A Crab amongst Dragons | Chapter 1; Aerion Targaryen fanfic
summary: Vaelyra Celtigar seeks to elevate her family through an arranged marriage to Prince Aerion Targaryen, but royal politics, rivalry, and complicated relationships challenge everything she believes about power and love.
warnings: marriage and pregnancy discussions, classism, aristocratic elitism, and patriarchal expectations
wordcount: 2,4k
The gardens of Claw Isle smelled of roses, damp earth, and the breath of the Narrow Sea. Even here, tucked behind the high, sun-warmed stone hedges and flowering trees, the sea could never be forgotten.
Vaelyra sat beneath the dappled shade of an ancient ash tree, sharing the afternoon with her lady mother and four noblewomen of the shorelands. Upon the table, a silver tea service caught the bright afternoon sun. The porcelain cups were thin as eggshells, so fine the light passed right through them. The tea had come from the Free Cities, as had the honey fritters
and the little honey cakes beside them.
She wore a gown of sea-green silk, soft as still water against her skin. Along the slitted sleeves, tiny red crabs had been embroidered in thread so fine they vanished until the light struck them just so. Subtle, her mother had called it. Vaelyra thought it bordered on graceful, without doing too much. A Celtigar of Claw Isle did not need to shout, true enough, but there was no virtue in being misunderstood.
Across the silver pot, Lady Alysanne Rosby was holding forth on a wedding. She had been speaking of it for the better part of an hour, her fingers working lazily at a strip of cream-colored lace that she had barely advanced three inches since noon.
“The bride’s father gave her twelve silver cups,” Lady Alysanne said, picking a stray crumb of seed cake from her heavy velvet bodice before jabbing her bone needle back into the linen.
“Ten,” corrected Lady Melara Staunton. She did not look up from her own lap, where she was aggressively snapping the green stems off a basket of fresh mint leaves, her knuckles stained a bruised, fragrant green.
“Twelve. I counted them myself as they were brought to the high table.” Alysanne paused, her needle hovering mid-air as she sniffed in indignation.
“Ten,” Melara insisted, throwing another bare stem into her basket with a sharp thwack. “I was there as well, Alysanne. Two were pewter, washed in silver to deceive the back rows. The Rosbys always did have trouble telling true coin from plate.”
Lady Jeyne Massey let out a low laugh, leaning back into her cushions and using a delicate ivory fan to stir the stagnant heat between them. “Then one of you drank from two of them, and the other drank from none.”
Lady Alysanne stiffened, her jaw tightening in offense as she aggressively yanked her thread through the lace, knotting it by mistake.
“Ten silver cups,” Melara muttered once more, turning her head away to glare at a nearby rosebush as if it had contradicted her too.
Vaelyra hid her smile behind the rim of her porcelain cup. Her mother saw it, of course. Elaena Celtigar missed nothing. Lady Elaena sat straight-backed in dark blue wool, her hands perfectly still in her lap save for the slow, rhythmic sliding of her thumb over a single, exceptionally large pearl on her necklace. She was not dressed so lavishly as her daughter, she did not need to be. Some women wore jewels to be seen, and other women had learned to make others look at them. Elaena was of the second sort.
“Perhaps,” Lady Elaena said mildly, her tone cutting through the bickering like a filleting knife, though her face remained as smooth as polished marble, “the number of cups matters less than whether the maid fancies the man.”
Lady Alysanne waved a plump, rings-heavy hand, nearly dropping her needle into her lap. “Oh, she will.”
“How can you be so certain?” Elaena asked, her thumb stopping its circle on the pearl and dropping to her lap.
“She is six-and-ten.” Alysanne returned to her knot, picking at it with a long, manicured fingernail.
Lady Melara laughed aloud, a sharp, bitter sound that matched the snapping of another mint stem. “As if that answers anything.”
“At six-and-ten, it answers everything.” Alysanne gave up on the knot and bit the thread in two with a sharp click of her teeth.
Vaelyra listened, her tongue still, watching the steam rise and vanish against the green backdrop of the hedges. Marriage. It was always marriage. They spoke of it over the evening joint, at the great feasts, during the long hours at the spinning wheel, and in every letter that crossed the water from the mainland. Women spoke of it as naturally as smallfolk spoke of rain. Who had wed whom. Which lord had inherited, which son was comely, which house held rich lands, and which held only debts. They whispered of the husbands who drank themselves blind, the husbands who strayed to the tavern wenches, and the husbands who were kind. Kindness was mentioned often, like a rare spice. Lands were spoken of more softly. Gold was spoken of more softly still. But everyone weighed the coin in their heads. Vaelyra was sick of those repeatedly endless conversations about marriage.
Lady Alysanne turned her sharp, heavy-lidded eyes upon Vaelyra, setting her ruined lace down on the table with a small sigh of defeat. “And what of you, child?”
Vaelyra blinked, her expression a mask of innocence as she carefully set her cup back into its exact groove on the silver saucer. “What of me, my lady?”
“You are seven-and-ten. When I was your age, I already had one child and a second one on the way.” Alysanne leaned forward, resting her fleshy forearms on the table, eager for fresher gossip than ten-year-old silver cups.
The trap was laid. Vaelyra knew it instantly. Across from her, her mother lowered her teacup with an agonizingly slow, deliberate click, her grey eyes locking onto her daughter. Lady Jeyne smiled a small, knowing smile, her ivory fan clicking shut against her palm.
“Surely Lord Crispian has begun the search for a husband, however not many are suitable for my Lady.” Lady Jeyne said, using the tip of her closed fan to point playfully toward the western horizon, where the mainland lay.
Vaelyra smiled vaguely in agreement, as she reached for the silver tongs to adjust a sugar cube that didn't need adjusting.
The women laughed, and Vaelyra joined them. Her smile was easy, warm, and perfectly practiced.
Lady Melara leaned closer over the silver service, abandoning her mint basket entirely. She brushed a stray green leaf from her cuff. “And what sort of lord would please you, Vaelyra?”
Vaelyra took another sip. The tea was cloying, too thick with sugar, but she did not let her lips twitch. “What sort?”
“A comely one, surely.” Melara rested her chin on her hand, a cynical glint in her eyes.
“Kind?” Jeyne chimed in, reopening her fan with a soft clack.
“Rich?”
Vaelyra paused. The hesitation lasted no longer than the heartbeat of a small bird, but her mother caught it. The others did not. Vaelyra’s fingers remained lightly wrapped around the porcelain handle, unmoving. “All of these qualities are ever useful and appreciated,” Vaelyra said.
Lady Alysanne chuckled, a crumb of honey cake tumbling onto her lap. “Useful? Is that all?”
The laughter rose again, lighter this time. Vaelyra let her smile widen. Good, she thought. A jest. A harmless bit of fluff to keep them from digging deeper.
Lady Jeyne tilted her head, her fan fluttering lazily near her cheek, her eyes soft with the foolishness of younger women. “But surely you wish for love?”
The word made Vaelyra’s fingers tighten against the thin porcelain until her knuckles went pale. Love. She despised the word. Not because she was cruel, but because she could not fathom why sensible people pretended it was a simple thing. Love could not buy a longship. Love could not pay a debt to the Iron Bank. Love could not defend a lord’s coast from stepstones reavers or make a weak house strong. A marriage contract could do all those things. But Lady Jeyne was waiting, her face full of romantic expectation, her fan slowing to a crawl. So Vaelyra gave her the story she wanted to hear.
“I think love would be very pleasant, although for a lady of my status, it is difficult to find the one,” Vaelyra said.
Lady Melara shook her head, picking up a rogue mint leaf and tearing it precisely down the center vein. “You are the difficult one, Vaelyra.”
“So my septa used to say.”
Lady Alysanne leaned in, her eyes gleaming with the scent of gossip, her fingers drumming a slow beat against her silver tea saucer. “No, speak truly. If the choice were yours alone, what would you ask of a husband?”
Vaelyra looked across the table. She saw her mother, whose hand had returned to the heavy pearl necklace. She saw Lady Alysanne's tapping fingers, Lady Melara's shredded leaf, and Lady Jeyne's waiting fan. Four women waiting for a maid's sigh. She knew the tune they wanted, so she sang it for them.
“I suppose I should want a husband who respected my mind.”
Lady Jeyne nodded, her fan giving a single, approving flutter. “Good.”
“A man who listened when I spoke.”
“Better.” Jeyne leaned an inch closer.
“A man who was gentle in the dark.”
“Better still,” Melara muttered, though she rolled her eyes as she said it.
“Someone who could bring a smile to my face.”
Lady Jeyne sighed, her hand touching her heart, the ivory fan dangling from her wrist by a silk cord. “Now we find the meat of it.”
Vaelyra smiled, leaning back slightly into the stone bench. “And a man I could love.”
Across the table, Lady Elaena choked on her tea. Vaelyra shot her a quick, sharp glance as her mother swiftly covered the cough with a linen napkin, her rings clicking sharply against the porcelain as she set it down.
Lady Alysanne noticed nothing, too busy beaming at Vaelyra's answer.
“Oh, that is lovely,” Alysanne murmured, wiping her sticky fingers on her own cloth. “And what of children?”
“Children? It is quite early to discuss my imaginary children.” Vaelyra looked genuinely puzzled for a fraction of a second, her hand dropping from her cup to rest lightly over her stomach.
“How many would you desire?” Melara asked, ignoring Vaelyra’s concern.
“As many as my lord husband desires.” Her mother’s gaze stayed fixed on her, the napkin still held near her lips. Vaelyra corrected herself with a smooth turn of her wrist, a placating gesture. “As many as we both might wish.”
Lady Jeyne smiled warmly, her fan fluttering to life once more. “And you would wed for love, then?”
Vaelyra turned her eyes toward the sea. Beyond the ancient ash and the stone walls, a sliver of deep, slate-blue water rippled under the noon sun. The answer came to her without hesitation, cold and clear. No. Not first. Never first. She would wed a man who brought strength to Claw Isle. A man whose name, whose ships, whose swords, or whose ancient blood elevated the Celtigars above the ordinary lords of the realm. If she came to love him after the vows were spoken before the septon, well and good, that would be a pleasant thing. If not, she would learn to live without it, as a hundred thousand noblewomen had done before her. That was what she had been bred for. But such thoughts did not belong in a sunny garden over sweet cakes.
She turned back to the ladies and gave them another practiced smile, her hands dropping gracefully into her lap, folding over the embroidered red crabs on her green silk. “I should like to love my husband, yes.”
Lady Alysanne beamed, smoothing down her velvet skirt. “I knew you were a romantic maid beneath all that fine green silk.”
Vaelyra laughed softly. “Perhaps I am.”
Her mother looked at her over the rim of her re-lifted cup, the very corner of her mouth twitching before she took a slow, silent sip. She knows, Vaelyra thought.
Lady Melara reached across the table, her stained fingers plucking the last honey cake from the silver tray. “And which house would you choose, if the king himself gave you the pick of the realm? One of Valyrian blood?”
The question was a dangerous one. Vaelyra looked back to the sea, watching a lone iron-grey warship glide across the distant horizon. The answer was easier this time. “Perhaps.”
Her mother said nothing, but Vaelyra heard the silent shifting of Elaena’s silk skirts against the stone bench. She knew what was passing behind those grey eyes. The Targaryens. The Velaryons. The two great houses that cast their long, silver-gold shadows over every other Valyrian family in Westeros. The houses the Celtigars had spent centuries measuring themselves against. The Targaryens had their dragons. The Velaryons had their vast fleets. The Celtigars had only their gold. But Vaelyra had been taught since she was small that gold could buy many things. It could buy iron, it could buy loyalty, and it could buy proximity to a dragon's flame.
Lady Jeyne blinked, her fan stopping mid-air once more as a thought crossed her. You're in luck, my dear. There are plenty of suitors of House Targaryen for you to choose from.”
Vaelyra let the silence speak for itself, picking up her linen napkin and daintily pressing it to her lips. “The Gods shall provide.”
Her mother looked down into her own cup, satisfied, her thumb resuming its slow, peaceful circle around the heavy white pearl at her throat. There it was. The truth of the matter. Not love, nor romance, nor some handsome knight waiting with a rose beneath a flowering tree. Practicality. Elaena Celtigar had taught her daughter the meaning of that word before the girl was old enough to spell it.
A marriage was a bridge of stone and iron. A daughter was the first to cross it, and her house followed behind her.
Vaelyra had never once considered that arrangement to be strange. Why would she? She was a Celtigar of Claw Isle, born of the old blood, and Celtigars did not give away their daughters merely because a young lord had a handsome face or a sweet tongue. They married because there was something to be gained, a piece of land, a fleet of galleys, or a closer seat to the iron throne.
The wind shifted, turning colder as it blew in from the open water. From beyond the high garden walls came the distant, lonely cry of the gulls, wheeling low over the breaking waves. Vaelyra let her gaze drift back toward the sea. Far beyond that grey, churning horizon lay King’s Landing, its red towers rising above the filth of the city.
And somewhere in that great kingdom lived princes, kings, lords, and knights who did not yet know her name. She intended to teach them. She would make them speak it with respect, or speak it with fear, but they would speak it nonetheless.
