it is normally intended as a… a temporary cure for impotence and infertility. It is… I believe it is primarily used in brothels, to make— er… intercourse more— ehm. Pleasurable?"
You blink. "If it's meant to be pleasurable, then why does it hurt so much?" You still refuse to admit that you're already experiencing the so-called pleasurable function— that is, you're soaking the mattress with it the longer Baelor keeps his hand on your shoulder.
"Well, it is usually taken with the intention of… ehm. Using it for its innate purpose, you see. The aphrodisiac will remain in one's system until it has been expelled during copulation."
Baelor drops his hand from your shoulder and takes a step back. You feel the loss like a punch in the gut— quite literally, all of your muscles tighten at once, and you double over in pain.
Through clenched teeth, you say, "So, you mean I have to… to have sex?" The look on the maester's face says everything you need to know. "Or what? What if I don't? I'm— it hurts so much, I can't— I wouldn't be able to do anything… not on my own."
Your face burns at the admission. The humiliation— the irony of it all is unbelievable. The little lady took a love potion and now can't fuck herself properly enough to get it out of her system. The only hand she reacts to is the one she can't have, because it belongs to the Realm.
Florin chews on his lip while he thinks, and then explains, "This particular recipe seems more aggressive than most. That is likely due to the unidentifiable ingredient. The potion is, essentially, a slow acting poison. If it is not used for its intended purpose… I suppose, generally, there will be immense pain and fits for… three days after ingestion. Delirium sets in after about two days. And then—" His eyes flit from you, to Baelor, and back. "Then, my lady, I'm afraid you will die."
One Week Earlier
Admittedly, you knew it wouldn't work the minute you saw Daeron. He looked green about the face, his eyes so red and bleary that you thought he would keel over at any moment. If you hadn't heard him called 'Daeron the Drunken' behind closed doors, you would have tried to somehow politely ask if he was ill. Instead, you just assumed he'd had one too many before showing up to your presentation in court.
No, you aren't surprised that he turned down the offer of marriage. You were, however, surprised that he did not deliver the news himself. Instead, he sent a servant with a note while you were eating breakfast, and left you to bring it before the King. The entire meeting went over about the way you expected. Prince Maekar went to find Daeron, Prince Baelor apologized for his nephew's rudeness and the inconvenience, and the King assured you that all would be made well.
The truth of the matter is that you have no interest in Daeron, anyway. You do not want a husband who refuses to talk to you, even if his drunkenness was not an issue. Daeron has given you no reason to desire him— at this point, the prospect of the marriage would be a matter of your family's social and financial standing, and your own status as a Princess.
Now that the castle is sufficiently in an uproar about Daeron's refusal, you have made your gracious retreat to the gardens. You don't want to be in the castle any longer than you have to. Your family has already suggested leaving King's Landing in two days' time, and even so, it feels like too long to wait.
From the gardens, you look out over Blackwater Bay, watching ships disappear one by one over the horizon. You have no idea how long you sit there, but the sun slowly creeps lower and lower in the sky, until golden light filters through the leaves of the trees.
"My lady." For how large of a man Baelor is, he is light on his feet. You hadn't heard him approach, and so you jump when he addresses you, spinning around to find him standing a respectable distance away from your bench. When you stand to curtsy, he gives you an indulgent smile. "It appears that you've been out here for some time. I only wanted to ensure all was well."
You fight not to raise an eyebrow at the Prince. "You must have been watching me closely, then, Your Grace."
He squints, then pivots to peer up at the Tower of the Hand, looming over the Red Keep. "Not so close, I should think."
You snicker at that, casting your eyes away from him. Baelor is a handsome man, and kind. You find your awareness lingering on him above all others, and you're beginning to fear that your crush is becoming obvious. You feel nervous in his presence in only the best way, as though you may trip over your own tongue and say something entirely unbecoming just as soon as you open your mouth. That feeling is… refreshing, in the right company. But Baelor is heir apparent to the Iron Throne, Protector of the Realm, and you are simply a noble lady much younger than him, with the prospect of marrying his nephew. Any fantasies you indulge can only be that.
"May I join you a moment?" Baelor asks, and despite your internal angst, you cannot bring yourself to refuse him.
Perhaps it would be more proper to have your lady's maid here with you, but Mircalla has other things to be doing now, and so you sit a respectable distance away from Baelor on the bench while staring out to sea and wishing it was not respectable at all.
"In my week at court, I've discovered that I quite like this view," you say after a beat, to puncture the tight shroud of silence that settles between the two of you. "I enjoy watching the waves. I wonder what it's like to be one of them, sometimes. Rolling always towards the shore."
"Or dashing upon the rocks?"
You hum. "At least they know where they're going, rocks or no."
You retreat back into silence with him, and watch him out of the corner of your eye as he twirls his silver ring around his finger idly. He seems to be thinking hard about something, eyes fixed on the horizon with a purpose. It gives you just a moment to admire his profile— his strong, twice-broken nose, his furrowed brow, the touches of silvery gray in his close-cropped dark hair. The small freckle on his cheekbone. The stretch of his neck from beneath his collar, begging for a pair of lips or a tongue to lavish it.
"My lady, allow me to extend my apologies once more for my nephew's behavior," Baelor says finally, and you turn your eyes quickly back out to sea. "It is not the first time Daeron has been irresponsible with delicate matters. Although, it is also the fault of we who expect responsibility from him, that there must be an apology."
"I don't think it's unreasonable to expect responsibility from a prince," you answer without thinking, and then suddenly remember who you are speaking to. "…Your Grace."
"No. On that, we agree." There is a light chuckle in his voice, a slight humor that you imagine is meant to make you feel more at ease. "I do not imagine that Daeron will take long to rectify his behavior, however."
You feel a girlish temper flare within you at the idea that Daeron could rectify anything. You take a long, sobering breath, smelling sea salt and garden flowers on the air.
"You were married, Your Grace. You know quite well how to approach a—" Woman. You want to say it, but you feel it would be too forward. You reconsider, and continue instead with, "a betrothal. Do you believe that anything Daeron has done makes for a… a loving marriage?"
Baelor considers your question with the attention you would expect from the King's Hand. Then, he answers, "I would not hazard a guess as to the sincerity of Daeron's feelings toward you, my lady. Only he can truly know the answer to that. Though, it may bring you some comfort to know that…" He pauses thoughtfully. "My own marriage was not for love. It was arranged, as duty demanded. But, in time, I do believe Jena and I came to love one another, as well as a match made in service to the Crown would allow. Perhaps your marriage to Daeron would be the same."
You sit with his words. Enter into a loveless marriage, having already been besmirched by the man who you would bind yourself to, and hope that love will come in spite of it all. It sounds like a fool's errand.
"Be that as it may, I believe Daeron has already done some irreparable damage to my reputation." When you see Baelor turn his head just barely toward you, you supplement, "My lady's maid, Mircalla, shares with me the gossip I would otherwise be protected from. Sometimes, it can be… harsh. She is honest with me, which is a quality I admire most, you understand." You look down at your hands to find yourself tearing at your own cuticles in your nervousness. "She told me some hours ago that there are rumors floating about as to why— why Daeron would refuse me. Some speculated that we fought upon first meeting. Others suggest that I am pregnant with another man's bastard. Or— Or that we have already slept together, and that Daeron was not pleased with me. Can you imagine…?"
Your voice fades out on a horrified whisper. Although none of these rumors are true, each of them deal a blow to your reputation in turn. Your eyes sting with tears the longer you think of the different stories concocted about you.
"Although it may satisfy me to have Daeron grovel and beg forgiveness, it makes no difference. From now on I will be known as the whore that Daeron refused."
Out of the corner of your eye, you catch Baelor pressing his lips together tightly, raising his chin just a tick. The Prince is quiet for a moment, while you bite back your tears and turn your face away from him.
"You say that honesty is a trait that you value," Baelor remarks, and waits until you nod at him in response. "Then please trust me to be honest. I cannot imagine that anyone would truly believe that of you, my lady. You see, I have had the privilege of knowing you during your time at the Red Keep, and I find you to be exceptional in every way. I can't imagine it, because I cannot fathom anyone viewing you as anything else."
You finally turn to fix him with a watery stare, and find him looking back at you with such solitary focus that you practically wither beneath his gaze. For the first time, you notice that Baelor's eyes are two different colors. The castle is not brightly lit inside, and you have never been close enough to him to notice it, until now. One brown, one violet, they lend even more of a sense of mystery to his handsome features. You have a mind to mention it— you open your mouth to tell him that they're beautiful, but then you think better of it.
He's the Prince of Dragonstone. The Hand of the King. There is nothing that could bring you together.
Baelor holds a hand out to you, his palm facing upward. You peer down at it for a moment before placing your hand delicately in his. Baelor's thumb gently brushes your knuckles, his hand practically dwarfing your own. His palm is so warm, and when he places his other hand atop yours, your skin feels engulfed in flames.
"However," Baelor says, and locks you in his stare, "I can believe that rumors abound. It is an unfortunate effect of being highborn that many will speak on what they know nothing about. But rumors seldom bear any truth. They reflect nothing of your true nature. I assure you that House Targaryen, Daeron included, will understand that."
You blink down at your hand, enveloped in both of his. Daeron. Of course, all of this is to convince you not to lose hope, that Daeron will change his mind, that Daeron will decide to marry you.
"I… thank you for your kindness, Your Grace," you respond, for lack of anything else to say. You know that he's being as fair in his judgment as possible, but he has a duty to the King and to House Targaryen. Gently, you withdraw your hand from his as you add, "Unfortunately, I regret that my family are displeased with Daeron's refusal. I understand that they have designs on leaving King's Landing in two days' time. While I know that both you and Prince Maekar are quite persuasive, I doubt that it provides ample time for Daeron to change his mind. I imagine he wanted to refuse me the moment he saw me."
"Why do you imagine that?"
You look out across Blackwater Bay, thinking back to your first meeting with Daeron. When you curtsyed, the princeling looked as though he was going to either throw up or faint, or both. At the time, you blamed it on the drink. Now, you're not entirely sure.
"I believe he finds me ugly."
Baelor huffs a short laugh through his nose, so quiet and subtle that you would not have caught it if you weren't sitting so close to him. You turn to look at him, appalled, and find him with a soft, reserved smile on his face.
"Well, don't laugh."
"Apologies, my lady." Still, Baelor's mouth curves up at the edges as though he just can't help himself. You watch him tongue the inside of his cheek, half-amused. "I mean no jest. I just find it rather unlikely, to be frank."
"I can't think of another reason why," you explain, finally letting your true emotions ring through. You're hurt. You had given Daeron no reason to dislike you; you had been agreeable and good-natured whenever you spoke to him. "He sent his refusal via courier. He wanted not to speak to me, and he has been quite avoidant throughout my entire visit."
"It's true," Baelor replies smoothly. "Daeron has behaved abominably. But I do know him to be kind, and mannerly when given the opportunity."
You had given Daeron plenty of opportunities. You don't want to argue with Baelor, but you think that he is viewing your situation only from the position of a Prince of the Realm.
"How many hours in the day are there? How many days in a week? Daeron could have come to me during any of them, and I would have recieved him. Kind and mannerly though he may be, Your Grace," you say, looking over at Baelor Breakspear with a challenging fire in your eyes, "no one can force a man to want, any more than they can force a horse to drink."
Baelor's expression remains frustratingly unreadable. You gaze into his mismatched eyes as though they will tell you something, anything about what he's thinking, but there is nothing there to betray him.
"Daeron would be a fool not to want you," Baelor tells you, his voice low and edged with a finality that makes you want to take it for fact. "Whether he is or is not, I cannot say. Only time will tell."
"Do you say that as a man? Or as the Hand of the King?" you ask him more pointedly than you should.
"Both."
You gaze at each other for a long time, long enough that the breeze picks up and sweeps your hair up in its gust. You watch Baelor's jaw work— as small of a gesture though it is, it is the only thing about him that tells you he's contemplating something. He is no open book, your Prince, and it frustrates you as much as it seduces you. It sets you daydreaming, watching him openly in the cool evening air as his mouth curves vaguely toward a frown. Down by his knee, he worries the silver ring on his finger.
Then, Baelor lifts his hand, and with a touch so featherlight it's almost inconsequential, he brushes your hair away from your brow and tucks it behind your ear. His skin barely even meets yours— you can explain it away as him just being chivalrous, just keeping your hair from flying into your eyes. But it's enough to make your heart lurch up into your throat, nonetheless.
"It's late," you mutter, now that the sun has dipped below the horizon and the garden is bathed in shadow. You swallow the lump in your throat, trying to regain your composure as you drop your gaze.
"It is."
"It's getting dark."
"Yes," Baelor agrees, then finally looks away from you. He squints out across the bay, staring into the distance at the absence of sun. "The dragon's breath will be blooming, now."
"Dragon's breath?" You shake your head. "I'm sorry, Your Grace, I have not heard of it."
"I'm not surprised. It's a night-blooming flower, native to Dorne. There is a crop of them not far off, if I recall. Come, I can show it to you." Baelor stands and offers you his hand once again, and this time, you do not hesitate to take it.
He leads you, arm-in-arm, down the garden path toward the godswood. Just as the treeline begins to thicken in the gloaming, Baelor brings you to a stop.
"Just there," he murmurs, guiding you to investigate a shrub low to the ground, littered with trumpet-shaped red blooms. As he stoops to pluck one from the shrub, he says, "Dragon's breath. They are sweetly fragranced, but do not be mistaken. They can be quite deadly if eaten."
"I'll make sure not to put them in my tea, then," you tell him as you take the flower he extends to you. It smells slightly of jasmine and woodsmoke when you hold it beneath your nose, careful not to let it touch your lips. "It's lovely."
"Yes," Baelor says, watching you closely. His eyes linger on yours for an extended moment, a gentle smile curving his mouth. Then, a serene look crosses his face. "It is said that the First Men would ingest it to convene with the old gods. Whether or not this is true remains to be seen, but I would not advise it, at any rate."
"No, I'd imagine not." You spend a second twirling the little red blossom, the same shade as the red thread in his doublet, the colors of House Targaryen. Quite suddenly, you observe, "They're your favorite."
Baelor is quiet for a moment. "What makes you so certain?"
"You thought of them first. You could have shown me anything in the entire Keep, but you showed me these. Obviously, they're important to you." You peer up at him, and you can't bite back your smirk. "I'm right, aren't I?"
Baelor huffs a small laugh, the second one you've managed from him. The sound of it warms the pit of your stomach. "You're rather sure of yourself."
"That isn't a 'no.'"
"Mm. It's not a 'yes,' either."
You crack a grin. "Okay. Don't tell me, then. But I'm right."
This time, when Baelor tilts his head downward, you catch him smiling, a flash of teeth and a dimple indenting his bearded cheek. It is imperfect, crooked and so very human. He hides it well, but you're able to see it before he gentles his face into a careful mask once again.
He doesn't know that you see it. It will remain your secret, a fascination to look back on when you're in need of comfort. You made the Prince of Dragonstone smile. A real smile.
"Thank you, Your Grace," you tell him quietly, still pinching the blossom in your fingers. "For your company. And your hospitality."
"The pleasure is mine." Baelor looks as though he may leave the conversation there, but then he adds, "One more word before we part, my lady, if you please?"
"Certainly." You step a touch closer to him. A cricket sounds somewhere in the brush. The night is beginning to wake around you, the longer you linger with the Prince. You wonder if you could draw the moment out long enough to see the dawn.
Baelor does not seem overly concerned about it. "I should like to extend an invitation to your family, if you believe they would be willing. Perhaps, rather than departing King's Landing in two days' time, they would agree to remain another fortnight?"
You blink at him. Another two weeks? For what, exactly?
Baelor answers your unasked question, as though he can see directly into your mind. "So that we may have ample time for Daeron to correct his mistake. Of course."
"Of course," you echo. You feel clean out of air in your lungs, stunned for something to say. "Your Grace, I— I would say that my family would have to answer that invitation for themselves. I cannot speak for the lot."
He affords you the most patient of smiles. "I would like to hear your answer before all, if you don't mind."
"Oh."
Another two weeks at the Red Keep. Two weeks for the rumors to spread, to converge and morph into even worse ones. Two weeks for Daeron to insult you by ignoring you, tarnish your reputation by refusing you a second time. Conversely, two weeks for Daeron to decide that he may tolerate your company and accept you.
You look down at the flower in your fingers. Two weeks to search for the sight of Baelor in the halls and in the councils. Two weeks to speak to him again. Two weeks to indulge in that wickedest of fantasies: that you might fall in love with Baelor Breakspear.
"Yes," you tell Baelor, quiet enough that it threatens to be spirited away on the breeze. "Yes, if my family is willing. I would be glad to stay another fortnight, at Your Grace's pleasure."
Baelor nods at you graciously. "Then I will see to your family's response in the morning. Thank you for your acceptance, my lady."
"Thank you for your invitation." You tilt your face towards the sky. "It is quite dark. I fear that I will have trouble on my way back, should I remain any longer."
"Indeed. The fault is mine, entirely. Allow me to walk you to the holdfast."
You make the journey back to the holdfast in comfortable silence. You find that you do not feel even remotely unsafe as long as Baelor is near; otherwise, you would never chance to linger outside the holdfast, even within the castle walls, after dark. But Baelor's presence is a relief. You would trust him with your life. You would probably trust him with even more than that, given the chance.
"My Prince."
You pause in the golden torchlight, only bright enough to illuminate the bridge over the dry moat. Down in the pit there is nothing but blackness, and a sense that if you stepped too close it would suck you in. Turning to Baelor, you have the dragon's breath blossom still in your fingers, and lift it to your face to take in its scent again— sweet, smoky, like a garden aflame. You can understand why he is taken with this particular flower.
Baelor watches you expectantly, a respectable distance away again, as though every part of your conversation this evening had been a diplomatic mission. Cleaning up his nephew's mess. Doing what is right for the Realm.
The idea rattles you. It cuts you deep and hits something within that you thought you'd left in your girlhood— covetousness. The desire to be shown favoritism, attention. To be wanted, not simply tolerated. You are not a girl anymore, but the King's Hand seems to bring her out of you as though it were second nature. You feel the urge to try to bring the boy out of him, which may be an insurmountable task. He is a prince, a warrior and a lord of refined poise and sophistication. But you have never been one to shy away from a challenge.
You step closer to him. Baelor does not move away, but follows you with his eyes, a reserved expression on his face. Perhaps he is trying to anticipate what you may do, but he does not show any signs of backing down. You imagine that he wouldn't, even if you threw yourself at him unceremoniously. If you kissed him like you desperately want to, open-mouthed and wet.
But you are not improper, or desperate. You are a lady, and well-versed in flattery and elegant flirtation. You take the dragon's breath, and you tuck the green stem into the gap between the silk fabric of his doublet and the Hand of the King pin that adorns his chest. It flares up from the pin, as though the fingers of the hand were holding it tight to his heart.
"Keep this safe," you say, your smile hiding your desirous stare. Your fingers rest against his chest for just a second longer than is proper, but you pull them away quickly enough, you think. "I would hate for it to go to waste."
Baelor's eyes soften. "Certainly, my lady."
"You are quite a wonderful man, my Prince." Your innermost thoughts become physical things, they turn balmy on your tongue. "If you may pardon my saying so. I have wanted to for some time, but… the opportunity did not present itself."
Baelor's brows raise just the slightest, but he does not admonish you. "I thank you for the compliment, my lady. You are very kind, indeed." A pause, a breath on the wind. "Lovely."
You stay there, held captive in his gaze. One violet, one brown. Finally, in spite of your sense of self preservation, you tell him, "Your eyes… They really are very beautiful, you know."
You do not wait for his answer or reaction before you bid him goodnight, and all but flee into the holdfast. And so, you are not able to see the way he watches after you with a lingering smile, and a longing gaze in those very eyes.
Present
Baelor sends Maester Florin away with an order to return on the morrow, and to alert the servants that you should not be disturbed. It is not without your notice that after he ushers the maester out the chamber door, he bolts it with a final clang that reverberates in your oversensitive ears.
You lay on the mussed bedsheets, curled into a ball. You are sideways in the bed; there is no point in putting yourself to rights, because the moment the next wave of pain hits you will become a writhing animal once again, a slave to the torrents of agony. Through the stringy, damp strands of your loose hair, you watch Baelor's back.
He leans against the door with both hands pressed flat to the wood, head bowed in thought. Or, is it distress? Perhaps both. You don't quite know what to make of his reaction to your situation, at all.
What you do know is that you feel a wave of heat flash through your body so fast and so sharp that all of your muscles tense at once, and you yelp from the blast of pain. Your head pounds as though your heartbeat originates from it.
Baelor turns at the sound of your anguish, and his face pinches at the sight of you, a small, trembling heap on the bed. "I will fetch Daeron."
"No."
"My lady, please."
He approaches the end of the bed, but you can't do more than follow the sight of his face with your eyes, until it passes too far into your periphery, and you must drop them to his belt. The sight of Baelor's belt inches away from your face is not something that helps your situation at all, however, and so you shut your eyes before your body manages to torment you further.
"Daeron is… unreliable, yes. And irresponsible. I know that you harbor wounded feelings towards him at the moment, but…" Baelor hesitates. Clearly, he knows that he is not making the best case for his nephew. His eyes roam your disconsolate form, and then he finishes, "But he is your best chance at survival. I am certain that he will be agreeable, at least in this pursuit."
"Do you even know if his cock works?"
Baelor is eerily silent. You don't open your eyes to look at him until you feel the mattress shift, and you find that he's sat on the foot of the bed, his back to you once again. His hands loosely grip the edge of the mattress on either side of him, and his posture betrays no real emotion. It is only when you notice the redness of his ears that you realize your words must have unnerved him.
"I would not know, my lady," Baelor answers quietly, after a moment. "Daeron has sired no bastards, as far as I am aware. His drunkenness may prove an issue, but questionable odds are better than none."
"I don't want Daeron. He doesn't want me."
"He is to be your betrothed." Baelor's words are flat, even. Clinical. "I understand that if he had not refused you, then perhaps you would not have resorted to… other methods—"
"I didn't take the fucking thing for him," you finally snap, gritting your teeth against the pain throbbing in your head and in your abdomen.
Baelor's voice surrenders to something inquisitive. "Then, why did you take it?"
Another moment of silence. Baelor is too still, his hand pressed flat to the mattress in front of your face. You stare, unblinking, at the glint of the silver ring on his finger, bearing the insignia of House Targaryen.
"I thought… perhaps there was someone else for me." You take in a shallow breath. "Although, I think my rash decision making outweighs my judgment."
Baelor turns and gives you the most indulgent smile you think you've ever received, even though there is immense pain behind his eyes.
"If you will not have Daeron… perhaps I can call another for you. Ser Duncan may be willing," he suggests, his voice just above a whisper. "Ser Duncan is a good and honorable man. I trust him with my life, and I would trust him with yours."
You stare at him in shock for a moment. "Oh… Oh, yes, of course. Ser Duncan. Ser Duncan. Why didn't I think of that? Ser Duncan the Tall." Baelor remains stoic, nonplussed at your sarcasm. Your stomach cramps up as you blather, "Or, better yet, why not call Ser Donnel as well? The entire King's Guard, even? Drag me down to the Great Yard, maybe they can take turns, pass me off—"
"Enough," Baelor finally snaps, shooting you a stern look. "I will hear no more of that sort of talk from you."
"Or what? Your Grace," you return with a wicked glare. "I will not be foisted off to the first man you think of."
Lit up with the fury of a thousand suns now, and sweating enough to show it, you push yourself up on wobbly limbs and tumble off of the bed onto the bearskin rug on the floor. You land on your aching stomach with a loud, "OOMF," and all the air painfully leaves your lungs.
"Stop this, now." Baelor sounds weary, as though he's bored of a game you're playing.
"No. Leave me." You crawl clumsily across the rug towards the chamber window. "I'm not going to lay there, dying in agony and— and losing my mind. I'd rather throw myself out of the tower. Let me die with quiet dignity and grace."
"Quiet dignity and grace," he eventually repeats, incredulous. He hasn't even gotten up from the end of the bed, but just watches you, fascinated with your display. "You know, I fathered two boys. Theatrics don't impress me, especially when negotiating."
"Yes, remind me again of how you're so amazing at everything, like— fathering sons, and— negotiating," you growl, huffing with the exertion of your endeavor. "Because you're— you're so fucking perfect and chivalrous. The Hammer. With your— fucking— giant, veiny— host of Dornish spearmen."
"My, you're verbose."
It's only when you threaten to tip the table by the window, as you attempt to haul yourself up to your feet, that Baelor rises. He reaches you in three quick strides, snatches you about the waist and throws you over his shoulder, just to carry you back to the bed. Your small amount of spite-fueled energy spent, you merely hang on him like a sack of straw.
Baelor lays you down so that your head hits the pillow, your hands thrown above your head. "Are you quite finished?" he asks sharply, looming over you, his eyes boring into yours. His jaw set, he states, "I am trying to save your life."
"And I am no one's whore." You stare defiantly up into the eyes of Baelor Targaryen, willing him to yield.
And, to your surprise, he does. His eyes soften, his jaw untensing as he lets out a slow, defeated sigh. "No, you are not."
He sits back, his hands still pressed into the mattress on either side of you. You miss his proximity like a lost limb.
"Forgive me. I have been presumptuous in my suggestions. I would never force you into any situation against your will or desires." A pause. "But I cannot sit idle and let you die. I beg you, my lady. Name someone, anyone, who you would trust in this matter. Someone who you would accept. I will bring them to you without question."
You gaze up at him tearfully, and feel another wave of heat blooming in your hands and feet. You press your tongue to the back of your teeth and take in the sight of him, so poised and regal, even when faced with an unmanageable task.
"Baelor."
Your hand— small, clammy with sweat and shaky from the fatigue in your limbs— reaches out and finds his— large, warm, grounding. You pull at his hand, and he lets you. His head turns just slightly, watching you as you cradle his large palm in your two hands and press it firmly against your chest, just below your collarbone.
Whatever this magic is, be it gods sent or gods cursed, it reacts the second his skin touches yours. Your entire body sparks alive with sensation— but rather than the unrelenting heat and pain of the poison coursing through your veins, it's solace. You let out a soft moan at the feeling, like gentle sunlight flooding through your body the moment that his fingers lace with yours.
"My Prince," you whisper shakily, and feel his fingers flex just slightly against your chest. Your heart pounds against your ribcage so hard that you know he feels it. He can probably feel the unbelievable heat radiating off of you. "It's— I feel so much pain. I hear the voices of the guards on the ramparts and I taste— I taste the salt from the sweat on your brow. I feel as though I will rip in two when the waves come, and nothing has made it better except— except you. When you touch me. Your hands on me… it's you."
Baelor is quiet, listening to your rambling speech. Tears stream from your eyes. It is both a relief and a terror to confess what you feel to him.
Then, Baelor removes his hand from your chest and brings it to cup the side of your face. The tenderness of his touch strips you to the bone. You feel like you're breathing only for him, like he commands the very air that gives your body function. His thumb brushes your damp hair away from your face, wiping away your tears with it, and he gazes down at you with such care, such affection.
He says your name softly, but there's a touch of sadness in it. He closes his eyes, breathes in long and slow through his nose. "I cannot do what you ask. You must name another."
"Please." You make a frail noise in the back of your throat, feeling as though you may begin sobbing in a moment. You shake your head, lifting one hand to clutch at Baelor's wrist.
"I cannot," he insists, although he doesn't pull his hand away from you. You don't know if he is bearing in mind what you told him— that his touch is the only thing that keeps the pain from tormenting you. There is palpable tension in his expression, his brow furrowed and his mouth set in a firm line. "I am the King's Hand and heir to the throne. If you were to be gotten with my child, it would cause a scandal."
"I am already rumored to be pregnant, remember? House Targaryen has weathered far worse than a bastard child," you remark weakly.
"But you have not. I would not dishonor you in such a way." When you pout and look as though you may argue, he continues, "Whatever rumors circulate about you, we need not give them merit."
"So you would have me carry another man's bastard, instead?"
Baelor snaps his mouth shut, his expression turning suddenly guarded. He makes as though he may pull his hand back as he turns away from you, and your stomach drops.
"Baelor, no."
You clap your own hand over his, turning to nuzzle into the warmth of his palm. On instinct, you plant your lips against his skin, and it's as though something savage bursts alive within you. Some greedy, desperate thing takes hold as your eyes drift shut, with each breath tasting the warmth and spice of his skin as though your tongue were flush to it.
"Don't let go," you whisper into the cradle of his hand. "If you let go of me the pain will return, and I can't— I can't bear it anymore, Baelor, I can't—"
"I know. I won't let you go, darling." He sounds strained even as he reassures you, but he doesn't remove his hand.
There is a long silence, while you practically lose yourself in the feeling of just… giving in. You relax into the glowing feeling, hot pleasure sweeping through your body, up your limbs and into your core, replacing any pain that had been there before. It's glorious. It distracts you, pulls your mind away from the reality of the situation— that you cannot simply have him hold your face and hope that the poison works its way out of your system on its own.
Without meaning to, you drag your parted lips along his fingers, as though exploring them just with your mouth. His fingers are so long. Slender and dextrous, calloused from hours of sword training. You feel each bump and ridge against your mouth and you're trying so hard not to sink your teeth in. Your lower lip catches on the band of his silver ring and draws back, letting the smallest flash of your teeth graze his skin.
You hear his breath catch, and your eyes fly open, suddenly aware of what you're doing. Baelor watches you from the corner of his eye as you press your face into his touch, his jaw locked up tight, his free hand a fist where it rests on his knee.
You feel as though you should apologize, but you can't bring yourself to. Apologize for what? For desiring him? Wanting him? He's so handsome. His differently colored eyes study you, a painful reminder of it. You stare back at him, imagining what it would be like to trace his face with your lips, as well.
"You told me once that Daeron would be a fool not to want me," you say, and you take a purposefully slow breath, because if you don't you may start heaving for air. "Are you a fool, my Prince?"
Baelor lets out a soft sigh, and looks quickly away from you. His fingers twitch slightly against your cheek. He's silent for a long time, long enough that you begin to fear you've misread him, confused his kindness for something deeper.
But then he tilts his head down, and without looking at you, he says quietly, "I am not, my lady. Though, whether my desire in itself is foolish, I have no idea. I may be doomed for it."
"Then… perhaps we are both doomed," you admit, your eyes practically dancing over his features. "I can't think around my desire for you. All I know is that you— you are all that I want in the world. Scandals and suspicious potions be damned."
"Gods above." You watch Baelor roll his eyes toward the ceiling. When he returns his eyes to you, it's with a look of solemn admiration. He strokes his knuckles along the curve of your jaw. "I'm beginning to believe you exist simply to torment me."
You allow yourself to fashion a wobbly smile. "Me? Torment the Breakspear? Never."
Baelor huffs a quiet laugh, looking away from you in a manner that is almost… shy. You can see his jaw flex beneath his short beard and a rosy flush come over his face, and—
You just made Baelor blush.
You lay with that, watching him in the silence. His hand drifts from grazing your jaw to resting flat against your collarbone again, and you lift your own to trace your fingers languidly along the back of his palm. You can hear his breath come out shaky at the light contact, and it's just enough to give you the clarity to really, truly think about this.
His hands on you could be enough, you realize. You practically came the moment that he touched you, and if this magic can just be expelled from your system by an orgasm, it might be that he doesn't need to do anything more than just… put his hands on you. It feels good enough as it is— the heat of him, the smell and the feeling of him, are all adding to the pleasurable fire burning in your core. But, if you felt his hands go… down…
"Baelor."
His name comes out of your mouth faster than it should, and he snaps his eyes to you with a look of sudden concern, as though he expects to find something wrong. But nothing really is wrong— at least nothing that hasn't been wrong to begin with.
"What if—" You bite your lip, trying hard not to move your hips in any way that could startle him off. Your cunt throbs just at the thought of feeling his hands on your body with no barrier. "What if you just… touched me?"
Baelor seems to think your question over, searching your face for any kind of deception. But you simply stare at him openly, your eyes pleading, heart pounding as you feel his thumb stroke once over the hollow of your throat.
And then, his eyes drift down. They linger on the swell of your breast, heaving under the thin, practically sheer linen of your chemise. Everything is too intimate, too bright in the mid-afternoon sun slanting through the open window, illuminating you. Gods, it feels like you're already naked before him with the way he just stares, undressing you in his mind. It hits you directly between the legs, and you clench your thighs together to stave off the rush of arousal.
Your breath hitches, and Baelor snaps his eyes back up to your face, as though he's just remembered himself. "I am touching you."
"Y-You—" Your breath hiccups in your chest with how hard you're trying not to gasp for air. "You don't know how cl-close I am to— to—"
You clap your hands over your face, feeling a flush of heat throughout your body that has nothing to do with his hand on you. It's hard enough to be begging him for some kind of stimulation, but to tell him how close you are to an orgasm just from his touch is mortifying.
Not for the first time, Baelor seems to be able to see inside your mind without you voicing your thoughts. "Tell me," he plies gently, his thumb sweeping across your damp skin. He remains so composed, even when you feel like dissolving into thin air. "What is it that you feel… when I touch you?"
He's still hesitant, but his voice holds a curiosity that he hadn't made manifest before now. Everything in you winds up tight at the sound. He's not just indulging you, he wants to know. You know that he's trying to be proper— Baelor is a man of restraint, of infinite patience and regard for honor and decency. You know that he's clinging to his morals even while trying to rationalize the problem set before him.
But he bolted the chamber door, you remember. Behind your closed eyelids, beyond the sound of your heavy breathing and his, more measured, you can hear the clang of the bolt reverberate in your ears all over again. His hands pressed to the solid oak, his head bowed in thought. Why would he have locked you in together? Unless…
"It feels like sunrise after a frost." Your voice is muffled behind your hands, because you refuse to look at him while you say such things. You don't think you could bear to see his face, as you confess, "It is as though all of this poison in me changes, and it becomes heavenly. I feel… when you touch me… as though my body is not my own, but yours to— to do with as you please. To mold to your whim. And I would let you, my lord, I— I would have you do anything that you desired to me, and I would ask you only to do it again. I could glut myself on your touch and it would not be enough, it undoes me in ways I cannot explain, I… You set your hand upon my back and I thought… I thought I was going to c-cum—"
You choke off on a quiet, humiliated sob. So there it is, out in the open now, with no way to take it back. Baelor is still frustratingly silent, but you refuse to pull your hands away from your face to look at him, because you can't find it within yourself to be clever or brave anymore.
"You wouldn't even need to— to deflower me," you continue, blathering now, unleashing any thought that comes to mind as a way to fill the silence. "It would hardly even be anything that would be significant to anyone, just— just lay your hand upon me, and I might— I could—"
"Where?"
All things stop at once. Your thoughts, your breath, your heartbeat. You freeze up like he has just found a way to completely obliterate you with one word. You take a sharp inhale to kickstart your lungs again, and hesitantly curl your fingers away from your eyes to look at him.
Baelor's eyes are transfixed on your face, unwavering, his expression open and earnest. He waits for you to answer him, but when it becomes apparent that you can't, he supplements, "Show me where you would have me touch you."
You consider him for just a second, just long enough for the gravity of his words to register. He wants you to show him. It occurs to you to tell him that he could touch you anywhere beneath your chemise— your stomach, your hip, your knee— and it may yield the same results. But you don't.
You take Baelor's hand, the one resting on your chest so steadily, and you move it. He allows you to, watching you all the time, the pupils of his mismatched eyes blown wide. With one hand you pull at the fabric of your chemise, tugging it up your legs, while you guide his own beneath it. As soon as his hand touches the plush skin of your thigh, you both gasp in tandem— but for different reasons.
For you, it's the burst of sensation, the sharp arcing pleasure that shoots up your spine and grips at something tight and cruel in your core, making you stifle a moan. You were right. The proximity of his touch to where you want it most makes all the difference— you fist at the gathered fabric in your hand and try not to rock your hips toward his touch, but your pussy throbs threateningly at the heat of him so close to it.
Baelor is simply startled. His brow shoots up, his jaw slack as he breathlessly murmurs, "Oh, my sweet girl."
You're drenched down your thighs, a fact that you had failed to mention to him. His fingers slip through the wetness there, feeling it against your skin, and his breath leaves him in shock.
"I— I wasn't like this, before." You take a shaky inhale, and tremors travel through your entire body. "Before you."
It's as though something within him cracks, and all of his inner turmoil is laid bare before you, etched across his features like a carving on stone. The fear, the worry, the frustration, all manifest in his pinched brow and the dip of his mouth, the tremble of his breath. But there is something else there, too— raw desire, sharp as a knife's edge. It's in his eyes, in the way that his shoulders draw tight, in the set of his jaw. It's in his hands, the way that his fingers shift and press into the pillowy flesh of your thigh.
Baelor's thumb sweeps along the curve of your inner thigh, the same affectionate, instinctive gesture that it had been as he laid his hand on your chest. But on this part of your body it is more suggestive, and perhaps ill-advised. His thumb glides too close to the core of you and, quite by accident, he discovers that you are bare of any smallclothes.
Your gasp is sudden and loud. The brush of his finger against your bare sex is enough to make you jump, your hand clamping down on his wrist desperately as pleasure dances like pure dragonflame over your nerves. Your cunt pulses, and a feeble moan breaks from you. "Baelor, please."
He halts, and something changes in his expression. Call it the end of resolve, or a breaking point. There is no hiding anything from him now, you know. He has seen everything, knows what you are laying with.
"No more begging," Baelor finally says, and it's a gentle order. This man who has led armies, who has killed and fought to defend his realm, speaks to you with infinite tenderness. "I have you now, darling. I am for you. You need not beg anymore."
I am for you. He is your knight, upholding his vows, taking up his sword to defend you.
You shiver to feel his grip on your thigh tighten just a bit, a final test of his resolve before he moves it. There is a shift beneath the white linen of your chemise, and then Baelor's knuckle drags slowly through your soaked folds.
Your breath stalls in your chest as your mouth drops open. His touch turns you golden. Your body seems to light up from the inside, fresh heat blooming low in your stomach. Heart pounding in your chest, you stutter, "Oh, fuck— fuck, Baelor, this— this is too much, you don't have to—"
He shushes you, and the look in his eyes threatens to undo you more than his finger tracing a line through your cunt. There is a fire in his eyes that was not there before. The fire of a dragon, of a Targaryen. His gaze feels almost like a physical caress as he says, "Hush, now. I do this willingly."
Fuck. His voice is deep, rich and soft as velvet as he stares at you with that unwavering intensity, touching you between your legs. Your Prince. Touching you between your legs. It completely arrests your ability to think. He is slow, methodical in his movements as he is with everything; he glides the length of his finger through your pussy without rush, letting you feel each bump and ridge as they pass over your clit.
With your heightened senses, you can hear how wet you are, and the salacious sound of his fingers gliding through the mess you've made is enough to drive you up the wall. He begins drawing circles around your clit with the tip of his finger, and you melt into the mattress. You feel as though your pleasure and your need have turned you inside out, bitten chunks from your sensibilities.
He's too beautiful. The thought plagues you more and more. Baelor is too handsome, too competent with his strong hands and too gentle with his lust-roughened words. Gods above, you feel like you could cum— you should have cum by now, with how badly your cunt spasms under his attention, how hypersensitive your clit is as he continues tracing languid circles around it.
Then Baelor dips down and sinks a single finger into you, where you leak and ache desperately for him. Your thighs widen to give him more room, and he takes it, pushes in to the knuckle and gives you a practiced crook of his finger.
A sound rips from you— something animalistic and completely unfamiliar, a moan from the very depths of your fevered being. You tighten a fist in the tangled bedsheets and turn your face to the side, trying to hide from him while he makes you unravel at the seams.
"Look at me, darling." At the hushed rasp of his voice, your cunt clamps down hard on his finger. He pauses, halting all movement until you turn your head to open your eyes to him.
What you find in his face is enough to move the endless soul in you. You have spent two weeks etching Baelor's face into your memory— his careful, poised demeanor, the way he steadies his expression to keep it neutral, tactful. You know his cautious smiles, and you know his deeper one, the one that you hold tight to your chest like a secret. You know his kindness, and you know his disappointment.
But you've never seen this. This unbridled lust, his every feature touched by the amount of desire he has for you. He gazes at you like he feels everything you do, and more. Baelor inclines his head, and he appears so composed, as he always does, but his chest is heaving— you can see it and you can hear it, in the rattle of his inhale, in the obvious rise and fall of his shoulders.
"I will have you look at me when I do this," Baelor tells you, his eyes so dark and hungry that the very glint in them is wicked. It unnerves you, runs quick and hot through your veins. "I will have you see all that I give, and know it is yours to keep. Only yours. Do you understand?"
You swallow hard. "Yes, my lord."
"Baelor." His voice is quiet when he corrects you.
"Baelor."
He flexes his finger within you and your face crumples, your thighs shaking where they lay spread on the mattress. His free hand comes to rest on your thigh and makes to pull your legs further apart, prevents you from moving it back to center. It is not a rough or demanding move, but it conveys his message. Stay. Don't move away.
Baelor whispers something in a language you don't understand— High Valyrian, most like, but it makes no difference that you cannot speak it. It sounds warm, seductive in his throat, and a tremble rolls through your body at the sound of it.
Soft moans fall from your lips as he adds a second finger beside the first, and your hips nearly leave the bed. You take him in so easily, a quiet breath of disbelief leaves him, and he shifts, giving you strokes that have you fighting to keep your eyes open and fixed on him. A gentle back and forth, a hot press against the wall of you. Your body doesn't know how to react— hot then cold, trembling and then still, rocking against him and then backing away as though it's too much and not enough all at once.
His silver signet ring grazes you, hard to offset his softness. You're so close, you can taste your release on the back of your tongue like the entire ocean is rising within you. You grab at the pillow beside your head, ripping at it between fingers that don't know what to do with themselves. Your eyes clench shut at the sudden onslaught, your head tilted back on the pillow.
"Look at me," Baelor reminds you, his voice gently commanding.
Quick as he says it, you snap your eyes open again and find his fixed on you, dark and fathomless. There is a sudden surge, a quickening in your breath. "Oh, gods, Baelor—"
It looms like some wretched, evil thing come to destroy you. You snatch at his forearm frantically, trying to warn him, but unable to form words.
"I know. I feel it," he soothes, a palm moving sweetly against your thigh. He squeezes you there, a reassuring touch even while his other hand takes you apart. "You don't have to hold on anymore. I've got you. I've got you."
Your hips lurch towards him, your vision whiting out. His fingers hit a spot both perfect and devastating inside of you, and your mind's focus is whittled down to a fine point, aimed at him.
"Cum for me, lovely girl," Baelor orders. So you do.
He remains constant. Even when the wave rises and breaks within you, even when you writhe and let out a ragged cry, the sound torn from a hidden, previously unknown part of you. Through the seemingly unending torrents, Baelor remains your anchor. He does not change. He does not move. He does not let you go.
You turn pliant in the aftershocks. He gentles his movements— he does not stop them altogether, but turns them lighter, slower. His thumb brushes over your clit, and you jolt hard enough to convince him to finally withdraw his hand.
Baelor watches you closely, his darkened eyes focused on yours, but that familiar tenderness is returning, creeping across his features. The span of his fingers curves around the meat of your thigh, measured breaths leaving parted lips. His other hand is drenched with your fluids, still held cautiously between your legs as though hesitant to pull back entirely.
"How do you feel?" He asks then, softly.
You blink at him, and then up at the canopy over the bed. You're still shaking, your brain fizzling and humming from the orgasm he'd given you. "I don't… I don't know, I— that's the first time anyone has ever— done that…"
Baelor stays quiet for a beat, a small, affectionate smile curling the corners of his mouth. Then, he clarifies, "Do you think that it worked?"
"Oh." Yes, that. You had somehow forgotten that there is an ulterior motive to all of this, that it is not just sex for the sake of sex. "We… We could check?"
The words leave your mouth meekly. You don't want him to let you go. You don't want him to go away. Yes, you want the poison to be gone from your system, but you are greedy. You want him to stay with you and take you until morning. You want him to keep looking at you like that, like he'd swallow you whole, bones and all.
Unfortunately, Baelor listens. He slowly lifts his hands away from you, leaving you entirely. For a few calm seconds, nothing happens. Your body is still awash with the remnants of your orgasm, your skin still tingling with the memory of his touch. You lay there for a moment, thinking, was that it?
But then you look at Baelor again. He stares down at his hand— the one drenched in your arousal. It shines in the mid-afternoon light, strings of it threading between the parting of his fingers as he… feels it. Rubs his fingers against each other to test the silkiness, pulls them apart just to watch it web across the gap in thin strands.
You watch, wide-eyed, as he returns his gaze to your face. And he lifts his fingers to his mouth to suck your wetness from them. His eyes, amber and violet, trained on your expression until they flutter shut, and he groans.
"Oh— gods on fire."
Your whole body tenses up with the fury of it. The pain. It assaults you worse than before, with a ferocity that scares you. There's so much of it that it is not enough to scream— you can't even breathe for it. You curl into yourself and roll, the muscles of your stomach and core pulling taut.
"No. No no no— Baelor." You whimper, blindly throwing your hand back to grab at him. You find a wrist— left or right, you don't know— and pull so that his hand smacks down onto your flank with a lewd sounding slap. "Didn't work. It didn't— fuck."
"All right. All right, my love. Come here." Baelor's hand slides around your waist to gather you into his lap. You slide across the bedsheets with your spine bent into a crescent, knees pulled to your chest. "I've got you. I'm right here, just relax." You jerk involuntarily in his hold, an elbow catching him in the ribs. He grunts, adjusting his arm around you, curling himself over you like a shield. "Relax. Relax."
You will the tension in your muscles to release one by one. You imagine yourself absorbing into him, your head resting on his strong thigh as you allow your body to feel him. The rise and fall of his chest as he breathes, the distracting warmth radiating from the space between his legs. The smell of him there, strong and sweetly arousing. The taste of something on the back of your tongue— sweat and something muskier, something more masculine.
Him. The taste of him, through silk, through smallclothes. Your head spins, and you fight not to turn your head further into his lap, not to nuzzle into the crotch of his breeches and just breathe him into your lungs.
"Stupid fucking sex potion," you mumble angrily once the pain recedes. "Secret ingredient. Bullshit."
"All right," Baelor says again to quiet you, laying his hand on the crown of your head soothingly. You imagine that he understands what you're feeling, though, because he doesn't argue.
"What do we do?" Your voice is thin, a barely-there thing in the quiet.
"We continue."
You turn your head. Baelor is gazing down at you, eyes glittering with affection. He exudes a calmness that you cannot feel, even though your overwrought body relaxes into him. "You want to… continue?"
"We need not stop at one." Baelor pets your head, shrugs a shoulder. "I wouldn't, even under normal conditions."
You stare at him, aghast. "Your Grace."
He gives you a wry smile. "We don't know what this 'secret ingredient' is. Perhaps it needs… more. We can continue until it takes." Another pause. "You'll have to forgive me for my choice of words. It's my first time experiencing the… joys of a sex potion, as well."
You snort incredulously, trailing your fingers along his clothed forearm. "And what if it… takes?"
You don't need to elaborate. What if you become pregnant with his child, like he suggested you might? What happens if you bear the heir apparent a bastard, and still end up married to his nephew? What if you cause a scandal?
"Then… we continue," he repeats. "Come what may." Baelor takes your hand in his, presses a kiss to the back of your palm. You are filled with so much adoration for him that it almost wounds you. It sets up a home in your body, right below your heart. "Whatever happens, it makes no difference. You may have anything that you want from me."
"Even your hand?"
"Especially that."
"In marriage?" Your chest tightens up in anticipation. You gaze up at him, willing him to accept you, clutching his hand like he might pull it away, recoil in disgust. If he were to turn you down now, you think that it might just kill you before the poison does.
Perhaps he feels how hard you tense up in your nervousness. He pulls back just the slightest bit and peers at you, taking in your expression, before his own turns into something open, genuine. His eyes crease at the corners as he traces a single finger down the part in your hair, and he replies, "Yes. I will marry you, darling girl. I should have, the moment I was able to. I should have begged you on my knees."
You smile at the mental image that provides. The Hand and Heir on his knees for you. "I would have liked that."
He gives you the fondest look. "I have no doubt."
You fiddle with his hand. His skin is soft, prominent veins running up the back and to the knuckles. You fit your hand to his like a question, examining the difference in size and shape. The ring on his middle finger, still damp from where it's been. In you. In his mouth.
"Why did you do that?" You don't mean to ask the question aloud, but it comes out anyway.
"Do what?"
You glance at Baelor and determine that he's only asking because he wants to hear you say it, and not because he's really confused as to what you mean. He looks coy, which is not something you've ever seen on him before— but you think that it suits him.
"Taste it." The words feel sharp in your mouth. "You didn't have to. I wouldn't have expected you to."
He breathes in deeply, and exhales on a long, low hum. Then, his eyes find yours again. "There are few pleasures in this world that compare to the taste of a woman. I wanted to."
Your heartbeat thrums in your ears. "And?"
"And you taste divine." A deft finger twists in the hair just at the very top of your head, twirling it around and around in hypnotic circles. "I would taste you again, if you would allow me."
It's your turn to hum. You hold his one hand in both of yours, tracing the details of them with your fingertips. Your thumbs map out the dip of his palm, the raised, sword-strengthened calluses beneath his fingers. The meat of his hand, where it connects to his wrist.
Without pausing to feel embarrassment or shame, you bring his hand to your mouth. You brush your lips over his fingers just barely, before you take them in and suck on them. You hear a shudder in Baelor's breath, but you don't stop. It is an intimate thing, to have his fingers stroke your tongue, to taste yourself on him, to know that his own tongue had been in the exact same place moments ago. You whimper and draw them in deep, your lips fitting around the silver ring against his knuckle, your eyes falling shut. He watches you, allowing you to take his swordsman's hand and fit his fingers between your teeth, trusting you not to bite down.
You sigh as you release them, dragging your tongue along the ridges and dips of his fingers on their way out. "I wanted to do that," you admit to him quietly. "For a while."
"You like my hands, it seems," he muses, a note of approval in his voice.
"Very much." You blink at him, suddenly feeling shy under the intensity of his gaze. "I'll let you have me however you want, my Prince. I only ask that first… you kiss me."
"Is that so? Only a kiss?" You nod, and Baelor smirks. He drags the tip of his pinkie finger gently down the slope of your nose. "You drive a hard bargain. If I kiss you now, I fear I may never stop."
"Don't stop."
Baelor lets out a short breath, and then scoops you up into a sitting position. You grunt in surprise, grabbing for his shoulders at the sudden movement, but you settle with his arm tight around your waist. Your heart skips a beat when he cradles your head in his palm, his fingers tangled in your hair.
"I don't think you understand just how wonderful you are," Baelor whispers, his mouth so close to your that the warmth of his lips practically touches yours. He hovers there, a breath away, and it's torturous to hold back. "You'll be the death of me."
With a shaking hand, you rest your palm against his cheek. You feel the scruff of his beard, the way that his jaw tenses the tiniest bit. "And if I don't kiss you, I'll die."
That seems to finally crack his composure. Baelor brushes your hair away from your face, strokes his thumb over your cheekbone, and closes the gap.
His kiss sends shocks of warmth through you, and you melt into him with a quiet sob of relief. Relief from the tension and swells of pain and fear. Relief at finally being able to hold him, to kiss him, open mouth to open mouth. You clutch at his shoulder, his neck, and swing your thigh over his to sit halfway on his lap.
He moves with you, his strong arms keeping you steady as you sink against him, groaning into you. Each point of contact feels bright, like if you opened your eyes to look you would find yourself glowing where he touches you. But his mouth moves against yours like silk, his tongue against yours, and he tastes like peace. It feels like the end of the storm, the answer to all your problems— even if it is only just the beginning.
Baelor's hand slides down to your lower back, holding you fast, splayed wide across your spine. His fingertips press into the flesh there, pulling you closer, until you're flush against him.
Your cunt grinds down onto the meat of his thigh, and you moan brokenly into his mouth. The sound of his name again, sweet on your tongue. He captures your lips with his, his other hand coming down to grip your hip. He rocks you against his thigh purposefully, swallowing the desperate sound that leaves you when your clit presses into the heat of him, through frustrating barriers of fabric.
You make a small, disgruntled noise, and your hand falls to the belt around his doublet. Nails scratching at the leather, you fumble with the buckle until it comes free. You feel beneath the cover of his doublet to find his soft linen shirt, warm from the heat of his body. Strong muscles tense beneath the lightness of your touch.
You huff a perturbed sigh against his mouth. "You are too clothed."
"You are too impatient," Baelor returns, but there is a huskiness to his voice that makes his words seem inconsequential. He shrugs out of his doublet to let your hands wander over his shoulders, down to squeeze the width of his arms. His beard tickles along your jaw as he presses kisses to your skin, trailing up to your ear. "Lie back, darling."
You recline on a pile of tangled sheets, chemise rucked up around your hips. Heat kisses your cheeks and pulses low in your core, your thighs instinctively wanting to close in on themselves, but they are stopped in their endeavor by Baelor's hips.
The mattress dips beside your shoulder where he leans his weight, hovering over you, a veil of security against the rest of the world. He drags his open mouth across your skin like this is not only for your benefit, but for his. You feel the flash of wet and warmth from his tongue, and your back arches up against him. He moves so slowly, savoring, his breath tumbling across your heated flesh like clouds of smoke.
It feels good. It feels so heavenly that you don't quite know how to accept it— you feel almost as though you should move away, but you would only be condemning yourself to more torment. You are bound to the bed by curiosity, an insatiable need to see what he does next. To feel his mouth touch more of you, places that you never thought to feel a pair of lips, teeth, or a tongue.
Baelor skims lightly over your breasts through the fabric of your chemise, while his hands find the curve of your waist. As he lowers, he ever-so-slowly tugs the fabric up, up, up, until you are bare from the waist-down and left open for his wandering mouth.
Your hands cling to him, one clawing against his back, the other gliding over the back of his head, cradling him to you. You gasp to feel the heat of his tongue on the skin just beneath your ribs. "Baelor…"
He hums in acknowledgement of his name, dragging his lips down over the curve of your stomach and lingering there. Baelor is thorough in a way that shouldn't shock you as much as it does— he lavishes you with his tongue and his lips, the quickest grazes of his teeth making you lurch against him with small sighs and moans. You are entirely alive with feeling, winding you up, until your whole body tenses and releases with it.
Then, he's moving. He passes over your pelvis and your aching, swollen cunt, and goes lower, settling between your knees. You make a little sound, a whimper of protest when you can't hold his head in your hands anymore.
He shushes you with his mouth against the inside of your knee, and then the wet swath of his tongue licks upwards in a way that takes you entirely by surprise. Bold, quick, his face so close and coming towards the most intimate part of you that you startle. "Gods—"
"Let me." It's a quiet plea, hushed against the skin of your inner thigh, one big hand cradling it to his cheek. There's the prickle of his beard, then the soft soothing of his tongue after. "My sweet girl. Let me taste you here."
"Yes," you sigh, even as he's already licking over the trail that your arousal has left, smeared across your overheated flesh.
The aphrodisiac effects may occur outwardly. The maester had said as much, and it becomes more and more apparent that, as Baelor lingers there, breathing in your scent and tasting you on his tongue, he is becoming intoxicated by the poison leeching from you. It's in the way his breath falls unevenly from his mouth, the way his gaze has gone a bit glassy with want, his pupils so wide that his beautiful, incongruous eyes are nearly black.
Baelor takes to you with a wide, flat stroke of his tongue that practically burns you alive. Your back leaves the mattress, your hands snatching at his head. Your cry breaks in your throat with its intensity and pitch, already taken to pieces by the single touch of his mouth to your cunt.
He groans into you— fully moans, as though this is entirely for his benefit and it is not something that he's doing in service to you. It is not a sound that you would have ever expected to hear from him, half-animalistic and far from the restrained, princely figure you've come to know him as. Large hands grasp at your hips and bring you further into his mouth, firm and consuming.
His name leaves you on a squeal. You're being too loud and you know it— through the open window, you can hear birds soar past, voices down in the courtyards. Any and everyone will hear you, and what the Prince of Dragonstone is doing to you, if you can't help it. You barely have the mental fortitude to let one shaking hand leave his head and clap over your mouth to stifle your cries.
He pulls back, releasing your clit from between his lips with a wet sound that makes your face burn. His eyes find yours, and you feel pinned beneath the weight of his gaze. "Do not silence yourself. Let me hear you."
You hesitate for only a second, but he doesn't move. Baelor's eyes remain fixed on your face as you reach forward, then stroke a hand over the crown of his head, a tentative and seeking touch. Then he returns to suck at your clit again, and you have to bite your tongue on a whimper.
He remains there for a long time. Long enough that you begin to think you may go delirious from the pleasure, and not from the poison throbbing and coursing through your veins, effecting him as he tastes you. He drags you to the precipice, to a place where reason and restraint don't exist anymore. There, you threaten to burn alive.
You cum into his mouth with a hoarse cry, your head tipped back on the pillows. It splinters through you like it may both destroy you and rebuild you anew at the same time— there's a rush, a flood between your legs that you don't expect, any more than you expect Baelor to stay there and take it, in all its viciousness.
You can't quite think. You feel him lingering there, his lips and tongue still on you, but it's as though you've been entirely unmade. He doesn't move, just remains solid and capable with his attention on your spent cunt, his tongue still lapping at the wetness that drips from you until you're certain— almost entirely certain— that this is not for the sake of the poison. This is not the potion at work. This is sex for the sake of sex.
"Baelor," you murmur, your voice a bit too high and airy in your throat. Your fingers dig at his scalp for something to make sense of. "D'you think— think it worked—?"
"Mm. You need another." Baelor answers you before you finish asking the question, his eyes narrowed as he rears back. His face is painted in your wetness, glistening around his mouth as he breathes heavily. "Let's not take any chances, shall we?"
"No, I wouldn't want to— to take chances— oh."
Baelor is climbing the line of your body, traversing over you like a panther on the hunt. His parted lips trail a wet line over your stomach, and he nudges your bunched up chemise back, further up your ribs. With trembling hands, you grab the useless fabric and pull it, tugging it frustratedly over your head so that you can throw it across the room.
"My beautiful girl," Baelor whispers into your skin, almost as though talking to himself more than you. His palm smoothes over the curve of your ribs and comes up to cup your breast, a reverent and tender touch, as though simply feeling the weight of it in his hand. "So stunning. Oh, I dreamt of this."
"You dreamt…?" You stutter out a gasp when his mouth closes hotly over your nipple, and your hands fly up to grasp the back of his head.
"I dreamt," Baelor repeats, moving his attention to your other breast with the same amount of care. "I wanted. I wished."
You pull him by the nape of his neck and he moves with your urging, lifting himself over you so that you can kiss him. The dampness of your arousal, still lingering in his facial hair, smears against your cheek as you lick into his mouth and taste yourself, oddly sweet on his tongue.
"Take your clothes off," you grumble against his lips, the slightest note of impatience lacing your tone as your fingers dig against his shoulders.
His linen shirt meets your chemise somewhere on the floor. Your hands find his chest, sliding down over hard muscle padded with soft flesh. He has a body befitting a man of his station— a soldier, hard and lean, bearing the scars of battle but unashamed of them. You trace a scar stretching across his ribs, trailing down towards his navel. Unhurried fingers dance over the trail of hair stretching downwards, guiding you towards the waist of his breeches.
"You're beautiful." It comes out more forceful than you mean for it to— but gods, do you mean it. You want to map out his body with your hands and your lips and your teeth, you want to learn every inch of him by rote, and still never stop once you know all. You try to convey it to him with your eyes, because you can't find any other words to express it. "You're so beautiful, Baelor, you must know."
He smiles, and it's that smile. The one that has haunted you since you saw it last, the one that you want to see over and over again. It causes a swelling feeling in your chest that… probably isn't healthy, but none of this is. It would be death to deny it now.
"You flatter me," Baelor says, his thumb stroking idly against your thigh, where his hand rests. His eyes are soft, flicking over you with so much adoration you struggle not to squirm beneath it.
"I tell the truth," you murmur, slipping two fingers just beneath the waist of his breeches to trace just below the fabric. His breath hitches, and you smirk. "I could always lie, but I imagine you'd see right through it, now."
"It would be very unladylike of you," he remarks, his smile turning sardonic.
"Hm. Can't have that." Even as you say it, your hands are untying his breeches, your fingers tugging until you're able to slip them down his hips. "We both know just how ladylike I am."
One boot comes off, then two, and his breeches shed to leave him in his smallclothes. There is no finesse to his movements— the seduction is over, leaving only sharp intent and the promise of what's to come. Desire wound tight like a spring, loaded to snap at a single touch.
That touch comes when you slip your fingers along the band of his smallclothes, a single, featherlight graze against the laces. Baelor's entire body goes rigid over you, as if you've held a blade to his throat. You guide them over his hips and down his thighs, until he snaps to and shirks them the rest of the way. He whispers your name, something between awe and guttural need forming the word in his throat.
"Baelor," you hum in response when your fingers find him and wrap around his cock. You freeze for just a moment— he's larger than you expected, and the prospect sends a little shiver through you. The Hammer, you think to yourself. Of course. He's hot to the touch, burning and throbbing against your palm, so hard it seems like it should be unbearable for him. But he bears it, for you. "Do you know how many women in the realm dream of this?"
He makes a small noise of warning, twitching in your grip.
Your grin turns wolfish as you pass your thumb over the head, flushed and leaking. "Do you know how many would kill for this? Would die to lie beneath you like this?"
"Heavens above." He shudders out a sigh as you stroke him, his forehead falling to rest against yours. "Don't— you mustn't say such things to me, my love, I— I have to be so careful with you. You have no idea."
So this is what it is, to have him lose his composure. No longer the Prince of Dragonstone, Hand to the King, heir to the Iron Throne— in your hands, he is simply a man. A man who wants, whose breath spills warm across your lips. Whose hips search for yours when you wrap your legs around his waist.
"Would you let me have you, my Prince?" you ask him, and your voice is light, inquisitive. It can't be anything else, because you are just as desperate as he is. You don't have it in you to be teasing, you are simply open with your need for him, allowing your innermost thoughts to surge to the forefront. Your forehead pressed to his, you look up through your lashes to find his eyes closed, squeezed shut in some vain attempt to hold on. "My love?"
His eyes snap open to meet yours, pressed so close that your noses touch. Baelor groans quietly when you guide him between your legs without waiting for an answer— it was a rhetorical question, after all.
But all the same, he replies, "Anything you desire."
Baelor drops his hips, enough to follow the guidance of your hand. He fills you in one fluid stoke, and together you take a long, deep breath.
"You are…"
"Perfect." He finishes your sentence for you, hushed and airy though it is. It feels as though you could be interrupted at any moment with the way he holds you, like a secret, like something that should never been spoken or heard about. Like you are only for him to know this way.
He presses his hips flush to yours, making you keen from the fullness, the exquisite stretch. The potion, for what it's worth, does make everything slicker, easier— you are so swollen and relaxed from his mouth, your body so attuned to his that there is no pain. Only the pleasure of his touch remains.
He moves, and it lights you up from within like wildfire. Your back arches towards him, your chest pressing up against his, and a sound unlike anything you've ever made tears from your throat. Arms blindly snatching for him, you wrap yourself around him as though he may try to move away.
He nuzzles his nose against yours, almost too tender of a gesture for the position you find yourself in. "That's it, darling. Take all of me."
Your mind clouds with pleasure as he rocks his hips into yours. You feel like you're drowning in the skin on skin, stripped to the skin and pressed flush to him. Your hand smoothes down his back, feeling rigid muscle and raised scars there, too.
He withdraws and presses forward, setting a slow, deliberate pace that drives you practically mad. He's so gentle and tender even when everything about him, about this situation, tells you that he wants to let go of his restraint. Widening your thighs on instinct, your hand cradles the back of his head, bringing his lips closer to yours.
"Don't hold back," you tell him, and you feel his breath pause where it fans against your cheek. Even though to try to be commanding, your voice cracks. "Baelor— stop holding back—"
Baelor presses a single, chaste kiss to your lips, and you are too caught up in the moment to realize that it's a warning, a subtle apology before he's shifting. He lifts your hips, planting his knees on the mattress before he pulls you into his lap, your back bent over the expanse of his strong thighs.
You slide down the mattress with an undignified squeak, hands scratching along the sheets for stability where there is none. And then you settle into your new position, gazing up at him with a stunned expression.
He's unbelievably gorgeous. His chest leaps with his breath, tanned and freckled skin glistening with a thin layer of sweat. He pants through parted lips, his eyes sharp and focused as they always are, cheeks flushed. He's a vision, and he's all yours.
Baelor splays his hand flat against your chest, running his palm over the skin where, beneath, your heart pounds a drumbeat loud as thunder in your ears. Then he drags his touch down, between your breasts, over the curve of your stomach. His hand settles warm and solid over your navel, thumb stroking you tenderly enough to make you let out a soft sigh.
But then he's sliding his cock into you again, a wicked thrust that punches all the air from your lungs, and his hand presses down. Your brows draw together, your mouth falling open on a silent moan as he hits something so devastating inside of you that it makes your eyes involuntarily roll back in your head.
"Feel that?" Baelor murmurs, his voice roughened with desperation as he does it again, and again. Pull back, push forward, press down. "Feel how deep I am inside you?"
It comes out so… possessive. Spurred on by the fact that he's the only one to do this to you, the only person to see you like this. Like he's staking a claim to you with each roll of his hips. His fingers rub back and forth over the soft flesh of your stomach, and you do feel it— the tip of his cock as he drives it into you, reaching so deep within you that it makes a faint bulge in your lower stomach.
You sob out an incoherent response, lights dancing behind your eyelids. Your hands, searching for something to hold onto as his thrusts gain momentum, find the pillow above your head. You squeeze it, pull blindly as though it will bring you some respite, and the downy soft padding of it covers your face, smothering the obscene moans that spill from your mouth.
Baelor's hand all but slams down on top of the pillow with a dull thump. You feel the impact through the feather stuffing, a slight bump against the tip of your nose before he's snatching it away from you and flinging the accursed thing across the room. It hits one of the open window shutters and falls to the floor.
"Do not. Hide." It's a snarl released from his throat, his hand coming to cup your chin and pull you to center. "Show me your eyes."
You blink your eyes open at him and bite your lip, trying to keep your whimpering at bay. You watch his core muscles flex with the movement of his hips, his chest dappled with golden sunlight, his jaw tightening with the effort to remain consistent, even when you told him to let go.
"There she is," Baelor whispers, a flicker of awe crossing his features. "My beautiful girl."
His thumb strokes across your lower lip, and without even thinking, you close your lips around it. The pad of his thumb, tasting of salt and the sweet musk of your own cunt, strokes against your tongue. A quiet groan breaks from him, his thrusts turning erratic and unmeasured when you suck hard.
Baelor drops his chin toward his chest, his face drawn in silent agony. "Fuck."
Your cunt clamps down hard around him at the sound of the swear falling from his lips. You don't know why the single word is enough to drive you crazy— probably because you've never heard Baelor curse before, and it's such a juxtaposition to the rest of him. The unshakeable prince brought to shambles by your lips around his thumb, your legs around his core.
Your orgasm mounts suddenly, and your teeth bear down hard on his thumb. It's enough to throw him off-kilter. He hisses through his teeth and pulls you with his free hand, seating himself deep inside you, his hips pressed flush to yours. He slides his hand from your waist downward, through the soft curls of hair on your mound. He finds your clit, brushing a circle around it with the tip of one, impossibly gentle fingertip.
You cum so quickly that the force of it turns blinding and sharp. Your cunt pulses on his cock with an urgency that wracks your entire body. But it is not enough for him that you lay there milking him— no, he has to escalate it.
Just as soon as it hits, Baelor's hand is gripping your thigh, pushing your leg up until your knee hooks over his shoulder, and he bends you. Your thigh presses tight to your chest as he moves over you, his cock hitting immeasurably deeper now. You claw desperately at his back, fingernails scratching, raking hard lines that will be too easy for his servants to notice, come morning.
He doesn't let up, even for a second. Still driving his hips, fucking you through the pulsing of your cunt, his body holding you down against the bed. His thumb slides from your mouth with a wet pop, spit smearing across your cheek as he cradles your face. Baelor replaces his thumb with his tongue, kissing you deeply, reverently, like he can feed all his devotion into you with it.
"Good girl," he whispers into your mouth, dragging his hips back slowly and then filling you back up even slower. You squirm, drowning between your legs from the oversensitivity and the entirely new angle he hits at. The sound that he makes is unbelievably erotic, something between a sigh and a rasping moan that cracks in his throat. "So good for me, my darling."
You cry his name, latching onto him with a trembling hand. "Fuck— Baelor. You need to cum. You should—"
"Don't." He shakes his head, fixing you with a heated look. He swallows, exhaling a stuttering breath. "Not— not yet, I don't—"
But you're nodding against him in retaliation, tightening your core muscles around his cock, squeezing him so hard that he makes a noise like you've punched him.
"Fuck," Baelor grits, hanging his head. "Oh, fucking Seven, you just— just can't stand to lose— can you—?"
Perspiration beads on his brow, and you have the sudden urge to lick it. So, you do. You pull him down by the neck, and he goes, following the urging of your hand like it's a command he's beholden to. You run your tongue across his temple, up and over his drawn brow, and he shudders.
In spite of everything— the overstimulation, the frightening possibility that you might cum again— you manage to break a small, breathless smile. Your mouth finds the shell of his ear, and your voice drops unexpectedly low. "Yield."
He plants his hips against yours, pressing your thigh so far against your chest that your knee almost touches your ear. He cums with an exquisite moan against your cheek, your tongue still pressed to his face to taste more of him, as though you can consume the very beauty from his skin.
You take his hand— the one against your thigh, holding it up around his waist— and guide it down between your flush bodies. Even while you feel him pulse inside you, he follows your guidance without question. He rubs a light caress against your clit, just enough to send sparks shooting up your spine.
You cum again for him, and it's gentler this time— like sunlight breaking through a storm. You give him a soft, relieved moan, while you pulse on his cock and your tense muscles release beneath him.
You both lay there in the feeling, letting the pulsations die down as you settle. And then, he stirs just a bit.
"Better?" Baelor murmurs, nudging his nose against yours.
"Much."
You feel him smile as he kisses you, his hand coming up to cup your cheek. You let him linger there, smiling into your mouth, for a few more seconds— and then you kick your heel against his shoulder, where your leg is still slung up and pinned against you.
He laughs at the disgruntled noise you make, lowering your leg and smoothing his palm up the length of it as he pulls it to rest against his hip. "My strong girl. You're quite the force when you want something, hm?"
"Don't you forget it," you grumble, but there's no real heat to it.
"I'm not likely to anytime soon."
You sigh when he withdraws from you, but only so that he can roll you both, gathering you into his arms. You lay with your head on his sweat-slick chest, his arm encircling your shoulders to hold you close. Relaxing into him, your body spent, you place a hand over his chest to feel his heart thundering beneath your palm.
Both naked, tangled up in each other, you remain like that for a while. Your fingers drawing idle shapes against his chest, gliding through the hair there as it rises and falls with his breaths as they even out.
He's yours. The thought flits through your mind, light as a feather. He's going to marry you. You'll be his wife. Many things about it make your chest tighten. That you'll be the Crown Princess in the process. That eventually, you will be expected to be Queen.
As quickly as your fears bubble up, one thing quells the flood. He's Baelor. He'll take care of you. He always seems to. You trust him to. You… you love him for it.
"You're staring."
You blink, and tilt your head to look up at him. You had been staring, directly at the mess you made between his legs, while your mind whirled in a dozen different directions. You should probably feel embarrassed at being caught, but there's mirth in Baelor's eyes. His hand pets affectionately against the back of your head.
"We're betrothed," you say, in lieu of an explanation.
"So we are."
"The King should probably know."
Baelor makes a short noise. It rumbles in his chest, against your cheek. "The King can wait until the 'morrow. I'm not terribly enticed by the idea of leaving you tonight." He turns his head slightly towards the open window. "After all, I'd imagine most of the Keep knows about it, by now."
You giggle, turning your face towards his chest. You nuzzle into the hair over his heart and breathe in, smelling the comforting scent of his skin. Remarkably, it is less strong than it has been all evening, no longer heightened to the point of overwhelm. You can't hear every damned thing in the Keep anymore— nor can you taste the saltwater on the air from the bay.
"Baelor."
"Mm?"
"I think it worked." You press a kiss to his sternum. "We did it."
"Good." A pause. Baelor heaves a deep sigh. "Do not. Ever. Drink another fucking sex potion. For the love of the suffering Seven."
You tut, a teasing smile quirking at your lips. "So I shouldn't use the second one I have in my drawers, then?"
Baelor's head snaps towards you. When you see the look of terror on his face, you dissolve into a fit of laughter, pulling yourself closer against his side.
He huffs a quiet chuckle, but you can't mistake the sound of relief underlying it. He lays a warm palm against your bare shoulder. "Troublemaker."
"Yes, I am." You bite your lip, trailing your hand down his stomach, your fingers grazing lightly enough that you watch his abdominal muscles tense beneath the touch. "But I want you like this all the time."
"Naked?"
"Unmoored."
You turn your head to find him regarding you with the same calmness you've come to expect from him, but with a fire burning within his gaze. He smirks slightly. "That shouldn't be too difficult for you to accomplish, I fear."
With a hum, you slip your leg over his hips and lift yourself to straddle him. His hands find your waist, steadying you. You raise yourself up, one hand braced on his chest, the other falling to one of his hands. Beneath you, you feel his cock begin to harden again as you place his hand on your breast.
"Then let me begin, my Prince."
The wedding is scheduled for three weeks later, at Baelor's behest. Long enough for the lords of the seven houses to arrive in due course, but not long enough for there to be question if you indeed are with his child.
You spoke about it at length, actually. He was very insistent, seeing as how he was trying to actively put one in you at the time.
On the day of your wedding, you sit in your vanity chair and fiddle with the cuffs of your dress. It is white and gold, of a fabric quality you've never been able to luxuriate in before. It feels stifling. You fear walking in it, breathing in it, doing anything that may damage it at all. You sit with your spine stiff and straight, allowing Mircalla to fix pins into your hair. Several other serving girls flit about the room, attending to various other chores.
When you feel you've just about had enough of the prodding of pins, a knock sounds at the chamber door. Your heart thuds in your chest, and you shift in your seat, hoping that it may be your husband-to-be, come to steal you away for a moment before the ceremony. It would not be unlike him— Baelor is a busy man, but attentive as often when he can be. Even if it is a mere kiss in an alcove, or a five minute interlude in the courtyard, there is always a time and a place that he can find to be with you, to show you his affections.
But the chamber door opens, and your guard steps a foot into the room. "Prince Daeron to see you, my lady."
Daeron? Your brow draws in confusion, but you rise from your chair, regardless. "Enter."
Daeron stumbles into the room with all the grace of a newborn deer. The maids all pause in tandem, and a hush falls over the room as he blinks up at each of them awkwardly, his blue eyes a bit less bleary than normal, his honey-gold hair tied back with a black ribbon for the festivities. "Apologies for my… intrusion?"
"No harm done, my lord." You clasp your hands anxiously behind your back, all the same. "What may I do for you?"
"I had wanted a word with you, my lady. Alone. For only a moment, if you wouldn't mind?"
You think that you would mind, very much. But the longer you regard Daeron, trying to cling to your vitriol, the less you can find any. You are about to be married to the Crown Prince, a gorgeous and honorable man who you are falling desperately in love with, to no one's surprise.
You cannot bring yourself to refuse Daeron— and so, you dismiss your ladies with a courteous nod.
As soon as the door shuts, Daeron is crossing the room and slumping into an armchair by the window. You do not move, but follow him with your eyes as he slouches, heaving an enormous sigh.
"Are you drunk?" you ask him pointedly.
"Always." He flashes you a sardonic smile. You give him an incredulous look. "Necessity compels. But I am here, and not at a tavern, at least."
"Better wine, I'd imagine."
"Mm, yes. Arbor red. An excellent choice, indeed." He pauses, his eyes flicking over you apprehensively. "I came to… apologize, my lady. I fear I have behaved rather badly towards you, and I felt I owed you an explanation."
You only blink at him. "Yes, you do."
"Right." He licks his lips, seeming to collect his thoughts. "Before you came to King's Landing… I dreamed of you."
"How romantic."
"No, not— not so much." Daeron takes a breath and pinches the bridge of his nose. "You see, my dreams… they have a tendency to come true. It isn't always a good thing." He pauses for a long moment, his eyes focused on the middle-distance, appearing to see something that you can't. "When I dreamt of you, it was… I saw you dying, my lady. I saw you on your death bed. And you cursed me for it."
You say nothing, but watch him as his shaking hands smooth against his pants.
"I didn't know what it meant. But I figured, when I saw you, that if I was going to be the reason for your death— in screaming agony— then it would needs be best for both of us if I held no relation to you. If I could refuse you and not speak a word, it would be… you wouldn't have died. And I wouldn't have been the cause."
"But, I have not died, my lord."
"No." Daeron lets out a short laugh, void of humor. "But, you had an affliction some weeks back, did you not? I heard it was rather a close call." He fixes his eyes on you, and he looks so deeply apologetic. Like a kicked dog, he peers up at you through his lashes. "If I was in any way responsible for— for any pain caused, I am truly sorry, my lady. My intentions were noble, I assure you. My execution, however…"
"Leaves something to be desired, yes." You close your eyes, breathe in slowly. Daeron reeks of alcohol, but you don't allow it to deter you from stepping closer to his chair. "In your dream, what was it that I said? How did I curse you?"
Daeron swallows, his eyes flicking around the room briefly. "You said… 'I don't want Daeron. He doesn't want me. I didn't take the fucking thing for him.'" Your face must betray your thoughts, because Daeron regards you closely before nodding solemnly, folding his hands in his lap. "Right. So, it was that."
Your heart pounds so hard that you swear it's trying to leap up into your throat. "Daeron. Whatever you think you saw—"
"It's not for me to pry." His eyes continuously move from your face to various areas of the room, like he doesn't want to look at you head-on. "What I know is that you are well now, and marrying my uncle. And I am happy for you, my lady. I truly am. It has been many years since I saw him smile the way he does, when you aren't looking." Daeron finally chances to look you directly in the eye, and he looks gravely serious. "Do not take this the wrong way, but I think that we would have been terrible for each other. Wouldn't you agree?"
For the first time since Daeron stepped into your chambers, a smile crosses your face. "You know, I think you're absolutely right. We would have killed each other."
Daeron lets out a sad chuckle. "Quite so."
He looks around, at a loss for a few seconds, before he heaves himself up and stands over you. He's quite a bit taller than you first thought— maybe it's because he isn't slouching as much, now.
"Forgive me, my lady. I've taken enough of your time. I wish you a long and happy marriage." He winks. "Only, one not to me."
That finally earns him a giggle from you, and Daeron smiles, before lifting your hand and pressing a chaste kiss to your knuckles. You watch him cross the room, narrowly avoiding bumping into your vanity chair as he moves.
At the door, Daeron pauses and turns back to you with a reserved smirk. "Just so you know. My cock does work. If the need should ever arise again."
He ducks out of the room before the pillow you throw can hit him.
jumpcut mid porn scene to mircalla and florin sharing a blunt outside the laundry rooms like "so do u think they're fuckin or"
General Synopsis: You have given the realm six sons and every mark on your body to prove it. But insecurity is a quiet thing and during the Grand Feast of King Daeron II, it finds you all at once....
pairing: Husband!Baelor Targaryenx Wife!reader x Husband!Maekar Targaryen
word count: 12k.
Content: 18+ minors dont interact,body image issues, hurt/comfort, jealousy, scars, suggestive content, p in v, polyamory, fluff, targcest, soft ending
You stood before the mirror with your chin lifted and your shoulders back.
The dressing room had been overtaken entirely. Your ladies-in-waiting moved around you, fanning bolts of fabric out on either side. Silks and velvets and things more delicate, colors ranging from a winter sea to a red so dark it bordered on black in certain lights. They rippled and shimmered as the women moved, catching the last warm gold of the evening sun that poured through the high chamber windows and turned everything briefly ethereal.
You yourself wore only a fitting garment, loose, unfinished, existing solely to give the seamstress her markers and to give you some vague impression of how the silhouette might look.
You had not expected the fabrics that were shown to you.
From silk to georgette, from heavy damask to something so fine and light it seemed to move of its own accord in the faintest touch. Every available cloth had been sourced, folded, hung, and presented for your consideration. The arrangement alone must have cost more than most lords spent on their entire household in a year.
You grimaced.
Both your husbands had an unseemly talent for excess when it came to you, a talent you had attempted to discourage. You had told them once, that it was entirely unnecessary, that you wanted for nothing, that they would do far better directing their generosity toward the smallfolk or the sept or truly anything that was not you.
You remembered very clearly how that conversation had gone.
Baelor had looked at you with that expression of his, that gave nothing away, a small smile settled at the corner of his mouth, his chin lifted. He had let you finish.
Then he had said: "For you, there is nothing too grand. You are Princess to this realm and Queen to be. You will be adorned as such."
You had looked to Maekar, hoping for an ally.
Maekar had looked back at you, then slowly crossed his arms across his chest, and considered the matter entirely settled, gave a single nod in agreement with everything Baelor had just said.
Not one word of his own.
The fabrics had arrived the following morning. More than before, if anything, as though the conversation had somehow encouraged them.
"Turn it," you said, and the ladies rotated a deep crimson satin. It caught the light differently on the second look, richer, almost mineral, like garnet pulled fresh from the earth. You tilted your head.
That one. Bold enough to honor them both. Red enough to make a statement without having to open your mouth.
You gave a single nod and a seamstress moved around you with tape and pins in hand. Hem, shoulders, the length of your arm.
Then she reached your middle.
She paused.
Her brow furrowed and she measured again. Carefully.
"Is something the matter?"
She startled, nearly dropping a few pins from her hand. "N-No, Your Grace. I apologize." Her eyes dropped immediately to her work but not before they had flickered, just once, to the soft curve of your belly.
You watched her in the mirror.
"I am asking you to be honest with me."
The seamstress swallowed.
"Yes, Your Grace. I will need to make some readjustments around your middle. I deeply apologize."
The room did not freeze so much as empty. The murmuring of your ladies trailing off into nothing, the rustle of fabric going still. Something small and quiet inside your chest simply stopped.
Your hands moved before you thought to stop them, settling over the curve of your belly. The way you might cover something you did not want seen.
It was such a small thing. Such an ordinary, professional observation from a woman simply doing her work. She had not been cruel. She had not even been unkind. And yet the words had found something in you that more than twenty years of marriage had left entirely unguarded because your husbands had never given you reason to guard it.
Not once.
Not in the dark, when there was nothing between you and their hands, when Baelor's mouth traced your skin and Maekar's grip left marks he never apologized for.
Not in passing, in the ordinary daylight hours of a shared life. Not in any of the thousand small moments that might have invited cruelty, had they been different men.
In more than twenty years, through six children and all the ways your body had changed and shifted and marked itself with the evidence of that, not once had either of them made you feel that any part of you required an apology, so you had simply never thought about it.
And yet, as if the gods had decided that women had not suffered quite enough, that small passing professional assessment had woken something in you that had apparently been sleeping very lightly. It was a foolish thought. You had never had reason to doubt yourself. Until someone else voiced it.
"Very well," you said.
Afterwards, when the seamstress had retreated to a smaller room next door to make her adjustments, you let your ladies press jewels into your palm for approximately thirty seconds before you raised your hand.
"Leave me."
They inclined their heads and left without a word. The door clicked shut behind them.
You stood before the mirror alone.
Slowly, you reached for the knot of the garment and let it fall.
It had been some time since you had truly looked at yourself.
Your breasts were softer than they had once been, heavier, sitting lower than you remembered. Your nipples darker than they had been in your girlhood. Your belly was soft too and mapped, hip to navel, with the pale silver traces of scars that had long since faded. But those were not the only marks.
There, low on your abdomen still faint after all these years, the long curved scar from Valarr. Your first birth, the hardest of them all. Three days of labor and a maester who had fought to keep you both in the world and won, barely.
Higher, at your left hip, the tear from Aerion. Too fast, too early, the kind of birth that happened before anyone was ready.
And then there, low, just above your pubic mound, Aegon's mark. The stubbornest of all of them, and the most intimate in its placement, a thin line that had refused to silver eight years. Still faintly pink.
Eight years since Aegon. Eight years since the last of them had come into the world red-faced and angry and perfect.
Six children. Six times your body had opened itself and endured and kept going and you had never, not once, allowed yourself to think of it as anything other than duty. What mothers did. What wives did. What was simply expected and therefore required no acknowledgment.
Standing here now, alone in the quiet of your chamber, you were not sure whether to feel proud of it or grieve it.
Perhaps both. Perhaps that was the only honest answer.
You thought of yourself twenty years ago. The smoothness of that skin. The absence of scars. The body that had not yet learned what it would be asked to do, or what it would cost.
You wondered, sometimes, if that girl would even recognize you.
Your eyes moved over your reflection again, searching for something.
And then, the questions came.
Did your husbands truly see this and feel what they claimed to feel?
Was it genuine?
Or was this simply duty to them?
The thought arrived like poison. Maybe they could do it because of someone else. A younger woman living in their minds. Softer skin behind closed eyes when their hands were on yours. Maybe that was how they managed it. Maybe that was the only way they could.
Your mind fed you the thought and then fed you more and you stood there and let it.
Your proudness. Your stubbornness. Twenty years of certainty, all of it quietly dismantled by nothing more than your own reflection.
You pressed your lips together.
You could not make it make sense. The body in the mirror and the hunger in their eyes could not possibly be looking at the same thing.
The shame followed.
It washed over you in a wave you were not prepared for. The doubt, the grief for that girl in the mirror who no longer existed, the deep humiliation of standing in your own skin and finding it wanting.
You had faced childbed fever. You had faced loss. You had sat at the bedsides of sick children and held yourself together by sheer will alone.
You had not expected this to be the thing that broke through.
You bent and retrieved the garment from the floor. Pulled it around your shoulders. Hugged it close with both arms wrapped tight across your middle and held yourself.
And then, quietly, you wept.
The doors to the great hall were open, with warm light and noise spilling into the corridor. You paused there for a moment, just long enough to straighten your shoulders, lift your chin, and make yourself look composed.
Your corset was tightly laced beneath your gown, shaping your figure into something polished and proper. It didn’t quite match what you had seen in the mirror an hour ago. Still, you were grateful for it, even if that feeling didn’t sit entirely right with everything else on your mind tonight.
Then the herald's voice rang out, cutting through the noise of the hall.
"Her Royal Highness, Princess of the Seven Kingdoms. Wife to Prince Baelor and Prince Maekar of House Targaryen. Mother to six princes of the realm."
The hall shifted. People turned to look. Voices grew quieter, one table at a time, starting near the doors and spreading across the hall.
You walked in.
The great hall had been transformed. Every long table draped in cloth of gold and deep Targaryen crimson, candles burning in their hundreds along the walls and suspended in iron chandeliers above, casting everything in warm amber light that caught the jewels of the assembled lords and ladies. Fresh flowers had been brought in from the glass gardens, white and red arranged in various displays between the candelabras, and the smell of them mingled with roasting meat and spiced wine made it clear this was a celebration.
The red gown was beautiful. You knew it was beautiful and yet all you felt was the weight of being looked at. Lords inclining their heads as your eyes passed over them. Ladies assessing you, smiles that may or may not have reached their eyes. You smiled back at all of them and felt beneath the corset uncomfortable in your own skin.
You breathed in.
And then, a loud shout.
"Mother!"
Aegon had spotted you from across the room, the conversation with Aemon abandoned mid-sentence.
He was already moving, pushing through the crowd with little care for manners. Two lords had to step quickly aside, and a lady grabbed her wine cup before he knocked into her.
He hit you around the middle.
Both arms thrown around you, his face pressing directly into the soft of your belly, his small hands gripping your sides with a force that was frankly surprising for someone his size. He held on with the complete certainty of a boy who had never once questioned whether he was wanted.
You stiffened and felt the grimace cross your face before you had any hope of stopping it. You were grateful that he was buried too far into you to see it.
"My sweetling." You kept your voice warm and drew him back gently, turning him by the shoulders to face you. "Look at you."
He wore an apricot silk doublet that shimmered through various shades of gold as he moved, with deep red and black visible beneath. Dornish in its cut, but threaded with elements of House Targaryen and there, if you looked closely, traces of your own house woven in.
Over his right breast hung a three-headed dragon in silver. Queen Myriah's doing, without question.
His hair had been dressed back from his face.
It would last another hour at most and you both knew it.
"How are you enjoying the festivities?" you asked, smoothing his collar with both hands.
Aegon's expression changed drastically. "Not much. The lords keep trying to talk to me about things I do not care about and Lord Bracken's son stepped on my foot and did not even apologize."
"Did he."
"Deliberately, I think."
"I am certain it was an accident."
"Aemon says I should not hit him back because we are at grandsire's feast and it would be embarrassing." He paused. "Aemon is probably right."
"Aemon is absolutely right."
"I know." He sighed, loudly. "I would still rather be outside."
"If it would make you feel better," you said, leaning slightly toward him and keeping your voice low, "I would rather be outside too."
His face split into a grin and you smiled back at him before you could help yourself. Your sweet boy.
A beat of comfortable silence settled between you, warm and easy and then...
He went still.
The grin faded, replaced by something that had no business being on the face of a boy his age. He looked up at you and the sheer focus of it caught you off guard, those violet eyes of his moving over your face with careful attention that made the back of your neck prickle.
You had the sudden and very uncomfortable feeling of being read.
"Are you alright?"
You held his gaze for a moment.
He looked back at you and waited, with a patience that was entirely Baelor's and a stubbornness that was entirely Maekar's, and the combination of the two on that small face was almost enough to undo you completely.
Gods. You had really gone and birthed sons with the observational instincts of their fathers.
"I am perfectly well, thank you my sweet." The words came out smooth and easy, "Now go back to your brother."
Aegon's face arranged itself into a scowl. He held it for a moment, clearly weighing his options, and then turned and scurried back toward Aemon.
He looked back at you once.
Over his shoulder, those too-sharp eyes finding your face across the hall with an ease that should not have been possible at his age.
You turned your attention to the room instead and searched the rest of the hall for your sons.
Aerion was not difficult to find. He stood at the center of a small cluster of young noble ladies, all of them flushed and giggling, their eyes moving over him freely and without shame.
He was enjoying every moment of it, you could tell by the set of his shoulders, the easy smile, the way he leaned slightly toward whoever was speaking. He wore House Targaryen colors, bold black with red accents, but underneath, if you looked closely, faint lines of apricot silk caught the light.
Matarys stood not far from his brother, which was where Matarys tended to be, close enough to keep an eye on things, far enough to want no part in them. He was talking to a group of men, several of them knights by the look of them, all wearing very serious expressions. Matarys fit right in amongst them. The difference between him and Aerion not twenty feet away was so completely typical of them both that you felt a laugh leave you.
Your eyes moved on.
To the right, beside the Iron Throne, King Daeron stood with Queen Myriah, talking to a group from Tyrosh. Beside them stood Kiera and Valarr nearby, doing a poor job of pretending he had not noticed her. You watched him steal a glance at her. Watched her notice. Watched them both look away in opposite directions like two people with absolutely nothing to hide.
You pressed your lips together.
It was indeed a very good match.
Further along the hall your second eldest Daeron stood with a young lord from House Lannister.
It was a fine atmosphere. Warm and loud and glittering with everything a celebration ought to be.
And yet your eyes, traitorously, had begun to move.
The hall was full of lords, naturally. Men of every age and station filling the long tables, deep in the serious business of being seen and seeing others. But between them, beside them, were their daughters. Their sisters. Young noble ladies in gowns of every color, their skin smooth, their laughter easy, their figures untouched by the demands of duty and childbirth and years.
They moved through the hall like light through glass, effortless, bright, drawing the eye without trying.
You watched them and felt something ugly stir in the pit of your stomach.
It was shameless, the thought that followed. You knew it was shameless even as it took shape. But there it was regardless, rising up from that same dark place where the doubt had been living all evening.
Your husbands were men. Vital, powerful, striking men who commanded every room they entered. And these girls were everywhere tonight, glowing with youth that required no effort other than a beautiful gown.
What man, given the choice, would stop himself. After all even your husbands...
You stopped the thought before it finished itself.
And yet the shame sat in you like a stone at the bottom of a river and your feet did not want to carry you further into the room.
You were still standing there, caught between duty and the desire to simply not, when a hand settled at your side.
Warm. Familiar. Fingers curling against your hip like they had every right to be there . A private hello in the middle of a very public room. It pressed, just slightly, into the softness there.
You pulled away before you had consciously decided to and turned.
Baelor.
He stood close and his head dipped slightly toward your ear, his voice dropping to something low and meant only for you.
"My love. You look radiant tonight."
That voice. Even now, after everything, after all the years, the low warm of it settled deep in your belly, coiling somewhere intimate and inconvenient, and you had no control over it whatsoever.
It died as quickly as it came.
You stepped back, just slightly.
"Husband." You kept your voice light and easy. "How are you enjoying the festivities?"
There it was, that flutter in his eyes. Brief, barely there. His gaze moved over you, top to bottom and back again, slow and thorough.
You watched him pull himself together and so you looked at him properly for the first time this evening.
He was, by any honest accounting, unfairly handsome for a man his age.
His brown hair had grown into something richer with the years, peppered through with grey that caught the candlelight like silver thread, slightly longer on top and curling at the ends.
His mismatched eyes were warm tonight, full of that quiet command that he carried as naturally as other men carried swords. His beard was trimmed close and neat, framing the line of his jaw.
He was broad through the shoulder, straight-backed, carrying himself with the kind of authority that could not be taught and could not be faked.
He wore a long doublet of black so deep it drank the light, and yet the fabric itself gave off something, a deep red hue that surfaced depending on how he moved, like embers beneath coal. It fit him extraordinarily well.
He caught you staring and smiled.
It was, unfortunately, an extremely handsome smile.
And then your eyes moved past him, just for a moment and your stomach dropped.
They were looking at him.
Several of the young noble ladies you had noted earlier had their eyes fixed on your husband with an attention that could not be mistaken for anything other than exactly what it was, hungry and shameless.
The look of women who saw something they wanted and had not yet decided against reaching for it. One, in a pale gold gown, had her lips slightly parted, her gaze dragging over Baelor with a boldness that made your jaw tighten. Another leaned toward her companion and murmured something in her ear, her eyes never leaving his profile. A third young, dark haired beautiful woman was not even attempting subtlety. She was simply staring, her wine cup forgotten in her hand. She was fucking him with her eyes and she did not care who knew it.
And when they finally noticed you looking, they did not even have the decency to look ashamed. Just a small glance aside. A little smile shared between them. And then, one of them reached up and pulled her neckline just low enough to make herself perfectly clear.
The jealousy that hit you was hot and ugly and you did not care even slightly that it was, because you were fairly certain that if you opened your mouth right now not a single dignified thing would come out of it.
You turned back to your husband.
He was still looking only at you.
Which somehow made it worse.
"I am enjoying myself greatly." His voice dropped just low enough that it was only for you. "Though at present it is you I am most enjoying looking at."
You scoffed. It came out before you could dress it in something more appropriate, sharp and dismissive and you watched his smile falter at the edges.
And then something rose up in you that you had no name for and no warning of, a hot, wordless anger that had nothing reasonable at its root. You were angry at the way he looked at you. Angry at the sincerity of it. Angry, most of all, because you wanted to believe it and could not, and that felt like his fault even though it wasn't, and you knew it wasn't, and that made you angrier still.
"Must you always stand so close to me."
It came out sharper than you intended and you did not apologize for it.
Baelor stilled.
"My love—"
"I simply need room to breathe." You kept your chin up. Kept your voice even. "That is all."
He looked at you for a moment with those mismatched eyes of his, steady and careful, just observing.
It was, you thought, extremely irritating.
"Of course." He said it quietly, graciously and inclined his head at you. Not a single trace of reproach in it.
That somehow made it worse.
You turned and walked away from him, your chin high and your chest tight, and did not look back.
You moved through the hall with your head high, nodding once to Lord Tully as you passed, exchanging a small smile with one of the Tyrell women.
You lifted a goblet of wine from a passing servant's tray without breaking stride and by the time you reached the grand table and settled into your seat, you felt utterly terrible for the way you snapped at Baelor. Yet the small irrational part of you that had wanted a reaction, that had wanted to crack that composure of his just slightly, sat in your chest alongside the guilt and did not apologize for itself.
A servant appeared at your elbow almost immediately, setting down a small board arranged with care. Aged cheese, dark bread, sliced cold meat fanned out.
And in the center, nestled amongst it all—
A sugar-filled date.
You stared at it.
It was your favorite. Had been your favorite for as long as you could remember, and someone in this kitchen had thought of that tonight and the small thoughtfulness of it should have moved you and instead it did the opposite entirely. Your eyes dropped to your belly, hidden and shaped and smoothed beneath the crimson gown, and something unreasonable moved through you.
You picked the date up and set it on the plate beside you without eating it.
You looked at the rest of the food, decided against all of it, and lifted your eyes to the hall instead.
Across the room, Matarys, Aerion and Daeron had found each other in the far corner, three goblets of wine between them, heads bent together over something that had all three of them laughing, their cheeks flushed rosy with warmth and wine and each other's company. You watched them for a moment longer than you meant to. Your boys. Grown and broad-shouldered and loud with laughter and so thoroughly themselves that something in your chest pulled tight and sweet at the sight of them.
Aemon and Aegon had migrated toward a group of children from the Dornish houses, deep in what appeared to be a very serious game of hands.
You smiled to yourself.
Further down the hall you caught sight of Valarr and Kiera, half hidden from the rest of the room near the far wall. Valarr was speaking low, his whole attention on her face, and Kiera's cheeks were pink and she was leaning closer without seeming to realize she was doing it.
You looked away. That was theirs. It did not need an audience.
You were still watching the hall with your wine when a figure approached and stopped at the edge of your table. Young. Well dressed. A face you placed after a moment of thought, Lord Arryn's son. Ronnel.
He inclined his head to you.
"May I, Your Grace?" He gestured to the empty seat beside you.
You nodded.
He sat, settled himself, and turned to you with the expression of someone who had been working up to this approach for some time.
"It is a fine night tonight, Your Grace."
"It is indeed. How are you enjoying yourself, Lord Arryn?"
He smiled and opened his mouth to answer.
And then his eyes dropped to the small plate beside you, to the date sitting there untouched, and without a word he reached over and picked it up. Turned it between his fingers.
You watched his hand.
Something about it struck you as both very young and very male, and you said nothing, only watched and waited to see what he would do with it.
He set the date down and turned to you properly.
"I am enjoying myself greatly, Your Grace. Though I confess the company at my table pales considerably compared to the company I find here."
"You are kind, Lord Arryn."
"I am honest." He said it with a grin, his eyes moved over you in a way that was not subtle.
"My father speaks very highly of your family. Of you especially."
"Does he."
"He says there is no woman in the Seven Kingdoms who has given more to the realm than you have." He leaned forward slightly, his elbow finding the table, closing the distance between you. "Six sons, Your Grace. Six princes. The realm owes you a great debt."
And there it was.
Said with complete sincerity. Said as a compliment, wrapped in genuine admiration, delivered with that uncomplicated smile.
Six sons. As though that was the whole of you. As though the most remarkable thing about you was the number of times your body had successfully produced an heir.
You kept your smile exactly where it was.
"The realm is very generous in its accounting," you said pleasantly.
He laughed and his eyes dropped briefly, just briefly, to the neckline of your gown before finding your face again.
"If I may say, Your Grace." His voice dropped just slightly. "The realm rather undersells you."
"Is that so."
"Considerably." He held your gaze and did not look away, his grin shifting into something a little slower, a little more sure of itself.
"I find myself wondering how it is that two princes have managed to keep you entirely to themselves all these years without the rest of us losing our minds over it."
You reached over, picked up the date from the plate where he had set it, and placed it back in the center of your board with a small smile.
"You are very bold for a man drinking my husband's wine, Lord Arryn."
His grin widened. "Is that a complaint, Your Grace?"
"That," you said pleasantly, lifting your own goblet, "is an observation."
He laughed at that and you found yourself, despite everything, almost enjoying it.
"Then I shall take it as an invitation," he said.
"You may take it however you like, Lord Arryn. It changes nothing."
He tilted his head, still smiling, studying you. "You are not what I expected, Your Grace."
"And what did you expect?"
"Something more distant. More formal." His eyes moved over your face. "You are funnier than I expected. And..." He stopped himself.
"Go on," you said.
He looked at you steadily. "More beautiful than I expected."
The words landed warm and you were just allowing yourself to feel something good for the first time this entire evening when a voice cut through from somewhere behind your left shoulder.
"Bold of him, is it not." Light. Amused. Meant for whoever stood beside her.
"She must be grateful for the attention." A second voice, lower, with a little laugh underneath it. "Women her age do not get it so freely anymore. Not when there are younger options in the room."
A pause.
"I suppose when you have done your duty and given your husbands their heirs there is nothing left but to take compliments where you can find them."
The warmth of the moment died so completely and so quickly it was as though it had never been there at all.
You set your goblet down.
Your smile did not move. Not even slightly. Twenty years had made you very good at that.
Ronnel had heard it too, you could tell by the slight shift in his expression, the flicker of discomfort that crossed his face before he smoothed it over. To his credit he opened his mouth as though he intended to say something.
"It has been a pleasure, Lord Arryn," you said pleasantly, before he could.
"The pleasure was mine, Your Grace." He said it quietly.
He left.
You sat very still.
Around you the feast continued, the laughter, the clinking of goblets, the hundred conversations of half the realm enjoying themselves. None of it had stopped. None of it had even paused. The world had kept moving through the thirty seconds it had taken for two women behind you to dismantle what little was left of the evening and it had not noticed and it did not care.
You reached for your wine.
A shadow fell across the table and the chair beside you scraped back loudly against the stone floor and Maekar dropped into the seat that Lord Arryn had left not two minutes ago. The chair groaned under him. He stretched one leg out, reached across youand grabbed a handful of nuts from the bowl near your elbow, and sat back.
Behind you, the two women stopped talking.
You took a sip of your wine.
"This night is far too long," Maekar said, to no one and put the nuts in his mouth.
You said nothing.
He chewed. Looked out across the hall with that assessing gaze of his, taking stock of the room. You kept your eyes forward and your wine in your hand and waited for whatever.
Then you felt it.
His gaze moving from the hall, to you.
"You are not eating."
"I am aware of what I am and am not doing, thank you."
He looked at the untouched plate. Then at you. "Eat something."
"I am not hungry."
"You have not eaten anything."
"Maekar, I am not hungry."
He reached over, picked up the date from the center of your board beside and held it out.
You stared at it.
"No."
He kept holding it out.
"I said no."
He put it down directly in front of you and reached for the nuts again.
You placed the date to the side.
"Who was he," he said.
"Lord Arryn's son. He was being polite."
"He was not being polite."
"We were having a perfectly pleasant conversation—"
"I know what I saw."
"Then you saw a young lord making conversation with a princess at a feast, which is entirely unremarkable and none of your concern."
Something shifted in his jaw. "It becomes my concern when a lord sits that close to my wife."
"Oh." The laugh that came out of you was not a kind one. "Oh, so that is your concern. A lord sitting too close." You kept your voice low but there was nothing soft in it. "How interesting that you find that so troubling."
He frowned. "What is that supposed to mean."
"It means," You turned to face him fully, your hands flat on the table. "That every woman in this hall has been looking at you since the moment you walked in like they want to pull you out of that doublet and not one of them has been subtle about it." You held his gaze. "And I did not see you rushing across the room about that."
He stared at you.
"That is completely different."
"Is it."
"Yes." Flat. Certain. "Because I am not interested in them."
"And yet there they are." You gestured vaguely behind him. "Looking. And here you are, saying nothing, doing nothing, and the moment one man speaks to me for five minutes—"
"He was not just speaking to you—"
"He was a boy with too much wine, Maekar, he was harmless—"
"I did not say he was not harmless, I said he was sitting too close to my wife and I did not like it." His voice had dropped to something very quiet now, which with Maekar was always more dangerous than volume.
"Those are not the same thing."
"Then what are you saying." You matched his tone.
"Because from where I am sitting it looks very much like you trust every woman in this room with your attention but you do not trust me with a conversation."
"That is not what this is." His jaw worked.
"Then tell me what it is."
He looked at you. "I told you. He was too close."
"He was making conversation."
"He was looking at you like—" He stopped again.
"Like what." You lifted your chin.
"Like he wanted you." He said it simply, no heat in it, just fact. "And I did not like it."
"You did not like it." You stared at him. "You did not like another man finding your wife attractive."
"I did not like another man thinking he had any right to—"
"But they do." You gestured behind him again, wider this time. "All of them. Every woman who has been staring at you and Baelor all evening, undressing you both with their eyes, whispering to each other—" Your voice caught slightly. You pushed through it.
"They think they have every right. And no one says a word about that. No one storms across the room about that. But one man sits beside me and suddenly—"
"You are my wife."
"So are you mine." You said it hard and fast and meant every syllable of it.
"That works both ways Maekar."
Silence.
He looked at you for a long moment and something moved behind his eyes.
"Something is wrong," he said quietly.
"Nothing is wrong."
"You have been acting strange since the moment you walked into this hall. This morning you were completely different." His eyes did not move from your face. "What happened."
You felt it then, that wall you had been holding up all evening, brick by brick begin to crack right down the middle.
You leaned in close. Close enough that no one around you could hear a single word of what was about to come out of your mouth.
"You want to know what happened." Your voice was low and shaking at the edges and you did not care.
"I stood in front of a mirror tonight and I looked at myself."
The ugliness rose up through your chest hot and unstoppable.
"I looked at my breasts, the way they hang now, the way they never sat the way they used to. I looked at my belly, soft and scarred from carrying six children. I looked at the marks on my hips, on my stomach—" Your jaw tightened. "All of it. Every part of me that used to be something else before I spent more than twenty years giving this family everything my body had to give."
His expression had gone completely still.
"And then I walked into this hall." Your voice dropped lower. "And I watched every young, smooth, untouched woman in this room look at my husbands like they were something worth having." Your throat burned.
"And I thought, why would they not look back. Why would you not. Why would either of you not look back and think, yes. That. Instead of — " You gestured at yourself. All of yourself. "This."
He said nothing.
You felt the tears brimming and you were on your feet before a single one of them could fall, because you would not. Not here.
You did not look at Maekar's face. You could not.
"I need air." Your voice came out wrecked and quiet and you did not wait for his answer. "Do not follow me."
You turned and walked and then you were moving faster than was dignified and you did not care even slightly. The hall blurred at the edges and from the corner of your eye you caught your sons.
Matarys, straightening. Aerion, frowning. Daeron going still mid conversation. Their faces all wearing different versions of the same expression and you looked away from all of them because if you looked at them properly right now you would fall apart completely.
A pair of Kingsguard fell into step behind you.
You turned and looked at them with an expression that stopped them where they stood. They did not follow.
You pushed through the side door and into the night and then you were running, your gown gathered in both fists, down the stone path and past the roses and the fountain and through the dark until the lemon trees rose up around you and the noise of the feast was nothing but a distant murmur.
You found a bench and sat down hard.
And you cried the way you had been holding back all evening, with your whole chest, bent forward, both hands pressed over your belly and your face crumpling and the tears falling freely into the dark with no one to see them and nothing left to hold them back.
As you sobbed you caught movement from the corner of your eye and looked up.
The lemon trees had been decorated, you had not noticed in your rush to get here, but now, with your eyes adjusting and the tears clearing slightly, you saw them properly.
Small glass Dornish suns hung from the branches, each one cradling a tiny candle that threw warm gold light across the leaves in shifting patterns.
And amongst them, tied with thin ribbon, barely larger than a child's palm,
Paintings.
You stood slowly and reached for the nearest one, your fingers closing around it carefully.
It was rough in the way of a child's work, uneven lines, colors slightly outside their edges but purposeful.
A dragon, painted in careful strokes of black and red, and beneath it a small cluster of figures. A family.
You reached for the second one.
Another dragon. Another family. Slightly different hand, Aemon's, you thought, more careful than his brother's, the lines steadier.
You stood beneath the lemon trees in the dark with a painting in each hand and felt something move through your chest.
"It was Egg's idea."
You startled slightly, turning. From the dark between the trees Baelor emerged, the soft light of the glass ornaments catching him in warm gold as he moved toward you.
"He came to me a few days ago and asked if there was something that could be done to make the gardens more beautiful for the feast." The corner of his mouth moved. "I assumed he meant flowers. More candles perhaps." He looked at the portraits in your hands. "And then he and Aemon appeared at my solar with those, and I understood."
You looked down at them again. The small uneven dragons. The little painted families beneath them.
Something in your chest pulled so tight it almost hurt.
"He wanted to show you himself, later in the evening." Baelor's voice was gentle. "It seems you found them first."
"Of course he did this." Your voice came out rough and you laughed despite yourself, small and watery.
Baelor moved closer. Not close enough to crowd you and reached into his pocket and pulled a cloth, holding it out to you without a word.
You took it. Pressed it under your eyes and took a deep breath.
"How long have you been out here," you asked quietly.
"Long enough."
"And him?" You nodded toward the far end of the garden where a second figure stood in the dark, keeping his distance. Still as a post. Watching.
Baelor glanced briefly over his shoulder.
"He followed you the moment you left the hall." He turned back to you. "I asked him to give you a moment."
You huffed at that and you felt yourself smiling.
You looked at Baelor eyes, and they were warm and full of concern.
You sat down at the bench and he waited and you nodded and he sat down next to you.
You still clutched the small portaits in your hand.
"Do you want to tell me," Baelor said, "what happened tonight."
You looked down at the paintings in your hands.
At the small painted dragons. The small painted families.
"It was a moment of weakness." You folded your fingers around the paintings carefully, not looking at him. "Do not concern yourself with me Baelor. You have far more important business to attend to tonight."
"Look at me."
You looked at him.
That careful composed layer of him entirely gone, stripped back to something underneath that he did not show many people and had always shown you freely.
He reached out and took your free hand. Slowly. Giving you every opportunity to pull away. And then he placed it flat against his chest, over his heart, and held it there with both of his.
"I am Prince of this realm," he said quietly. "Lord Hand to the King. Father to six sons." His eyes did not leave yours. "But I am your husband before any of it. We both are. And our duty to you extends far beyond anything our titles could put a name to." His hand pressed yours more firmly against his chest. "You are not a concern, you are not an obligation. You are our soul. Everything we are begins and ends with you."
Your lip trembled.
You pressed it together hard and it trembled anyway and you hated it and could not stop it.
Then you heard footsteps on the stone path.
Maekar stepped into the warm light of the glass ornaments and stopped just behind Baelor's shoulder, his eyes moving over your face. But his jaw was tight and something in his expression was raw in a way you had not seen from him in a very long time.
"My brother is right." His voice came out lower than usual. Rougher at the edges.
He stepped closer and looked at you the way he rarely let himself look at you in front of anyone.
"You are it." He said it low and certain. "You have always been it. For both of us. There is no version of any of this," he gestured between the three of them, "that exists without you at the very center of it." His throat moved. "There has only ever been you. There will only ever be you."
He held your gaze for a moment longer. Then he glanced briefly at Baelor and then he looked back at you.
And then Maekar, went to his knees in front of you.
The breath left your body.
Your face burned. Something low in your belly pulled tight and your thighs pressed together and you stared down at him with your heart hammering against your ribs.
He took both of your hands in his. His were large and rough and warm and they swallowed yours completely.
"What you said to me in that hall," He stopped. Started again. "The way you spoke about yourself. What you see when you look at yourself." His jaw tightened.
"It broke something in me, because it means we have failed you. Somewhere in all these years, we have failed you and I—" His voice dropped to almost nothing.
"I am not a man who fails at things he cares about. I do not know how to be that man. The thought that you have been carrying this—" He pressed your hands harder against his.
"Looking at yourself and seeing something lesser. Something diminished." His eyes burned up at you. "When I look at you I see the only thing in this world that has ever made me feel utterly incapable. Completely undone." A rough exhale. "You are the only thing that has ever had that power over me and you will never understand how completely I mean that."
You were breathing heavily. Both of them had their eyes only on you and the weight of it was doing things to you that had no place in a garden and every place in a bed. Your chest was tight and your face was hot and your hands were unsteady and you opened your mouth—
Voices.
All three of you straightened at once. Maekar was on his feet before you had drawn your next breath, and by the time the pair of guards rounded the corner you were all three standing at a respectable distance from one another like perfectly composed members of the royal family enjoying the evening air.
Or attempting to.
You were aware, that your eyes were red and your lips were parted and your chest was still rising and falling faster than it ought to be, and that both your husbands looked like men who had been in the middle of something they very much intended to finish.
Baelor's composure slightly frayed at the edges, Maekar's jaw set and his eyes still dark with everything he had not yet said. The picture the three of you made could be interpreted in a number of ways.
None of them entirely wrong.
The guards inclined their heads. The King was asking for both princes. Immediately, if it pleased them.
Neither of them looked pleased.
Baelor nodded once at the guards. Maekar said nothing, only held your gaze for one long charged moment that made the heat in your face travel considerably lower, and then turned and followed his brother.
You watched them go.
At the garden entrance Maekar stopped. Turned back. And with a short sharp gesture summoned the nearest Kingsguard and said something low that you could not hear. The guard nodded and posted himself at the entrance immediately, back straight, eyes forward.
For you. Without a word to you about it. Simply done.
You stood beneath the lemon trees in the warm gold light of the little glass suns, your children's painted dragons held carefully in both hands, and listened to your husbands' footsteps fade back toward the feast.
The garden settled into quiet.
You looked down at the paintings.
And Breathed.
The evening turned faster than you expected.
You did return to the hall later and somewhere between sitting down at the table and your second cup of wine the night shifted into something almost bearable.
Your sons noticed. Of course they noticed. They were their fathers' children and they had been watching you since you walked back through those doors and within minutes they had without discussion or instruction, rearranged themselves around you at the table.
Matarys on your left, talking across you to Daeron about something you did not follow but did not need to. Aerion on your right, loud, proud and gesturing too widely with his wine cup. Valarr had appeared from wherever Kiera had been keeping him, sliding into the seat across from you with a small smile that told you he knew exactly what he was doing and had decided to do it anyway.
Aemon and Aegon had simply wedged themselves in wherever there was space, elbows on the table, chins in their hands, completely unbothered by the decorum expected of princes at their grandsire's feast.
All six of them. Around you. Like they had agreed on it.
At some point during the evening you produced the two small paintnigs from the folds of your gown. You watched Aegon's face when he saw them and you pulled him toward you and kissed him on both cheeks and then his forehead and then his cheek again for good measure. He let you. Every single one.
Aemon submitted to one kiss and then pulled back with the expression of a boy who had a reputation to maintain, which made Aerion laugh so hard he spilled his wine.
You smiled more in that hour than you had in the entire evening before it.
When it ended, the room gradually emptied. You said your goodnights with warmth and kissed your sons, inclined your head to your goodfather the King and your goodmother who caught your eye and held it for just a moment with an expression that told you she saw more than she said, which was entirely characteristic of her.
You found a servant and gave quiet instructions.
The bathhouse sat apart from the main castle floors, connected by a short covered corridor that was mercifully empty at this hour. It was a small stone room, warm and low-lit, the water already heated by the smooth dark stones lining the basin, steam rising soft and slow in the candlelight.
You let the servant help you out of the gown and when you were down to nothing you told her to leave you.
She did.
You stood for a moment in the warm steam, in the candlelight, with no one's eyes on you.
Then you lowered yourself into the water slowly, let it rise around you, and closed your eyes.
You did not know how long you stayed like that. Long enough for the tension in your shoulders to begin to loosen.
Then footsteps. Two sets. Coming down the covered corridor.
You did not open your eyes. Did not say a word. Simply stayed where you were with your chin tipped back and your heart beating considerably faster than the warm water had any right to make it, and waited.
The door. The sound of fabric. A pause.
Then an almighty groan as Maekar lowered himself into the water on your left that was so deeply, startled a laugh out of you before you could stop it.
Baelor, settling in on your right, laughed too.
"Seven hells." Maekar's voice bounced off the stone walls. "Tell father next time he can kiss the arses of those lordlings himself."
"It is our duty," Baelor said mildly. "And his."
"Fuck duty sometimes."
A beat of silence.
"That," Baelor said, his voice dropping to something considerably lower, "I have to agree with. I would much rather be fucking something else entirely."
The heat that flooded your face had nothing to do with the water.
Maekar made a low sound of agreement that rumbled through the steam and settled somewhere in the base of your spine.
You opened your eyes.
Baelor was watching the candles, his expression unreadable but his eyes dark. And then Maekar's hand found the back of your neck, his thumb tracing slow along the line of your neck, following the bone of it.
Your breath caught.
Then Baelor moved.
He turned toward you in the water and stepped close, close enough that you felt him against your thighs, hard and hot and his hands found your hips beneath the surface and gripped them in a way that pulled a soft sound from somewhere in your throat that you had not given permission for.
His face was inches from yours, his mismatched eyes blown almost entirely black, the candlelight catching the water on his skin.
"More than twenty years ago," he said quietly, "you bewitched us." His thumbs traced slow circles against your hips. "The way you laugh. The way you move through a room. The way your eyes look when the sunlight catches them." His grip tightened, pulling you fractionally closer, the water shifting between you. "The way you tip your head back when the wind comes through your hair and you close your eyes and simply feel it." A pause. "There is no one. There has never been anyone. There will never be anyone."
Behind you Maekar's thumb moved from your neck to the shell of your ear, slow and deliberate, and you felt your eyes flutter.
"I remember," Baelor continued, his voice lower still, "very clearly after Aegon's birth. After you had recovered. The first night you undressed in front of us again." Something moved through his expression that was raw and entirely unmanaged. "The want I felt in that moment was beyond anything I had words for. Beyond anything I thought I was still capable of feeling after twenty years." His fingers traced upward from your hips, following the curve of you through the water. "If I could be selfish and I am telling you now that I want to be, deeply and thoroughly selfish, I would have you every moment of every day and still feel it was not enough."
His hand rose further, fingertips tracing the line of your throat, your jaw, his eyes following the path of them across your face like he was memorizing something he intended to keep.
"You have given this realm six sons," he said softly. "And the realm will remember only that. The realm will count you in heirs and duty and years of service and it will never once understand what it is actually looking at." His eyes met yours. "But we know. We have always known." His thumb traced your lower lip. "You are so much more than what you have given. So much more than what they see."
The water shifted as Maekar's hands found the underside of your thighs and gripped, pulling you back and settling you into his lap. The breath left your body. You felt him hard against you, felt the low rumble in his chest as he exhaled against your neck, and then his mouth found the skin beneath your ear and he sucked slowly, his tongue tracing the spot.
"Forgive us," Baelor said softly. "For ever making you feel otherwise."
You had no words. You had lost them somewhere between Maekar's hands on your thighs and his mouth on your neck and Baelor standing in the water before you close enough to feel the heat coming off him.
Baelor's eyes dropped.
The water sat just below your chest and your nipples peaked above the surface in the cool air of the bathhouse.
His eyes moved to Maekar.
Maekar, who was sucking a bruise into your neck with absolutely no apology for it, whose hands had spread wide and warm across your thighs beneath the water, holding you exactly where he wanted you. A soft sound left your mouth that you had no control over and then another as his teeth grazed the skin he had just marked.
Your head fell back against his shoulder.
"Please—" The word came out broken and breathless and wanting. "Please, I need—"
"We know," Maekar said against your neck. Low and rough and entirely sure of himself. "We know what you need."
Something passed between them over your shoulder, a look, brief and wordless and then Maekar's hands were on your hips and he lifted you out of the water without ceremony and set you down on the stone edge. No gentleness in it.
The stone was cool against the backs of your thighs.
He spread your legs and you felt the flush crawl from your face all the way down your chest and you opened your mouth to say something, anything and then—
Both mouths on you at once.
Baelor's tongue slow and precise, working you with that devastating patience of his, and Maekar's rougher, hungrier, no finesse in it whatsoever, just raw focused want.
Their mouths clashed against each other in the space between your thighs, neither yielding, both utterly consumed, and the sensation of it was so overwhelming that the sound that left you was nothing close to dignified.
Maekar pulled back just long enough to suck your inner thigh hard enough to mark it and then returned with even less restraint than before. Baelor's tongue moved in slow circles and then pressed flat and you nearly came off the stone edge entirely.
Your fingers tightened in Baelor's hair. Your other hand found Maekar's shoulder and gripped hard enough that he would feel it tomorrow and he made a low sound against you that vibrated through your entire body.
"Look at us." Maekar pulled back just enough to speak, his voice wrecked and rough. "Look down and look at us."
You looked down at them and the sight alone nearly undid you entirely.
Baelor's mouth on you was precise and devastating, his tongue pressing and curling and drawing out sounds from you that echoed off the stone walls, sucking everything you gave him like you were something to be savored. Your thighs shook around his shoulders.
You watched as he tenderly pressed his lips to the scar low on your mound and kissed it slowly, his eyes lifting to yours as he did it, holding your gaze, making sure you were watching, making sure you understood exactly what he was doing and why. Then his tongue, flat and warm, traced the length of it without hurry.
You made a sound that was half sob and half something else entirely.
And then he returned to your folds and you stopped being able to think about anything at all.
Maekar shouldered him aside.
Simply replaced him with that characteristic lack of patience and buried his face in you with a roughness that dragged a broken cry from your throat. Hungry, his hands locked around your hips pulling you against his mouth rather than going to meet you.
And then without warning, Maekar pulled back and grabbed Baelor by the jaw and kissed him hard, open and rough, a low groan coming from both of them as he licked the taste of you from his brother's mouth.
Baelor's hand fisted in Maekar's hair. The sound of it, the sight of it, pulled another wave of heat through you so sharply you whimpered.
They broke apart breathing hard, eyes dark, and turned to look at you at exactly the same moment.
Baelor reached for your ankles and pulled you back into the water between them and you went boneless, barely capable of standing. They pressed in from both sides, warm skin and hard bodies and hands everywhere at once and Baelor lowered his head and took your nipple into his mouth, kneading the weight of your breast in both hands while Maekar's mouth found your throat from behind, sucking and biting a path from your shoulder to your ear.
Your head fell back against Maekar's chest.
Your hands found his hair behind you and pulled and he groaned against your neck.
"Still think we do not want you," Maekar said roughly against your skin. Not a question. A statement, low and wrecked and burning. "Still think that."
You could not have formed a coherent answer if your life had depended on it.
Baelor in front, pulling you against him, his mouth finding yours in a deep kiss while his hands mapped every inch of your skin beneath the water without shame or hesitation.
And then Maekar pressed in from behind.
His hands gripped your hips and he slid inside you from behind slowly and the sound that left you was swallowed by Baelor's mouth. You grabbed at anything you could reach, one hand fisting in Baelor's hair, the other reaching back to grip Maekar's thigh behind you.
Maekar's pace built without mercy, his hands locked on your hips, the water churning around all three of you.
Baelor's hands cupped your breasts, his thumbs moving across your nipples slowly while Maekar drove into you from behind without restraint, and being pressed between them, held completely between their bodies, no space between you and either of them, was almost more than you could process.
Then Baelor lowered his lips to your ear, his voice dropping.
"Perhaps this time a daughter," he murmured. "I would not mind at all having you full with child again."
The sound that left you was shameless.
You felt Maekar shudder behind you, his grip tightening to the point of pain as he spent himself, his forehead dropping heavy against the back of your neck with a rough groan that rumbled through your entire body.
And then Baelor lifted you and pressed you back against the stone edge and slid inside you, deeper than Maekar's angle had allowed, and his pace was just as hard but slower, his mismatched eyes holding yours with an intensity that made it impossible to look away.
His hands gripped the curve of your ass, pulling you into every stroke.
Behind him Maekar watched, his dark eyes burning, and the sight of him watching you with Baelor sent you spiraling toward the edge faster than anything else could have.
Your thighs shook.
Your nails found Baelor's shoulders.
"I know," he breathed against your mouth. "Come for me."
It hit you like a wave breaking, white behind your eyes, your whole body shuddering between them, Baelor's and Maekar's name leaving your mouth as if you were praying a blessing. His grip on you was bruising and you did not care even slightly. Behind him Maekar's hand found your thigh and held it through the shaking like an anchor.
The white faded slowly.
The candlelight came back. The water. The warm stone at your back.
Baelor's forehead dropped against yours, both of you breathing hard and ragged, his chest heaving against you. His hands were still gripping your skin with an intensity that told you exactly what you would find on yourself tomorrow morning.
You did not mind it at all.
The heavy breathing eased slowly. Baelor pressed his lips to your forehead. Your cheek. The corner of your mouth. Small, soft things, entirely different from everything that had preceded them, and you felt tears prick unexpectedly at the gentleness of it.
Maekar's hand moved in slow steady strokes up your spine.
Nobody spoke.
The candles burned low around you and the water had gone still and the three of you simply breathed together in the quiet.
You looked at Baelor.
You took his face between both your hands and kissed him slowly and deeply and with everything you had not known how to say all evening. He kissed you back the same way, one hand covering yours against his cheek.
When you pulled back you were both quiet for a moment.
Then you turned and wobbled through the water toward Maekar, who had settled against the edge watching you both, and your feet slipped on the stone beneath and he caught you before you had even fully registered the fall, hands at your waist, steady and immediate, as though he had been expecting it.
"Graceful," he said.
"Hush."
The corner of his mouth moved.
You curled into him anyway, pressing your lips to his jaw, his cheek, the corner of his mouth. He exhaled slowly beneath your attention and his arms came around you and held you against his chest.
Baelor settled in beside you both, his shoulder warm against yours, and took your hand beneath the water and simply held it.
The three of you sat in the low candlelight and the still water and said nothing for a long moment.
"I love you," you said quietly.
Maekar's nose pressed into your hair.
Baelor's hand tightened around yours.
"And we love you," Baelor said softly. "Every part of you. Everything that you are and will be and you once was."
Maekar said nothing.
He just held you closer.
Later, back in your chambers, the candles burned down to nothing and your husbands were restless and entirely unwilling to let the night end, and you gave yourself over to them completely and without reservation and they took everything you gave and returned it threefold.
It was very late when it finally went quiet.
Dawn came in slowly through the high windows, pale and soft.
You were the first to surface from sleep, barely, just enough to be aware of the warmth on either side of you. Baelor's hand rested open against your stomach. Maekar had his face pressed into the curve of your neck, one arm thrown across you both, heavy and certain even in sleep, as though some part of him had decided even unconscious that he was not finished holding on.
You lay very still and looked at the pale dawn creeping across the ceiling and took a slow breath.
The uncertainties were still there. The ugly, shapeless insecurities that had swallowed you whole. You were not foolish enough to think one night had erased them entirely. It did not work that way.
But here, in the early quiet, tangled in warm sheets between two men who had given you their souls without condition or hesitation, the uncertainties were very small, nearly insignificant.
Smaller than Baelor's hand resting against your stomach.
Smaller than the sound of Maekar breathing slow and deep against your neck, holding you flush against him.
Smaller, than two little painted dragons hanging in a lemon tree. Drawn by small hands that loved you without condition or any awareness of the cost of what you had given to deserve them.
You exhaled slowly.
And closed your eyes.
For now you let yourself simply be held.
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Thank you for reading! Likes, comments, and reblogs are always appreciated.
General Synopsis: Sneaking into the grand kitchens under the cover of night, with four children in tow and a baby balanced on your hip, mischief is inevitable. The thrill of it all brings back memories of your own childhood, slipping into the kitchens of Winterfell alongside your brothers. You want your children to have those same stolen, magical moments…even if it means risking trouble. But the adventure comes to an abrupt end when your husbands catch all of you in the middle of devouring freshly made blackberry tarts.
pairing: Husband!Baelor Targaryen x Wife!LS!(fem)reader x Husband!Maekar Targaryen
word count: 9.5k
content: Fluff, lots of it! Sweet family moments, a grumpy Maekar being his usual self, and Baelor as gentle and warm as ever. Slightly suggestive
Writers note: English isn’t my first language, so please excuse any mistakes. This LS! story is loosely connected to my main series, The three headed dragon, feel free to check it out!
Today was an exhausting day.
The Red Keep was packed with guests, visitors and courtiers from all over Westeros in preparation for the King and Queen's wedding anniversary, now only four days away. Everyone was stretched thin and fraying at the edges, desperate for the day to go perfectly.
You couldn't remember the last time you had felt this bone-deep tired, perhaps the birth of baby Aemon, not even six months ago. That had been exhausting in a different way, more than your previous births.
Thankfully, both your husbands had been as supportive as always, but still.
There was a six-month-old Aemon who demanded your full and constant attention.
There was Aerion, who followed you everywhere like a small, extremely confident shadow.
There was Matarys, who always had something to show you and dragged you everywhere, trying to outbest Aerion in that regard.
And then there were your eldest, Valarr and Daeron, who were at that age where their fathers had become the whole world, gone before you'd finished your morning tea, swallowed up by training yards and council antechambers and whatever else their fathers deemed important for the making of men. You were proud of them. You also hadn't seen them since breakfast, and you missed them with a dull, quiet ache you hadn't quite expected motherhood to produce.
You stood near the window of your shared chambers, little Aemon cradled in your arms, bouncing him gently in the way that seemed to please him.
He squealed and you looked down at his round, cherubic face, wrapped in soft northern linen, a gift from Benjen and his wife, pale blue and so light that the southern heat wouldn't trouble him and felt the tired loosen slightly in your chest.
His small arms reached toward your face and you caught both his little hands and pressed them against your cheek, kissing them. He squealed again.
The chamber doors opened and Aerion strutted in, his short hair bouncing with each step, the full weight of his nearly six years of life behind him. He moved like he owned the palace.
"Aerion, my sweetling, what did I tell you about knocking?"
"I know, mother, but I had to show you something." He opened his cupped hands. Inside sat a beetle, its shell a deep, jewel-bright blue.
"Aerion."
"I know you said no insects inside." He looked up at you, utterly unrepentant. "But it looked very pretty. Like a dragon scale."
"My sweet little pup." You looked at the beetle seriously, giving it its due.
"I am very impressed with your find." Aemon squealed upon hearing his brother's voice and stretched his chubby hands toward him, grasping at air.
"Look, mother, even Aem thinks it's a dragon scale."
Aerion stepped closer and held the beetle up toward Aemon's face. Aemon went very still for a moment, studying it and then squealed so enthusiastically that you had to tighten your hold on him.
You shook your head softly.
"Aerion, my sweetling, put the beetle back outside before your father sees it." You fixed him with the look.
Aerion pouted magnificently. It was a Targaryen pout, you had decided long ago. No Stark had ever looked quite so aggrieved at being told no. "But mother—"
"Outside. Now. And gently, it hasn't done anything wrong."
The pout deepened, but Aerion cupped the beetle carefully and shuffled back toward the door. He pulled the door shut behind him with a decisive little click, not quite a slam, but close enough to make his feelings known.
Aemon made a sharp, displeased sound at his brother's retreat and you bounced him once, twice.
"He'll be back," you promised. "He always comes back."
Aemon did not seem convinced. His little face scrunched magnificently.
The chamber settled into quiet then, briefly, the way it only ever did in the stolen moments between one small disaster and the next. You pressed your lips to Aemon’s temple and breathed in the warm milk-and-soap smell of him.
"Your brothers cause so much trouble, little one," you whispered.
Aemon cooed softly in response, and you turned to look out at the afternoon sun, burning bright and golden over King's Landing the way it never quite did up north.
The gardens were visible from your shared chambers, and you watched a procession of courtiers and planners making their way along the paths below.
At their head walked Baelor, composed, calm, every inch the prince with Valarr close beside him, eagerly drinking in every word. Daeron walked to his left, and even from this height you could tell he was somewhat less enraptured with the proceedings.
Baelor stopped and gestured toward a cluster of trees, said something, and walked on. Then one of the planners stopped in front of the weirwood tree, the one both your husbands had gifted you on your wedding day, still small and slender, but its leaves already red as fresh blood and lingered there a moment too long.
Baelor turned back and shook his head with quiet, unmistakable disapproval. Both your sons fixed the man with identical glares before falling back into step behind their father.
You laughed softly to yourself.
Then, as though you had somehow sensed it coming, the chamber doors flew open and Matarys and Aerion crashed through them, hitting the floor in a tangle of limbs, Aerion's fist knotted in Matarys's dark hair and Matarys's fingers digging into his cheeks, both of them shrieking at each other in High Valyrian.
A chambermaid stumbled in after them, flushed and desperate, and dropped into a curtsy while simultaneously attempting to pull them apart.
"Y-Your Grace, I am so sorry, they were, I couldn't— "
Your sons continued to brawl on the floor, indifferent to her efforts. You caught fragments between the screaming, you put that in my hair and other things rather less fit for polite company.
You looked at them and looked at Aemon, who was watching the chaos with wide, violet fascinated eyes.
I wonder how mother put up with my brothers and me.
"Boys," you said. Softly. Evenly.
They stopped.
Matarys's dark hair stood in every direction, his nails were dirty, and his robes were half pulled from his shoulder.
Aerion had scratch marks across one cheek and looked no better.
They both stared up at you from the floor with the particular expression of children recalibrating very quickly.
You said nothing. You simply looked at them.
"What happened?" you asked, when the silence had done its work.
Matarys scrambled upright and immediately levelled a finger at Aerion, who was gingerly patting his scratched cheek. "He put the beetle in my hair. He knows I don't like them."
"Matarys was being mean to me first! He made fun of me for catching it."
"He's lying!"
"He's lying!"
You sighed, quietly, to yourself. Aemon had begun to fuss at the screaming, his small face crumpling with displeasure, and you gestured the chambermaid over and settled him carefully into her arms. Then you crossed to your boys, crouched down, and let your linen dress pool around you on the floor.
"Boys."
They both turned away from each other simultaneously, arms crossed, chins lifted, pouting in a way that was so perfectly matched it almost made you smile.
You waited.
The silence stretched. And then as it always did when you simply stayed close and said nothing, the argument began to lose its shape. Aerion slid a sideways glance at his brother. Matarys kept his chin up a moment longer, then let it drop.
"I did not mean to put it in your hair," Aerion muttered, grudgingly, at the floor.
Matarys considered this with great seriousness.
"You still did. But I accept your apology."
He extended his arm, and Aerion grabbed it, and they performed the northern clasp with all the solemn ceremony of men three times their age. You pressed your lips together to keep from laughing.
They had watched your brothers do it so many times, and they had never once done it without looking deeply, earnestly proud of themselves for knowing how.
You looked at them both and felt something soft and tired move through your chest.
"The last few weeks have been very hard on everyone," you said gently. "I am sorry, my sweetlings, that I haven't had more time for you."
They both turned to you with identical expressions of outrage, as though you had said something deeply unreasonable.
"Mother—" Aerion began.
"Don't be silly—" said Matarys at the same moment.
And then Aerion's arms were around your neck, warm and a little too tight, and Matarys piled on top of him a second later, and the three of you swayed together on the floor in a heap of rumpled linen and unwashed little boy smell, and you held them both as tightly as you could and breathed them in.
"You are the best mother," Aerion announced into your shoulder, with great authority.
"The very best," Matarys agreed. "Better than anyone else's."
"You haven't met anyone else's mother," you pointed out.
"Doesn't matter," said Matarys firmly. "I know."
You laughed then, quietly, your face pressed into the tangle of their hair, one silver-pale, one dark and for a moment the exhaustion lifted just enough to let the warmth underneath it show.
Then you became aware of a presence in the doorway.
Maekar stood there , in his dark robes, watching the three of you with an expression that was something close to tender.
By the time Aerion and Matarys noticed him and scrambled upright, straightening their backs with the automatic posture of boys who knew better than to slouch in front of their father, it had already settled back into its usual strictness.
"I wondered where the two of you had gone," he said, his eyes moving over them both with the calm, unhurried assessment of a man cataloguing exactly how dishevelled his sons had managed to become since he last saw them.
"I lost you in the gardens."
He crossed the room and took your arm and drew you to your feet with a firmness that allowed no argument. "And do not kneel on the cold floor," he added, directing this at the boys rather than you, his tone making it very clear whose fault your kneeling had been.
Aerion and Matarys looked down.
"Husband," you said mildly. "They were simply keeping us company." You nodded toward the chambermaid, where Aemon had spotted his father and erupted into immediate, happy chaos, both arms outstretched, grabbing fistfuls of air trying to reach him.
Maekar looked at him, something in his expression shifted, that same softening, there and gone, like light moving across water.
He lifted Aemon from the chambermaid's arms without ceremony and settled him against his chest, and Aemon immediately seized his beard with both hands and pulled at it.
"Their septa could not find them this afternoon," he said, looking at you. "Apparently they missed their lessons."
You turned to your sons slowly.
Matarys and Aerion were both suddenly discovering something very fascinating about the pattern on the floor.
"You had lessons today?" You let the words sit for a moment.
"No wonder the two of you have been causing mischief since midmorning." You shook your head, pressing your lips together to keep the smile from showing.
"What do you have to say for yourselves?"
Aerion looked up with the expression of someone assembling a very reasonable explanation. Matarys, wiser, said nothing at all.
"We were going to go," Aerion tried. "We simply... forgot. Briefly."
"Briefly," Matarys confirmed.
Maekar looked at them over the top of Aemon’s head, and the look alone was enough. They both straightened another inch.
"You will apologize to your septa in the morning," Maekar said, "And you will attend every lesson this week without fail."
"Yes, father," they said, in unison, with the particular tone of boys who were very relieved not to have received a worse verdict.
You caught Maekar's eye over their heads. He said nothing. But there it was again, that brief, quiet softening and you knew it for what it was. You turned away before he could see you smile.
"Now. Return to the library." His voice dropped half a register. "Or I will take you there myself."
They nodded, inclined their heads with the hasty propriety of children who had pushed their luck far enough for one afternoon, and fled. Maekar watched them go, then turned to the chambermaid. "See that they arrive."
She curtsied and followed without a word, pulling the door shut behind her.
The chamber settled into quiet again. Maekar turned back to you, Aemon still bundled against his chest, and the baby celebrated his father's full attention by lifting both hands and patting Maekar's jaw with the confident imprecision of someone who had not yet mastered the difference between a pat and a slap.
Maekar did not so much as blink. After four children, you suspected very little could rattle him physically anymore.
He studied your face with the same attention he gave everything.
"You look tired. Have you seen the maester today?"
"I don't feel unwell enough to trouble him."
He made a low sound in his throat and reached out to tilt your chin, turning your face one way and the other, closely examining you. "If you will not go to him, I will bring him here."
"That is completely unnecessary—"
"Then go to him."
"Maekar—"
"You are the most stubborn woman I have ever known."
"You say that as though it surprises you still." You laughed softly and stepped closer, resting your hands against his chest, careful of Aemon between you. You could feel the steady warmth of him through the fabric.
"You worry too much."
"I will always worry." He said it the way he said most true things, plainly, without decoration, as though it were simply a fact of the world.
You tilted your head and looked up at him. "I remember a time when you told me you would never love me." You let that sit for a moment. "And now look at us. Five children. Two husbands who cannot seem to let me out of their sight for more than an hour."
"We have obligations to you," he said. "It is our duty to—"
"The last time you told me it was merely duty," you said, dropping your voice, "little Aemon was born."
The tips of his ears went red.
You remembered that afternoon in vivid detail. The solar of the Hand of the King, the late light coming gold through the narrow windows, both your husbands with their careful composure thoroughly dismantled, and you pressed between them with absolutely no complaints about your circumstances.
Aemon was very much a testament to how little duty had to do with it.
Aemon blissfully unaware of the subtext, slapped his father's chin again and cooed with satisfaction.
Maekar's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. "See the maester tomorrow," he said, his voice returned to its usual steadiness, "and I will stop fussing."
"You will never stop."
He said nothing to that, which was as good as an admission.
He turned and carried Aemon to the crib at the foot of the bed, settling him down with a gentleness entirely at odds with the rest of him, and drew a soft linen blanket over the baby's small, round body.
Aemon blinked up at his father and decided this was acceptable.
Maekar straightened and turned back to you. "Rest. And if he gives you trouble," a small tilt of his head toward the crib, "call your lady-in-waiting. You are no use to anyone if you run yourself into the ground."
"How very romantic," you said.
The look he gave you was deeply unimpressed. Then he crossed to you, tipped your chin back with two fingers, and kissed you, deep and passionate. You sighed into it and brought your hands to his face, your fingers tracing the line of his jaw, the soft scratch of his silvery beard beneath your fingertips.
He pulled back. Pressed his lips once to your temple, firm and brief. And then he was gone, the door closing quietly behind him.
You stood in the warm afternoon light for a moment, your fingers still resting at your lips, and smiled to yourself like a complete fool.
The sun set quickly after that. Little Aemon fell into a deep sleep, and you used what remained of the afternoon working through a considerable pile of letters from the northern houses. Questions about grain stores, disputes over borders, requests for guidance that only you could answer in the particular way they needed answering. The north had not forgotten you were theirs, and you had not forgotten either.
Your lady-in-waiting helped you dress as the last of the light left the sky, easing you into your nightgown. A gift from a Lyseni merchant, silk so soft it felt like cool water against your skin, in a deep, warm red that pooled around your feet when you stood.
You had settled back at the writing desk with the last of the letters when a knock came, and Baelor stepped in. He had changed from his day clothes, his beard freshly trimmed, dark red robes falling neatly around him, and he looked at you the way he always looked at you, like finding you in a room was the best part of whatever he'd been doing before.
He crossed to you and pressed a kiss to your hand with a small, courtly little bow that was entirely sincere and entirely him.
"My love." He dropped into the chair across from you, "How are you faring? Maekar said you felt unwell."
You gave him a look. "Maekar decided I looked unwell. The conclusion was entirely his own."
Baelor smiled, warm and slow. "Ah." He reached across and plucked one of the letters from the pile, turning it over idly. "So you are well."
"I am tired. There is a difference."
“Hmm.” He didn’t comment further, but you immediately sensed the same worry your other husband shows, only softer, more gentle in its expression.
He set the letter down and leaned back, watching you with that particular fond attention of his.
"I heard a whisper this afternoon. From several very curious sources." He folded his hands. "That Aerion and Matarys were seen causing what might generously be described as a scene somewhere in the east wing."
"They argued over a beetle," you said, without looking up from your letter.
A pause. "A beetle."
"Aerion caught one. It was, admittedly, very beautiful. He put it in Matarys's hair. Matarys took issue with this." You set down your quill. "By the time they reached me they had already conducted a full trial by combat on the floor of my chambers."
Baelor pressed his lips together very firmly.
"And what became of the beetle?"
"Released, unharmed. Aerion was very careful about that part, at least." You shook your head, but you were smiling.
"He is so rough and then so gentle, that boy. I never quite know which one I am getting."
"He takes after you," Baelor said.
"Everyone keeps saying that." You gave him a look. "He takes after Maekar in that regard and you know it."
Baelor smiled and said nothing, which meant he agreed entirely.
He stood then, unhurried, and crossed to the crib at the foot of the bed. He stood over it quietly, watching Aemon sleep, the small chest rising and falling, the baby's lips slightly parted, one fist curled loosely beside his cheek.
Baelor's face in profile was still and unguarded, that particular proud softness he never tried to hide the way Maekar did.
You watched him for a moment. Then you stood up and went to him slipping your arms around him from behind, resting your cheek between his shoulder blades. He covered your hands with his without looking away from the crib.
After a while he turned, and took your face in both his hands, his mismatched eyes warm, the way they always were when it was just the two of you and there was nowhere else either of you needed to be.
"Has he been giving you trouble?"
"Never," you said honestly. "He is the easiest of all of them."
"Don't tell the others that."
"I would never."
Baelor kissed gently the tip of your nose. Then he drew you close, tucking your head against his chest, your hand pressed flat over his heartbeat.
"How have Valarr and Daeron been faring?" you asked against his chest. "These past weeks must have been a great deal for them."
"They have been exceptional," Baelor said, and you could hear the quiet pride in it, "Better than I expected, if I am honest. Valarr has taken to everything with that terrifying focus of his. He asked questions today that made two of the council's planners look at their feet." A warmth crept into his voice. "I was very proud of him."
"He gets that from you," you said.
"He does," Baelor agreed easily. "And the charm he uses to soften it, that is yours."
You smiled against his chest. "And Daeron?"
Baelor was quiet for a moment, "Daeron keeps pace. He always keeps pace. But he is quieter than usual these past days." A pause. "His headaches have been troubling him lately but he does not speak to me about it. "
You lifted your head to look at him. "You noticed too."
"I notice everything about our children," he said simply. "I simply don't always say so."
You held his gaze for a moment, something settling between you, that quite understanding that didn't need words, the kind that came from years of watching the same people and loving them the same way.
You opened your mouth to answer but was interrupted by the chamber door opening.
Maekar came in like a weather front, already unbuckling his doublet, muttering something under his breath.
He shed the doublet, then his outer shirt, until he stood in only his linen shirt and trousers, and ran a hand through his silver hair with the expression of a man who had spent the last several hours in the company of people he found profoundly trying.
"Absolute bloody fools, the lot of them—"
"Brother." Baelor's voice was perfectly pleasant. "Trouble seems to follow you as well this evening?"
"Shut it, Baelor. I didn't ask." Maekar crossed toward the hearth, paused, and looked at it with an expression of fresh outrage. "And which one of these useless servants—"
"Maekar." You stepped forward, your voice firm, "Aemon is asleep."
He stopped. Looked at the crib. Looked back at the hearth. The outrage didn't leave his face entirely but it compressed itself, folded down into something more manageable. He crouched and began building up the fire himself.
A beat of quiet. Then his eyes landed on your writing desk, and the considerable stack of letters still waiting there.
"Seven hells," he said, with feeling, though quieter now. "I will personally write to every one of these lordlings and explain, in plain terms, that you are not their personal—"
"Maekar," you said again.
He pressed his mouth shut. The look on his face suggested the letter-writing remained very much on the table.
Baelor caught your eye from across the room. His expression was one of deep, barely contained amusement. You pointed at him once in warning and he looked immediately at the ceiling.
You shook your head at the both of them and crossed to the bed, pulling back the covers and settling in with the particular relief of someone whose body had been waiting for this moment since approximately midmorning.
You pulled the blankets up to your chin and watched them from the pillows. Baelor had taken the chair by the fire, one leg crossed over the other, perfectly at ease, a letter from your desk open in his hand. Maekar was still standing, because Maekar always needed several more minutes of being upright and aggrieved before he could contemplate sitting down.
"Do you know what one of them asked me today." It was not a question.
"I imagine I'm about to," Baelor said, without looking up from the letter.
"Whether Aemon could be dressed in red lamé and placed in a basket." A pause that contained multitudes. "To look like a dragon egg."
Baelor lowered the letter.
"I nearly relieved him of his head on the spot," Maekar continued, with the tone of a man who considered this response entirely proportionate.
"That does sound like something Desmor would suggest," Baelor said, after a moment. "That man has always had a weakness for the theatrical." He folded the letter and set it down. "Though I will say, in fairness, that Aemon is round enough to pass."
"We are talking about our son, Baelor."
"Yes, I know. I'm simply saying—"
"Not a decoration."
"Agreed. Completely agreed." Baelor pressed his lips together in a way that suggested he did not entirely disagree with the visual, but had the good sense not to say so.
Maekar resumed pacing. A full circuit of the room, then half of another. Then Baelor spoke again, his voice dropping to something more measured.
"I was asked today by one of the planners whether the weirwood tree could be moved." He let that sit for a moment. "Aesthetically inconsistent with the rest of the arrangements, apparently."
Maekar stopped pacing.
"I will personally relocate his hands," he said, "if he goes anywhere near that tree." Maekar spat.
"I thought something similar." Baelor's voice was mild. "I told him it was not open for discussion." A beat. "Valarr, for his part, found the man in council this afternoon and embarrassed him rather thoroughly in front of the others."
Maekar's expression shifted, the hard lines of it easing into something that was not quite a smile but was adjacent to one. A short exhale through his nose. "Good boy."
"Very good," Baelor agreed, and there was real warmth in it.
Maekar finally dropped into the chair across from Baelor with the heaviness of a man setting down something he had been carrying since dawn. He pressed two fingers to the bridge of his nose. "Have you spoken to Merser about the seating arrangements?"
"Not yet."
"Half the lords are refusing to sit within ten feet of the other half. It landed on my desk this morning as though I have nothing better to do than arbitrate the wounded pride of men who cannot manage a banquet without supervision." He leaned back. "I told them to sit down and be grateful for the invitation."
Baelor considered this. "How was that received?"
"Poorly."
"Mm."
"Baelor, these people have been in this Keep for four days." Maekar looked at him with complete seriousness. "I have aged four years."
"You look the same to me," you offered from the pillows.
They both looked at you.
"You are supposed to be resting," Maekar said.
"I am resting. I am resting and listening. It is entirely possible to do both."
He made a sound that communicated his position on this without requiring any further words. Baelor looked back at the fire, the corner of his mouth tucked in with quiet amusement.
They kept talking for a while after that. Maekar listed all the annoying things that had happened to him that day, and Baelor listened with his usual calm patience, occasionally offering a dry observation that made Maekar's mouth do that thing it did when he was trying not to find something funny.
At some point the fire became embers.
Baelor set aside the last of the letters. Maekar rolled his shoulders and both stood up.
They went to the crib first. You watched them from the pillows, this thing they did every night without discussion or ceremony, each of them leaning over to press a kiss to Aemon's small head, careful not to wake him.
Maekar straightened and looked down at the baby for a moment longer before stepping away. Baelor tucked the corner of the blanket back with two gentle fingers.
Then they came to bed.
Maekar settled in front of you, solid and warm. Baelor curved in behind you, and for a moment you were simply aware of being entirely enclosed, the warmth of them on both sides pressing out the last of the noise and the endless weight of the day.
Maekar said something low and indistinct. Baelor made a sound of agreement.
Then Baelor's hand settled over your hip, his fingers drawing slow, idle circles against the silk of your nightgown. He pressed his lips once to the back of your neck, warm and unhurried.
Maekar found your hand beneath the blankets and lifted it, kissed your knuckles, and tucked it back down again, his fingers loosely threaded through yours.
Both of them stilled.
"Goodnight," Baelor murmured.
You closed your eyes and let the warmth of them pull you under.
You surfaced from sleep gradually, pulled up from the dark by something quieter than sound. A moment passed before you understood what had woken you.
Then you heard it.
The small, fussy catch of Aemon's breath from the crib at the foot of the bed, not yet a cry but heading there.
You were already moving before you were fully awake.
Both your husbands hands were on you, you noticed it as you began to stir. Maekar's hand lay heavy across your stomach, and Baelor's rested just below it, their fingers nearly touching. As though even in sleep the two of them had known you might try to leave and had unconsciously, decided against it.
You smiled in the dark and began the careful work of extracting yourself.
Maekar had rolled onto his stomach at some point in the night, one arm flung wide, his face pressed into the pillow, breathing with the deep, slightly aggrieved cadence of a man who even in sleep managed to be annoyed. You lifted his hand by the wrist, slow and deliberate, and set it gently down against the mattress. He didn't stir.
Baelor had stayed exactly as he'd fallen asleep, on his side, his expression smoothed into something younger and unguarded. His hand you moved with equal care, and he made a small sound, his brow creasing briefly before releasing. You held your breath. He settled.
You slipped out from between them, bare feet finding the cool floor, and stood for a moment in the dark making sure neither of them had woken.
Maekar snored once, softly and with heavy breath, you moved to the crib.
Aemon's eyes were open and fixed on the dark as if he was searching something, his mouth was working.
Another few moments and he would have announced himself properly, but for now he only looked up at you as you leaned over him, and his whole small body seemed to relax at the familiar shape of you against the dark. He smiled at the sight of your face and softly cooed.
"Hello, little one," you breathed. "I heard you."
You lifted him with effortless care, settling his small weight into the crook of your arm before lowering yourself into the chair by the window.
When you loosened your gown, he latched at once at your breast and the quiet rhythm of his feeding filled the room.
Your gaze drifted upward, past the glass, to the sky beyond. It was impossibly clear, one of those deep, breathless hours of night when the world seemed to pause, when even the city surrendered its noise.
Nothing stood between you and the stars. They burned sharp and steady, scattered across the dark like something eternal and watchful.
And just like that, you were thinking of Winterfell, of home.
The cold came first, not just the bite of it, but the way it settled into stone and bone alike. Grey walls rising stark against the sky. In winter, sound behaved differently there, softened and drawn close, as though the castle itself were holding its breath. You could almost walk those halls again; the vast stretch of the Great Hall, the quiet hush of the godswood, the warm, waking scents that drifted from the kitchens at dawn.
You saw your mother in motion as she passed through torchlit corridors. Heard your father before you ever saw him, his heavy steps echoing through the stone, as if the walls themselves knew him and answered back.
You had been five, perhaps.
Benjen eight, already carrying himself with a kind of quiet responsibility. Rickon seven and utterly chaotic in all matters. It had been his idea, of course. He’d shaken you awake in the middle of the night, finger pressed to his lips, eyes alight with the fierce excitement of a plan long decided.
The kitchens, he had mouthed. Old Nan made blackberry tarts today. I saw them.
You had been out of bed before he’d finished.
At night, the kitchens felt cavernous, strange and unfamiliar, swallowed in shadow in a way they never were by day, when they roared with heat and voices. The three of you had paused in the doorway, small and silent, simply staring into the darkened space as if you’d crossed into something sacred.
Then Benjen spotted them, the tarts, set out along the long table, hidden beneath a cloth and that was the end of hesitation.
You’d eaten them sitting cross-legged on the cold stone floor. By the second, Rickon’s face was stained deep with blackberry juice, his triumph as vivid as the mess. Benjen had tried, with grave seriousness, to portion them out evenly, calculating what could be taken without notice. And you had eaten yours slowly, carefully, stretching each bite for as long as you could. You always did, when you loved something.
The stone had been bitterly cold beneath you. The air thick with the scent of woodsmoke and sugar. And you had felt it then, with the fierce, unquestioning certainty only children possess, that this was one of the best nights of your life.
Your father had known, of course. He always did.
He said nothing the next morning. Only looked, across the breakfast table, at Rickon’s still-stained mouth with an expression of deep, enduring patience.
Benjen had bent over his porridge.
And you had found the ceiling endlessly fascinating.
Aemon’s suckling slowed, softened, until it became little more than a drowsy rhythm. You looked down at him, eyes fully closed now, his cheek warm and heavy against your arm, the small fist at your breast finally loosening, uncurling. Something in your chest shifted, slow and deep, a warmth that settled and stayed.
You bent your head and pressed your lips to his hair, breathing him in.
And then a thought rose, clear and sudden.
A memory from only a few days past. A kitchen maid, flour on her hands, curiosity bright in her voice:
“My lady, why blackberry tarts specifically?”
“There will be many northern lords present. Blackberries are something of a delicacy in the North. Hardy fruit. They thrive in the cold.”
Your gaze lifted, drifting to the bed where your husbands slept, two shadowed forms, their breathing slow and even in the dark. Then back to Aemon.
Half-asleep as he was, he seemed determined not to be entirely forgotten. A faint shift, a soft sound, as though he sensed your attention slipping.
The corners of your mouth curved.
“What do you say, little one,” you murmured, voice barely more than breath. “Shall we go and find your brothers?”
Aemon blinked, slow, uncertain, but present.
You gathered him closer, snug against your arm, then reached for the robe draped over the chair by the door. The fabric whispered as you pulled it on. Carefully, quietly, you eased the chamber door open.
The guards outside startled.
One of them actually stepped back.
“Y—Your Grace.” The taller recovered first, though his voice came out a touch too loud for the hour.
You lifted a finger to your lips and inclined your head toward the chamber behind you.
Both men stiffened at once, voices dropping to urgent whispers.
Their eyes flickered downward and then snapped resolutely upward again, fixing somewhere far above your head with the rigid concentration of men who valued their continued existence.
You suspected, with amusement, that if either of your husbands stepped out now and found their guards looking at you, there would be fewer guards come morning.
“My lady,” the shorter one said carefully, gaze anchored above your left shoulder, “where are you going?”
“I need to walk a little. Stretch my legs.” You shifted Aemon lightly on your hip, offering a pleasant, untroubled smile.
They exchanged a look.
“We cannot leave you unguarded. If either of the Princes were to—”
“I order you to remain at this door,” you said, gently but with a finality that had stilled council chambers. “If anything happens, I will scream. You will hear me well enough.”
Another glance passed between them. A conversation entire in its silence.
And then you turned the corner, moving just quickly enough that neither could gather a proper objection before you were gone.
You made your way down the long corridor, your steps soundless against the stone. Aemon gave a soft, pleased coo, catching your finger in his small hand and promptly guiding it to his mouth when you brushed his chubby cheek. You huffed a quiet breath of laughter and let him have it.
The keep slept around you. Tapestries loomed in shadow, doorways dark and still, the air cool against your bare feet as you passed.
At the first door, you paused.
The guards there reacted much the same as your own, startled, eyes widening before darting anywhere but at you once they registered the nightgown. You lifted a hand at once: stay, quiet, not a word. They obeyed without hesitation.
You slipped inside.
Valarr’s chamber was exactly as it always had been, orderly, composed, every detail in its proper place. Even when he was very young, he had kept his space this way. You had always found something quietly endearing in that.
He was fast asleep, one arm thrown over his face, dark hair loose across the pillow. That single strand of silver lay against his temple, catching what little light there was.
You crossed the room and rested your hand lightly on his shoulder.
He woke slowly, gently, as though rising through water rather than being pulled from sleep.
He blinked once, then focused on you, taking in the robe, his little brother, the hour. His mismatched eyes, so like his father’s, the very thing that had made half the court catch its breath at his birth, were soft with sleep, warm and steady.
“Mother… is everything all right?”
“Everyone is perfectly well,” you murmured, smiling. “Get up. Put something warm on.”
He studied you for a moment.
“Are we doing something we shouldn’t?” he asked, his voice threaded with genuine curiosity.
“Absolutely not,” you said lightly. “We are simply going for a walk.”
The smile that spread across his face was so entirely his father’s that, for a moment, it caught at your breath
"Give me a moment," he whispered, already pushing back the covers.
He crossed to the chair where his linen clothes were draped and pulled them on, his arm catching in the sleeve. You reached over and guided it through without a word, and he gave you a small, grateful smile.
Leaving his chambers, he simply fell into step beside you as you slipped back into the corridor. Aemon reached out to his brother and Valarr took his small fist and held it for a second. Aemon happily bounced at his brothers attention.
The guards watched you both go with the expression of men who had decided, collectively, that whatever was happening was above their station to address.
Daeron's chamber was next.
The reaction here was considerably less serene. He jolted upright the moment the door opened, already half out of bed before he was fully awake, violet eyes wide and scanning the room for whatever disaster had sent his mother to his door in the middle of the night. You watched his gaze move from you to Valarr to Aemon and back to you, working through the evidence.
You said nothing. You only smiled.
Daeron stared at you for a long moment, his longer silver hair sticking in several directions, looking deeply uncertain about every single aspect of this situation. Then he pressed his mouth together, exhaled through his nose, and reached for his clothes with the air of someone who had decided to reserve judgement until more information became available.
He shuffled out into the corridor still tucking in his shirt, and fell in behind Valarr.
"Any idea what Mothers doing?" he muttered, low enough that he presumably thought you couldn't hear.
Valarr considered this with great seriousness. "No," he said. "But she looks pleased with herself."
"That's what worries me."
You did not dignify this with a response and led them both down the corridor.
Aerion and Matarys's chamber was last. You eased the door open to find them both deeply, thoroughly asleep. Matarys on his back with the composed stillness of a small bat, Aerion face-down and diagonal, one leg hanging entirely off the bed. You went to Aerion first and touched his shoulder.
He was awake in an instant, blinking up at you with those quick, bright violet eyes that never took long to arrive at full alertness. He took one look at your face, the hour, the assembled brothers visible in the doorway behind you and something in him simply knew. He sat up without a word, shoved his feet into his shoes and grabbed your hand.
Matarys required rather more encouragement. He surfaced from sleep slowly and with great personal offense, squinting at you with an grumpy expression. For all that he was Baelor’s son, there was no doubt he had inherited something unmistakable from Maekar.
And so you went, down through the long, torch-lit corridors of the Red Keep, all six of you, Aemon riding high on your arm and looking back over your shoulder at his brothers, smiling at them. Every guard you passed did a visible double-take. Every servant you encountered stopped and stared. You smiled at each of them in turn with the serene pleasantness of a woman who had done absolutely nothing wrong and intended to continue doing so.
You stopped at last before a wide, weathered oak door, its edges dark with years of kitchen smoke, warmth bleeding faintly through the wood even at this hour.
You turned to face them.
Four children looked back at you. Valarr composed and curious, Daeron suspicious but present, Matarys still half-asleep and Aerion practically vibrating, feeling something.
You bounced Aemon once and let the silence build just long enough.
"I heard," you began, "that the kitchens have been preparing the most extraordinary sweets for your grandsire and grandmother’s wedding anniversary. Heaps of them. Every kind imaginable." You tilted your head thoughtfully. "Now. You all know how your grandsire feels about things that are too sweet."
A pause.
"It would really be a terrible shame," you continued, "if something were served that didn't suit his palate. Someone really ought to go and check."
The silence lasted approximately one breath.
Aerion's face split into a grin so wide it threatened to leave his face entirely. Matarys, sleep forgotten, straightened with sudden and complete attention. Daeron looked at the ceiling briefly and then looked back at you with the very beginning of a smile pulling at his mouth despite his best efforts. Valarr simply looked at you with his warm, delighted eyes and said nothing, because nothing needed saying.
You put your free hand on the door.
"We are, of course, doing this purely in service of your grandsire," you said gravely.
"Of course," Valarr agreed, equally grave.
You pushed the door open, and the warm smell of sugar and woodsmoke and blackberries rolled out to meet you all.
The kitchens at this hour were vast and still, the great fires banked low, the long tables scrubbed clean and waiting for morning. Copper pots hung in rows along the walls, catching the ember-glow, and the air was thick and warm and sweet in a way that settled in your chest like a memory before you had even fully stepped inside.
You stood in the doorway for a moment, all of you, just looking.
It was Aerion who moved first, naturally, already padding toward the long central table with the focused intent of a hound that had caught a scent. Matarys followed a half-step behind, equally determined.
"Quietly," you murmured after them, though you were smiling.
Daeron drifted in behind you, his eyes moving around the kitchen with the alert. He spotted the far shelf almost immediately. "There," he said, low, and you followed his gaze.
Three wide trays, covered in cloth, sitting on the long shelf above the bread boards. The smell coming from them was extraordinary.
Valarr was already pulling a stool across without being asked, he set it below the shelf and looked at you.
"Allow me," he said, with a small courtly incline of his head that was so thoroughly Baelor it made something squeeze warmly behind your ribs.
He climbed up and lifted the cloth.
The blackberry tarts were arranged in neat rows, small and perfect, their crusts golden, the dark filling catching the low light like gemstones. There were other things too. Honeyed almonds in paper twists, small spiced cakes dusted with sugar, candied orange peels in a shallow bowl, and sugar filled dates; but it was the tarts that held the room.
Aerion made a sound of profound satisfaction.
"Go on," you said again, and sat yourself down on the wide kitchen bench with Aemon in your lap, bouncing him up and down.
Valarr passed out the tarts with careful precision, one to Daeron, one to Matarys, one to Aerion, and then two to you. Aerion, impatient as ever, bit into his before fully receiving it, earning a sharp, amused look.
Then Valarr climbed down and settled beside you on the bench. He handed you one tart, keeping the other in his own hand. Together you sat in the warm, quiet darkness of the kitchens, the great sleeping castle looming above, and ate.
Aemon watched with rapt fascination, reaching toward the tart and fussing a little. You smiled at him, dipped your finger into the center of the tart, and brought it close. He eagerly grasped your finger and suckled, delighted by the sweet taste.
For a few beautiful minutes there was nothing but the sound of quiet chewing and the occasional delighted sound from Aemon, who it seemed loved the sweet taste.
"Well?" you asked, after a moment.
Aerion considered his tart with great professional gravity. "Too sweet," he announced. "Definitely too sweet. Grandsire will hate it."
"Terrible," Matarys agreed, and took an enormous bite.
"We should try another," Aerion said. "To be thorough."
"For grandsire," Matarys said seriously.
"Purely for grandsire," Valarr agreed, already reaching for one.
Daeron said nothing. He was on his second tart and leaning against the table with his ankles crossed and the most relaxed expression you had seen on his face in a fortnight, so you decided that counted as endorsement enough.
Then Aerion reached for the tray and his elbow caught the edge and a tart slid off and landed filling-side down on Matarys pants.
Everyone looked at it.
Matarys looked at Aerion.
"That," Aerion said carefully, "was an accident."
A pause that lasted precisely long enough for Matarys to decide it was not.
He picked up the fallen tart, weighed it for a single, deliberate moment and pressed it firmly into Aerion’s cheek.
The kitchen erupted.
Aerion retaliated instantly, scooping up a fistful of tart and smearing it across Matarys’s shirt with wholehearted enthusiasm.
Matarys lunged.
Aerion ducked under the table and reappeared on the other side.
You were on your feet at once, “boys, boys, boys”, hissed in urgent succession as you turned in a slow circle, keeping Aemon lifted safely above the chaos while the two of them waged war around you, their fierce whispers rapidly abandoning any pretense of quiet.
Daeron, who had withdrawn to the far table with folded arms and the expression of someone firmly committed to non-involvement, took a stray piece of crust to the side of the face.
He went very still.
There was a brief, visible moment in which he reconsidered his position.
He revised it.
Reaching out, he caught Aerion by the collar and, with calm precision, deposited an entire tart squarely atop his head.
“Daeron—”
“He had it coming,” Daeron said simply.
And then Valarr, your composed boy, all grace and good sense, leaned past you, dipped his hand into a jar of blackberry jam, and flung it neatly into Matarys’s face as he rushed by.
“Valarr,” you said.
“It seemed fair,” he replied.
What followed was pure chaos.
There was jam, everywhere.
At some point, an entire tart sailed through the air.
Aerion seized a tray and began distributing its contents on every one of his brothers, sparing only you and Aemon.
Matarys lost a shoe.
A careless flick sent jam across your cheek, your robe marked beyond saving and somehow, impossibly, Aemon, who had remained tucked safely against you, acquired a bold smear of purple across his face. He was delighted by it, shrieking with laughter each time another tart went flying.
All four of them chased each other through the kitchens, shouting and laughing, slipping on stone and grabbing at sleeves. At one point Valarr and Daeron turned on each other, hands in collars, smearing jam across one another’s faces with breathless indignation.
Aerion and Matarys collapsed laughing at the sight.
And you laughed with them, openly and without restraint, forgetting entirely the hour.
You had just opened your mouth to speak—
—and the door opened.
Every child in the kitchen froze.
The silence fell so fast it rang, broken only by Aemon, who had no understanding of consequence and cooed happily into it.
Maekar filled the doorway.
He had come as he woke: linen shirt, linen trousers, bare feet, silver hair disheveled. His expression made it very clear he was not amused.
His gaze moved slowly across the room, taking in everything with deliberate care. The overturned trays. The ruined tarts. Jam smeared across stone and wood alike. Matarys. Aerion. Daeron. Valarr. Each of them marked with evidence. Aemon with purple staining his cheek.
He said nothing.
Baelor stepped in behind him, looking over his brother’s shoulder. His expression followed the same path but where Maekar’s expression became strict and controlled, Baelor’s faltered, catching on something close to laughter.
His mismatched eyes found yours. Moved, one by one, across each of your children. Then returned.
No one breathed.
Baelor stepped forward.
He crossed the kitchen came to your side, and without a word, bent to Aemon, pressing a kiss to his jam-smeared cheek. The sound was soft and distinct.
Aemond squealed.
“Blackberry,” Baelor said, “Excellent. Very good filling. Not too sweet.”
Aerion broke first.
A sharp, breathless laugh escaped him, quickly smothered, unsuccessfully.
“We were,” you began, with impeccable dignity, “conducting a quality inspection.”
“At the third hour of the night,” Maekar said.
“Sweets can change considerably after dark,” Valarr offered, helpfully, from his position of perfect composure at the edge of the bench.
Maekar looked at him.
Looked at the others.
Looked at you.
Something shifted in his expression, he turned away without a word and crossed to the shelf above the breadboards.
He lifted the cloth from a third tray.
Selected a tart and turned back, leaning lightly against the shelf as he took a measured bite.
“Too sweet,” he said flatly and took another bite.
And the kitchen, in one long, helpless exhale of relief and laughter, fell completely apart.
The atmosphere settled like something warm being poured into a cold room. Your sons arranged themselves across the benches in the kitchen, voices dropping to the low comfortable chatter.
Matarys was attempting to explain to Daeron, with great conviction, the precise aerodynamics of a thrown tart.
Aerion had helped himself to another and was eating it untroubled contentment. Valarr sat on a counter in front of you, occasionally contributing a dry observation that sent Daeron into muffled laughter.
You sat in the middle of it and felt something in your chest so full it almost ached.
Baelor settled on your right, Maekar on your left, and the bench, already crowded, the three of you pressed close in the warm ember-lit dark. Aemon drowsing now in your arms, finally running out of night.
You felt fingers at your collarbone.
Maekar, lifted a streak of jam from your skin with two careful fingers and brought them to his mouth. His eyes were on your sons. His expression revealed nothing.
You felt the warmth of it all the way down.
On your other side, Baelor leaned forward and pressed his thumb gently to Aemon’s cheek, collecting the last traces of purple there, and tasted it with the same quiet seriousness he had given his verdict earlier.
Then he settled back and both of them drew closer to you, until you were pressed entirely between them.
Then lips at your ear, warm breath, Baelor's voice dropped to something that was for you alone.
"Don't slip away in the middle of the night like that." The words were soft.
The tone beneath them was not.
"Maekar woke first and found you gone, the bed empty, Aemon’s crib empty. We thought—" A pause, brief but weighted, "The guards told us you had gone yourself, with the children. You cannot imagine what the moments before that information felt like."
You shivered despite the warmth of the kitchen.
On your other side Maekar said nothing. He didn't need to. His hand had found the back of your neck, large and steady, his thumb tracing slow along the nape in a way that made it very difficult to think clearly about anything at all.
"I'm sorry," you said quietly, meaning it.
Baelor's lips moved to just below your ear, "You will make it up to us," he murmured, so low it barely qualified as sound. "When the children are back in their beds."
The warmth that moved through you had nothing to do with the kitchen fire.
Maekar's thumb stilled at your neck. "Next time," he said, low and even, "you wake one of us." His fingers pressed fractionally tighter, just once, deliberate enough that it could not be mistaken for accident.
You turned to look at him. He was watching your sons, jaw set, the firelight catching the silver of his hair and beard. But his hand remained at your neck and the tips of his ears were very slightly red.
"Next time," you agreed softly.
He gave a single nod. His hand did not move
Baelor pressed his lips once to your temple, slow and deliberate, and then leaned back and surveyed the kitchen. He exhaled a long quiet breath that had the shape of a laugh living somewhere inside it.
"Your grandsire," he said, raising his voice just enough to carry to your sons, "is not going to be pleased."
All four of them turned to look at him with varying degrees of guilt.
Then Baelor glanced at Valarr and tipped his chin toward the tray. “Pass me one.”
You stared at him.
Valarr, without hesitation, chose a tart with careful consideration and held it out. Baelor took it and bit in as if nothing at all were amiss.
Daeron looked at Maekar.
Maekar, already on his second, a trace of blackberry at the corner of his mouth.
And something in your chest gave way.
You thought of your brother back in Winterfell, stolen nights and sweet desserts.
This, you thought. This is exactly what I wanted.
You did not realise you were crying until Maekar's thumb came to your jaw, tilting your face toward him. He said nothing. He simply looked at you, and then pressed his lips to your forehead, firm and quiet and sure.
On your other side Baelor turned and found your hand under the bench.
You sat between them in the warm dark and let yourself have it, all of it, the laughter still ringing in your chest, the ache of it, the sweetness.
The faces of your children. The weight of Aemon sleeping.
The smell of blackberries and woodsmoke and the particular warmth of the people you loved.
That night you would keep. You would fold it up and put it somewhere safe and take it out again on the days when everything was loud and exhausting and too much, and you would remember it, the way you remembered your childhood.
And you would be alright.
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Thank you for reading! Likes, comments, and reblogs are always appreciated.
Summary: Prince Baelor learns that Ser Duncan's sixth knight has betrayed him for a lordship. There is not much time to find another knight and Baelor knows what he must do. But with this odd feeling deep in his belly that something bad will happen to him, his mind cannot help but go to you in his final hours before the morrow. His whisper. His Dove.
Warnings: 18+ MDNI, slight AU universe, Baelor is a dreamer (for just one night haha), kissing, Reader's nickname for Baelor is Whsiper and Dove, absolute yearning, gut wrenching angst, Baelor character analysis, implied sex,a small kiss of spearhedge if you squint because I can not help myself when it comes to them but nothing that interferes with the story, used too many fucking commas.
Huge Note: So, I know this show came out like months ago and the hype for it has more than likely diminished to a small simmer, I had a promise to uphold. Around the time the show ended, I made a post that I was writing an angsty Baelor fic by hand under candlelight and was told to "do my worst"-- this is me doing my worst. This entire fic was fourteen pages long and took me so long to retype to my computer and finalize. When it was finished, on my documents it shows that this fic is twenty five pages long. I don't know what happened to me but when I saw Baelor on that screen, ugh I couldn't take my eyes off of him. I am a mourning wife truly. I posted this fic on ao3 at the end of march but hadn't gotten around to post it here. Life has been beating me like a dead horse but we just getting up and keep trotting I guess.
I worked really hard on this, hope you enjoy.
Terribly edited, like all my fics
A trial of seven, that is what his nephew decides on for the hedge knight.
It was a weak thing for a man like him to do—a noble born, tremendously skilled in combat, a prince— negating Ser Duncan’s request of single hand to hand combat. And despite Aerion’s stoic look, despite the boredom that was shown upon his face— more interested in the shelled walnuts the servants had presented for the table to snack on— Baelor knew better.
The boy, his nephew, in heart and in mind was scared. Despite being a prince, despite being a Targaryen, from the hedge knight’s stature alone, there was a fair chance that Aerion could lose.
Ser Duncan the Tall is exactly as his namesake. His stature as tall as a tree and built like strong oak, this hedge knight has nothing left to lose. He sealed his fate the minute he used his hands and leg to defend an innocent against Aerion’s anger and destruction. Would it have been any other man, a drunk man or a simple man that he fought, Ser Duncan’s force would be justified. And Baelor knows this to be true, he can see nothing but kindness in this good man’s heart. The way he even spoke about Aegon, despite the boy’s lies and the fact that Daerion painted the picture of the hedge knight to be a prince thief. Ser Duncan the Tall swallowed it all, harshly yes, but was still polite and honest and good.
Ser Duncan is nothing but a hedge knight with no true squire and he now sits underneath the castle, among the shit and rats, eating stale bread and hard salt beef. All because he put himself in between a prince and his destruction.
If Ser Duncan doesn’t fight in combat for his freedom, the court will have to dismember the parts of his body he used to injure the prince or if that doesn’t satisfy Aerion (which Baelor knows it won’t) they will kill him.
If he does fight, despite being true to his name, Ser Duncan the Tall is not very skilled in battle and they could kill him then too. But, if he fights, he has a better chance than the first, and Baelor has not seen someone with so much fight and determination as Ser Duncan since he’s arrived at Ashford.
From when Baelor first saw the man, he was eavesdropping inside the castle walls where he did not belong, just to bow his head and beg for someone, anyone, to remember his former knight that he squired for, Ser Arylan of Penny Tree. Ser Duncan is a brave man, an honorable man with no egotistical bone in his body from what Baelor has gathered. This man has nothing to lose but his life and even with that, he will die trying with goodness in his heart.
But Baelor’s nephew perhaps? Prince Aerion? He has everything to lose.
With the mess he made at the tourney in which everyone knew was no accident, to what happened in the tent, Ser Aerion is making more enemies than friends. And even if what happened in the tourney was an accident, even if Aerion didn’t know how low he was holding the jousting stick until it was too late, it still doesn’t help the image that’s already been stained to begin with.
The Targaryen have this ominous fog, thick with apathy and callousness around them from their past and their present. There are stories that mothers will always remember to tell their children and there are memories of knights with old wounds and scars they will never forget.
Once, a long time ago, they were looked at as Gods because of the animals they believed Targaryens tamed. And despite the Targaryens before them, despite their ancestors flying with dragons that breathed fire with the sound of the word, it was no longer there. Their worship turned to rejection and their admiration turned to judgement. You’d be surprised to hear someone compliment a Targaryen rather than call them crazy, and Prince Aerion is no different.
“He believes he is a dragon in truth,” his brother Maekar tells him. The wine numbing the mind and the mouth, his tongue moving loosely from his relaxed state. “Believes that he’s a dragon in human form.”
If the Prince wins, that fog won't clear but grow. Many people will not forget that Prince Aerion killed that horse. It will be added on top of the thousand whispers, honest and true like a grain of rice in a barrel. And destroying the puppet show only makes matters worse, justifying his destruction for merely a deflated ego. And of course, Baelor understands. Yes, it was rude and yes it was disrespectful to taunt on their bloodline, but these people are not the first people to jest on their ancestry and will most definitely not be the last. Aerion can not just toss fires on tents and push wood into horses whenever he sees fit.
And if Prince Aerion loses, oh, his father would be the least of his worries. The people would laugh that a mere hedge knight made a Targaryen prince look like a fool and yield. And Aerion would not take it well, they all knew that. He would not stand straight and swallow his pride with a stiff lip. No, his nephew would breathe fire with reckless abandon, like the dragon he desires to be.
But Aerion is no dragon, none of the Targaryens are in truth, not anymore. And it takes an honest man to admit that.
Maybe it’s because Baelor is not full blood. His mother’s Dornish side shining through so brightly it trickled down to his sons. Baelor is no fool, he hears the whispers about his tanned skin, of his dark hair and his eyes that lack the same color. That small but present hesitation they all have at the fact that someone like him is next in line for the throne. But Baelor swallows it all, with a stiff lip and an unfazed gaze upon his accusers, because that is what it takes to be The Hand of the King. That’s what it takes to be heir of the Realm.
Coming here was a mistake, Baelor thinks. Or maybe he and his family have overstayed their welcome. Or maybe, they are no longer fit to be in the public eye without someone from their line disturbing the peace that took years of careful mending to make. Baelor does not know.
So now, here they were. The sun set and the moon high as night grew more and more long with each bell chime of the hour. Aerion has only his six knights that will fight in his stead and Ser Duncan has his seven from what his whisper has told him.
Early that night, Maekar asked him to fight alongside the family, “The first trial of seven in 100 years,” Maekar stated. “ It would be an honor to do it with you by my side, brother.” A cup of wine in both of their hands, the hearth warm with a fire that crackles in the study Baelor has been given in their stay.
Baelor smiles, his thumb rubbing against the engraving of the silver cup. His eyes meet his brother’s, “It would be an honor to fight with you brother, like fond old times.” Maekar lip curves in a small smirk, a huff leaving his lips at the thought.
“But, this is not my fight brother, it is your sons.” Maekar’s eyes flood with something Baelor knows all too well when it comes to his nephew and his brother's feelings toward his actions. “And as honorable and fond as it would be to fight with you and my nephews, as a family. I must decline.” Maekar accepted his decline with a small nod and even smaller slouch of posture in his seat. No words left his mouth, but Baelor knew his younger brother was disappointed.
The two of them finished their wine and let the crackle of the fire be their conversation until Maekar left him to attend to the preparation for the morrow.
And when his brother leaves him, Baelor is left with a heavy silence, thick like smoke from a put out fire. Something within him, deep in his gut feels…odd, and he hasn't been able to shake it since the moment Aerion presented this trial .
He’s not a dreamer like his nephew, Daerion, he’s never had dreams or cryptic visions that would eventually come true with time, but there’s something about this feeling that Baelor can’t quite shake.
It dulls yes, with wine or when his mind is preoccupied on other things with the Lord of Ashford, but when he sees his nephew, Aerion, shine his sword or if Baelor looks outside to the tourney as they remove the pillars where the horses once road through, to make open space for the fight soon to come, the feeling comes back with as much vigor as it left.
So in this silence, he sits with this oddness. With the fire crackling in the hearth and the flashy colors of amber hues dances in front of his eyes. He slouches in his chair and lets the feeling flood through him without judgement or fear.
- - -
An hour has passed and Baelor blinks out of the intense trance he’s had on the fire. Body flooding with the oddness as a knock on his door ruses him. Anomaly now tucked away back in the core of him, like an rotten apple with a worm slithering inside, Baelor stands from his chair and faces the door.
“Come.” he demands.
Baelor knows who it is from the specific knock alone. As the door pushes open, your hand reveals itself against the wood. Baelor watches as you walk into the study. You’redressed in the colors of the servants here in Ashford, you and the other servants the Targaryen family took on the road with them alike. No matter what color your dress is or the material of it, Baelor still thinks of you more than he should. And as you walk up to him, he swallows down every single feeling and desire in him as he looks at you.
You stop at a respectful distance away from him as you bow your head. Knees bending slightly along with it as you greet him. “Your Grace.”
“Any news?” Baelor forces out of him, yet it sounds smooth as butter when it rolls out of his mouth. His heart wants to say something else but his mind will not allow it so.
Baelor’s used to withholding himself you see, he’s used to letting what he wants slip from him. He’s used to holding his tongue, used to being just a useful piece on board. Used to having the realm and the king mold him into the heir they desperately want and need.
Baelor Targaryen is the heir of the Realm, he is not allowed to want.
And oh, how he wants you.
“Prince Aerion has his seven.” Your eyes do not meet him despite wishing them to. They are glued to the stone floor of this study, your hands clasped in front of you, thumbs worrying against the skin. You’re stiff now in his presence rather than relaxed, he does not miss your poised respectful stature, he does not want your eyes down to the grey stone you both stand upon. But The Heir is not allowed to want, so he accepts what is presented to him.
“Good,” Baelor sighs out, turning his shoulder slightly to the table he stands beside, briefly looking down at the scrolls he left untied hours before, mounted with paperweights. “The trial of seven will commence as promised.”
“Not quite, My prince.”
Baelor lifts his head, your eyes finally meeting him as his heart beats with vigor. As a warmth spreads through his body like he’s back in Dorne. Like your eyes are the sun shining on his skin, warming him with every second you look at him. And just for a mere fraction, a short second, a slip of a moment, Baelor sighs into it. It’s a small huff that comes from his nose that he hopes you do not hear. He falls into a quick comfort within your gaze, savoring each second. And a relief washes over him as he watches your eyes linger on certain places on his body for more than they should, before meeting his discolored eyes once again.
Baelor blinks, clears his throat and furrows his eyebrows in confusion. The reason for your presence coming back to him. The want shoved back down into his bones as they lay dormant like a trained dog or a tamed dragon. His duties crawl back into the front of his mind like spiders as he takes a step toward you.
“Not quite?”
– - -
He will admit it, at this moment, Baelor feels like a child. Like his young nephew, Egg, at his young age of one and ten, as he listens in on Aerion's conversation with his father and the other knights that will be fighting alongside him in the trial. His back pressed against the cold stone of the wall, the wetness of the lower levels of the castle brings the smell of moss and mildew.
It didn’t take him long to find the armour room. Baelor and Maekar were granted a tour of the castle before they completely settled. Maekar declined but Baelor accepted the gesture, he let Ser Ashford walk him around his castle, and listened to the history within the castle walls.
With the late night, the promise of a great battle and by the grace of the gods, both old and new, there were not many servants or knights walking the halls of the castle. It was easy enough to get to this place without being seen, and Baelor’s just thankful that the door to the aAnd with the late night, there were sparse servants and knights below the castle floors. Slipping past them was easy, and Baelor’s just thankful that the door to the armoury’s been open just a crack enough for him to listen in without being seen.
And he knows with one wrong movement, Maekar will catch whiff of him like a hound. Eyes always observing, hand hovering over his sword, always at the ready. So Baelor remains stiff as a board against the cold stone with his breath slowed as he listens in.
“And what brings you here, Ser? The hour is much too fucking late for pleasantries.” Maekar questions.
“Forgive me your Grace, for the intrusion. You are right, the hour is late b-but I come with news that I must share with you and Prince Aerion.” The man explains. A man that Baelor can not name from voice alone.
“And who the fuck are you?” Maekar questions with disdain in his voice. Baelor can hear the awkward shuffle of the unnamed man’s feet at question, the clink of metal as white knights shift their feet, and Aerion’s burst of laughter against a closed fist.
“Ser Steffan Fossaway, heir of House Fossoway of Cider Hall.”
Ah, Baelor finally puts face to a name. House Fossaway is a noble house. He’s seen their banners amongst others across Ashford Meadow, as they all take up camp within their tents.
Maekar merely hums out an acknowledgement. From what Baelor can hear, someone walks closer to Ser Steffan.
“And what is the news you must share with us, apple boy?” Aerion's voice draws out with uninterest. “Surely, it must be very important if you’re demanding to see me and my father at the castle doors...”
Ser Steffan clears his throat for a second time before speaking, “Ser Duncan has his six knights for the trial. Including the man himself, that will make seven.”
Silence engulfs them once more in which Maekar breaks with abrupt laughter. “So, you disturbed my night, demanded an audience to speak with you due to your important message, just for you to announce that you know how to fucking count?”
Aerion coughs out a laugh, the white knights clear their throats, and Ser Steffan of House Fossaway shifts on his feet a second time after standing in front of them all. He’s embarrassed no doubt, Baelor imagines, intimated surely, and a man can only swallow so much of his pride respectfully before things get ugly.
“Forgive me, Your Grace for not speaking plainly, it’s not my intention to be unuseful I—”
“You are being unuseful,” Maekar interrupts. “You are wasting my time, Ser, if you don’t spit out what’s brought you here.”
“We can have your tongue for this, Ser Steffan of House Fossaway.” Aerion rumbles out, eager and waiting for his father to give him the okay to do so.
“I am Ser Duncan’s sixth knight.” Ser Steffan finally lets out. His voice is stern, a louder octave than before to make his point across, reminding Baelor of a child who wants to show their parents they are indeed not a child anymore and can handle grown up things.
The room is quiet, Aerion sniffs harshly, walking over to the decanter of wine that has been placed in every single room Baelor has seen so far for their stay. The sound of the red liquid pouring into the goblet fills the room, Baelor can almost smell the fermented grapes from his position against the stone wall.
“And?” Maekar questions.
“And—” Ser Steffan continues, “I am willing to become your sixth and fight by your side.”
Baelor hears the shuffle of feet and the sound of a sword unsheathing. His eyes widen at the sound for a splinter of a second but defuses, remembering that this man is in a room full of not only royalty but skilled white knights. From what Baelor can assume, Ser Steffan is on his knees, presenting his sword out to Maekar and Aerion in knightly surrender and respect. “It would be an honor, Your Grace.”
“Get up.” Maekar demands boringly, “I’m assuming this will not come out of the kindness of your heart?”
“Why not?” Aerion questions, walking up toward his father and the man who’s presented his sword for battle. “It would be a great honour on his part to fight with the royal family.”
“A man is not that kind,” Maekar admits. “Especially not you, Ser Steffan of House Fossaway. Everything comes at a price.” His brother’s voice moves as he walks, no doubt circling Ser Steffan like a dragon stalking its prey. “So, what price would that be for you? Gold? An acknowledgement from the king for your bravery?”
Maekar’s feet stop moving, Baelor can almost picture his brother standing in front of the man. Looking down at him with eyes so stoic and hardened, that the man before him will have to crack and reveal his true desire of changing ship. “A lordship?”
“If the Prince is gracious to give it, Your Grace.” Ser Steffan requests quietly, like a fearful lamb in wolf’s skin ten sizes too small.
Ser Baelor closes his eyes in defeat, he knows his nephew will accept him eagerly as the sixth knight. Throwing the lordship at Ser Steffan’s feet like rotten meat for stray dogs. Morrow draws near with each hour that passes and his family have yet to find their final sword for the trail, so they simply will not turn down this one, despite how dishonourable it is.
A man who doesn’t stand for something, will fall for anything. And this man, Ser Steffan of House Fossaway is no man at all. Willing to give up his place in battle for a lordship. Although men have given up things for far less. Baelor is not surprised, just disappointed.
Baelor walks away with a heavy heart and soft silent footsteps. The underground hallway is dimly lit, the torches dying to mere embers. That ominous feeling floods through him as he continues in his step, heavier now with what he’s just heard.
Ser Duncan will have only five knights for his trial. Ser Duncan the Tall will not even have a fighting chance to prove himself because a man was greedy. He will wake up on the morrow, put on his shield and unsheath his sword, just to be revealed that he and his knights have been betrayed.
And Ser Baelor can not help but feel remorse for him, this mere hedge knight. As he walks up the stairs to get out of the underground level of the castle, the weight beneath his feet feel like cinderblocks with each step.
This man, this hedge knight, is innocent. Ser Baelor knows he is deep in his bones. Did the man commit a crime unto the royal family? Yes, but he did it all for protecting the innocent, and isn’t that what every single knight takes an oath of? Why must Ser Duncan be punished for being a good man?
And that is when it hits him, right in that dimly lit stairway. The smell of mildew and charred smoke in his lungs, his heart beating like he’s underwater, pulse jumping like rats running down a hallway. In that moment, Baelor realizes what he must do.
That odd feeling he’s felt since the trials announcement, that weight that’s been sitting with him for so long that is unrecognizable and foreign is finally revealed as death.
His death has been this oddness, crawling up his spine and in the back of his head like a venomous spider that kills you slowly. It’s been weighing on him like stone and he didn’t understand why before, didn’t know that this oddness was just death itself, but he does now.
On the morrow, Ser Baelor would be in his son’s armour, standing beside Ser Duncan, fighting alongside him in this trial.
And the weight of death is not foreign to Baelor, no, that is something that comes with being an heir of the realm or even just a knight—that death is closer to him than it is to a common man with no sword or title. But this? This feeling of death is certain. That it is near.
If he joins Ser Duncan to fight against his family, Baelor will die on the morrow in the trial of seven. That alone should stop him in his decision, should make him hesitate or change his mind on what he should do, but Baelor can not and will not stand by and let this man— this good man—not have a proper fighting chance to clear his name.
His hand meets the wall of the stairway, the stone is wet and cold as he lets death and his fear of it wash over him. His other hand meets the stone, grounding himself in the foreign feeling. His forehead merely touches the wet stone, the smell of mildew more pungent but is a reminder that right now he is still alive.
A humourless chuckle leaves his lips as this stone of oddity within him, dissolves into rocks and then into pebbles. They spread through his entire body and vibrate, like he’s laying on the floor of an inn, where it’s lively and loud and every man and woman alike clap their hands and stomp their feet to the sound of the music.
Acceptance.
Any fight is a dangerous one, and the trial of seven isn’t cut out from that statement. Even Baelor—a Targaryen prince, heir to the realm, Hand of the King, and named Breakspear from his time as a knight—is just a man.
Baelor Targryean is just a man. Not a dragon or a prince despite everything, he is simply a man who may die in this trial. But with this odd knowingness in his heart, his death is not just a possibility but a guarantee. And Baelor should start planning now, should prepare around his death, get all his ducks in a row so those beneath him can be prepared. He should write letters, seal deals, hug his son, make lists for people to find in the aftermath and Baelor will do so. He is many things if not thorough, even when death is knocking so soon at his door.
But it will wait, all of it will wait. Because right now, in this moment, with the acceptance and assurance of his passing settling in his belly. Baelor Targreyan thinks of you, his whisper.
His Dove.
- - -
You are his most trusting if not only spy.
He’s familiar with Bloodraven, knows he’s the Master of spies with a thousand and one eyes that knows everything that needs to be known. But you are his whisper alone.
Yes, you, a servant within the castle walls of the Targrayrean house but that is in truth why you are most trusted to him. No one will suspect a servant that does the washing or serving the people of the court wine during supper will know much of anything, let alone a woman.
But you, you know a lot.
A few years ago, you came to Baelor in secret. It was late, the guards gone and the crackling sound of the hearth in his study as his company. You came to him, quiet as a mouse with your eyes down to the floor and your head bowed. You apologized profusely for the late hour and the directness of your presence. Baelor muttered much about how it wasn’t right for you to come into his study like this without reason or allowance but the look in your eyes as he spoke, the worrying tic of your fingers as they hung in front of you, from your mere presence alone, both anxious yet determined. He let you stay and say your peace.
“You will die tomorrow, Your Grace. The lord plans to kill you.”
It was a very big accusation you made to the man that Baelor was housing for his visit to Dragonstone and Baelor told you as such. But you didn’t back down from him. “Do not drink the wine they bring as a gift for you.” Those are the last words you say before you depart.
And on the morrow, you are right.
There was to be a hunt after dawn broke and the Lord would accompany the knights and the heir. A deer was caught but the look in Lord Connell's eyes is what made Baelor falter. It was hard to see if you weren’t looking hard enough and none of his knights were truly looking. Baelor’s gotten good at it, seeing through people. At first he just thought it was jealousy or disdain for an heir only half dragon born, which Baelor is more than used to, but this wasn’t it.
He told his trusted knights in private to keep an eye on their new friends, We may be hunting but they may be hunting us. And despite the Lord's yellowish smile, despite his laugh that comes out true and deep from his round belly, there's a twinkle of hatred beneath it all that Baelor catches is the small glimpses. And the son that stands next to him is no better.
And in that moment, he knows for certain that what you whispered to him in the dead of night is true.
Baelor sits with it at the feast, in the hall of his home. A rumble of thunder underneath his feet as the court dines merrily. Baelor doesn’t touch his food until Connell does, doesn’t sip his wine until Connell does and as the hour passes by and the lords cup has gone empty. You come into view with a snap of his greasy fingers, his hands waving the empty cup with furrowed eyebrows. Muttering to his son at how slow you walk to serve a lord of the realm.
Baelor wants to gut him like a fish right then and there and serve you Lord Connell’s blood in that fucking cup as his penance.
He watches as you pour the lord his second glass of wine, laughing when need be as Lord Connell tells a story that the court will laugh at even if it truly isn’t much funny. Before you walk away, Baelor’s eyes meet yours and watches as your eyes quickly yet determined falter to the boxes painted gold that sit next to the lord before walking away.
When dinner is removed and dessert of berries and cream are served, Lord Connell and his son present Baelor with the gift. Stating that his family had created and aged the wine for a millennium and would be a great honor to present it to the heir of the realm. His nephew, the ever loving drunk, demands for them all to have a taste with eagerness and as the Lord cracks open the bottle. Before he hands it to Daeron’s awaiting hands, of course, the proper thing to do is offer the prince, the heir, to have the first sip. Which lord Connell repeats.
Baelor smiles, turning to the crowd as the court all look at him with eager eyes, his family smiling and clapping at the gesture. And before he brings his attention back to the lord and his son, Baelor’s eyes find yours within the crowd. You’re still holding the bronze jug of wine to refill if any noble court requests. You’re already looking at him when his eyes gazes upon you. You shake your head, a soft move that no one could ever tell it meant anything. And with Baelor’s eyes and the way his body turns in the circle to gaze upon the court, it makes it so he wasn’t looking at you in the first place, just simply gazing at the crowd.
He smiles as he watches Lord Connell’s son pour a cup for him. It’s a dark signet almost ambreguine color and there's a smell underneath the grape and cherries that's pungent and almost vinegary.
Must I drink alone? Baelor had questioned. The court laughs and he can already see Daeron standing to get himself a glass. Expressing that Lord Connell would honor Baelor in sharing the first drink with him. The Lord’s hesitation is covered by his bow but Baelor sees it nonetheless, he thanks Baelor but denies his offer, this wine is only future king to drink.
Baelor’s eyebrows furrow in faux confusion, “But, you said it yourself my lord—that this is a wine that your family has been creating for generations. A prized possession that many lords want a taste of. Mustn't you drink with me?”
And with Ser Baelor’s words and Lord Connell’s second hesitation on the matter, that is when his brother and nephews catch on. That is when the white knights walk closer to the opposing family, ready to pounce on the prince’s demand.
Lord Connell and his son are imprisoned within the hour, after his son’s attempt to take the sword off of Ser Baelor’s person to try and kill him with it, due to their first attempt going stale. And before the knights can intervene, Baelor disarms the man and holds the sword up to his throat.
After that day, you became one of his trusted spies. His only spy really.
His whisper. His dove.
You would come to him at night or in secluded hallways when Baelor would walk alone in thought. There are even times when Baelor wouldn’t see you at all except for during your daily duties. He knew when there would be information you wanted to share with him is when your bow of being dismissed would be longer than usual. A few seconds long or shorter is the indication and only Baelor knows of it. Sometimes, Ser Baelor would find notes on his person or in his study, written with tea stained bits of paper. Your handwriting is soft but sharp with bravery.
The two of you grew into this routine in tandem until one night the line grew blurred.
Until Ser Baelor faltered as any man would.
It was late, he was tired and he felt a lapse of judgement—a lapse of release more like. He was three cups into the good wine when you came to him in his study. You reported that a white knight was caught with one of the maids, he could tell it hurt you deeply to reveal the secret. Baelor knew that the servants and maids were all very close to one another. For some that meant intimately, for others that meant familial.
And Baelor didn’t know what it was, he didn’t know if it was the sadness that flooded your eyes so quickly across your stoic features or the slouch in your usual straight posture that urged him to make you stay. That itched at him to make your mood better.
Baelor promised that no harm would come to the maiden or the knight despite their sworn oath. As long as the knight knew their duty was to the realm and they still fought bravely and protectively. He would speak privately to the knight on the matter on the morrow. He saw your chest deflate and heard the push of air out of your lungs of relief.
He asked you if you drank wine.
You told him you did.
He asked if you’d like some.
You told him you did.
He poured you a glass and softly requested that if it wasn’t too much trouble, if you could keep him company in this silence. And you did for the most part, sitting in the chair opposite of his and drinking until Baelor started asking you questions.
He learned your name, learned who your family was and how you came to work here as a servant. Your voice is like a soft melody and your presence is like the warmth of the sun.
Those types of visits became a repetitive addition to the routine the both of you already had. He knew deep in his mind that it was improper to do so, but in those moments, his heart didn’t care.
In those moments, he wasn’t The Heir of the Realm, The Hand of the King or even just royalty. In those moments, he felt like he was just Baelor. And Baelor hasn’t felt that in a long time.
You grew more comfortable in his presence, from a stiff lip and straight back to an ever growing smile and a slouch. From a small push of breath out of your nose as a chuckle to a full on laugh that you need to cover your mouth with and your fingers to hide. From keeping to one place in the chair you’ve sat in since the first time, to walking around with your fingers lightly dancing over books on his shelves in his study, asking him question after question about things that a servant should never really ask a prince.
But you were no mere servant.
You were his whisper. His dove, a nickname that slipped out of his mouth one night, yet you didn’t flinch or frown at it, instead you smiled. Eyes gleaming and it warmed Baelor's heart all the same.
And one night, instead of drinking wine made for princes and kings and noble houses, you presented him with a commoner drink that's much more pungent and strong. For lowborns, maids and commoners alike, is what you told him with a smirking smile. You shared sips of it from your leather pouch and it made Baelor’s lips pucker and reminded him of simpler times. Of when he wasn’t The Hand or when the thought of being the heir to the throne felt farther away than it does now.
Eyes lingering, fingers touching as you pass the pouch back and forth from each other. Baelor’s eyes hooded, his back slouched and relaxed and your cheeks so flushed against the heat of the fire. Your hands over your lips as you quiet your laugh and forwardness that constantly spurs out of you from the liquid courage. And as you wander the study like you usually do, Baelor doesn’t halt his wandering gaze. He watches longer than his sober mind would ever will himself to.
You’re beautiful. Baelor knows this, a blind man could know this from the sound of your voice alone.
And in your cups your hand slips, papers and books slide onto the floor from the round table it once laid. You apologize and he jokes at your slippery fingers as he gets up to help you tidy. He helps you pick up the scrolls and books your clumsiness spills . The both of you stand, placing the items back on the table.
Your shocked gasp alerts his eyes to your person, as you stare at your hand. A paper cut, a bad one at that. Your blood is dripping, splattering down onto the floor and onto the paper and scroll that the both of you must've missed. Ser Baelor’s politeness is now gone, only basic human instinct at the forefront, and his instinct is begging him to take care of you.
Instinctually, he takes your hand in his and doesn’t hesitate to put the tip of your ring finger into his mouth. Your gasp alerts the forwardness and lets his tongue slide on your finger before releasing. Your eyes meet each other, mouths open with bated breath, and without a second thought, the two of you are on each other like rabid dogs. Like dragons at play. Mouths parting and closing against one another, spit flooding and tongues warm of lowborn bitters.
What sobers you both is when something hard and heavy falls off the table a second time as Baelor presses you hard against the table. Along with a cup clanking to the floor, alerting a knight of the noise. He doesn’t come in— thank the gods—Baelor dismisses him and states he fell asleep with it in his hand. With a cup slamming and the knock of a knight, the mood ends.
Days later, he apologizes for his feebleness. Stating it will never happen again. Ignoring the look in your eyes and the feeling in his heart, both of them wishing him not to say these words. But he has to, he must. Not for his own desires and wants and needs but the good of the realm.
And you, ever so beautiful, inside and out, you comply. Acknowledging it might be best to write news instead of bringing them to him in person, and Baelor reluctantly agrees. Only to torture himself even more.
He keeps every scrap of paper you write to him after that. His thumb grazes against the scrolls stained with your blood. His eyes look for you among the maids and servants but yours never meet him. It is like you are your namesake, a dove in the wind. A mere whisper of what his heart yearns for.
Until tonight.
Tonight, when death greets him merely hours away, tonight, Baelor Targaryen will take what he wants and what he wants is you.
– - -
It takes Baelor about an hour of searching until he finds you. You’re in the kitchens with other servants and maids, the conversation now silenced once he steps into the open frame. He watches as you all bow in his presence. He apologizes for the intrusion with a small bow of his own head, stating he was just on a stroll throughout the castle to tire himself to sleep. The maids and servants all nod, still faltering to go back to their laxity.
As he turns to leave , urging them all to continue with what they were doing before, his hands slip to let a button off his coat fall from it. And just as he hopes, you call out to him before he takes another step.
“Your Grace!” You say, he hears your feet shuffle to where he stands. Baelor turns, letting out a hum of realization as you pick up the button that’s fallen from his coat. “This dropped from your person.”
“It appears it has.” He looks at the button in your open palm, flicking his eyes back to you. “Thank you kindly.” And instead of taking the round object out of your awaiting palm, he extends his own hand out, palm open and thumb pushing at the top of his pointer finger to keep it steady and curved.
And to the maids and servants, this interaction is just a normal one. A servant doing their job in presenting something missing to the royal family. Nothing odd or out of the ordinary. But to you, his whisper, you can see the small folded piece of paper that's tucked in the curved slit corner of his thumb.
You hesitate for a small second, your eyebrows furrowing at the paper before quickly lifting your eyes to meet Baelor pleading ones. His head is turned so only you can see him and not the other maids. With a small exhale, you turn your hand into his open one, letting the button fall into his palm and touching the warmth of him. He wants to relax at the soft touch of your hand, but he stays upright and poised as you slide your hand, grasping the piece of paper in the process. With a small bow you turn back to where you once were.
“I can mend that if Your Grace needs it?” An older servant offers, placing a cup of what Baelor assumes is not water down on the table. Baelor shakes his head with a small smile, “It’s a much too small problem to disturb you all. Please, enjoy your night. It can be sorted another day.” He nods his head and leaves the kitchens, walking back to his room and waiting to see if you’ll come to him.
And thanking all the gods, old and new, you do come to him. An hour passes and Baelor hears the special knock on the door of his solar. He softly urges you to come in and you comply, greeting him with a small bow of your head, your eyes down to the floor.
Gods, he wished you could just look at him properly.
“You wished to see me, Your Grace?” Your Grace, a pleasantry he hates to hear come from your lips in truth.
He hesitates on the words he wants to confess, clearing his throat as he takes a step toward you. Suddenly, despite the acceptance he has made of his death, there is fear rumbling up inside of him.
The fear of your reaction, the fear that you no longer feel for him the way he does for you. The fear that you will not hear him out in his final hours before death greets him and leaves him hungry and alone like he describes to be.
“I want to thank you, for telling me about the plot of my nephew and the now Lord Fossoway that has conspired on Ser Duncan.”
You bow your head again. “The pleasure is mine, your grace. But if I can be forward?”
Gods please. Baelor nods, “You may.”
“You already thanked me when I first came to you about the matter. Why truly have you asked me to be here? In your solar.”
Baelor would be a liar if he said he did not miss your forwardness.
He sighs, clearing his throat as he takes another step toward you, “I’ve called you here to be honest with you. I believe we have a trusted bond between us, and I am forever in your debt from your confessions on those within our court and alike.”
You bow again. “It is an honour, Your Grace. Forgive me for asking but, is that all?” You won’t look at him, not really, but he can still hear the fierceness in your throat. Your eagerness to leave him, to stick with the decision the both of you made despite the reluctance.
Spit it out Baelor.
“I will be joining Ser Duncan on the morrow as his seventh knight for the trial.”
And that is when your eyes finally meet his. Shocked and wide, mouth slightly agape as you look at him in confusion about his confession.
“Ser?” You question. Taking a step toward him but haltering at the second one.
“My brother asked me to join him and his sons for this fight,” Baelor starts. He turns to look out to the window as the moon shines through the sheer curtains of his solar. “ It was hours before you came to me and I told him that it wasn't my fight. But after hearing what you whispered to me, my Dove,” His gaze turns to yours once more as you worry your hands. “I know what I must do.”
“But m’lord.” You walk up to him now. Your worry stronger than the honor both of you promised each other to stay away, “This is not your fight, you just said it so.”
“Aye,” Baylor nods as he faces you, your hair has fallen from the tight style you usually have it in to keep out of your face during daily duties. Oh, how he wants to touch you. To calm the worrying lines on your face and ease your anxious hands.
“I have seen this man—” His hand extends out to the window, pointing as if Ser Duncan is just outside on the balcony and not somewhere within Ashford Meadow preparing for the morrow.
“A mere hedge knight. He snuck into the castle simply to ask if me or anyone among the court remembered the knight that he squired. A man that I do remember and told him as such. But the mere determination Ser Duncan had to stand before us and recite his knights battles in hopes for a listening ear. A man who stood for honor and protected the innocent like every true knight must do. Don't all knights take the same oath? That is what he said to me as he defended himself.” You cling to every word he speaks, “He is a good man, a good man who fought for what is right and is getting punished for it. I can not stand by and let this happen. My conscience can not will it so.”
“Even if your opponents are your brother and nephews? Your family?” You ask him, your voice sterner now as you close the foot of distance. He could touch you with his hands if you let him.
“The Targaryen family have been fighting each other for years. This battle will be no different, Dove.”
A harsh sigh leaves your lips as your hand finds itself at the top of your head casting your face down and walking away from him. “You’re a good man, Your Grace. The realm will be safe in your ruling.” Your back is turned away from him, your eyes on the dying fire as if speaking to the glowing embers is better than looking directly at him. “But this trial, I know of it well. The maids here and ours speak of its ruthlessness. That no man is safe from injury.”
Baelor nods though you can not see him, “That is true.”
He walks up to you, closer now that he can see the goosebumps on the nape of your neck, the slight shudder of your shoulder as he takes a final step toward you. You haven’t moved, nor has your gaze turned from the hearth, but your breath has faltered. A small shudder leaving your lips as you can feel the heat of him against your back.
“You may die.” You whisper out. And if he wasn't so close to you, he wouldn't have heard it.
His hand hovering over your forearms, desperately wanting to turn you toward him and confess the sin of wanting you, of needing you in his timely death. But instead , he lightly places them on the skin beneath your elbows. A gasp leaves your lips at his soft touch. At his calloused thumbs rubbing softly against your skin. A deep sigh leaves Baelor’s lips, he’s dreamt of touching you since that night months ago. Dreamed of you looking him in the eyes and saying his name.
Finally, he speaks. “It is what comes with being a knight, my lady.”
You scoff, arms lifting away from his soft hold, turning to face him now. Your face stern, a crease of upset in the divot between your eyebrows. “Ach– Do not jest Ser.”
“I am not-” Baelor starts.
“I’ve seen you today, Your Grace. I’ve watched you. The minute Prince Aerion announced the trial of seven, you haven't been the same. Even at the feast, you were lost in thought and with this look in your eyes like—” You hesitate, but Baelor urges you on with a step into your personal space.
“Like what?”
Your name leaves his lips in a pleading tone. You hesitate again, faltering if you should-
“Speak plainly, please.” The words come out of him like a prayer.
“Like something bad is going to happen,” You finally let out. “I thought maybe you were worried for the Prince, but I know now with your confession that it is not so. For it’s you.
And despite it all, a smile grows on his lips as he looks down on your angered gaze. Everything you’ve admitted to him right now is true. You are right about the look in his eyes, it wasn’t because of the worry he feels for his nephew but the weight of death creeping through his skin. He didn’t know it then as he forked absentmindedly at his mutton and potatoes, but he knew now.
But he doesn’t think much about it now, he won’t. Because all he can think about is, “You’ve looked for me.”
A huff leaves your lips as you look at him with disbelief, “Baelor. Do not play games.” You try to depart from him but after hearing his name finally leave your lips, he has no intention of letting you go tonight. Not unless he has to.
He says your name with an excited smile. Your eyes are not on him anymore, your head’s turned at the window against the far wall. Your hands are still in his, gripping them tightly despite your turned gaze. Baelor moves his head, ducking down into your eyesight. “You’ve looked for me?”
You don’t say anything at first. His hands leave yours, sliding up your arms to cup your shoulders. Your eyes gleam with wetness underneath the moonlight. Tears welling up on your waterline as if the words hurt you to confess. Like they've been weighing on your tongue for months.
You finally speak at the moment of his comforting reassuring nod. “Of course I have.” you whisper.
A relief washes over Baelor that he has not felt in a long time. Not in his fathers stead as His Hand, not even from a victory from defeating a battle. He hasn’t felt this sense of peace and beautiful acceptance until right now, with you standing in front of him, looking at him as if he hung the moon.
Baelor hands go up to your cheeks, his thumbs caressing your temples. “My dove.” He mutters out.
“How could I not?” you push on. He brings your foreheads together, eyes closing and letting the sensation of being together fill the room. The sound of Ashford Meadow: the insects that creep late at night, the sound of nightlife of those within their tents, the music and even the crackling fire in his solar. None of it matters, none of it is of any importance as you both breathe together. Your hands grip his wrists, nonverbally demanding him not to move them from your face, to keep Baelor’s hands on you.
“I know it is improper,” you whisper. “I know that we both made a promise to keep this professional Your Grace, but—”
“But what?”
“It’s improper—” You repeat.
“Say it anyway.” Baelor begs.
His eyes open, lifting his head away from yours to look at you again. “But what?” he pressed a second time, “But you can’t help but think of me? Like I think of you?”
Your body melts at his confession. Your shoulder sinking down as you let out a deep sigh, eyes fluttering with tears that fall down your cheeks.
He softly swipes away the wetness against the apple of your cheek. “You can’t help but search for me in a crowded room like I do for you? Only to see another maid in your stead or your head down and away from me.”
“But, I thought that was what you wanted.”
“It’s what I should want, what I should do as the Prince of the realm, as the Hand of the King. man. But I can not help myself when it comes to you. I have thought of you each day since that night and have begged all of the gods that why wasn’t I a lesser man, with no duties or promises to the realm to be with you.”
“Your Grace,” You start to speak, but his name leaves your lips in a tired sigh.
“No Your Grace,” he shakes his head with a fond smile as your eyes continue to well up with tears. “No Your grace, or my Prince, or my Lord or any of those sorts. None of that, please, I beg of you my dove.”
Baelor sighs, “On the morrow, I may die in the mud of Ashford Meadow, and all I wish for tonight is for you to call me by my name.”
Your lips part, eyebrows furrow as you look at him in the way he has been begging for. In the way he misses, in the way he wants and in the way he needs. In love.
“I am a gentleman, an honest and noble man. I have told you once before that I would never put you through the torture of being my mistress or anything of that sort. That is not what you are to me. Not now, not during that night or ever. Your—” Baelor hesitates to continue.
“What?” You urge him on, squeezing his wrists softly.
“You are what keeps my heart beating.” He confesses with an unsteady breath. There are tears that are begging to be unleashed in his own eyes but he swallows the feeling to push through what he wants you to know, in the final hours of his life. “You are the woman whose letters on small pieces of paper I have kept within my chamber or on my person since the first time. The woman whose blood has shed on the scrolls and papers in my study that I look at almost every night , that my thumb grazes against just to be able to touch you.”
Your breath heaves as you cry. He calls you by your name with a sad smile, “And you are the first person I seek out when I know that I am on death's door.”
“Baelor.” That is the last thing you say before your lips meet his.
It isn’t chaste and it isn’t fast paced like the one from that night months ago. It’s soft and full. His tongue on yours, his hands sliding slowly to grip at your waist and your hands in his hair.
The moan that escapes you is mixed with a strangled cry. He can taste the salt of your tears on his lips with each press against them. The saltiness mixes with the taste of fresh fruit you've must've eaten before. Blackberries, Baelor guesses, sweet yet tart just like this moment. The night where you both can finally be honest with one another but only due to the price of death.
You're grasping his shoulder, gripping the fabric of his tunic with vigor as his hold tightens on you. Sliding up with one hand still gripping your waist and the other on your cheek.
“Baelor,”you whimper out against his lips. Your hands still in his hair and at the nape of his neck as your lips move in tandem.
“Can I have you?” Baelor questions ever so politely. The words leaving his mouth quickly. Eager to place his lips back on yours and taste the sweetness of your tongue. “Will you make me beg for it?”
A moan escapes you as he departs from your lips. kissing every inch of your face as he asks you again and again and again.
“Please,” Baelor begs as he kisses your cheeks.
“Please.” He whispers as he kisses the other side.
“Please, my dove.” He kisses the spot behind your ear, his tongue flicking against it to remember what the sweat of your skin tastes like.
“Can I please have you?” His kisses a trail down to your neck, your grip has slid down his shoulder and his back fisted tightly in his shirt.
“Yes,” you mutter into the night. Your hands move to his cheeks, maneuvering his face to meet yours. Your eyes are hooded now, deep in the haze of the same wanton need as Baelor. You lick your lips and Baelor chases your tongue with his thumb. You kiss his digit without thought and his grip on your hip grows tighter, as his eyes meet yours once more.
“You’ve always had me, in truth.” Baelor halts as he watches you. Your lips kiss his thumb again with a sad smile. “I am yours in life and in death. The gods know of my desire for you, and my need to be by your side.”
He feels it with the words that leave you. The sadness, the guilt, the remorse and heartache at the realization that this is it. This night is all that they have with each other. “I wish we had more time.”
Baelor sighs, his head falls to meet your forehead once more as his breath stutters, mourning for what could have been with you if he just let it. But you soothe that feeling with a soft hush that comes out of your lips. Your soft hands glide down his back and up to his face, shaking your head slowly and rubbing the single tear that has fallen down his aged face.
“Don’t think about that now,” A sad smile grows on your lips. “Just have me.”
You kiss him softly, “Please.” You kiss him again. And this time, Baelor realizes that you are now begging him.
“Please Baelor.” You kiss his cheek.
“ Make me yours.” You kiss the scruff of his neck.
You kiss him on his lips gently once more. And with a soft nod, Baelor takes you like he’s wished for every night.
✺ summary: he was her sun, and she was the secret he left in the desert. years later, baelor returns to the warmth of dorne with the heavy chains of a crown, only to find a woman who has rebuilt her life from the ashes of their love. one final night offers a glimpse of the future they were denied — before the cold truth extinguishes the last ember.
✺ pairing: baelor targaryen x dornish!fem reader
✺ contents/tags: soft smut, time jumps (they are in their 30s in the main part of the story), forbidden love, heavy angst, mention of jena dondarrion passing (childbed fever), grief, post blackfyre rebellion, pre akotsk, infidelity, character d3ath (ashford tourney in the end), tragic ending, canon divergence (let me know if i missed something)
✺ word count: 5k+
part 1 | other works
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The day Prince Baelor Targaryen took Lady Jena Dondarrion to wife, the sky above the Water Gardens of Sunspear was a cruel, mocking shade of cerulean. It was a flawless dornish afternoon, heavy with the scent of ripening blood-oranges and the ceaseless, rhythmic hum of the fountains — the very same fountains that had once served as the backdrop to a stolen, breathless life time.
Prince Maron Martell had been unyielding in his demands. The entire inner court of Sunspear was expected to sail for King's Landing. Dorne needed to display its absolute, unwavering solidarity with the Iron Throne. The peace was fresh, forged in the fires of political compromise rather than the blood of conquest, and the high lords of the realm required pageantry to believe it. But when the dornish galleys weighed anchor, their sails billowing with the warm southern winds, you were not among the silken crowd on the decks.
You had feigned a sudden, violent ague — a fever that left you shivering and pale beneath your linen sheets. Your kin had whispered prayers to the Mother, leaving bowls of chilled water by your bedside, never questioning the convenience of your affliction. They did not see that the fever burning through your veins had nothing to do with sickness and everything to do with a quiet, devastating grief.
While the court sailed north, you dragged your weary body out of bed and walked blindly to the Water Gardens. You sat upon the very same pink marbles tiles where Baelor had once held your elbows, lifting you out of a formal curtsy with a desperate, gravelly murmur. The music of the running water no longer sounded hollow; it had transformed into a relentless, agonizing requiem.
You closed your eyes, and the torture grew vivid. You could see the Great Sept, cold and cavernous, far away in that gray city of ash and mud. You could pitcture the heavy, golden Targaryen chains draped over Baelor's broad shoulders, the three-headed dragon snapping proudly on the banners above his head. You imagined his hands — the same warm, calloused hands that had reverently peeled the silk straps from your shoulders in the dark — now laced through the pale, pristine fingers of Lady Jena Dondarrion. You imagined the High Septon invoking the blessings of the Seven, binding the Crown Prince to a woman of the Marcher lords, while a kingdom cheered for a future that tore yours to ribbons.
Five months bled into one another. The scorching summer gave away to a milder autumn, but the chill in your chest never truly lifted. You moved through the court like a specter, wearing a mask of polite indifference that would have made the most seasoned diplomat proud.
Then, on a night when the moon was swallowed whole by heavy storm clouds, a messenger arrived. He wore the orange and sun-pierced livery of House Martell, but he did not approach the Great Hall. He found you in the shadowed gallery overlooking the dry moats, his eyes darting nervously around the stone corridor. Without a word, he slipped a small parchment scroll into your palm. It was sealed with a dollop of unbranded, anonymous black wax — no dragon, no sun, no sigil. A secret paid for in gold, delievered by a man whose true loyalty belonged to ghosts.
You retreated to the absolute isolation of your bedchamber, locking the heavy oak door behind you. By the flickering, amber glow of a single tallow candle, you broke the wax.
The scent hit you before the words did. It didn't smell of the sweet jasmine or crisp freshwater of Dorne. It smelled of iron, soot, and the distinct, stale ink of the Red Keep. Baelor's handwriting was unmistakable — heavy, regular, and hurried, the strokes pressed so deeply into the parchment that the paper was nearly punctured. It was the script of a man writing in the dead of the night, stealing moments from a crown that was already trying to suffocate him.
My light, my distant sun,
I write this to you while King's Landing sleeps beneath a shroud of choking fog. The air here is heavy — it reeks of coal smoke, horse rot, and the damp filth of the Blackwater. It is an ash-heap of a city, cold and unyielding, but whenever I close my eyes, the only thing I can breathe is the scent of the night-blooming jasmine that hung thick over your skin.
Everything here is a theater, a grand and terrible farce. I walk these dark, stone corridors wearing the invisible mantle my father gave me, playing the dutiful heir to lords who watch my every blink for a sign of weakness. I sit at the high table next to a woman who possess all the proper grace of her bloodline, but not me, she is nothing more than a phantom. Jena is dutiful, she is gentle, but her bed is an arctic waste. My body performs the actions required of a prince, but my soul remains trapped beneath the surface of that sunken pool, tangled in your fingers, drowning in a warmth I will never feel again.
I miss your laughter. I miss the fierce, reckless way your skin burned against mine under the moonlight. They call me the 'Hammer' now. They cheer my name in the yards; they say I am the perfect knight, the flawless shield of the realm. But the truth is a pathetic thing: I am a man sliced in half. I wander the Red Keep looking for your ghost in every patch of shadow.
Tell me the fountains still sing. Tell me you do not utterlu despise me for the golden chains I allowed my father to wrap around my wrists. Send me a word. A single stroke of your pen, a torn scrap of silk — anything to prove that what we held in the dark wasn't a fever dream I invented to keep myself from breaking. A single word from you would be a fire capable of burning away the winter I carry in my bones.
Yours, in the dark and for all my days,
Baelor
A single tear slipped from your chin, hitting the parchment with a soft click, causing the ink of his name to blossom into a dark, illegible smudge.
Your chest ached with a physical, crushing agony. For two days, you kept the letter hidden beneath the velvet lining of your jewerly casket. Every night, when the castle grew silent, you would pull it out, tracing the rough indentation of his signatures with your fingertips until the paper softened and frayed at the edges.
You sat at your writing desk. You dipped your quill into the black ink, the tip hovering mere inches above a blank sheet of parchment. Your heart screamed at you to write back. To tell him that you were drowning too. To tell him that your gown felt like a shroud and that you hated Jena Dondarrion with a passion that frightened you.
But as you looked out the window, watching the fierce, unyielding dornish sun break over the Red Mountains, the proud blood of your ancestors reasserted itself.
Baelor belonged to the Iron Throne. He had made his choice beneath the fig tree; he had chosen the peace of the realm over the desert sands. To answer him would be to fee a rot. It would condemn you to a life of pathetic yearning, waiting for scraps of ink from a married man, turning you into a tragic secret rather than a woman of worth. You would not be his solace while another woman bore his heirs and wore his crown.
With a hand that trembled but did not falter, you brought the edges of Baelor's letter to the open flame of your oil lamp.
The parchment caught instantly. The fire licked hungrily at his desperate pleas, turning his professions of love into curling, black ash. You watched it burn until the heat bit at your fingertips, letting the remains fall into a brass bowl. You did not write back. You left the Prince of Dragonstone to his silence.
Years came and went, rolling over the red sands of Sunspear like a slow, unrelenting tide. The wounds of youth do not truly vanish; they simply bury themselves deep beneath the surface, covered by the calluses of a life that must be lived.
To honor you family, and to finally banish the persistent ghosts that haunted every shadowed archway of the Water Gardens, you had accepted the suit of a young dornish lord. He was a man of noble blood and steady character, possessing a ready smile and hands that were always warm. He did not look at you with the consuming, desperate hunger of a dragon, nor did he demand a passion that would burn your world to the ground. Instead, he offered you something you had desperately starved for: stability, respect, and a quiet, unshakeable devotion. In his bed, you did not find the intoxicating, reckless fire of that summer night, but you found peace.
From that gentle union, the Mother blessed you with two daughters. They became the center of your universe, the light that finally chased away the lingering shadows of your grief.
The eldest was eight now, a fierce, willful child who ran through the courtyard with the untamed spirit of a sand snake. You had named her Nymeria, in honor of the legendary warrior queen who had once led ten thousand ships to the shores of Dorne, refusing to bend her knee to anyone.
The second daughter had been born three years later, on a night when the moon hung like a heavy silver coin over the sea — a night that cruelly mirrored the very evening you had surrendered everything to Baelor. When you first held her in your arms, looking down at her soft features, a name had slipped from your lips before your mind could stop it: Baela. Your husband had smiled warmly, believing it to be a polite, diplomatic nod to the ruling Targaryen dynasty that had brought peace to the realm. Only you carried the secret, bleeding truth: every time you called your youngest daughter to your side, you were speaking a piece of the man you had forced yourself to forget.
Then, the heavy black wings of Maester's raven brought word from the north, shattering the routine of Sunspear.
Lady Jena Dondarrion was dead. She had succumbed to the childbed fever after delivering Baelor's second son, the infant Prince Matarys. The court of King's Landing was instantly plunged into a suffocating shroud of black velvet and solemn prayers. For months, the songs in the capital ceased, and the iron bells of the Great Sept tolled for a woman who had worn a crown but never truly possessed her husband's heart.
Eight months had bled away since the funeral pyres had burned to ash when the royal fleet appeared on the horizon of the Summer Sea.
King Daeron II, ever the cautious diplomat, grew anxious. He feared that the sudden death of the Dondarrion lady might loosen the fragile ties between the Crown and the proud Marcher lords who guarded the borders of Dorne. He feared that the old, bitter hatreds of the Reach and the Stormlands might spark anew if the realm felt fractured. And so, he dispatched his greates weapon of peace: his heir. Baelor returned to Dorne not as a young, reluctant groom bound by his father's commands, but as a seasoned man in his thirties, a grieving widower, and the newly appointed Hand of the King.
The afternoon of his arrival, the Water Gardens were alive with the bright laughter of children and the gentle rustle of silk as courtiers sought the cool sanctuary of the shade. You sat beneath a woven canopy of a vine-covered arcade, your eyes fixed entirely on your daughters.
Nymeria, true to her namesake, was already attempting to scale the slippery marble base of a serpent-headed fountain, her small leather boots gripping the pink stone. Little Baela, only five years old, sat quietly in the grass nearby, her tiny fingers preoccupied with arranging fallen, crimson bougainvillea petal into small, neat circles on the edge of the shallow water.
"Nymeria, get down from there before your father sees you", you called out, your voice a practiced blend of maternal warmth and firm authority. "You will ruin your shift".
"Let her climb. She possesses the true spirit of her namesake".
The world seemed to stop spinning. The breath caught violently in your throat, freezing the blood in your veins.
That voice. It had not changed. It was only deeper now, carrying a resonant, gravelly weight that was no longer born from the physical exhaustion of the training yards, but from the invisible, crushing mantle of a man who ruled a continent.
You turned your head with a slow, agonizing deliberation, erecting your courtly spine as you did so.
Baelor was standing a mere three paces away. He had discarded the heavy, suffocating velvets of the north, dressed instead in a loose dornish tunics of black and crimson silk, left open at the collar. He wore no golden chains, no heavy rings. His rugged features were more hollowed out than you remembered, the sharp line of his jaw hardened by years of grief and statecraft, and a few faint streaks of silver now caught the sunlight in his dark, cropped hair.
But his eyes — those striking, mismatched eyes, one the deep brown of his Martell mother and one the piercing violet of Old Valyria — were exactly the same. They locked onto yours with a sudden, desperate intensity that threatened to undo years of carefully built peace in the span of a single heartbeat.
You forced your body to rise, smoothing down the folds of your deep azure gown. Lowering yourself into an absolutely flawless, icy curtsy, you kept your gaze cast downward.
"My Prince", you spoke, your tone perfectly measured, devoid of any warmth. "Welcome back to Sunspear. Dorne shares in the grief of your loss".
Baelor took a sharp step forward, his eyes drinking in the sight of your face before drifting down toward the grass. Nymeria had frozen on the fountain, staring at the tall stranger with fierce curiosity, while little Baela looked up, blinking her wide, innocent eyes at the prince.
"Nymeria and...Baela", Baelor murmured, and when he pronounced the second name, his voice trembled slightly, a low vibration of sudden, painful understanding washing over him. He looked back up, his eyes searching yours with an aching vulnerability. "They have their mother's incomparable grace".
"You are kind, Your Grace", you replied, the words dropping from your lips like smooth, cold pebbles. You erected a towering wall of formal politeness between you. "I trust your voyage across the Summer Sea was smooth, and that the warmth of our sun might offer some small solace after the tragedy that befell House Dondarrion".
Baelor flinched. The icy formality of your words struck him as cleanly as any lace he had ever faced in the lists. He let out a ragged breath, closing the distance between you until he was close enough that you could smell the faint, familiar scent of leather and salt that always followed him. He completely ignored the watchful eyes of the courtiers whispering under the distant arches.
"You never answered my letter", he whispered fiercely, his jaw clenching as he fought to keep his emotions bound behind his courtly mask.
"The dead do not write letters, my Prince", you answered, your voice dropping to a sharp, quiet hiss, your chin lifting in defiance. "The girl you left by the blood-orange trees years ago died the morning you wed another woman. I am a wife, and a mother. I have no words for ghosts".
Baelor clenched his fists at his sides, his chest heaving beneath his linen tunic. There was such a raw, bleeding agony in his mismatched eyes that a terrified part of your soul wanted to reach out and smooth the lines of exhaustion from his brow.
"I beg of you", he pleaded, a desperate, broken sound that no lord or knight had ever heard from the lips of the Breakspear. "I am only here for three days before the governance of the realm drags me back to the dark. Meet me tonight. By the secluded pool. Just once. Only to speak. Please".
You looked past his shoulder to where your daughters were playing, then you looked back into the eyes of the only man who had ever truly known the texture of your soul. Every ounce of pride and anger you had nurtured for years screamed at you to turn your back and walk away. But love — that stubborn, catastrophic entity you had tried so desperately to burn to ash — refused to die.
"Tonight", you whispered, so softly the wind nearly stole it away. "When the moon reaches the crest of the fig tree".
Without waiting for his response, you gathered your daughters and walked away, leaving the Heir to the Iron Throne standing alone in the afternoon heat.
The midnight hour found the Water Gardens drowned in the exact same silver light that had blessed your youth more than a decade ago. The moon hung high and cruel, casting long, sharp shadows of the palm trees across the pale marble walkways. The air was thick, nearly suffocating, saturated with the heavy, sweet perfume of night-blooming jasmine and the damp chill of the rising mist.
When you reached the secluded pool — the deepest, most isolated sanctuary hidden behind a thick wall of ancient fig tree — you saw that Baelor was already there.
He had completely discarded the rigid, formal tunic of the Hand of the King, leaving it forgotten on the dry stone. He stood at the edge of the dark water wearing only a loose shirt of white northern linen, unlaced at the throat, his broad shoulders squared against the night. The moment the soft, rhythmic rustle of your silk gown broke the silence of the gardens, he spun around.
There were no words. No formal greetings, no polite inquiries after health or family. The heavy burden of the Iron Throne, the whispers of the Small Council, and the ghosts of his late wife and your husband vanished into the humid night air.
Baelor crossed the distance between you in two long, desperate strides. His large, calloused hands — the hands of the realm's greatest champion — camp up to frame your face, his fingers tangling roughly into your hair. He pulled you to him with a feral, terrifying desperation that spoke of years of starvation, of years spent wearing a mask of gold and stone while his soul slowly withered in the muddy, crowded streets of King's Landing.
His lips slammed against yours.
The kiss was entirely different from the sweet, tentative passion of your youth. It was a violent, bruising collision of teeth and tongues, a desperate attempt to claw through years of separation. It carried the bitter taste of his grief, the burning heat of your buried anger, and the terrifying realization that despite everything, the fire between you had not lessened; it had simply been compressed into a lethal, volatile explosive.
Together, without breaking the kiss, you tumbled over the lip of the pool.
The shock of the lukewarm water swallowing your bodies caused you both to gasp, the heavy silk of your red gown instantly becoming an anchor, wrapping around your thighs and pinning you to him. Baelor's hand were frantic, sliding down your spine, finding the delicate laces of your fress and tearing them free with a reckless diregard for the expensive fabric. He peeled the wet silk from your body, letting it drift away into the dark corners of the pool like a discarded skin.
When your naked flesh finally met his under the silver surface of the water, it was an absolute conflagration.
"Gods", Baelor groaned against your throat, his voice a broken, gravelly ruin as his lips traced a path of fire down to your collarbone. "You are real. Tell me you are real".
He lifted you by the hips, pressing your back against the smooth, damp marble of the pool's edge. Your legs automatically coiled around his waist, locking him close, anchoring your entire existence to his rhythm. Every single touch was deeper now, heavy with the weight of years of living. He was sturdier, his chest scarred from tournaments and battles, and you were no longer a slender maid, your hips wider, your body fully bloomed.
When he drove himself inside you, a sharp, gasping cry left your lips, lost to the steady splash of the nearby fountains.
The union was fierce, nearly desperate. He loved you with a quiet, terrifying savagery, his chest heaving against yours, his mismatched eyes wide and loked onto your face under the moonlight. The brown eyes of Dorne and the violet eye of Valyria bore into your soul, stripping away every lie, every pretense of your quiet, comfortable marriage. Every deep, driving thrusts was an unspoken vow, a claim stamped into your skin, a reminder that no matter whose name you bore or whose bed you shared, your soul belonged to the dragon.
You arched into him, your nails drawing red crescent moons into his shoulders, riding the wave of a devastating, familiar ecstasy that you had denied yourself for a third of your life. You cried out his name — not his titles, not the name the smallfolk cheered in the streets, but the secret name of the boy who had stolen your heart under the orange trees.
You achieved the peak together, a shattering, blinding explosion of heat that left both of you trembling, clinging to one another in the water as the ripples slowly smoothed out against the stone walls.
For a long time, the only sound was the synchronized, ragged breathing of two lovers refusing to let go. Baelor buried his face in the crook of your neck, his chest rising and falling heavily against yours, his arms wrapped around your waist so tightly it nearly bruised.
Slowly, as the adrenaline began to fade into a heavy, sweet languor, Baelor lifted his head. His features were softened by the afterglow, but his eyes were filled with a sudden, sharp intensity that made your heart tighten with an instinctive fear.
He took your wet face in his hands, his thumbs caressing your cheekbones.
"Come with me to King's Landing", he said, the words rushing from his lips like water breaking through a dam, heavy with an agonizing hope. "Don't say no. Listen to me. I have lived years in that tomb of a castle. I have done my duty to my father, to the realm, to the succession. I am the Hand now. I have the power".
You stared at him, your breath catching.
"Bring your husband", Baelor continued, his eyes pleading with a desperate fervor. "I will grant him vast estates in the Crownlands, a seat of high honor on the council, titiles that will make his house envied across the Seven Kingdoms. Bring the girls. Nymeria will be a lady of the court, and Baela...Baela will grow up by my side. I will give them everything. I only need you near me. I cannot ride back to that gray city knowing you are spending your days in these gardens alone. I need to see you in the corridors. I need to know we breathe the same air".
The silence that followed Baelor's desperate proposal was heavier than the pink marble of the Water Gardens. His words hung in the midnight air — gilded, intoxicating, and utterly lethal.
You stared at him as the silver water lapped against his bare chest, and for a fraction of a second, the foolish girl you used to be screamed at you to say yes. You imagined the dark grandeur of the Red Keep, the feasts, the bittersweet thrill of crossing his gaze in those cold stone corridors, knowing he was only a few chambers away. But then, the fierce Dornish pride coursing through your veins — the very same blood you had passed down to Nymeria and Baela — reasserted itself with devastating clarity.
Slowly, deliberately, you pulled away from his embrace. Feeling the sudden chill of the night air on your wet skin, you stepped out of the pool. You gathered your heavy, ruined down of Dornish red, wrapping the wet silk around your body like armor, and turned to look down at him from the marble edge.
"No, Baelor", you said. Your voice did not falter; it was quiet, sharp, and steeped in the unyielding dignity of your land. "I am a free woman of Dorne. I will never be the secret mistress of the dragon, nor a melancholy keepsake tucked away in some dark corner of the Red Keep, a place for you to hide whenever the weight of your crown pressed too heavily on your shoulders".
Baelor flinched as if your words were a physical blow to his chest. "You would never be a secret to me—", he tried to interrupt, moving toward the edge of the pool, but you stopped him with a single, raised hand.
"My husband respects me, Baelor. He offers me a warm bed and an honest affection that I never have to hide from the world. And my daughters...Nymeria and Baela will grow up under the open sun of Sunspear, running free among the fountains, not in the suffocating shadow of your courtly intrigues and the venomous whispers of your Small Council. Would you have my husband accept lands and titles just to look the other way? Would you have my little girls become pawns of the Red Keep to justify my presence? You chose your throne years ago beneath the fig tree. You begged me then to not make you break, and I didn't. Now, leave me my dignity".
Baelor remained submerged in the water, the very picture of devastation. The greay Breakspear, the most powerful man in the Seven Kingdoms save for the King himself, had been utterly defeated by the pride of a Dornishwoman.
"I love you", he confessed, his voice cracking in the midnight silence — a sound so raw and broken it make your heart bleed. "I have never stopped. Not for a single day".
"I know", you whispered, and a single, scalding tear finally escaped your eye, tracking down your cheek as the first pale light of dawn began to bleed through the palm trees, painting the eastern sky in shades of bruised purple and gold. "And I love you. I love you so much that I would rather have you whole and far away, than watch you wither in regret at King's Landing. But love is not enough to make me your shadow. Goodbye, my Prince".
You turned and walked back toward the palace, your chin held high, never looking back. You left the Prince of Dragonstone alone in the cooling water, as the rising sun reminded you both that the time for secrets had run out.
Epilogue
Years drifted by, bringing with them the quiet settling maturity and a fragile, comfortable peace. Nymeria grew into a tall, fierce maiden, quick with a whip and possessing a sharp gaze that warned every young lord she would never bend. Little Baela grew with an innate, breathtaking grace; her wide curious eyes were always chasing the horizon, a bright spark of pure life filling the quiet corners of your world. You found your sanctuary in the routines of motherhood and the quiet afternoons spent watching your daughters grow in those same gardens. Baelor's memory became a scar hidden beneath your silker shifts — a dull, quiet ache that only truly woke during the nights of a full moon.
Then, on a crisp spring afternoon, a raven with pitch-black wings arrived from Ashford in the Reach.
Your husband entered your chambers, his face mortally pale, holding a parchment that carried tidings currently shaking the entire continent, from Storm's End to the Wall.
During the tourney at Ashford Meadow, to defend the honor of a poor hedge knight named Ser Duncan the Tall, Prince Baelor had ridden into a Trial of Seven. He had fought with his usual, flawless mastery, leading his men to a righteous victory. But during the final, chaotic clash, the heavy war-mace of his own brother, Maekar, had struck the Breakspear's helm. Baelor had walked off the field victorious, but the moment his squire removed the helmet before the cheering crowd, a piece of his skull collapsed. The Crown Prince had died on the field, his lifeblood soaking into the dirt of the Reach.
The moment your husband left the room to arrange the castle's mourning banners, your legs gave out.
You collapsed to your knees on the cold stone floor, pressing both hands over your mouth to stifle the desperate, agonizing sobs that threatened to tear your soul right out of your chest. With the last of your strength, you dragged yourself to the great window overlooking the Water Gardens. Down below, the fountains continued to sing their eternal, rhythmic melody, completely indifferent to the fading gold of a crown.
"Baelor...", you whispered into the empty room, his name nothing more than a breath of wind destined to be swallowed by the desert.
You had let him go. You had denied him for the sake of your pride, your duty, and the quiet life you had built. But in all those years, in the deepest, more secret part of your heart, you had always taken comfort in the knowledge that he was out there. Somewhere under that very same sky, breathing your same air. As long as Baelor drew breath, a piece of you was still alive in that silver pool.
Now, that comfort was gone forever. The Breakspear had fallen. The boy with the mismatched eyes, who had kissed your cheek by the blood-orange trees and held your wrists with trembling, teenage strength, no longer existed in any corner of the world.
Your sun had truly gone dark, leaving the world cold and empty, and with him, the last piece of your youth was gone.
✺ summary: six years ago, prince baelor left sunspear for the capital, leaving behind a promise and the girl who held his childhood heart. now twenty and the heir to the iron throne, he returns to dorne on a royal visit. amidst the cool waters and heavy heat of the water gardens, an old sparks ignites into an unforgettable night, shadowed by the heavy price of duty.
✺ pairing: young!baelor targaryen x dornish!fem reader
✺ contents/tags: soft smut, established childhood friends-to-lovers, young baelor (20y/o as the reader), angst, bittersweet ending, emotional hurt/comfort, infidelity (technical/political), unrequited duty, mutual longing/pining, pre blackfyre rebellion, pre akotsk, canon divergence (let me know if i missed something)
✺ word count: 3K+
part 2 | other works
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The fountains of the Water Gardens sang the same song they always had, but to you the music sounded hollow.
Six years. Six years since King Daeron II ascended the Iron Throne, pulling his eldest son away from the orange groves and blood-red sands of Dorne to face the grim, gray realities of King's Landing.
Your last memory of Baelor was at fourteen. He had been a boy then — slender, with the dark hair of his Martell mother and his peculiar mismatched eyes, one the deep brown of his Dornish heritage and one the mysterious violet of Old Valyria. On the morning of his departure, he had cornered you by the blood-oranges trees, his hands gripping your shoulders with desperate teenage strength. "I won't forget you", he had whispered, fiercely, pressing a quick, breathless kiss to your cheek. "Never".
Now, at twenty, he was back. But he was no longer just Baelor. He was the Crown Prince. The Prince of Dragonstone. The Breakspear.
When the royal retinue arrived, you stood among the Dornish court, your heart hammering against your ribs. When he stepped forward, the breath left your lungs. The boy was gone. In his place stood a man — broad-shouldered, carrying himself with the quiet, imposing dignity of a future king. His dark hair was cropped shorter, and his jaw had hardened.
But as his eyes swept over the crowd, they locked onto yours. For a fraction of a second, the stoic prince vanished, and the boy from the Water Garden smiled through those striking mismatched eyes.
The formal banquet in the Great Hall of Sunspear was an exercise in glittering torment. Silk banners of the three-headed dragon and the pierced sun swayed in the warm breeze, while lords and ladies toasted to the enduring peace between the Iron Throne and Dorne. Baelor sat at the high table, flanked by his uncle, Prince Maron Martell, and a doze high-ranking advisors. He played the part of the dutiful heir perfectly — listening intently, nodding with practiced grace, and wearing the heavy, invisible mantle of his future crown.
You sat further down the hall, watching him through the shifting crowd. Every time he spoke, his voice — now deep and resonant, a far cry from the cracked tones of his adolescence — sent a strange shiver down your spine. He looked every bit the Conqueror's descendant, yet his skin was still kissed by the Dornish sun he had loved so much as a boy.
Once or twice, his gaze drifted past his advisors, cutting straight through the smoky, candle-lit air to find you. There was a quiet desperation in those brief glances, a silent plea that the courtly masks couldn't entirely hide.
Suffocated by the heat and the heavy scent of roasted meats and spilled wine, you slipped out of the hall unnoticed.
The night air of the Water Gardens was a soothing balm. Here, away from the court, the world was painted in shades of silver and deep indigo under the moonlight. The sweet, heavy fragrance of night-blooming jasmine hung thick in the air, mingling with the crisp scent of freshwater. You walked along the marble pink tiles, the hem of your thin silk gown sweeping softly against the stone, until you reached the largest, most secluded pool — the very place where you and Baelor used to splash each other as children, hiding from the septons who tried to teach him his histories.
"I hoped I would find you here".
The voice came from the shadows of a column covered in climbing vines. You turned, your breath catching in your throat.
Baelor stepped into the moonlight. He had stripped away his heavy formal doublet and the golden Targaryen chain. Now, wearing only a loose, open-collared linen shirt and dark trousers, he looked less like a prince and more like the boy who had stolen your heart six years ago.
"My Prince", you breathed, instinctively lowering yourself into a polite curtsy.
Before you could complete the gesture, Baelor crossed the distance between you in two long strides. His hands, warm and calloused from years of training with sword and lance, caught your elbows, gently lifting you back up.
"None of that", he murmured, his voice thick with an emotion he had kept suppressed all evening. "Not between us. Never between us".
You looked up into his face. Up close, you could see the faint lines of exhaustion around his eyes — the toll of a kingdom's expectations resting on twenty-year-old shoulders.
"You've grown, Baelor", you said softly, the old familiarity slipping back onto your tongue like a cherished habit.
A small, genuine smile broke through his exhaustion, transforming his rugged features. "And you have become the most beautiful woman in the Seven Kingdoms. I spent the entire feast staring at you, praying for a moment to escape".
"You remembered", you whispered, your heart thumping wildly against your ribs. "You promised you wouldn't forget".
"I could never forget", he said, his gaze dropping to your lips before rising to lock with your eyes. He lifted a hand, his knuckles gently brushing the curve of your cheek, a touch so tender it made your eyes sting with unshed tears. "Every night in King's Landing, when the sky was gray and the air smelled of ash and old mud, I closed my eyes and thought of this place. I thought of the sun. I thought of you".
The years of separation, the miles of silence, and the agonizing pining vanished in the span of a single heartbeat. The unspoken tension that had simmered between you since his arrival finally broke. It was you who closed the remaining distance, stepping into his space, your hands finding the broad expanse of his chest.
Baelor let out a low, ragged breath, his arms wrapping around your waist, pulling you flush against him. The heat radiating from his body was intoxicating.
"I missed you", you whispered against his skin.
"I am home", he answered, his voice a gravelly murmur against your hair. "For tonight, I am finally home".
He tilted your chin up with two fingers. The hesitation lasted only a second before his lips met yours.
The kiss was not the clumsy exchange of fourteen-year-old; it was a reunion of two sould starved for one another. It began with a sweet, aching tenderness, a mutual tasting of years lost, but quickly deepened as Baelor groaned into your mouth. His tongue parted your lips, possessive and demanding, tasting of sweet Dornish wine and a fierce, repressed passion. Your fingers tangled into his thick, dark hair, pulling him closer, anchoring yourself to him as the world around you faded into nothing but the sound of the running water and the heat of his embrace.
The heat between you was a living thing, more fervent than the midday sun that baked the red sands of the Shadow City. Every breath Baelor took seemed to be drawn from your own lungs, and as his hands roamed the curve of your back, the think silk of your gown felt like a barrier too heavy to bear.
"The water", you whispered against the pulse point of his neck, where his skin tasted of salt and longing. "It's too warm for the air, and we are too reckless for the land".
Baelor pulled back just enough to look at you, his mismatched eyes dark with a hunger that made your knees weak. Without a word, he took your hand, his fingers lacing through yours with a possessive strength. He led you to the edge of the sunken pool. The water was still, a dark mirror reflecting the constellations above, save for the gentle ripples where the snake-headed spouts poured liquid silver into the basin.
He stepped down the marble stairs first, the water rising to his waist, soaking his linen shirt until it clung to the powerful muscles of his chest like a second skin. Then, he reached for you.
As you stepped into the pool, the warmth of the water enveloped you, but it was nothing compared to the heat of Baelor's hands as they found your waist. The buoyancy of the water made you feel weightless, tethered to the earth only by the man holding you.
"Six years", he murmured, his voice a low vibration that seemed to travel through the water and into your very bones. "I spent six years wondering if the memory of your touch was something my mind had simply invented to keep me sane in King's Landing".
"And now?", you asked, your voice trembling as you reached out to unlace the collar of his damp shirt.
"Now", he whispered, capturing your wrists, "I realize the memories didn't do you justice".
With a slow, reverent deliberation, he began to peel the silk straps from your shoulders. The fabric slid down, heavy with water, pooling around your hips before drifting away like a discarded ghost. You stood before him, bared to the moonlight and his gaze. Baelor's breath hitched. He looked at you not with the lechery of a stranger, but with the awe of a man beholding a miracle he thought he'd lost.
His shirt followed, cast aside to the marble edge. In the flickering light of the distant torches, his body was a testament to his life as a warrior — scarred in places, honed by the rigors of the yard, beautiful in its strength.
When your skin finally met his — bare, wet, and burning — a soft gasp escaped you. You arched into him, your breasts brushing against the rough hair of his chest, your thighs slick and tangled with his under the water. The sensation was overwhelming; the cool night air on your shoulders contrasted with the heated sanctuary of the pool and the searing contact of his flesh.
Baelor's mouth found yours again, deeper this time, desperate. His hands wandered, mapping the changes the years had wrought. He traced the cruve of your hip, the swell of your breast, his touch firm yet incredibly gentle, as if he feared you might dissolve back into a dream.
"Baelor", you whimpered, your fingers digging into the muscles of his shoulders.
He moved back until your spine pressed against the smooth, sun-warmed tiles of the pool's edge. He lifted you, your legs instinctively wrapping around his waist, drawing him into the cradle of your hips. The friction of your skin through the water was an exquisite torture. He buried his face in the crook of your neck, his breath hot and ragged.
"I am yours", he groaned against your skin, a confession and a vow. "Always, I have been yours".
He moved with a slow, agonizing patience, wanting to savor every increment of the union. When he finally merged his body with yours, the world seemed to tilt. It wasn't just a physical joining; it was the clicking into place of jagged piece of your sould that had been missing since he left Sunspear.
You threw your head back, your eyes closing as a wave of pure, unadulterated sensation washed over you. The rhythm was like the tide — slow and rhythmic at first, then building with a fierce, unstoppable momentum. The water splashed softly against the marble walls, echoing the frantic beat of your hearts. Every thrust was a word unspoken, every moan a memory reclaimed.
Baelor held you as if you were the only solid thing in a crumbling world. His strength was your anchor, his passion your fire. You felt the tension coil within you, a golden thread pulling tighter and tighter until, with a choked cry of his name, it snapped. The world shattered into a thousand points of light, a rhythmic pulsing that left you breathless and shivering in his arms. Moments later, Baelor followed, his body tensing, his fingers gripping the tiles behind you as he surrendered himself entirely to you.
For a long time, there was only the sound of heavy breathing and the quiet trickle of the fountains. Baelor didn't let go. He held you close, his head resting on your shoulder, his heartbeat slowing against yours. The water, once a playground for two children, had become the silent witness to the man and woman they had become.
Eventually, he pulled back just enough to press a lingering kiss to your forehead. The intensity in his eyes hadn't faded; if anything, it had turned into a profound, aching sadness.
"Come", he whispered, his voice cracked. "The night is short, and there are things I must say before the sun finds us".
He helped you out of the water, the cold air making you shiver until he wrapped his arms around you, shielding you from the world just a little while longer.
The transition from the warmth of the water to the cool night air felt like a premonition. Baelor wrapped a dry linen cloak around your shoulders, his movements still tender, but a sudden, heavy silence had settled over him. The lightness that had filled his eyes during their embrace was gone, replaced by the grim shadow of the Prince of Dragonstone.
You sat together on a marble bench hidden beneath the canopy of an ancient fig tree. Your skin was still tingling from his touch, your hair damp against your neck. You leaned into him, expecting his arm to pull you close, but his posture was rigid, staring out at the moonlight dancing on the ripples of the pool.
"Baelor?", you asked softly, reaching out to touch his knee. "What is it?".
He didn't look at you immediately. When he did, the sorrow in his mismatched eyes made your breath hitch. "There are things happening in King's Landing", he began, his voice flat, drained of the passion from moments ago. "My father's position is secure, but the realm is...fragile. The lords of the Reach and the Stormlands still look at Dorne with suspicion. They see my mother's blood in me, and they fear it".
A cold knot began to form in your stomach. "What does that have to do with us? With tonight?".
Baelor took a deep, ragged breath, closing his eyes. "Arrangements have been made. A marriage alliance to bind the Marcher lords to the Crown. To prove my loyalty to the houses that border your homeland". He paused, the words tasting like ash. "I am to wed Lady Jena Dondarrion".
The words struck you like a physical blow. You pulled your hand back as if his skin had suddenly turned to fire. The romantic warmth of the Water Gardens vanished, replaced by a sudden, biting chill.
"Jena Dondarrion", you repeated, your voice a hollow whisper. You stood up, the linen cloak slipping slightly from your shoulders. "A Marcher house. The Stormlands".
"It is politics", Baelor said quickly, standing up to face you, his hands reaching for yours. "It is the duty my father demands of me. The duty the realm expects of the Heir of the Iron Throne".
"Do not lecture me on duty, Baelor", you snapped, stepping backward, out of his reach. Hurt, sharp and burning, flared in your chest, quickly turning into defensive anger. "You come back here, after six years of silence. You look at me with those eyes, you bring me to this pool, you take...everything I had saved for you, and then, while the water is still drying on our skin, you tell me you belong to someone else?".
"I don't belong to her", Baelor's voice cracked, a rare display of raw emoion from the usually stoic prince. He took a step toward you, his jaw clenched, his hands trembling. "Do you think I want this? Do you think I want to spend my life in a cold castle with a woman I do not know, while my heart remains here, buried in the red sands?".
"Then refuse them", you cried, tears finally hot and angry against your cheeks. "You are the Heir. You are the future king. Tell your father no".
"I cannot!", Baelor roared, the dragon in him finally flaring, though it was a dragon trapped in a cage of its own making. He closed the distance between you, grasping your upper arms. He didn't hurt you, but his grip was iron, desperate to make you understand. "If I refuse, it insults House Dondarrion. It insults the Stormlands. It gives the lords who hate my mother an excuse to whisper of rebellion. My father broke centuries of tradition to bring Dorne into the realm through peace, not war. If I am weak, if I choose my own happiness over the peace of the realm, that peace will bleed".
You looked at him through a blur of tears. The anger was draining out of you, leaving only a vast aching emptiness. You saw the truth in his face. He wasn't lying. He was a prisoner of his own bloodline, bound by golden chains to a throne he hadn't asked to inherit.
"So this was a goodbye", you whispered, your voice breaking. "Tonight...this was just a farewell to your childhood".
"No", Baelor said fiercely, pulling you flush against his chest. He buried his face in your damp hair, his chest heaving with silent, ragged breaths. "Never say that. Tonight was the only real thing I have felt in six years. Jena will have my name. She will have my crown, and she will have the sons I must give the realm. But she will never have me".
He pulled back, his hands framing your face, his thumbs gently wiping away your tears. His gaze was burning, intense enough to imprint itself on your soul forever.
"Listen to me", he commanded softly. "The Iron Throne may claim my body, but my heart stays here. It belongs to you. It had belonged to you since we were fourteen, and it will belong to you when I am an old man sitting on a chair of swords. I swear it to you, by the Old Gods and the New, and by the sun of Dorne".
The tragedy of it broke you completely. You leaned your forehead against his chest, weeping silently as his arms wrapped around you, holding you with a fierce, possessive strength. There would be no secret escapes, no happy endings somewhere away from the world. He was the dragon, and you were the desert, and they were destined to be separated by a kingdom.
The first pale light of dawn began to bleed through the palm trees, painting the easter sky in shades of bruised purple and gold. The night was over. Reality was knocking at the gates of Sunspear.
Baelor knew it too. He let out a long, shuddering sigh and gently tilted your chin up one last time.
"I must go before the court wakes", he whispered, his voice thick with a sorrow that would haunt you for the rest of your days. "Look at me".
You opened your eyes, meeting his mismatched gaze.
"I will love you until the end of my days", he promised, the vow a solemn weight between you.
Then, he leaned down and captured your lips in one final kiss.
It was entirely different from the passion of the pool. This kiss was slow, agonizingly sweet, and heavy with the taste of tears and salt. It was a kiss meant to last a lifetime — a desperate attempt to memorize the textute of your lips, the warmth of your breath, and the scent of your skin. It was a promise, a heartbreak, and an unyielding declaration of love all poured into a single, devastating touch.
When he finally pulled away, it felt as though a piece of your chest had been torn out. He didn't look back. Baelor turned and walked away into the morning mist, his tall silhouette disappearing down the marble path toward the palace.
You stood alone by the whispering fountains of the Water Gardens, the linen cloak wrapped tightly around you, watching the sun rise over Dorne, knowing that the sun had just set on your heart forever.
yeh, this man has completely taken over my brain and i am not complaining
Summary: Baelor ties you to the bedpost with silk, blindfolds you, and takes you apart with his hands before fucking you through a fourth orgasm, all with his characteristic careful attention and quiet authority
Pairing: Baelor Targaryen x sister-wife!reader
Warning(s): +18 MDNI, Explicit sexual content, smut, bondage, silk restraints, blindfold, soft dom/sub dynamics, overstimulation, fingering, multiple orgasms, spanking, consensual kink, negotiated consent, established relationship, praise kink, aftercare, reader insert (no use of y/n)
"Tell me what you want."
Not an opening to negotiation. Baelor asked the way he did everything — with the full weight of his attention, those mismatched eyes on your face in the candlelight, his hands resting on your waist with the deliberate stillness of a man who had decided to be patient about this and meant it.
"You know what I want," you said.
"I want to hear you say it." His thumb tracing a slow circle at your hip. "All of it. Clearly."
You held his gaze. The particular quality of him in this register — the soft authority of it, the composure present but carrying heat underneath, the patience that was also its own kind of pressure — did something immediate to your ability to be composed about any of this.
You told him. Clearly. All of it.
He listened without interrupting, which was somehow more devastating than any response would have been. When you finished he was quiet for a moment, those eyes doing their reading of your face.
"And if you want to stop," he said.
"I'll say silver."
"And I will stop immediately."
"I know you will."
He looked at you for another moment. Something in his expression — the private warmth of him, the specific quality that had no diplomatic function — settled into something more focused. More certain.
"Lie down," he said. "On your back."
He took his time with the silk.
Three pieces — he had them ready, which told you something about how long he had been thinking about this, the particular planning of Baelor evident in the way he shook each one out with unhurried hands. Deep blue, thin enough to be soft against skin, long enough to give him what he needed.
He tied your right wrist to the bedpost first. Not tight — enough to hold, enough to give the restraint meaning, but with the careful precision of a man who had thought about the difference between symbolic and damaging and had strong opinions on the subject. He ran his thumb under the silk after he knotted it, checking the space, checking your face.
"Alright?"
"Yes."
The left wrist. The same care. The same check. You pulled lightly against both and felt the silk hold and felt something in your chest loosen into something warm and specific.
He picked up the third piece.
"Last chance to tell me no," he said.
"Baelor."
"Humour me."
"I do not want to tell you no."
He folded the silk carefully — his hands moving with the attention he gave everything — and came to sit beside you on the bed, and his hands found your face with a gentleness entirely at odds with what was coming, and he pressed his lips to your forehead before he covered your eyes.
The world went dark.
The silk was smooth and warm and smelled faintly of cedar and the specific quality of not being able to see him — of hearing his breathing and feeling his weight on the mattress and knowing he was looking at you without being able to look back — hit you somewhere immediately and thoroughly.
His hands moved to your shoulders. Traced down your arms. Checking, still, the quality of attention he gave this no different from the quality of attention he gave everything — the full and undivided weight of it, now that you couldn't see it, somehow more present than ever.
"Good?" he said quietly.
"Very," you said. Your voice had already changed register.
You heard something that might have been him almost smiling.
Then his hands moved, and the patience ended.
He started with his mouth.
Your throat, your collarbone, the curve of your breasts — working with the thoroughness that was specific to him, the unhurried mapping of a man who intended to know every response before he did anything requiring a response. The blindfold made it worse, or better, the not-seeing meaning every point of contact arrived without warning, his mouth finding places that made you pull against the silk and make sounds you had not prepared.
His hand moved to your breast. Cupped it. His thumb across the nipple, once, twice, feeling your back arch toward him.
Then he drew back his hand and brought it down.
Not hard. Precise. The sharp crack of it and the specific bright sting and the sound you made was immediate and bypassed every managed layer — and his hand returned immediately, palm flat and warm, soothing the sting with a pressure that was almost worse than the hit.
"Again?" he said. Conversational.
"Yes."
Again. The same precision. The same immediate soothing. Your hands pulling at the silk not to escape but because you needed to do something with them and had nothing, and the restraint of it was its own specific thing, the helplessness of being held open to whatever he decided to do next.
He moved lower.
His fingers found you without preamble and the sound he made at what he found there was low and immediate — a sound of satisfaction, of a man whose assessment has confirmed something he already suspected.
"Already wet, my heart?" he observed. Not quite a question in its entirety.
You said something that was not technically a word.
"Good," he said, and his fingers began to move.
Two fingers. The particular certainty of Baelor when he had decided on an objective — not building, not testing, going directly to the places he had mapped on other nights and knew with absolute confidence. Curling, pressing, finding the rhythm that made your hips lift toward his hand. His thumb on your clit. Working both simultaneously with the focused attention that was always him, always this, even now.
You came apart relatively quickly. Ten days of context. The blindfold. The silk at your wrists. The specific quality of Baelor's fingers when they were doing this without patience — and the sound you made when you came resonated off the walls and you felt him still his hand and work you through every tremor before he drew back.
A moment.
Then his hand came down on your cunt.
The sound you made was not dignified. The sting of it, sharp and immediate, the specific vulnerability of the target — and his hand returned, palm pressed flat, the heel of it grinding against your clit before he pulled back again.
"Baelor—"
"I have you," he said. Calm. Certain.
Again. The crack and the sting and the immediate warm pressure of his palm. Your back arching off the bed, your wrists pulling against the silk, the whole of you responding in a way that had no composure left in it.
"Good?" he said.
"More," you moaned
His fingers returned. Three this time — the stretch of it immediate and significant, a sound leaving you that was half complaint and entirely not, your body adjusting, accommodating, the fullness of three fingers and his thumb on your clit building something considerably less patient than the first.
He worked you with the thoroughness of a man who had been given a task and intended to complete it to his own exacting standards. Not varying, not teasing — the relentless focused rhythm of Baelor when his patience had been replaced by intent, hitting the same place with the same pressure with the same consistency until the thing coiling in you had nowhere to go except where he was directing it.
You came harder the second time. The silk biting into your wrists as you pulled against it, his name leaving your mouth in pieces, his fingers not stopping — working you through it, past it, into the oversensitised shaking aftermath without pause.
"Stop— Baelor— please—"
"One more," he said pleasantly.
"I can't—"
"You can." His fingers still moving, slower now, gentler, but not stopping. "I know you can. I will not stop until you give me another one."
The sound you made at that was not a protest. Not entirely.
He brought his hand down again — the breast this time, then the other, then once more on your cunt with the precision that suggested he had been thinking carefully about sequencing — and the combination of his fingers inside you and the sting and his thumb on your clit built something that had no architecture, no careful approach, just the blunt overwhelming accumulation of everything at once.
The third orgasm was less structured than the others. It arrived with less warning and more force, your whole body pulling against the silk, Baelor's name completely unraveled in your mouth, and he worked you through every second of it with his fingers and his thumb and the steady certain presence of him until you were shaking and entirely speechless and had nothing left that resembled composure.
His fingers slipped free. His hand stilled.
The room was very quiet except for your breathing.
Then his hands found the blindfold.
He removed it slowly. Gave you a moment to adjust to the candlelight, to find his face — and when you did, the expression on it was something that went directly through the post-orgasm haze and landed somewhere warm and immediate. The careful attention of him, the mismatched eyes dark and fixed on your face with an intensity that had not diminished, the slight flush of him, the specific quality of Baelor very thoroughly undone and very thoroughly in control simultaneously.
He looked at you for a moment.
Then his eyes moved down.
The sound he made was involuntary and immediate.
"Gods," he said. Low. The composure entirely gone from his voice. "Look at you."
You were aware, dimly, that you were a considerable state. Flushed from throat to chest, still shaking slightly, wrists still held by the silk, the evidence of three orgasms and his hands unmistakable.
He touched you — his fingers returning briefly, barely a touch — and the sound he made this time was rougher.
"You are absolutely soaking," he said, with the tone of a man making an observation he cannot quite believe and intends to address. "Do you have any idea—" He stopped. His jaw tightened. "I have been thinking about this for an hour and somehow you've still managed to—"
He reached for his laces.
"Tell me," he said, pushing the clothing away with rather less ceremony than usual, "if you need me to stop."
You looked at him from your thoroughly wrecked state and said something that was not technically a word.
"I will take that as a no," he said amused, and positioned himself, and pushed into you.
The sound you made echoed.
He groaned — low and long and stripped of everything managed, his forehead dropping briefly to your shoulder at the specific fact of you, soaking and warm and clenching around him with the oversensitised responsiveness of someone who had already come three times and was apparently entirely prepared to do so again.
"You feel—" He stopped. Moved. The groan that followed was not a word. "You are absolutely—" another thrust, deep and certain— "Gods."
He was not gentle. He had not been gentle since the moment he unfolded the first piece of silk and you had not asked him to be gentle and he was, at this point, in absolutely no condition to be gentle — his cock driving into you with the focused urgency of a man who had been patient for an hour and had exhausted his supply of it entirely, each thrust full and deep and certain.
Your wrists still held. The silk still present. The specific helplessness of it — of having no hands, of being able only to receive whatever he gave you — with the three orgasms behind you and his cock buried in your cunt and his thumb returning to your clit because apparently Baelor intended to be thorough about this as well—
"Baelor—" The word came out slurred. "I can't— I'm— please—"
"You can," he said. Breathless now, the composure entirely absent, fucking you with the single-minded focus of a man who has ceased to be the Hand of the King and is simply this — here, undone, present. "You absolutely can. You have been doing it all evening." A thrust that punched the air from your lungs. "One more. Give me one more."
You gave him one more.
He followed you immediately after — his rhythm breaking, his face pressed to your neck, his cock buried as deep as it would go as he spent himself with a sound that had nothing of the diplomat in it, nothing of the composure, nothing of any version of him that existed outside this room.
For a very long time afterward neither of you moved.
His weight on you. His breathing slowing against your neck. Your wrists still loosely held by the silk, the restraint somehow comfortable now, familiar, the silk warm from your skin.
His hands moved — finding the knots at your wrists with careful fingers, working them loose with the same precision he had used to tie them, and when the silk fell away he drew your arms down slowly and held your wrists in his hands and pressed his lips to each in turn, checking, attending, the Baelor who thought about everything reassembling himself quietly in the aftermath.
"Alright?" he said.
You stared at the ceiling.
"I have," you said, after a moment, "lost the ability to form complete sentences."
He pressed his lips to your temple. "I will take that as a yes."
"It is emphatically a yes."
He settled beside you, drew you against him, his arm around your shoulders with the careful warmth that was always his in the quiet after. His thumb tracing slow absent circles against your arm.
"The silk," you said, eventually.
"What about it."
"Keep it."
A pause in which you felt against your side the specific quality of Baelor fully smiling. "I had every intention of keeping it, my heart," he said.
You laughed. It came out slightly wrecked.
His arm tightened around you once, briefly, and then relaxed.
Outside, the castle went about its evening. Inside, the candles burned low and the silk lay on the covers and Baelor held you with the full and undivided attention he gave everything that mattered to him, which was its own specific kind of bondage, and one you had never once wanted to escape.
A.N.: in my mind, reader in Three Heads of the Dragon AU is primarily a dom when it comes to Maekar, but one touch from Baelor and it's all reversed oopsies
