Emily

[softwaring]

[uniicorns-arereall]

you know what, fuck it be free, keep reading that bad fan fiction, keep writing that bad fanfiction, keep using y/n, keep staying up to 4 a.m reading x reader, to be cringe is too be free

(just NO a.i)

[lalalovelyly]

Bastards, Royals and dragons: The Dinner

Valarr Targaryen X Dragonseed!Reader

Part six Synopsys: In which you have dinner with his family WC: 16k reader info / note: yn is a targaryen dragonseed, but her parentage is completely unknown on purpose so you can project however you want the only fixed thing is that you have at least one valyrian feature so silver hair and/or purple eyes, because it needs to be obvious you’ve got targaryen blood everything else is up to you, if the reader blushes it's because she biologically blushes not because the other characters see her blushing PLEASE READ; I AM REMAKING THE TAGLIST SO IF YOU WANT TO BE TAGGED YOU HAVE TO RE-COMMENT IT EVEN IF YOU'RE ALREADY IN IT PLEASE check out these GORGEOUS fanarts of moonfyre 1 2

Daeron Targaryen, was not yet awake when the maester knocked upon his chamber door. He was, in fact, deeply and contentedly asleep, his face half buried in a feather pillow, his silver gold hair more silver than gold now, he noted with quiet resignation every time he glanced into a looking glass spread across the linen in disarray.

Beside him, Myriah stirred. She had always been a lighter sleeper than he was, a trait she attributed to her Dornish upbringing, where the heat of the midday sun made afternoon siestas necessary and nighttime slumber shallower as a result. Or perhaps it was simply that she had spent thirty years sleeping beside a king, and kings, as a general rule, did not get to sleep peacefully through the night. Messengers arrived at all hours. Ravens came and went. The realm did not pause its endless demands simply because the hour was inconvenient.

"Someone's at the door," Myriah murmured, her voice still thick with sleep, her dark hair spilling across her pillow like a river of ink.

Daeron made a sound that was not quite a word and pressed his face deeper into the pillow. He was sixty three years old. His joints ached when it rained. His eyes tired easily after long hours bent over correspondence and petitions and the endless, grinding machinery of governance. He had been ruling for nearly three decades, and while he liked to think he had done a decent job of it, certainly better than his father, though the gods knew that was not a high bar to clear, there were moments, and this was one of them when he wished he could simply roll over and go back to sleep and let the realm manage itself for a few hours.

The knock came again, more insistent this time. Three sharp raps, deliberate and apologetic at once, the kind of knock that said I am sorry to disturb you, Your Grace, but I would not be doing so if it were not important.

"Enter," Daeron called, his voice emerging as a croak. He pushed himself upright, wincing at the protest in his lower back, and ran a hand through his tangled hair.

The door opened to admit Maester Gerold, he carried a rolled parchment in one hand, sealed with the dark wax of Dragonstone, and his expression was difficult to read in the dim light of the chamber. "A raven from Dragonstone, Your Grace," the maester said, his voice carefully neutral. "From Prince Baelor. Marked as urgent."

Daeron's heart gave a single, uncomfortable lurch. Urgent. That word always carried weight, especially when it came from Dragonstone, especially when it concerned Baelor. His eldest son was not prone to exaggeration. If he said something was urgent, he meant it, and a dozen unpleasant possibilities flickered through Daeron's mind before he could stop them. An accident. An illness. An attack. Something had happened to Valarr, or to Matarys, or to Baelor himself, and here he was, an old man in his nightshirt, receiving the news in his bedchamber while the sun was still dragging itself over the horizon.

"Leave it on the table," Daeron said, gesturing toward the small writing desk near the window. "And have someone bring tea. Strong tea. And something to eat, if the kitchens are awake."

"Yes, Your Grace." Maester Gerold set the letter down with careful precision, his chain rattling softly, and withdrew with a bow.

Myriah pushed herself up on one elbow, her dark eyes following the maester's retreating form before shifting to the letter on the desk. Even half asleep, with her hair tangled and her face creased from the pillow, she was beautiful. She had been beautiful for years, and Daeron had never grown tired of looking at her. It was one of the few things in his life that had never grown complicated or disappointing or fraught with political consequence.

"Urgent from Baelor," she said, her voice still carrying the warm, rough edges of sleep. "That cannot be good."

"Perhaps it is good news," Daeron said, though he did not quite believe it. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood, his bare feet cold against the stone floor, his nightshirt hanging loose around his thinning frame. "Perhaps Valarr has decided to come home at last."

"If that were the case, Baelor would not call it urgent." Myriah sat up fully, pulling the blankets around her shoulders. "He would call it a relief."

Daeron could not argue with that. He crossed to the desk, his movements slow and careful, the way an old man moved when his joints had not yet warmed to the day. The letter sat where Maester Gerold had left it and Daeron broke it with his thumb and unrolled the parchment.

The handwriting was unmistakably Baelor's. Neat, controlled, the letters formed with the careful precision of a man who had been taught to write by the finest tutors in the realm and had practiced until his penmanship was beyond reproach. But there was something else beneath the neatness, Daeron thought. A slight tremor, perhaps. An unevenness in the spacing that suggested the hand holding the quill had been less steady than usual. Baelor had written this letter in a state of some emotion. Excitement, or fear.

Daeron began to read. Myriah watched him from the bed, her expression shifting from drowsy curiosity to something more alert as she watched his face.

"Well?" she asked, when he had been silent for a long moment. "What does he say?"

Daeron did not answer immediately. He was still reading, his eyes moving down the parchment, his lips pressed together in a thin line. Then, quite suddenly, he let out a sound that was halfway between a laugh and a sigh, and he lowered the letter to his lap.

"It appears," he said, his voice flat with disbelief, "that there is a dragon on Dragonstone."

Myriah stared at him. "What?"

"A dragon. A living dragon. Pale as sea foam, apparently, with purple shades. Discovered in the eastern caves of the Dragonmont by a village girl." Daeron's voice remained studiously even, the voice he used when he was reading aloud from some particularly dubious petition. "The girl healed its injured wing. The dragon bonded with her. Valarr has fallen in love with her. Baelor has given his consent for them to marry. He wishes to break the betrothal to Kiera of Tyrosh and offer Matarys as a substitute. And he writes all of this in a letter marked urgent."

A long silence filled the royal bedchamber. The fire crackled softly in the hearth. Outside the window, a gull cried, its voice carrying across the rooftops of King's Landing.

Then Myriah laughed. It was not a cruel laugh. It was the laugh of a woman who had just heard something so absurd, so utterly unexpected, that she could not help but find it funny. She pressed her hand to her mouth, her dark eyes bright with amusement, and shook her head slowly.

"Matarys," she said. "It has to be Matarys."

Matarys. Of course. His younger grandson, the six and ten year old with his mother's hair and his father's sharp eyes and a sense of humor that had caused no end of trouble over the years. Matarys, who had once convinced half the servants that the Red Keep was haunted by the ghost of a princess. Matarys, who had sent a letter to his uncle Maekar claiming that the King had decided to abdicate and become a septon. Matarys, who loved jokes and pranks and mischief with the pure, uncomplicated joy of a boy who had never quite grown out of being a child.

"That little wretch," Daeron said, but there was no real anger in his voice. In truth, he was almost relieved. A dragon. A village girl. A broken betrothal. If Baelor had genuinely written such a letter, it would have meant his eldest son had lost his mind entirely. But Matarys—Matarys writing an absurd letter in his father's hand, using his father's seal, sending it to King's Landing in the middle of the night—that made a great deal more sense. It was exactly the sort of thing Matarys would find hilarious.

"Read it to me," Myriah said, settling back against her pillows, her dark eyes still sparkling with amusement. "I want to hear every word."

Daeron read about the girl approaching Baelor at the petitions, about Baelor's disbelief, about the shame he claimed to feel. He read about the dragon's name—Moonfyre, a name that sounded suspiciously like something Matarys would invent, poetic and slightly overwrought—and about the bond between the girl and the creature. He read about Valarr falling in love, about Baelor offering the girl silver to disappear, about Valarr abdicating his claim to the throne.

"Abdicated," Myriah repeated, when he reached that part. "Valarr abdicated. For a village girl with goats."

"Apparently so."

"That is quite romantic."

"It is quite absurd."

Daeron read on. The letter grew more elaborate as it went, weaving in details about Tyrosh and Kiera, about Matarys being offered as a substitute husband, about the political implications of a dragon returning to House Targaryen after seventy years. The final paragraphs were almost poetic, speaking of hope and fire and the blood of Old Valyria, of children who would be trueborn Targaryens, of eggs that might hatch and dragons that might fill the skies once more.

When he finished, he set the letter down on the desk and looked at his wife. She was smiling, a small, knowing smile that he had seen a thousand times before and still could not entirely interpret.

"Well," she said. "That was quite the tale."

"It was quite something," Daeron agreed. "Though I am not certain Matarys wrote it."

"No?"

"The handwriting is too good. You know Matarys's penmanship—it looks like a spider fell in an inkpot and crawled across the page. This is Baelor's hand, or a very convincing forgery."

"Then perhaps Baelor wrote it as a joke."

Daeron considered this. Baelor was not known for his sense of humor. He was a serious man, a dutiful man, a man who had spent his entire life doing what was expected of him without complaint or deviation. But perhaps that was precisely what made the joke effective. Perhaps Baelor, exhausted by months on Dragonstone and desperate to return to King's Landing, had decided to write the most ridiculous letter he could conceive of as a way of expressing his frustration. A dragon. A village girl. A love story. A broken betrothal. It was all so patently absurd that it had to be intentional.

"Perhaps," Daeron said slowly, "this is Baelor's way of telling me he needs to come home. He has been on Dragonstone too long. The petitions could have been handled in a fortnight, but he has been there for months. He is bored. He is tired. He wants me to summon him back, and this is his way of asking."

"That is a very elaborate way of asking."

"Baelor has always been thorough."

Myriah laughed again, softer this time, and reached for the cup of water on her bedside table. "What are you going to tell him?"

Daeron looked at the letter again. "I am going to write him back," Daeron said, rising from the desk and crossing to the door to call for a servant. "I am going to tell him that I have read his letter, that I found it very amusing, and that he is to return to King's Landing at once."

"That is all?"

"That is all. If he wants to tell me more about this dragon and this village girl, he can do so in person. I am not going to conduct a serious diplomatic conversation about imaginary creatures through raven post."

Myriah smiled, settling back against her pillows. "You do not think you are being too dismissive?"

"I think I am being appropriately dismissive." Daeron returned to the bed and sat down heavily on the edge of the mattress, his hand finding Myriah's beneath the blankets. "There is no dragon, Myriah. There is no village girl. There is only my son, who has been on a dreary island for too long and has lost his patience, and my grandson, who has fallen in with some local girl and convinced his father to let him out of his betrothal. The rest is embellishment."

"And if you are wrong?"

"I am not wrong."

"But if you are?"

Daeron looked at her. Her dark eyes were steady, her expression unreadable. She had always been the one to see possibilities he overlooked, to consider angles he dismissed, to remind him that the world was stranger and more complicated than his logical mind wanted it to be.

"If I am wrong," he said slowly, "then there is a dragon on Dragonstone, and my son has written me a letter that will be studied by maesters for centuries, and I have just dismissed it as a prank. In which case, I will owe him an apology. A very large apology."

"A very large apology indeed."

"But I am not wrong."

Myriah smiled and leaned over to press a kiss to his cheek. "Of course you are not, my love. You are the King. Kings are never wrong."

Daeron snorted. "Now you are mocking me."

"I have been mocking you for years. You have only just noticed?"

He laughed, a warm sound that filled the quiet chamber, he rose from the bed, crossed to the writing desk, and pulled out a fresh sheet of parchment. The reply did not need to be long. A few lines, perhaps. Enough to acknowledge the letter without taking it seriously, to summon Baelor home without indulging the fantasy. He dipped his quill in ink and began to write.

To my son Baelor, Prince of Dragonstone,

Your letter reached me this morning. I read it with great interest and no small amount of amusement. The attention to detail is commendable, and I must congratulate whoever composed it—whether that was you, which would surprise me, or Matarys, which would not.

I am pleased to hear that Dragonstone has been treating you so well that you have found time to invent elaborate fictions. However, your presence is required in King's Landing. The small council has been managing without you, but there are matters that require your attention, and I am too old to handle all of them myself.

Bring Valarr with you. Bring Matarys as well, if he wishes to come. If the village girl exists—and I remain skeptical on that point—you may bring her too, though I cannot promise I will believe a word of this story until I see proof with my own eyes.

As for the betrothal, we will discuss it when you return. I am not inclined to break an alliance with Tyrosh on the basis of a letter that reads like a bard's tale, but I am willing to hear you out. If Valarr has genuinely fallen in love, there may be other ways to address the situation that do not involve inventing dragons.

Come home, Baelor. You have been on that island long enough.

With affection and considerable skepticism,

Your father,

Daeron

—

The morning light through the narrow windows of Dragonstone's eastern corridor turned the stone to smoke and honey, and you were still not entirely certain how Valarr had managed to get you here.

No—that was untrue. You knew exactly how he had managed it. He had woken you at dawn with a kiss pressed to the hinge of your jaw, and then another to the corner of your mouth, and then another to your forehead when you had tried to bury your face in the pillow and pretend you were still asleep. Marta had grumbled from her corner of the cottage that if the two of you did not stop whispering and giggling like children she would throw her medicine pot at your heads, and Valarr had muffled his laughter against your shoulder and held you tighter, his arm a warm weight across your stomach.

He had whispered that the tailor was waiting, that your grey wool dress had a tear in the sleeve that Marta had mended three times already, that if you were going to keep flying Moonfyre you needed proper clothes and not garments held together by hope and old thread. You had grumbled that you liked your grey dress. He had kissed you again, this time on the tip of your nose, and said he liked it too, but he would like it even more if it did not disintegrate the next time you climbed onto a dragon's back.

You had told him he was being ridiculous. He had agreed amiably and continued kissing you, your cheek, your temple, the corner of your jaw, until Marta had actually thrown a slipper at him and told him to get out of her house if he was going to behave like a lovesick boy instead of a prince. He had apologized with exaggerated formality, but his eyes had been laughing, and when he turned back to you he had whispered, "The tailor. Please. For my sanity," and you had finally agreed, if only to make him stop looking at you with those mismatched eyes that made you feel as though your bones were turning to warm milk.

So here you were, walking the corridors of the castle that had loomed over your village your entire life, your hand tucked into the crook of Valarr's elbow. The tailor had been efficient and terrifying an old man with pins in his mouth and spectacles perched on his nose, who had clucked over you like a hen with one chick and complained that you had the posture of someone who spent too much time hunched over goats. He had measured everything. Every span of your arms, every width of your shoulders, every length from hip to ankle and elbow to wrist. He had draped fabric over you in shades of deep purple and storm blue and a particular dark red that Valarr had picked out himself, holding it up to your cheek and nodding as though he had just solved some important political crisis.

Now the measuring was done, and Valarr was leading you through the castle instead of back toward the village gates.

"I received another letter from Matarys this morning," he said, his voice carrying that particular mixture of exasperation and fondness that only his younger brother seemed able to provoke. "The third one this week. He has taken to sending them by raven, which is absurd—he could simply walk send a servant, but he claims a raven carries more dramatic weight."

You smiled. "What does he want?"

"The same thing he has wanted since you came back. To meet you. To meet Moonfyre." Valarr sighed, his free hand coming up to rub at the back of his neck. "He writes that he is perishing of neglected curiosity, and that if I do not introduce him within the fortnight he will be forced to take drastic measures. What those measures are, he does not specify, which I find deeply unsettling."

"He sounds very dramatic."

"He is insufferable," Valarr said, but his voice was warm. "Father has forbidden it, of course. He does not want you overwhelmed, and he knows Matarys has all the subtlety of a battering ram. When you meet him, and you will meet him eventually, he wants it to be on your terms, not because my brother has ambushed you in some corridor."

"I appreciate that," you said, and meant it. The thought of meeting more of Valarr's family made your stomach tighten, but the thought of meeting them when you were prepared, when you had warning and time to steady yourself, was easier to bear.

"He will adore you," Valarr said quietly and his hand tightened over yours where it rested in the crook of his arm.

They turned a corner, and the corridor changed. The stone here was older, rougher hewn, the torches fewer and farther between. You slowed, glancing up at Valarr in confusion, but he only tightened his arm against his side, pressing your hand more firmly into the crook of his elbow.

"There is something I want to show you," he said.

"More tailors?"

"Nothing so dire, I promise."

He led you down a narrow flight of stairs, then another, the air growing cooler and damper with each step. The walls dripped in places, dark with moisture, and the torches were spaced so far apart that you walked through pools of shadow between each one. The steps were worn smooth in the center, grooved by centuries of feet, and you found yourself wondering how many Targaryens had walked this same path, and what they had been going to see, and whether any of them had been village girls with no name and no family and a dragon who purred when scratched behind the eye ridge.

At the bottom of the stairs, a heavy door of iron-banded oak stood slightly ajar. Valarr pushed it open with his shoulder and ushered you through. The chamber beyond was not large, but it was full. Shelves lined the walls from floor to ceiling, crammed with objects draped in oilcloth and dust. The air smelled of old leather and metal and something sharper beneath—the faint, acrid tang of dragon, though you did not recognize it at first. It was only when Valarr crossed to the center of the room and pulled away a heavy canvas sheet that you understood.

They were saddles. Dragon saddles. They rested on great wooden stands, three of them arranged in a loose semicircle like ancient thrones awaiting occupants who would never return. The leather was cracked and dark with age, the metal fittings dulled by time, but the shapes were unmistakable. Not the light, simple saddles that horses wore, these were massive, built like siege weapons, all deep seats and high backs and heavy straps that looked more suited to anchoring a ship than securing a rider. The buckles were iron, some rusted, some wrapped in remnants of what might once have been decorative tooling. One saddle still bore faint traces of gilding along its pommel, the gold flaking away like autumn leaves.

"This one was Sunfyre's," Valarr said, touching the edge of a saddle that gleamed dully in the torchlight, its leather the color of old coins. "Or so the records claim. It is difficult to be certain—so much was lost during the Dance. Saddles burned with their riders, or were broken apart for leather and metal when the dragons died and no one thought to preserve anything." He moved to the next, and his voice softened. "This one belonged to Syrax."

You stepped closer before you meant to. Syrax's saddle was beautiful in a way that made your chest ache. Even beneath the dust and the cracks and the slow decay of years, you could see it, the intricate patterns worked into the leather, the fittings that looked almost like gold, the delicate filigree along the backrest that must have taken someone months to complete. It was opulent and feminine and utterly unlike the heavy, warlike saddles beside it. It looked like something a queen would ride.

"Rhaenyra's dragon," you said quietly.

"Yes." Valarr's hand hovered over the pommel without touching it. "She rode Syrax when she took King's Landing. And later—well. You know the histories."

You did. You had read them in the book he gave you, sounding out the words while his shoulder pressed warm against yours. Syrax had died in the Dragonpit, torn apart by the smallfolk who rose against Rhaenyra. The saddle had outlived the dragon. That seemed wrong, somehow. That leather and metal could endure when fire and wings could not.

"There is more," Valarr said, turning to face you. The torchlight caught the silver streak in his hair, made his pale eye gleam like a coin. "That is not why I brought you here. I brought you here because—" He stopped, and for a moment he looked almost uncertain, which was such an unusual expression on his face that you felt your heart clench. "Because I want to commission a saddle for you. For Moonfyre."

You opened your mouth, but he was already speaking again, the words tumbling out faster now.

"I cannot watch you fly anymore without one. Every time you climb onto her back with nothing but your hands and your legs and your stubbornness, I feel as though my heart is going to stop. You hold on with strength alone, and you are strong—stronger than anyone I have ever met—but strength fails. A saddle would not. A saddle would keep you secure through dives and climbs and whatever else Moonfyre decides to do. A saddle would—"

"Valarr—"

"—mean that I could watch you fly without feeling as though I am going to be sick from terror. A saddle would mean that if something happened, if she banked too sharply or you lost your grip, you would not—"

"Valarr."

He stopped. His hands were at his sides, clenched into loose fists, and his chest was rising and falling too quickly. He looked at you with those eyes and you could see the guilt there, the fear, the thing he still carried from the weeks when he had not believed you. It had not gone away. You were not certain it ever would.

"You are frightened for me," you said.

"Of course I am frightened for you." His voice was raw at the edges, scraped clean of princely composure. "I am frightened for you every moment you are in the air. I am frightened for you when you are on the ground and Moonfyre is not with you and I think about all the things that could happen, all the people who might want to hurt her or take her or use you to get to her. I am frightened for you when you are asleep and I am watching you breathe and I think about how close I came to losing you before I ever truly had you." He stepped closer, close enough that you could feel the warmth of him through your new grey dress. "So yes. I am frightened for you. And I am asking you—asking, not commanding, I would never command you—to let me do this one thing that might make you a little safer. Please."

The word hung in the dusty air between you. A prince, begging. For you. You looked at the saddles again and tried to imagine yourself sitting in something like that, strapped into leather and steel, secured against the sky. Moonfyre was warm beneath you when you flew. Moonfyre was solid and alive and always, always careful with you, even when she dove or climbed or twisted through the air like a ribbon in the wind. The thought of putting something between you, something hard and unyielding, made your stomach clench.

"It might hurt her," you said quietly. "The straps. The weight. She has never carried anything but me. What if she hates it? What if it rubs her scales raw or catches on her spines or—"

"Moonfyre," Valarr said, and his voice was gentler now, some of the urgency draining out of it, "is a dragon. She carried you across the sea and back. She fought off infection and crooked bones and months of pain. A saddle will not hurt her. A properly fitted saddle, made by craftsmen who know what they are doing—she will barely feel it."

"You do not know that."

"I do not know that," he agreed. "But I know that the old riders saddled their dragons, and the dragons did not suffer for it. I know that Sunfyre carried Aegon through battle after battle with a saddle on his back, and it did not slow him down. I know that Syrax bore Rhaenyra for years, and the saddle was part of them, part of the bond, not a barrier between them."

You traced your fingers along the edge of Syrax's saddle. The leather was cold and brittle, flaking slightly beneath your touch. You thought of the craftsmen who had made it, the hours of careful work, the pride they must have felt when they saw it strapped to a dragon's back. You thought of Valarr, standing beside you in this dusty chamber, pleading with you to let him keep you safe.

"Moonfyre might like it," Valarr said softly. "If it means you can fly longer. Fly farther. Go places you have never been without your arms giving out halfway across the bay."

That was unfair. He knew it was unfair. You could see it in the slight quirk of his mouth, the way his pale eye caught the torchlight. He was appealing to the part of you that wanted to see the world from dragonback, that had tasted freedom on that unknown island and wanted more of it, that dreamed sometimes of flying west until you reached the edge of the map and saw what lay beyond.

"You are manipulating me," you said.

"I am reasoning with you."

"You are manipulating me with reasoning."

"Is it working?"

You wanted to stay cross with him. You wanted to hold onto your uncertainty, your fear for Moonfyre's comfort, your stubborn village-girl conviction that you did not need fine things or special treatment or princes who commissioned saddles for you. But he was looking at you with those eyes and you could feel your resolve crumbling like the gilding on Syrax's pommel.

"If Moonfyre hates it," you said slowly, "I will not make her wear it. Not even if it is the finest saddle ever made. Not even if you beg."

"Agreed."

"And if it hurts her—if there is even a single scale rubbed raw, a single moment where she seems uncomfortable—it comes off and I do not put it back on."

"Agreed."

"And you stop hovering every time I fly. You let me go without looking as though you are about to be sick."

He hesitated at that, his jaw tightening, and you knew you had found the limit of his willingness to negotiate. But after a moment he nodded, a short, sharp jerk of his head that was more concession than agreement.

"I will try," he said. "I cannot promise I will succeed."

"That is all I ask."

He reached for you then, his hands finding your waist and pulling you gently toward him. You went willingly, letting yourself be drawn into the circle of his arms, letting your forehead rest against his collarbone. He smelled of salt and leather and something else, something warm and clean that you had come to associate with him alone. His chin came to rest on the top of your head.

"Thank you," he said, and the words vibrated through his chest into your bones.

"You are very difficult to refuse," you mumbled into his tunic.

"I know. I have been practicing."

You laughed despite yourself, a small huff of air against the fabric of his shirt. His arms tightened around you.

"The leatherworker will want to meet Moonfyre," he said, already planning, already thinking ahead to measurements and fittings and all the practical details that would make this real. "To take her dimensions. I will send word to him today."

"He will have to approach her slowly. She does not like strangers."

"I will tell him."

"And he cannot stare at her. She thinks staring is a challenge."

"I will tell him that too."

"And he should bring her something to eat. A goat, or a sheep. She likes people better when they come bearing food."

Valarr stopped in the doorway and turned to look at you, and there was something in his expression wonder, perhaps, or gratitude, or simply the overwhelming relief of a man who had been forgiven for something he could not forgive himself.

"I love you," he said. "You know that, don't you?"

You did. You had known it for longer than you had believed it, had felt it in every kiss and every gentle word and every moment when he looked at you as though you were the only real thing in a world made of shadows. But hearing him say it still made your heart stutter in your chest, still made you feel as though you were standing on the edge of something vast and terrifying and wonderful.

"I know," you said. "I love you too."

He kissed you once more, soft and brief and full of promise, and then he led you back up the stairs and into the light.

At the top of the stairs, instead of turning back toward the main corridor and the way you had come, he steered you left. Then right. Then through a narrow archway you had not noticed before, into a hallway lined with old tapestries whose threads had gone dull and grey with age.

"What is this?" you asked.

"The east gallery. It connects the residential wing to the great hall without going through the main courtyard. Useful when it rains."

"It is not raining."

"No," he agreed. "But you have never seen it, and I thought you might like to."

You walked a little further. He showed you the small sept tucked into an alcove off the gallery a quiet, shadowed space with carved dragons twining up the pillars and a septa's crystal catching the light from a single high window. He showed you the library, which was not grand like you imagined the one in King's Landing must be, but still held more books than you had ever seen in one place, their spines cracked and faded and smelling of dust and old paper. He showed you a narrow window that looked out over the eastern meadows where you and Moonfyre had first learned to fly, and he pointed to the distant smudge of the village and said, "Marta's roof needs new thatching. I noticed it yesterday. I'll send someone."

You looked at him. His profile was sharp against the window's light, his mismatched eyes fixed on the village below, and there was something deliberate in the way he spoke, something careful and measured that you could not quite name.

"Why are you being so thorough?" you asked.

He turned from the window. "Thorough?"

"All of this." You gestured at the corridor behind you, the library, the sept, the gallery with its faded tapestries. "You are showing me every corner of this castle as though you expect me to be tested on it later."

A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, but it was a softer smile than before, less teasing and more tentative. "Perhaps I am."

"Valarr."

He exhaled, a long breath that seemed to carry some weight you could not see, and reached for your hand. His fingers intertwined with yours, warm and steady, and he lifted your joined hands and pressed a kiss to your knuckles before lowering them again.

"I am showing you your future home," he said. "Or one of them, at least. The Red Keep will be yours as well, when the time comes. I thought you ought to know your way around before—" He paused, his thumb tracing a slow circle over the back of your hand. "Before everything changes."

The word echoed in the quiet corridor. Home. You had a home. A small cottage with a sagging roof and a hearth that smoked when the wind blew from the east and a narrow pallet where Marta had tucked you in every night since you were small enough to be carried. That was home. That had always been home.

"Home," you repeated, and the word felt strange in your mouth, too large and too small at the same time.

"Yes. When you marry me, Dragonstone will be yours. Not just the caves and the village and the meadows, but all of it. The castle. The library. The sept and the gallery and every dusty corner you have not seen yet. And King's Landing, too, when—" He stopped, his jaw tightening briefly. "When the time comes."

Your heart was beating very fast. You could feel it in your throat, in your wrists, in the place where his thumb was still tracing circles over your skin.

"I do not recall accepting any proposal," you said.

It came out steadier than you felt. His eyes met yours, and there was no teasing in them now. Just him. Just Valarr, looking at you as though you were the only thing in the world worth looking at.

"You will," he said. "One day."

"That is very confident of you."

"Not confident. Hopeful." He lifted your hand again and pressed it flat against his chest, over his heart. You could feel it beating beneath your palm, quick and strong and slightly uneven. "I told you I would spend the rest of my life making up for the weeks I did not believe you. That was not a promise I made lightly. I do not expect you to forgive me tomorrow, or next moon, or even next year. I will wait. I will keep showing you libraries and septs and the best windows for watching the sunrise, and I will wait, and one day—when you are ready, when you have forgiven me as much as you are able—I will ask you properly. And you will say yes, or you will say no, and either way I will still be here. Still waiting. Still yours."

You stared at him. His heart was still hammering beneath your palm, belying the calm of his voice, and the silver streak in his hair caught the light from the window, and his eyes were full of something so raw and tender that it made your chest ache.

"You are a fool," you whispered.

"Probably."

"A complete and utter fool."

"I have been told."

You rose onto your toes and kissed him. It was not a gentle kiss, or a careful one. His words had been too earnest, too tender, too full of that quiet certainty that made your chest feel too small for everything inside it, and kissing him seemed the only way to make him stop before he said something else that made you want to weep in the middle of a dusty corridor. His free hand came up to cup your jaw, his fingers sliding into your hair, and he made a sound low in his throat and kissed you back.

The corridor was silent except for the soft sound of your mouths meeting and parting and meeting again, and for a long, suspended moment there was nothing in the world but his hand in your hair and his heart still hammering beneath your palm and the warmth of him pressed against you in the narrow space between the tapestries and the wall.

A throat cleared behind you. Not loudly. Politely, even. The kind of throat clearing that was meant to announce a presence without making a scene, the kind that belonged to someone who had walked in on something he ought not to have seen and was determined to pretend otherwise.

You pulled back from Valarr so quickly you nearly stumbled, your face flooding with heat. Valarr's hand fell from your jaw, but his other arm remained around your waist, steadying you, and when you looked up at him his expression was caught somewhere between mortification and the particular irritation of a man who had been interrupted at a crucial moment.

Prince Baelor stood at the end of the corridor, one hand resting lightly on the hilt of his sword, his expression impeccably neutral but he carried himself with the easy authority of a man who did not need a crown to be recognized. His dark beard was neatly trimmed, his jaw strong, and his eyes were fixed on a point just above your heads, as though the ceiling had suddenly become fascinating.

"Y/N," he said, and his voice was warm, warmer than you expected, as if he had not just witnessed his eldest son kissing a girl in a secluded corridor. "I did not expect to find you in the castle today. How fortunate."

Your face was still burning. You dropped into a curtsy—a little clumsily, your legs still unsteady from the kiss—and kept your eyes on the floor. "My prince. The fortune is mine."

Valarr's arm tightened around your waist, a small, reassuring pressure. "Father," he said, and his voice was even, though you could hear the strain beneath it. "I was just showing Y/N the castle. She has not seen much of it beyond the great hall and the tailor's chambers."

"So I observed," Baelor said, and there was the faintest hint of amusement in his tone, though his face remained carefully composed. He looked at you then, directly, and his expression softened. "Valarr tells me you agreed to riding clothes. I am glad. The dresses are charming, but I suspect they were not designed with dragonflight in mind."

You did not know what to say to that. Your hand found Valarr's sleeve and held on. "The tailor was very thorough, my prince."

"He is a tyrant in human form, but his work is excellent." Baelor smiled, and it transformed his face, made him look less like a prince and more like a man who told jokes and laughed at them. "Since you are here, you must stay for supper. I will not hear any argument—it is late, the sun will set soon, and there is no sense in walking all the way back to the village on an empty stomach. My wife has been asking to meet you properly. She will have my head if I let you slip away without an introduction."

Your stomach dropped. Supper. With the prince and princess of Dragonstone. In the great hall, or some private dining chamber, with servants and candles and more forks than you knew what to do with. You looked down at your dress, the dress of a village girl who spent her mornings mucking out goat pens and her afternoons scrubbing dragon scale from beneath her fingernails.

"My prince, I am not—" You stopped, swallowed, tried again. "I have nothing suitable to wear to a royal supper. And I would not wish to impose on your household without any warning, I am sure the kitchens have not prepared for an extra guest, and Marta will be expecting me back before dark, she worries when I am gone too long, and I should really—"

"Nonsense." Baelor waved his hand as though shooing away a fly. "Valarr, see that a bath is drawn for her in the guest quarters. Your mother has many gowns she will not mind if Y/N borrows one until the tailor finishes her commission. Send a servant to the village to inform Marta that Y/N will be dining at the castle tonight and will return in the morning."

"Father—" Valarr began, but Baelor was already turning, already walking back down the corridor with the unhurried stride of a man who was accustomed to having his instructions followed.

"This will be good," Baelor said over his shoulder, and his voice echoed slightly off the stone walls. "A proper family supper. It has been too long since we had one of those. I will inform the kitchens. Bring her to the dining chamber when she is ready."

He disappeared around the corner, his boots clicking against the stone, and then there was silence. You stood frozen, your hand still clutching Valarr's sleeve, your heart beating somewhere in the vicinity of your throat. A bath. A borrowed gown. Supper with the heir to the Iron Throne and his wife and his sons and—gods, how many forks were there going to be? You had eaten at Marta's table your whole life. You owned one spoon.

Valarr turned to you, and his expression was a complicated mixture of apology and barely suppressed amusement. "I am going to kill him," he said.

"Your father?"

"My father. Yes. That is the one I meant."

"He did not seem to notice the—" You gestured vaguely at the space between you, where moments ago there had been no space at all.

"Oh, he noticed." Valarr's mouth twitched. "He was looking at the ceiling. My father only looks at the ceiling when he is pretending he has not seen something. He did it when Matarys pushed me into the fountain during his nameday feast. He did it when my mother asked him if her new gown made her look fat. And he did it just now."

You closed your eyes. "I am going to die."

"You are not going to die."

"I am going to embarrass myself so thoroughly that I will wish I were dead. I do not know which fork to use. I do not know how to address a princess. I do not know—"

Valarr took your face in both his hands, gentle and steady, and pressed his lips to your forehead. "You will use whichever fork feels right. You will address my mother as 'my princess' and she will tell you to call her Jena, and you will not call her Jena because you are too polite, and she will like you all the more for it. My father already likes you. Matarys will talk so much that no one will notice if you use the wrong fork." He pulled back and looked at you, his pale eye catching the light. "And I will be beside you the entire time. You will not face any of it alone."

You wanted to argue. You wanted to point out that he was a prince and you were a bastard and that no amount of borrowed gowns would change the fact that you did not belong in a castle dining chamber with people who had been raised to rule. But he was looking at you with those eyes, and his hands were still warm on your face, and you could feel your protests crumbling before they reached your tongue.

"If I faint," you said, "you will have to carry me out."

"If you faint, I will carry you out and tell everyone you were overcome by the excellence of the roast lamb."

"That is not funny."

"It is a little funny."

You pushed his chest, but you were almost smiling, and he caught your hand and pressed a kiss to your palm before lacing his fingers through yours.

"The guest quarters are this way," he said. "The bath will take a little while to fill. In the meantime, I can show you the north tower—it has the best view of the Dragonmont, and there is a particular window where the light hits the stone in a way that makes it look like fire. If you want."

You took a breath. Let it out. Squeezed his hand.

"Show me," you said.

He led you through corridors you had never seen before, the guest quarters, when you reached them, were not as grand as you had feared. The chamber was small but warm, a fire already crackling in the hearth, a canopied bed pushed against one wall with hangings the color of heather. Servants were already moving in and out, carrying copper tubs of steaming water, laying out cloths and jars and things you did not recognize.

Valarr spoke to them in low tones, giving instructions you could not quite hear, and then turned back to you. His hand found yours and squeezed once, briefly.

"The bath will be ready soon," he said. "I will leave you to it."

"You are not staying?" The words came out before you could stop them, sharper than you intended, edged with something that sounded uncomfortably like panic.

Valarr paused. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, not the polite smile he wore in public, but the smaller, more private one that meant he was trying not to laugh at you.

"It would be somewhat improper," he said, "for me to stay while you bathe. Unless you are insisting. In which case I suppose I could be persuaded."

Your face went hot. You could feel the blush spreading from your cheeks to your ears to the base of your throat, and you were suddenly very interested in the pattern of the rug beneath your feet. "I did not mean it like that."

"I know." He stepped closer and pressed a kiss to your forehead, his lips warm and brief against your skin. "I was teasing you. The servants know what they are doing—all you have to do is stand there and let yourself be treated like a doll for an hour or so. Can you manage that?"

"I have never been treated like a doll in my life."

"Then it is long overdue." He pulled back and looked at you, his mismatched eyes soft. "Trust them. I will be back before you know it."

And then he was gone, the door clicking shut behind him, and you were alone with the servants and the steam and the copper tubs and the frightening array of jars and bottles and strange instruments laid out on a side table.

What followed was one of the most mortifying hours of your life.

The servants were efficient and utterly unbothered by your nakedness in a way that only made your nakedness feel more acute. You had bathed yourself your whole life this was nothing like that. This was hands in your hair and warm water poured over your shoulders and something that smelled of lavender massaged into your scalp. This was a rough stone, a pumice stone, one of the women called it, though you had never heard the word, dragged carefully over your elbows and knees and the soles of your feet, scraping away calluses you had earned over years of climbing and kneeling and walking barefoot through the village. This was oil rubbed into your skin until you gleamed like polished wood, and then more oil, a different kind, something that smelled of jasmine and made your skin feel impossibly soft.

They cut your hair. Not much—just the ends, just enough to make it fall evenly down your back instead of straggling in uneven lengths the way it always had. You watched the pale strands drift to the floor and felt a strange pang in your chest, as though they were cutting away some essential part of who you were.

Then came the dress. You had expected something simple. Something modest, in a muted color, appropriate for a village girl who had been invited to supper out of politeness rather than any real desire for her company. What the servants lifted from the wardrobe was not simple.

The gown was lilac a pale, shimmering shade that seemed to shift between purple and silver as it caught the light. The neckline dipped low across the chest, lower than anything you had ever worn, and when you looked down at yourself after it was laced you saw your own body as though for the first time. The cut of the bodice lifted and shaped in ways you had not known were possible. The waist was tight, the sleeves long and fitted, and silver embroidery traced delicate patterns across the whole of it, flowers, you thought, or perhaps vines. The skirts fell in soft folds to the floor, and when you moved they whispered against the stone like a secret.

The girl in the mirror was a stranger. She was beautiful. You could admit that, even if it felt like admitting something shameful. Her skin glowed, soft and luminous from the oils and the pumice and the careful attention of hands that knew how to transform a body into something ornamental. Her collarbones were visible above the neckline, her waist impossibly narrow, her hands usually chapped and reddened from work resting soft and pale against the lilac silk. She looked like a princess. She looked like she belonged in this castle, in this chamber, in this gown. She looked like someone who had never mucked out a goat pen or scrubbed dragon scale from beneath her fingernails or woken before dawn to haul water from the well.

She looked nothing like you. This was what they did, you thought. This was what nobles did every day of their lives. They stood in warm chambers while servants oiled and polished and dressed them, while hands they did not have to thank transformed them into something beautiful enough to be looked at. They wore silk while you had worn patched wool. They ate from silver plates while you had eaten from wooden bowls. They had never once wondered if they belonged at the table because they had never once sat anywhere else.

And here you were, dressed like one of them, looking like one of them, as though a lilac gown and some jasmine oil could erase everything you were and everything you came from.

The door opened behind you. You did not turn. You were still staring at the stranger in the mirror, your hands clenched at your sides, your heart beating too hard against the boning of the borrowed bodice. Footsteps. Then silence. Then Valarr's voice, low and rough and stripped of all composure.

"Gods be good."

You turned. He was standing in the doorway, one hand still on the latch, his cloak gone and his dark hair slightly damp as though he had bathed and dressed in haste. He was wearing a deep blue tunic you had not seen before, silver thread at the collar and cuffs, and his mismatched eyes were wide. His lips were parted. He looked at you the way you had seen villagers look at moonfyre as though something impossible and beautiful was happening in front of him and he did not know whether to speak or kneel or simply stand there and let it burn itself into his memory.

"You look," he said, and stopped. Swallowed. Started again. "You look like the Maiden herself. Reborn. Walking the earth. In my father's guest quarters."

"That is blasphemy," you said, because you did not know what else to say.

"Then I will do penance tomorrow." He crossed the room in three strides and stopped just short of touching you, his hands hovering at your elbows as though he was afraid the gown might dissolve if he made contact. Up close, you could see the faint flush rising along his jaw, the way his throat moved as he swallowed again. "I mean it. You are—I do not have the words. I have read poetry. I have read a great deal of poetry. None of it is adequate."

Your cheeks were warming again, but the resentment was still there, coiled beneath the fluster. "It is the dress. And the oils, and the—the stones, and my hair, and—"

"It is you." His hands found your elbows at last, gentle and steady. "It is you in the dress. It is you with your hair like moonlight and your eyes doing that thing where you are not certain whether to be pleased or to run. It is you, Y/N. The rest is just trimming."

"I do not look like myself," you said quietly.

"No," he agreed. "You look like the person you have always been, only now the outside matches the inside. That is what fine clothes are supposed to do, I think. I have never understood it until now."

You did not know what to say to that. You were not certain there was anything to say. So you stood there, in your borrowed lilac gown, with his hands warm on your elbows and his eyes full of something that looked a great deal like worship, and you let yourself be looked at.

He was still holding your elbows, his thumbs tracing small arcs over the silk, when his expression shifted. The wonder in his face dimmed slightly, replaced by something more careful, more searching.

"You are uncomfortable," he said. "If the dress bothers you, I will find you another. There are a dozen gowns in the wardrobes here—my mother's, my cousins', ones that have been left behind by visiting ladies over the years. Something with a higher neckline, or heavier fabric, or—"

"No." The word came out faster than you intended. You shook your head, your hands smoothing over the lilac skirts almost without your permission. "No, it is not the dress. The dress is…" You struggled for the right word, and failed, and settled for the truth instead. "It is the most beautiful thing I have ever worn. I have never worn anything like it. When I was small, I used to dream about dresses like this."

You had not meant to say that. The confession slipped out before you could catch it, and once it was free you could not pull it back. You remembered those dreams now, sharp and sudden, lying on your pallet in Marta's cottage while the fire burned low, imagining yourself in gowns of silver and gold and deep Targaryen red, imagining a life where you walked into a room and people looked at you not with pity or curiosity but with respect. You had always woken from those dreams feeling foolish. A bastard girl with patched wool and callused hands, dreaming of silk. It was like a goat dreaming of flying.

Valarr's hands tightened on your elbows. "And now you are wearing one."

"Now I am wearing one," you agreed. "And I feel like I have stolen something. Like I walked into a room I was not supposed to enter and put on a gown that belongs to someone else and at any moment someone is going to realize the mistake and send me back where I came from." Your voice was steady, but only just. "I feel like I do not deserve this."

"Y/N—"

"I know what you are going to say."

"You do not," he said quietly, "because what I am going to say is that you deserve this more than anyone I have ever met."

You looked at him. His face was earnest and open and so desperately sincere that it made your chest hurt. And beneath that sincerity, beneath the warmth and the love and the way he was looking at you as though you were the answer to some question he had been asking his whole life, something else stirred. A thought. A question. A splinter of doubt that you could not quite dislodge.

Why?

Why did you deserve it more than anyone? Why did any of this, the dress, the oils, the servants, the castle, the prince who looked at you like you were the Maiden reborn, why did any of it have to be deserved at all? Marta had worked her whole life, her hands gnarled and aching, her back bent over poultices and potions and the bodies of the sick and the dying, and she had never once worn silk. The fishermen who went out before dawn in their leaking boats, the baker's wife who rose at an hour that ought not to exist to knead dough for bread she would never have time to eat warm, the village children who ran barefoot through the mud because shoes cost coin and coin was for food—why did none of them deserve pretty dresses? Why did decency have to be earned? Why was beauty a reward for the few instead of a gift for everyone?

You did not say any of this. You were not certain you knew how to shape the words, or whether Valarr would understand them if you did. He had been raised in a world where some people deserved things and others did not, and he was kind but kindness and understanding were not the same thing.

"Y/N." His voice pulled you back. He was watching you carefully, his head tilted slightly, his pale eye narrowed. "You went somewhere just now. Where did you go?"

"Nowhere." You shook your head and forced a smile. "I am here."

"You are lying. But I will not press you." He lifted one hand from your elbow and offered it to you, palm up. "Come. I told you I would show you how the soup is supposed to go, and I meant it. Father will have told the kitchens to prepare something elaborate—he always does when there are guests—but I can at least warn you which course comes with which implement and when you are supposed to nod politely instead of speaking."

You stared at his outstretched hand. A prince's hand, clean and uncallused, offered to a girl whose palms still bore the faint roughness of work despite the pumice stone's best efforts.

"I am a little scared," you admitted. The words came out small, smaller than you wanted them to.

"I know." His hand did not waver. "You do not have to pretend you are not. I will be beside you the entire time. And if anyone makes you feel unwelcome, I will—"

"What? Challenge them to a duel?"

"I was going to say I would glare at them meaningfully. But a duel is also an option."

Despite everythin you laughed. It was a small laugh, barely more than a breath, but it was real. Valarr smiled, and his hand was still there, waiting.

"Alright," you said, and placed your palm in his. "Show me."

He led you not to the dining chamber to a small room just off the corridor, one you had not seen during his earlier tour. It was not grand. A modest table, two chairs, a sideboard bearing a modest collection of plates and bowls and an array of cutlery that seemed excessive for a room this size. A single window looked out over the darkening sea, the sky going violet at the edges where the sun had begun its slow descent.

"A practice round," Valarr said, pulling out one of the chairs and gesturing for you to sit. "Before the real battle. Every knight drills before a tourney."

You sat. The lilac skirts pooled around you on the chair, and you spent a moment arranging them so you would not trip if you had to stand suddenly. "Is supper a tourney now?"

"Supper with my family can be a trial by combat if you are not prepared. Fortunately, the rules of etiquette are simpler than swordplay. There are only six forks to worry about instead of seven, for instance, and no one is trying to unhorse you."

"Six forks," you repeated, your voice flat.

"Only five, actually. I was exaggerating for dramatic effect. There are three." He pulled the other chair close to yours—close enough that your knees nearly touched—and sat down, reaching for a spoon from the sideboard. "This is the soup spoon. You will know the soup course has arrived because someone will place a bowl of soup in front of you. At that point, you may use this spoon. You dip it away from yourself—so—and you sip from the side, not the front. Like this."

He demonstrated with an imaginary bowl, his movements exaggerated and faintly ridiculous, and you felt some of the tension in your shoulders ease.

"Away from myself," you said. "Side of the spoon. Not the front."

"Exactly. You are already better than Matarys, who once drank his soup directly from the bowl during a formal banquet because he was thirteen and wanted to see what would happen. What happened was that our mother did not speak to him for two days."

You laughed despite yourself. Valarr's eyes crinkled at the corners, pleased.

"The fish fork," he continued, picking up a smaller implement with slightly curved tines, "is for fish. The meat fork is for meat. If you are ever uncertain which to use, watch me. I will use the correct one, and you can follow half a heartbeat behind. No one will notice."

"They will notice."

"They will be looking at Moonfyre's rider. They will be looking at the girl who brought dragons back to House Targaryen. They will not be looking at which fork you are holding. And if they do, they are boors, and their opinion is not worth your concern."

You picked up the fish fork and turned it over in your fingers. It was heavier than it looked, the silver cool against your skin. "You make it sound simple."

"It is simple. You are the one making it complicated."

"I am not—" You stopped, because he was looking at you with that particular expression he wore when he knew he was right and was waiting for you to admit it. "Perhaps I am making it a little complicated."

"Only a little." He reached over and gently extracted the fork from your fingers, setting it back on the sideboard. His hand lingered on yours. "You are also gripping that fork as though you expect it to attempt an escape. Try to hold it more like a writing quill and less like a weapon."

"I have never held a writing quill."

"Then hold it like you hold my hand. Gently. As though you trust it."

Your eyes met his. The room was quiet except for the distant crash of waves against the cliffs, the soft crackle of the torch in its sconce. His thumb traced a slow line across your knuckles.

"You are flirting with me," you said.

"I am always flirting with you. It is one of my defining characteristics." He lifted your hand and pressed a kiss to the center of your palm. "Is it working?"

"A little."

"Only a little. I shall have to try harder." He released your hand and reached for a small plate, holding it up between you like a shield. "Bread. You will tear it with your fingers, not cut it with a knife. Tearing bread with a knife is considered uncouth, though I have never understood why. Bread does not care how it is divided."

"Bread does not care about anything. It is bread."

"Precisely my point. And yet the rules persist." He set the plate down and leaned back in his chair, his knee brushing against yours beneath the table. "You are still nervous."

"I am always nervous."

"I know. But this is a different kind of nervous. You are thinking about forks and soup spoons and whether my mother will like you, and you are forgetting that you have already done something braver than any of them have ever done."

You looked down at your hands, at the faint calluses the pumice stone had not quite managed to erase. "I do not feel brave."

"Bravery is not a feeling. It is an action. You saved a dragon. You flew across the sea. You came back." He tilted his head, catching your gaze and holding it. "What is a soup spoon compared to that?"

"A soup spoon is smaller."

"Much smaller. And less likely to bite you."

"Moonfyre tried biting me once."

"And you survived. You will survive the soup course as well." He smiled, and it was the private smile, the one that crinkled the corners of his mismatched eyes and made him look less like a prince and more like the boy who had sat beside you in a meadow and taught you to read. "If you become overwhelmed during supper, I have a plan."

"What plan?"

"I will feed you."

You stared at him. "You will what?"

"Feed you. Lift morsels to your lips with my own fork. It will be very romantic and deeply inappropriate for a formal dinner, and my father will stare at the ceiling again and you will be so distracted by your embarrassment that you will forget to be nervous about the cutlery."

Your face was hot. "That is the worst plan I have ever heard."

"It is an excellent plan. I have been refining it for hours."

"You have not."

"You are correct, I invented it just now. But I am committed to it. Say the word and I will feed you every course from soup to sweetcake."

"Please do not feed me at your father's table."

He sighed with theatrical regret. "Very well. But the offer remains open. If you find yourself paralyzed by the weight of silverware, simply look at me. I will know what it means."

"You will know what what means? I do not even know what it means."

"I will know." He stood and offered you his hand, the same gesture he had made in the guest quarters, patient and steady and sure. "Are you ready? The soup is waiting, and I have it on good authority that it is leek and potato. My father is very fond of leek and potato. He will talk about it at length. You need only nod and make appreciative sounds."

You took his hand and rose, the lilac skirts settling around you with a whisper. "Appreciative sounds I can manage."

"I never doubted you for a moment." He tucked your hand into the crook of his elbow and led you toward the door. Just before you reached it, he paused and leaned close, his breath warm against your ear. "You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. You are the rider of the first dragon in seventy years. You are stronger than anyone in that dining chamber, and kinder, and braver. The forks are irrelevant. The soup is irrelevant. You could eat with your hands and my mother would still adore you."

"She would not."

"She would. She told me so."

You did not trust yourself to speak. So you tightened your hand on his arm and let him lead you into the corridor, toward the dining chamber and the soup and whatever lay beyond.

The small dining chamber was not what you had expected. You had imagined something vast and echoing but this room was intimate, almost cozy, its walls hung with tapestries in warm shades of gold and russet, its hearth fire casting dancing shadows across a table set for five. Candles flickered in iron holders. The smell of roasted meat and fresh bread drifted from somewhere nearby. It was, you realized with a jolt, a room meant for family.

The family was already there. Baelor stood near the hearth, a goblet in his hand, his dark beard catching the firelight as he turned toward the door. He smiled when he saw you and inclined his head in greeting. Beside him, a woman had risen from her chair.

She was not tall. That was the first thing you noticed. Princess Jena Dondarrion was small and fine boned, with hair the color of autumn leaves and eyes the pale, clear blue of a winter sky. She was not beautiful in the way the songs described princesses. Her face was too sharp for that, her nose slightly aquiline, her mouth set in a line that suggested she spent more time thinking than smiling. But there was something striking about her nonetheless, a quiet intensity, a sense of coiled intelligence behind those pale eyes.

The young man sprawled in the chair beside her could only be Matarys. He had his mother's coloring, though on him the hair curled wildly around his ears and the eyes held a restless, mischievous gleam. He was handsome, you supposed, in a way that was less polished than Valarr's careful composure. Where Valarr was stillness and duty, Matarys seemed to be barely contained motion, his fingers drumming against the arm of his chair, his leg bouncing beneath the table. He was watching you with undisguised curiosity, and when your eyes met his, he grinned.

You dropped into a curtsy before you could lose your nerve, gripping the sides of your borrowed skirts the way Valarr had shown you in the practice room. "My prince's. My princess. I am honored to be received."

The words felt stiff in your mouth, rehearsed and foreign, but Jena's expression softened slightly at the edges, and Baelor raised his goblet in a small toast. "The honor is ours," he said. "Please, sit. You are not a petitioner tonight, Y/N. You are a guest."

Valarr's hand found the small of your back, a brief, steadying pressure, and he guided you to the chair beside his. The table was round, not long, and you found yourself seated between Valarr and Matarys, directly across from Jena. Baelor took the chair beside his wife, setting down his goblet with a soft clunk.

Servants appeared as if conjured, pouring wine into your goblet—a pale gold, not the deep red you had expected—and setting down bowls of soup. Leek and potato, just as Valarr had predicted. Steam curled upward, fragrant and warm.

"So," Matarys said, before anyone else could speak. "You are the dragon girl."

"Matarys," Jena said, her voice quiet but carrying a warning.

"What? I am only stating a fact. She is a girl, and she has a dragon. That makes her the dragon girl." He leaned forward, his blue eyes bright with curiosity. "Is it true she sleeps curled around you like a cat? Valarr said she sleeps curled around you like a cat."

"Matarys," Valarr said, in a tone that was considerably less patient than his mother's.

"I am only asking what everyone is thinking. You cannot blame me for being curious. There has not been a living dragon in seventy years, and now one is napping not half a league from where I sleep, and I am not allowed to see her." He turned to you, his expression plaintive. "Do you know what that is like? It is like being told there is a feast in the next room but you are not permitted to leave your chair."

You picked up your soup spoon, remembering Valarr's instructions. Away from yourself. Sip from the side. The soup was hot and creamy and rich in a way that village soup never was real cream, you thought, and butter, and herbs you could not name.

"Moonfyre does not curl around me like a cat," you said, after you had swallowed. "She is much larger than a cat."

"But she does curl around you?"

"Sometimes. When she is cold."

Matarys looked at Valarr with an expression of profound vindication. "She does curl around her like a cat."

"I never said she did not," Valarr muttered into his soup.

Baelor chuckled, a low, warm sound. "Let the girl eat, Matarys. You can interrogate her after the fish course."

The conversation eased after that, settling into something that felt almost natural. Jena asked you about the village how long you had lived there, whether the fishing had been good this season, if the storms had damaged any of the cottages. Her questions were practical, straightforward, the questions of a woman who had learned to manage a household and was genuinely interested in how other people managed theirs. You answered as best you could, and when you stumbled over a word or forgot to address her as "my princess," she did not correct you. She only nodded and asked another question.

Baelor asked about Marta, how long she had been a healer, what remedies she used for winter fever, whether she had ever trained with a maester. You told him she had learned from her mother and her mother before her, that she knew every herb on Dragonstone and what it cured, that she had never lost a mother in childbirth. Baelor listened with genuine interest, his eyes thoughtful, and when you finished he said, "She sounds like a remarkable woman. I should like to meet her properly one day."

The fish course came and went. You used the fish fork without incident, though you caught Valarr watching you with a small, private smile when you picked it up. His knee pressed against yours beneath the table, a warm point of contact that anchored you when your nerves began to fray.

It was Baelor who raised the question you had been dreading. "Y/N," he said, setting down his knife, his voice gentle but curious. "You have the look of our house, it is unmistakable. Have you any idea who your Targaryen parent might have been?"

The table went quiet. Not the awkward quiet of people who were embarrassed for you, but the attentive quiet of people who were genuinely interested. Even Matarys stopped fidgeting. You took a sip of wine to buy yourself a moment. The goblet was cool against your fingers.

"No, my prince," you said. "I was found abandoned. Marta took me in when I was only a few days old, or so she says. There was nothing with me—no note, no token, no clue to who my parents might have been. I do not even know if it was my mother or my father who had the Targaryen blood."

Jena exchanged a glance with Baelor, something unreadable passing between them. "That is a hard beginning," she said quietly.

"It was not so hard. Marta was good to me. I had food and a roof and someone who loved me." You paused, your thumb tracing the rim of your goblet. "I have wondered, of course. Every child wonders. But after a while, I stopped. It did not matter who my parents were. What mattered was who I was."

Valarr's hand found yours beneath the table, his fingers lacing through yours and squeezing once.

"That is a wise perspective," Baelor said. "Wiser than many who have had easier beginnings." He did not press further, and you were grateful.

The conversation shifted, turning toward lighter things, the upcoming harvest festival in the village, the quality of the wine from the Arbor, a horse that Matarys had tried to ride and been thrown from. Matarys told this story with great enthusiasm, describing his ignominious fall into a mud puddle with the kind of dramatic detail that made even Jena's stern mouth twitch toward a smile.

Then he turned to you, his blue eyes bright with renewed curiosity.

"Valarr told us something else about you," he said, and something in his tone made you wary. "He said you admire the late Princess Baela. The rider of Moondancer."

You blinked. "He told you that?"

"He tells me many things. I am his favorite brother."

"I am his only brother," Matarys said, unperturbed. "But yes. He said you are fascinated with her. That you named your dragon after hers. Moonfyre, Moondancer. It is a tribute, is it not?"

You glanced at Valarr. He was looking at his plate, his jaw slightly tight, as though he had not expected Matarys to bring this up at supper and was already regretting ever telling him anything.

"It is," you said, turning back to Matarys. "Marta used to tell me the old stories when I was small. The Dance of the Dragons, the conquest, all of it. But I always liked Baela best. She was not the heir or the queen or the one the songs were written about. She was just—brave. Fierce. Loyal to the people she loved. She rode Moondancer against Sunfyre even though she knew she would lose. She did it anyway."

"That is why you like her? Because she lost?"

"Because she fought." You had not meant to say it so forcefully, but the words came out steady and sure. "Because she did not wait for someone else to save her. Because she made her own choices and she stood by them, even when they cost her everything, reading it myself with Valarr's help only made me adore her even more."

"Valarr taught you to read," Baelor said, breaking the silence. It was not quite a question.

"Yes, my prince. He has been lending me books from the castle library. Histories, mostly. Some legends."

"That is impressive," Baelor said, and he sounded as though he meant it. "To learn so quickly, and to read well enough to tackle the histories. You have a sharp mind, Y/N."

You felt heat rise to your cheeks. "I had a good teacher." Valarr's hand tightened on yours beneath the table.

"Valarr is many things," Jena said, her voice dry, "but patient is not usually among them. He must have made an exception for you."

"I am very patient," Valarr said, with a touch of indignation.

"You once threw a book at your septa because she corrected your High Valyrian pronunciation."

"I was eight."

"And you missed. Your aim has never been good."

Matarys let out a bark of laughter. Baelor hid a smile behind his goblet. Valarr looked at his mother with an expression of profound betrayal, and you found yourself laughing too, a real laugh, startled out of you before you could stifle it.

Jena's pale blue eyes shifted to you, and her expression was no longer unreadable. She was smiling, a small, private smile that softened the sharp lines of her face and made her look almost warm.

"I am glad to finally meet you," she said. "Truly. I have wondered what kind of girl could make my son sleep in a peasant's cottage."

"Mother—" Valarr began, but Jena continued as though he had not spoken.

"Do you know, when he was a child, he used to follow his father on hunting trips. He insisted he wanted to be a knight, wanted to learn woodcraft and survival and all the things a future king ought to know. And then he would come back after three days in the forest and cry to me because the bedroll was lumpy and the ground was cold and his tent had leaked in the rain." She took a sip of her wine, her eyes never leaving your face. "He was a fastidious child. Very particular about his pillows. I had to have special ones made for him—goose down, with silk covers, because the wool ones gave him a rash."

"Mother," Valarr said, and his voice was pained.

"And yet now he sleeps every night on a straw pallet in a village cottage, with a roof that leaks and a hearth that smokes and an old woman who apparently throws slippers at his head." Jena set down her goblet. "He has not complained once. Not a single letter home lamenting the accommodations. So you must be something quite extraordinary."

You did not know where to look. Your face was burning, and Valarr's hand had gone rigid in yours, and Matarys was grinning like a fool.

"I do not think it is me," you managed. "Marta's cottage is very comfortable. The straw is fresh, and she keeps the hearth clean, and—"

"And you are there," Jena said simply. "That is the difference. He would sleep on a stone floor if you were beside him."

"Mother," Valarr said again, and this time his voice cracked slightly.

Jena smiled at him—a real smile, full of affection and amusement and something gentler beneath. "I am not mocking you, my son. I am glad. It is good to see you sleep somewhere willingly. You were always a restless child. You used to wake in the night and crawl into our bed because you had dreamed of dragons."

The word hung in the air for a moment. Matarys opened his mouth, probably to make some joke, but Jena silenced him with a single look.

"I am glad you found your dragon," she said to Valarr, and then her pale eyes shifted back to you. "And I am glad you found her."

You did not know what to say to that. You were not certain there was anything adequate. So you simply met her eyes and said, "Thank you, my princess. I am glad too." Beneath the table, Valarr's hand turned in yours, his palm warm and steady.

The meat course arrived a tender cut of lamb, pink at the center, dressed with rosemary and garlic and some kind of dark wine reduction that you did not know the name for. You used the meat fork. Valarr's knee remained pressed against yours beneath the table, steady as a heartbeat.

It was Baelor who brought the subject around, setting down his knife with a soft clink and folding his hands on the table before him. His expression was thoughtful, the same expression he had worn in the corridor when he told you to stay for supper, warm, but measured. A prince making a decision.

"I wrote to my father," he said. "The King. I told him about Moonfyre."

Your hand stilled on your fork. The lamb was suddenly very difficult to swallow. King Daeron the man whose word was law, whose temper you had never seen, whose opinion could change everything. You had known this moment would come. You had known, in some way, that the King would have to be told. But knowing and hearing it spoken aloud at a family supper were two very different things.

"What did he say?" Matarys asked, leaning forward with undisguised eagerness. "Did he believe you? Is he coming here? Does he want to see the dragon?"

Baelor held up a hand, silencing his younger son with the gesture. "He did not believe me."

The silence that followed was not shocked. It was confused, uncertain, the silence of people who had been expecting one answer and received another entirely.

"What do you mean, he did not believe you?" Valarr's voice was careful, but there was an edge to it. "You wrote to him yourself. In your own hand. With your own seal."

"I did. And he read the letter, and he concluded that it was not from me at all." Baelor's mouth twitched. "He thought Matarys had written it. As a joke."

Matarys blinked. Then his face broke into a grin of such pure, delighted mischief that he looked about twelve years old. "He thought I wrote it?"

“He complimented the attention to detail.”

You pressed your napkin to your mouth, but it was too late. A laugh had already risen in your throat, sharp and sudden and entirely inappropriate for a formal supper with the royal family. You tried to swallow it. You failed. It came out as a strangled sort of cough, and then another, and then you had to take a long drink of wine to keep from laughing outright.

Valarr looked at you with concern. "Are you alright?"

"Fine," you managed, your voice slightly strangled. "Perfectly fine. I was only thinking—" You set down your goblet and met Baelor's eyes. You could feel the corners of your mouth twitching. "He did not believe you."

"No."

Baelor's dark eyes were steady on yours, and there was something in them, recognition, perhaps, or wry amusement, or the shared understanding of two people who had learned the same lesson in very different ways. "That is precisely what he decided."

You took a breath and folded your hands in your lap, composing yourself with an effort that felt almost physical. "I cannot imagine," you said, very carefully, "how that would feel. Truly. To tell someone the truth, something you have seen with your own eyes, something you know to be real—and to have them smile and nod and think you are making it up. To have them be so certain they know better that they dismiss you without even bothering to investigate." You met Baelor's gaze and held it. "I cannot imagine that at all."

Baelor looked at you for a long moment. Then he let out a breath that was not quite a laugh, not quite a sigh, and lifted his goblet.

"Well played," he said quietly.

Jena was watching you with those pale blue eyes, her expression unreadable but not unkind. Matarys was looking between his father and you with the air of someone who had just watched a very entertaining joust and was not quite sure who had won. Valarr's hand found yours beneath the table again, and when you glanced at him, his mismatched eyes were bright with something that looked a great deal like amusement.

"He will believe you eventually," you said to Baelor, your voice softer now. "When he sees Moonfyre for himself. When she is standing in front of him, real and solid and breathing fire. He will have to believe you then."

"Yes," Baelor said. "He will. And when that day comes, I intend to remind him of this letter. Frequently. In great detail." He paused, and a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth—the same smile you had seen on Valarr a hundred times, rueful and self deprecating and entirely genuine. "I suspect you may understand something of that impulse as well."

"I might," you said. "A little."

—

The guest chamber was too quiet. You had been lying in the dark for what felt like hours, the canopy above you a deeper shade of shadow against the ceiling, the fire burned down to embers that pulsed faintly in the hearth like a heartbeat made of light. The bed was soft, softer than anything you had ever slept on, goose down and fine linen and pillows that smelled of lavender. It should have been wonderful. It should have been the most comfortable night of your life.

You could not sleep. Your body was exhausted, heavy with the weight of the evening, the soup and the fish and the lamb, the wine and the candles and the way Jena had looked at you when she said I am glad you found her. But your mind would not stop turning. It circled the same thoughts over and over, a crow picking at old bones. King Daeron did not believe Baelor. The King thought the letter was a joke. The King would have to be convinced, would have to see Moonfyre with his own eyes, and what if he believed and was afraid, or what if he believed and wanted to take her—

A knock at the door. Soft, hesitant, barely audible over the distant crash of the waves. You sat up, your heart lurching. "Who is there?"

"Only me." Valarr's voice, muffled through the wood. "I saw the light beneath your door. You are not sleeping."

"I am sleeping. This is a dream. You are speaking to a sleeping person."

"May I come in? Or shall I continue this conversation with the door?"

You hesitated. It was late, very late, the hour when respectable girls were asleep in their beds and respectable princes were asleep in theirs. But you were not a respectable girl, not really, and Valarr had never been a particularly respectable prince. He had slept beside you in Marta's cottage for nights now, his arm around your waist, his breath warm against your hair. The servants would talk. The servants were probably already talking. What was one more transgression?

"Come in," you said. The door opened just wide enough for him to slip through, and then it clicked shut behind him. He was dressed for sleep a loose tunic, soft breeches, his feet bare against the stone floor. His dark hair was rumpled, the silver streak catching the firelight, and his mismatched eyes found you in the darkness without difficulty.

"You could not sleep either," you said.

"Your chamber is next mine. I could hear you thinking."

"That is impossible."

"Nevertheless." He crossed the room and stood beside the bed, looking down at you with an expression that was half affection and half exhaustion. "Would you like some company? I find that thinking is easier to bear when there is someone else to share the weight of it."

You did not answer with words. You only shifted over, making room, and pulled back the edge of the blanket in invitation. He climbed in beside you with the practiced ease of someone who had done this many times before. The mattress dipped beneath his weight, and then his arm was around your waist and your head was tucked against his shoulder and the lavender-scented pillows were forgotten because there was nothing in the world that smelled quite like him salt and leather and something warm and clean that you had come to associate with safety.

For a long moment, neither of you spoke. The fire crackled softly. The waves crashed against the cliffs below. His hand traced slow, idle patterns on your back through the thin fabric of your borrowed nightgown.

"Do you like it here?" he asked quietly. "Staying in the castle, I mean. Is it comfortable?" You considered the question. The bed was comfortable. The bath had been mortifying but the results were undeniable. The food was richer than anything you had ever eaten. The chamber was warm and dry and did not smell of goat or herbs or the particular mustiness that crept into Marta's cottage when it rained.

"It is comfortable," you said. "Very comfortable."

"And Moonfyre would be comfortable here too."

You tilted your head back to look at him. His profile was sharp against the firelight, his pale eye gleaming, his mouth set in the careful line of someone who was trying very hard to sound casual and not quite succeeding.

"What do you mean?"

"The castle and the caves are one and the same," he said. "The Dragonmont runs beneath Dragonstone like a web of veins. You have seen the eastern tunnels—they connect to the castle cellars, to the old hatcheries, to chambers that were built for the express purpose of housing dragons. If Moonfyre lived here, she would have a proper resting place. Warm stone. Hot springs. Room to grow. She would not have to sleep in a cave that is also a thoroughfare for goats and curious village children."

"Moonfyre likes the cave."

"I am not saying she does not. But she has grown, Y/N. She is larger than she was when you found her, and she will keep growing. The cave will not fit her forever. And—" He hesitated, his hand stilling on your back. "And she has knocked things over. In the village."

You winced. That was true. Moonfyre had knocked things over. The baker's fence, for one, when she had decided she wanted to follow you into the village and her tail had swung a little too wide. Old Tom's drying rack, which had been laden with salted fish and had gone crashing to the ground in a shower of scales and splinters. No one had been hurt, but people had screamed. People had run. People had grabbed their children and looked at your dragon with terror in their eyes, and Moonfyre had hissed at them because she did not understand why they were screaming, and you had spent an hour calming her down and another hour apologizing to everyone in the village and another hour after that sitting in Marta's cottage with your head in your hands.

"The villagers are afraid of her," you said quietly.

"Some of them. Not all. But enough." His hand resumed its slow pattern on your back. "It is not their fault. They have never seen a dragon before. They do not know her the way you do. They see teeth and claws and fire, and they are afraid, and fear makes people do foolish things. I do not want anyone to do something foolish and force Moonfyre to defend herself."

You closed your eyes. The image was too easy to summon, a frightened villager with a pitchfork, a dragon who did not understand the threat, fire where there should not be fire. "Neither do I."

"Dragonstone is called Dragonstone for a reason," Valarr said, and his voice was gentle but insistent, the voice of someone who had been thinking about this for a long time and had finally found the courage to speak. "It is the seat of dragonlords. It was built by my ancestors for this exact purpose—to house dragons and their riders, to be a place where both could thrive. The old hatcheries are still warm. The Dragonmont is full of caves and tunnels and chambers that have not been used in seventy years but are still there, still waiting. Moonfyre could have the run of them. She could fly from the mountain and return to the mountain, and no one would scream or run or grab a pitchfork. She would be safe here. You would both be safe here."

You were quiet. His words settled into the space between you, heavy and warm and impossible to ignore.

"I do not want to leave Marta alone," you said finally. The words came out smaller than you intended.

Valarr's arm tightened around you. "You would not have to."

"She would never agree to leave the village. That cottage is her home. She has lived there since before I was born—before she found me. She knows every creak in the floorboards and every crack in the hearth and exactly where the roof leaks when the wind blows from the east. She would never leave it."

"Then we will not ask her to leave it." He shifted, propping himself up on one elbow so he could look down at you. The firelight caught the silver streak in his hair, turned it to molten moonlight. "I will take care of her. Servants to fetch her water so she does not have to haul it from the well. Guards to keep her safe. A girl to help with her herbs and her remedies and whatever else she needs. She will be treated like a lady of the castle, even if she chooses to stay in her cottage. She raised you. She kept you safe when no one else would. The least I can do is make sure she never has to work herself to the bone again."

Your throat was tight. "She will throw a slipper at the servants. She does not like people fussing over her."

"Then the servants will learn to duck." He reached down and brushed a strand of hair from your face, his fingers lingering against your temple. "You are not choosing between Marta and the castle, Y/N. You are not abandoning her. You are simply moving a little further up the mountain. She can visit whenever she likes. You can visit whenever you like. The distance is not so great that you cannot walk it in an afternoon."

You looked up at him. His face was open and earnest, his mismatched eyes soft with concern, and you could see the care he had put into this, he way he had thought through every objection, every fear, every reason you might say no.

"And what would I do here?" you asked. "In this castle. What would my life be?"

"You would learn," he said. "How to be a dragonrider. A true dragonrider. Not just someone who clings to Moonfyre's back and hopes for the best, but someone who knows how to fly and fight and command. There are books in the library—old books, from before the Dance, written by dragonriders for their children. There are records of techniques, of commands, of ways to bond with your dragon that have been forgotten for generations. You could learn all of it. You could become something the realm has not seen in seventy years."

"And beyond that? When I am not flying?"

He smiled, a small, private smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes. "Beyond that, you could learn whatever you wished. History. Languages. Music. Statecraft. You have a sharp mind—my father said so himself. You could put it to use. You could become a lady who impresses the King when he finally arrives and sees Moonfyre for himself. You could become someone who does not feel out of place at a supper table with six forks."

"There were only three forks."

"Three forks tonight. There will be more at the Red Keep."

You laughed despite yourself, a soft huff of air that was half exhaustion and half something warmer. "You are very good at this."

"At what?"

"Making me feel as though the world is not quite so terrifying as I thought it was."

His expression softened. He leaned down and pressed a kiss to your forehead, his lips warm and brief against your skin. "I am only telling you the truth. You are not alone in this. You never have to be alone again. Whatever you decide—whether you stay in the village or move to the castle or fly off on Moonfyre and never come back—I will be there. I will take care of Marta. I will take care of you. That is not a negotiation. It is a promise."

You reached up and touched his face, your fingers tracing the line of his jaw, the curve of his cheekbone, the place where his dark hair gave way to that single silver streak. He closed his eyes at the touch, leaning into it like a cat seeking warmth.

"Stay," you said. "Tonight. Just stay."

"I was not planning to leave."

"Good." You tugged him back down to the pillows, settling yourself against his side with your head on his shoulder and your hand over his heart. His arm wrapped around you, solid and steady, and his lips pressed once more to the top of your head.

"Goodnight, Y/N," he murmured.

"Goodnight, Valarr."

The fire crackled. The waves crashed. And somewhere deep in the mountain, a dragon slept in a warm cave, dreaming of the sky.

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Bastards, Dragons and Royals: Home

Valarr Targaryen x Dragonseed!reader

Part five

reader info / note: yn is a targaryen dragonseed, but her parentage is completely unknown on purpose so you can project however you want the only fixed thing is that you have at least one valyrian feature so silver hair and/or purple eyes, because it needs to be obvious you’ve got targaryen blood everything else is up to you

Summary: In which you come back

WC:21K

The decision to return was easy. The actual returning was not.

You had imagined, in the hazy golden hours on your island, that flying back to Dragonstone would feel like coming home. That the sight of those familiar black cliffs rising from the sea would fill you with warmth, with relief, with the bone deep comfort of returning to the only place you had ever belonged. But as the morning wore on and the sun climbed higher and the endless blue of the ocean stretched beneath you in every direction, you discovered that your stomach had twisted itself into knots that had nothing to do with hunger.

The flight itself was different now. You had changed in the days you spent on your little island, changed in ways that were still settling into your body like stones finding their place in a stream bed. Your muscles had learned the rhythm of Moonfyre's wings, the way she rose and fell on the currents, the subtle shift of her weight that preceded a bank or a dive. Your hands rested firm but relaxed against her scales, no longer the desperate white knuckled grip of a girl terrified of falling. Your legs settled easily against the warm curve of her neck. Your body moved with hers now instead of merely clinging to her, a harmony you had not expected and still did not fully understand.

You did not know what you would find when you arrived. You did not know if Marta would be furious or relieved, if Valarr would be angry or heartbroken or simply gone, if the villagers would stare at you the way they always had or if they would look at you differently now that you were returning on the back of a dragon. You did not know if you were ready to face any of it. But you had to try. You owed Marta that much. You owed yourself that much.

The sun stood high and white by the time Dragonstone appeared on the horizon. At first it was only a smudge of grey against the blue, a shadow that slowly sharpened into the jagged cliffs and towering peaks you knew so intimately you could have drawn them in your sleep. The Dragonmont rose above it all, its summit lost in its perpetual shroud of mist and smoke, and the castle clung to the mountainside like something ancient and patient, its dark towers reaching toward the sky.

Your heart clenched at the sight. You had never thought of Dragonstone as beautiful before. It was too harsh for beauty, too grey, too full of wind and salt and the constant gnawing cold that seeped into your bones and never quite left. But seeing it now, after days away, you felt something complicated move through your chest. Something that might have been love or might have been grief or might have been both at once. It was your home.

Moonfyre sensed the shift in your mood. She turned her head slightly, one golden eye fixing on you with a questioning look, and you reached forward to pat her scales.

"I'm alright," you said, though the wind tore the words away before they reached your own ears. "Just nervous."

She made a low sound, a rumble that vibrated through her body and into yours, and some of the tension in your shoulders loosened. She was with you. Whatever waited below, however the village and the castle and the people in them reacted to your return, she would be with you. You were not alone anymore. You would never be alone again.

As you drew closer, details began to resolve themselves from the grey expanse of the island. The familiar curve of the eastern cliffs, where you had gathered bitter herbs a thousand times. The village itself, a huddle of stone roofs clustered against the mountainside, looking smaller and more fragile than you remembered. The castle above it, its walls dark and imposing, its banners snapping in the constant wind. And the caves, the network of tunnels and chambers that honeycombed the Dragonmont, where you had found a wounded dragon shivering in the darkness and everything you believed about yourself had been proven true.

You had planned to fly directly to those caves. That was the strategy you had worked out in your head during the long hours over the water. Land in the familiar darkness of the eastern tunnels, out of sight, where you could dismount and gather yourself and decide what to do next. You did not want to announce your return to the entire island. Not yet. You needed time to think, to prepare, to figure out what you were going to say to Marta and Valarr and anyone else who asked where you had been.

But plans, as you were learning, had a way of crumbling the moment they touched reality.

Moonfyre flew over the island, her shadow racing across grey cliffs and green slopes and the huddled grey roofs of the village below. And the people saw her.

At first, it was only a few faces turning upward. A few hands pointing at the sky. You saw them from above, tiny figures frozen in place, their mouths opening in sounds you could not hear. Then more faces turned, and more, and the pointing hands became waving arms, and the open mouths became screams that drifted up to you on the wind, faint but unmistakable.

Dragon. Dragon. Dragon.

The word spread through the village like fire catching in dry grass. You could see it happening, the ripple of movement as people dropped their baskets and their fishing nets and their tools and ran. Some ran toward the castle, seeking the shelter of its ancient walls. Some ran toward their homes, snatching up children and pulling them inside. Some simply stood frozen, staring up at the sky with faces bleached white by terror, their bodies rigid with disbelief.

The screaming grew louder as Moonfyre flew lower. You could make out individual voices now, high and thin and desperate, crying out to gods and guards and anyone who might save them from the monster blotting out the sun. You saw a woman grab her child and fling herself through a doorway. You saw an old man collapse to his knees, his hands raised in prayer or surrender. You saw a knot of fishermen scrambling to shove their boat back into the water, as if the sea could protect them from a creature that ruled the sky.

"Moonfyre," you said, your voice taut with a worry you were trying very hard not to feel. "Fly higher. Faster. We need to reach the caves."

But Moonfyre did not seem to hear you. She had gone rigid beneath your hands, every muscle in her vast body drawn tight. Her head swept from side to side, her golden eyes darting across the chaos below, and you could feel the change in her through the scales beneath your palms. She was agitated. Disturbed. The screams were reaching her, and they were doing something to her you had not anticipated and did not know how to control.

You had never seen Moonfyre around other people before. You had only ever known her in the cave and on your island, in darkness and in solitude, with no company but yours. You had assumed she would be calm. You had assumed she would follow your lead, that she would trust you to keep her safe. But the screams were waking something in her. You could feel it in the way her muscles bunched and tightened, in the way her breathing grew faster and harsher, in the way a low and threatening growl began to build deep in her chest.

"It's alright," you said, fighting to keep your voice steady even as your heart began to hammer against your ribs. "It's alright, sweet girl. They're scared, that's all. They've never seen a dragon. They don't know you're good. Just keep flying. We're almost there."

The growl deepened. You felt it vibrating through her entire body, a resonant and terrible sound that was nothing like the gentle purring she made when you curled together on the beach. This was a warning. A threat. The sound of a predator who felt cornered, who felt threatened, who was trying to decide between flight and fight.

You tightened your grip on her scales, your mind spinning. This was bad. This was so much worse than you had prepared for. You had been so focused on your own return, on what you would say and do and feel when you saw Marta and Valarr and the village again, that you had not paused to consider how the village would react to seeing a dragon for the first time in seventy years. Of course they were screaming. Of course they were panicking. To them, dragons were monsters from old stories, creatures of fire and blood and ruin. They did not know Moonfyre. They did not know that she was gentle and affectionate and liked to have the ridge behind her eye scratched. They did not know she brought you roasted goats and curled around you while you slept. They saw only the teeth and the claws and the wings that blocked out the sun.

And Moonfyre did not know them. She did not understand that their screams came from fear, not from aggression. She did not grasp that they were running away from her, not toward her. All she knew was noise and motion and a hundred pairs of eyes fixed on her, and every ancient instinct in her body was screaming at her to defend herself.

"Moonfyre, please," you said, leaning forward, pressing your face against the warmth of her scales. "Please, just get us to the caves. I can see them. We're almost there. Just a little farther."

She let out a sound that was half growl and half shriek, a piercing cry that echoed off the cliffs and made the screams from below double in intensity. You saw people throwing themselves to the ground, covering their heads with their arms, waiting for the fire they were certain was coming. But Moonfyre did not breathe fire. She just kept flying, her wings beating harder and faster, her body trembling with the effort of restraint.

The cave entrance appeared ahead of you, a dark slash in the grey face of the Dragonmont. It looked so small from the air, so inconsequential, just a shadow among shadows. But you knew it intimately. You had walked through that opening a thousand times, had trailed your fingers along its rough walls, had felt the temperature shift as you descended from the cold salt wind into the warm and motionless dark of the tunnels. It was your place. Your secret. The place where everything had changed.

Moonfyre dove. The descent was faster than anything you had experienced before. Her wings folded back, her body streamlined, the wind screaming past your ears with a sound like tearing silk. You held on with everything you had, your fingers buried in her scales, your legs clamped around her neck, your face pressed into her spine. The cave entrance rushed up to meet you, growing larger and larger, and for one terrifying instant you were certain she was going to crash into the cliff face, that you were both going to die in a shatter of stone and bone and torn wing membrane.

But at the last possible moment, she spread her wings and slowed. Her body tilted. Her claws reached out and caught the lip of the cave entrance. She landed hard, the impact jarring through your whole body like a physical blow, and then she was inside, folding herself into the darkness of the tunnel with a speed that spoke of desperation. She scrambled deeper, away from the entrance, away from the light, away from the screams that still rang outside.

You slid from her back the moment she stopped moving. Your legs buckled when you hit the stone, and you had to catch yourself against the wall, your heart slamming, your whole body shuddering with the aftermath of adrenaline. The cave was dark and warm and blessedly familiar, the walls rough beneath your palms, the air thick with the smell of sulfur and old rock. You could hear Moonfyre's breathing, harsh and ragged, and you could see her in the dim glow filtering from the entrance. Her pale scales gleamed. Her golden eyes were wild and unfocused.

She was not calm. She was anything but calm. She paced the chamber like a caged thing, her claws scraping against the stone, her tail lashing with a violence that made the air whistle. Her wings were half spread, the membranes quivering, and her head hung low, her jaws parted, that terrible growl still rumbling in her chest. Every few seconds she would whip toward the cave entrance and let out a hiss, a sharp and warning sound that lifted the hair on the back of your neck.

"Moonfyre." You kept your voice low and steady, the same voice you had used when you first found her, wounded and terrified and ready to snap your head off at the neck. "Moonfyre, it's alright now. We're safe. We're in the cave. No one is going to hurt you."

She did not seem to hear you. Her eyes remained fixed on the entrance, her body coiled and ready, braced to strike at anything that came through. The screams from outside were fainter now, muffled by the stone, but you could still hear them. And so could she. Every distant cry made her flinch, made her snarl, made her pace faster and harder.

You approached her slowly, carefully, your hands raised, your movements deliberate and unthreatening. You had done this before. You had done it a hundred times in those early days, when she was still wild and wounded and did not trust the sound of your voice or the smell of your skin. You knew how to move, how to speak, how to make yourself small and harmless. But this was different. This was not a wounded dragon too weak to fight. This was a strong and healthy dragon, terrified and agitated and not understanding what was happening around her.

"It's only noise," you said, taking another step closer. "Just noise, Moonfyre. It can't hurt you. The people out there, they're more afraid of you than you are of them. They've never seen a dragon before. They don't understand. But I understand. I know you. I know you would never hurt anyone."

She swung toward you suddenly, her head whipping around, her golden eyes locking onto your face. And for one suspended, heart stopping moment, you saw something in those eyes that was not affection or recognition or trust. You saw the wildness. The ancient, primal instinct that lived in the marrow of every dragon. The part of her that was not your companion, not your friend, but a predator. A force of nature. A creature of fire and blood and terrible, beautiful power.

Then she blinked. The wildness receded. And she was Moonfyre again, your Moonfyre, the dragon who cuddled with you on the sand and brought you roasted goats and purred like a kitten when you found the right spot behind her jaw.

She made a small, questioning chirp and lowered her head, pressing her snout against your chest. You wrapped your arms around her and held on, your hands stroking her warm scales, your voice a steady and soothing murmur in the darkness.

"I know," you whispered. "I know, sweet girl. That was frightening. That was so frightening. But we're safe now. We're safe. The cave is safe. You've always been safe here."

She chirped again, softer this time, and you felt the tension begin to drain from her body. The growl faded from her chest. Her wings folded slowly back against her sides. She was still agitated, you could feel it in the twitch of her tail and the way her ears kept flicking toward the entrance. But she was calming. She was coming back to herself, and to you.

You stayed like that for a long time. Your arms around her neck. Your face pressed to the warm curve of her scales. Breathing slow and steady until her breathing slowed to match yours. The screams from outside faded into silence, replaced by the distant crash of the sea and the whisper of wind through the tunnels. The cave was warm and dark and quiet. You were together. And that was enough. That had to be enough.

"Those people out there," you said at last, your voice still soft, your hands still moving over her scales in slow and rhythmic strokes, "they've never seen anything like you. They grew up on stories about dragons. Terrible stories. Stories about fire and death and the Dance. They don't know that dragons can be gentle. They don't know that dragons can love. They only know what the old tales told them."

Moonfyre made a low sound, almost sorrowful, and you held her tighter.

"But they're going to learn. They're going to learn that you're not a monster. They're going to learn that you're my friend, my family, my..." You stopped, swallowing against the thickness in your throat. "My everything. And if they can't accept that, if they can't accept you, then we'll leave. We'll go back to our island. Or we'll find another one. Or we'll just keep flying until we find a place where we can be together without anyone screaming and running away. You and me. Just like I promised."

She rumbled, a low and contented sound, and her tail curled around you, drawing you closer against the warmth of her body. You leaned into her, letting that heat seep through your worn cloak and into your cold and weary bones.

—

The morning had been quiet. On Dragonstone, quiet was a rare and fragile gift, one that Baelor had learned to appreciate in the long years since he had inherited the title and the burden that came with it. He had risen early, as he always did, and had spent the first hours of the day bent over the endless correspondence that poured in from every corner of the realm. Letters from King's Landing, letters from the Free Cities, letters from lords and ladies and merchants and anyone else who believed they had a claim on his attention. His quill moved methodically across the parchment, leaving neat lines of black ink in its wake, but his mind was only half engaged with the work. The other half was elsewhere, circling endlessly around the same dark thoughts, the way a tongue keeps returning to a broken tooth.

Valarr had not spoken to him since their argument in the great hall. Not a word. Not a glance. His son had thrown himself into the search for the girl with a desperation that had long since crossed the border into obsession. He spent every waking hour combing the cliffs and the caves and the shoreline, refusing food, refusing rest, refusing to accept the reality that everyone else had already resigned themselves to. The girl was dead. She had fallen from the cliffs in the darkness, or thrown herself from them in despair, or simply slipped and been swept out to sea. The details did not matter. What mattered was that she was gone, and Valarr was destroying himself trying to locate a ghost.

Baelor had tried to be patient. He had given his son space to grieve, time to come to terms with the loss in his own way. But the days kept slipping past, and the king's summons grew sharper with every raven that arrived from the capital, and Valarr was no closer to acceptance than he had been the morning they found her cloak tangled on the rocks. If anything, he was worse now. His eyes had gone hollow, dark pits in a face grown gaunt and grey. His movements were jerky and erratic, the motions of a man who had not slept in a week, who had not eaten in days, who was running on nothing but sorrow and a stubborn, desperate hope that refused to die.

It could not continue. Baelor knew that with the cold certainty that had guided his entire life. Sooner or later, he would have to intervene. He would have to drag his son back from the cliffs, force food and sleep upon him, make him accept the brutal truth of what had happened. He would have to play the villain again. The cold and practical father who valued duty above love. The man who had offered a village girl silver to disappear and had driven her, however unintentionally, to her death.

The thought made his stomach turn, but he forced it down. He had made his choices. He would live with them, and he would carry the weight of her death on his conscience until the day he died. That was what it meant to be a prince. You made the hard decisions so others did not have to. You bore the guilt so they could sleep peacefully. That was the burden he had been born to shoulder, and he would shoulder it, no matter how heavily it pressed down on him.

Jena had joined him for tea, as she often did in the late morning hours. She sat across from him at the small table by the window, her hands wrapped around a cup of chamomile, her dark hair pulled back in a simple braid that trailed over one shoulder. She was a quiet woman, Jena, possessed of a stillness that Baelor had always found deeply comforting. She did not fill the silence with idle chatter the way so many at court seemed compelled to do. She simply sat with him, her presence a steady anchor in the storm of his thoughts.

"You're thinking about him again," she said without looking up from her tea. It was not a question.

Baelor sighed and set down his quill. "I am always thinking about him. He is my son."

"He is our son." Jena's voice remained gentle, but there was a thread of reproach woven through it. "And he is suffering. He has been suffering for days, and you have done nothing but watch him tear himself apart."

"What would you have me do?" Baelor rubbed at his temples, feeling the familiar ache of exhaustion building behind his eyes. "I have tried speaking with him. I have tried reasoning with him. I have tried giving him space and silence. Nothing reaches him. He will not listen to me. He will not even look at me."

"Can you truly blame him?" Jena set down her cup with a soft click, her dark eyes rising to meet his. "You offered that girl coin to leave him. You told her about the betrothal before he had the chance to explain it himself. You..."

"I am aware of what I did." Baelor's voice came out sharper than he intended, and he softened it with deliberate effort. "I am aware. And I would do it again, if circumstances demanded it. It was the correct decision. For him, for the realm, for everyone involved."

Jena was silent for a long moment. Then she said, very quietly, "Was it? For him, I mean. Was it truly the correct decision for him?"

Before Baelor could summon a response, the screaming began.

It started faint and far away, barely audible beneath the constant crash of the waves against the cliffs. Baelor frowned, his head lifting, his hand moving instinctively toward the sword that was not at his hip because he was in his private chambers and had not anticipated needing it. Jena looked up as well, her brow furrowing, her teacup frozen halfway to her lips.

"What is that?" she asked.

Baelor rose and crossed to the window. The screams were growing louder now, more distinct, and he could pick out other sounds tangled among them. Shouts. Running footsteps. The clatter of something heavy falling. His heart began to beat faster, his body responding with the automatic readiness of a man who had fought in battles and knew the particular timbre of panic when he heard it.

"I do not know," he said, throwing open the shutters. "Stay here."

He stepped out onto the balcony, and the noise hit him like a physical force. People were screaming in the village below, their voices carrying up the mountainside in overlapping waves of terror. He could see them running, tiny figures scattering like ants from a disturbed nest. And then Baelor looked up to where they were pointing, and the blood in his veins turned to ice.

A dragon. There was a dragon in the sky above Dragonstone.

For one impossible, suspended moment, his mind refused to process what his eyes were reporting. It was a trick of the light. A peculiar cloud formation. An unusually large bird of a species he had never encountered. It was anything other than what it so clearly, undeniably was. Because dragons were dead. Dragons had been dead for seventy years, since the last of them had withered and perished in the Dragonpit at King's Landing, since the Dance had scoured the skies clean and left behind nothing but ashes and old songs. Dragons were dead, and had been dead for the entirety of his life, and the thing circling above his castle could not possibly be what his eyes insisted it was.

But it was. It was a dragon, pale and shimmering, its scales catching the morning sunlight and scattering it like scattered gemstones. It was smaller than the old books had led him to imagine a dragon of its apparent youth should be, with vast wings that stretched wide, but still bigger then two grown war horses combined. It flew low over the island, its shadow racing across grey cliffs and green slopes and the dark walls of the castle itself, and it was beautiful and terrible and utterly, incontrovertibly real.

"Gods," Baelor breathed. The word left his lips as a prayer and a curse and a cry of pure disbelief all at once.

Jena appeared at his side, her face drained of color, her hand gripping the balcony railing with a force that turned her knuckles bone white. She had followed him despite his order to stay inside. Of course she had. Jena had never been the sort of woman who remained where she was told when there was danger to be faced.

"Baelor," she said, and her voice was remarkably steady. Steadier than his own. Jena had always been the calm presence in a crisis. "That is a dragon."

"I know."

"A living dragon. Flying above our castle."

"I know."

"The girl-." Jena's voice fractured on the word."

"I know." Baelor turned from the balcony, his mind already shifting, already abandoning shock in favor of action. "I know."

He strode back into the chamber with quick, decisive steps, the decades of training and experience asserting control. There would be time for disbelief later. There would be time for guilt and regret and the crushing weight of realization later. Right now, there was a dragon on his island and his people were panicking, and he needed to act.

The door burst open before he reached it. A guard stumbled through, his face flushed and shining with sweat, his breath tearing in and out of his chest in ragged gasps.

"My prince," he said, his voice scraped raw. "My prince, there is..."

"A dragon," Baelor finished for him. "I have seen it. Where is it now?"

"The caves, my prince. It was observed entering the eastern tunnels. It..." Ser Raymund stopped and swallowed hard, the scar that bisected his face pulling tight. "It bore a rider, my prince. We saw someone on its back. A figure, small, clinging to its neck. They entered the caves together."

A rider. Baelor's heart, which had been hammering with the cold rhythm of duty and command, gave a single violent stutter. A rider. Someone had mounted that creature. Someone had tamed a dragon that had been dead for seventy years, had climbed onto its back and flown it across the sea and into the tunnels of Dragonstone.

The girl. It had to be the girl. The mad girl with the imaginary dragon that was not imaginary at all.

"Assemble the knights," Baelor ordered, his voice cutting through the tension like a blade. "And the horses. We ride for the eastern caves at once."

"Yes, my prince."

"No one is to move against the dragon without my direct command. No one attacks it. No one provokes it. No one approaches it without my explicit permission. If it breathes fire, if it assaults anyone, if it so much as looks at one of my men in a manner that suggests hostility..." He paused, his jaw tightening until he could feel the ache in his teeth. "Then we will do what we must. But not before. Not until I give the word. Is that understood?"

"Yes, my prince." Ser Raymund hesitated, and something flickered across his scarred face. Some emotion Baelor could not quite identify. "My prince, there is something else."

"What is it?"

"The young prince. Prince Valarr." Ser Raymund's voice flattened into careful neutrality, the tone of a man delivering news he knew would not be well received. "He was in the village when the dragon was sighted. He saw it. He took a horse from the stables and rode out immediately. Alone. He was observed heading toward the eastern caves."

The ice that had been threading through Baelor's veins since he first stepped onto the balcony crystallized into something sharp and jagged. "Alone," Baelor repeated. The word came out flat and dangerous.

"Yes, my prince. He would not wait. He simply took the horse and rode. By the time anyone thought to restrain him, he was already gone."

Baelor closed his eyes. For one brief moment, he allowed himself to feel the full immensity of the situation. The dragon. The girl. His son riding toward both of them with grief and desperation and gods only knew what else driving his heels into the horse's flanks. Then he opened his eyes again, and his face was hard and set, the face of a man who had made terrible decisions his entire life and would make them again now.

"Then we ride faster," he said. "Get the horses. Get the knights. We leave immediately. And Ser Raymund?"

"My prince?"

"Pray to whatever gods you keep that we are not too late."

—

You had almost managed to calm her down. Almost.

Moonfyre's growling had subsided to a low, uneasy rumble, the kind of sound that still vibrated through your bones and set your teeth on edge but no longer promised immediate violence. Her muscles remained rigid beneath her pale scales, hard as carved stone, but she was no longer coiled to strike. Her tail had stopped its furious lashing and now only twitched occasionally, the spaded tip flicking back and forth with the irritable rhythm of a cat who had been interrupted mid nap and was not pleased about it. Her golden eyes stayed fixed on the cave entrance, watchful and wary, but the wild, panicked edge had receded. She was listening to you now, her great head tilted slightly toward the sound of your voice, her breathing gradually slowing to match the deliberate, steady rhythm you were setting for her. Every few seconds she would huff, a sharp exhale through her nostrils that sent small grey puffs of smoke spiraling toward the distant ceiling, but she was no longer baring her teeth. She was no longer kindling that terrible, deadly glow at the back of her throat.

"That's it," you murmured, your hand moving along the warm scales of her jaw in the rhythm you had learned she preferred. Slow and even, tracing from the sensitive ridge behind her eye down to the corner of her mouth and back again. "That's it, sweet girl. We're safe now. It's only noise out there. Only frightened people making frightened sounds. They can't hurt you. I won't let anyone hurt you. You know that, don't you? You know I would never let anyone hurt you."

She made a small, questioning chirp, a sound so soft and incongruous that it still startled you every time. This creature who could level a village, who could turn stone to slag with a single breath, chirping like a hatchling asking for reassurance. You pressed your forehead against her snout and let the heat of her scales seep into your skin. For just a moment, you closed your eyes.

Then you heard the footsteps. Your eyes snapped open. Moonfyre's head lifted with a sharp, sudden motion, her body going rigid beneath your hands. The growl surged back into her chest before you could draw breath to stop it. Her wings half spread, the pale membranes catching the dim light of the cave and glowing faintly, and you saw the fire kindle once more at the back of her throat. Someone was running, the footsteps frantic and uneven, making no attempt at stealth. Someone who was thinking of nothing but reaching this chamber as fast as humanly possible.

Valarr burst into the cavern. He looked like a corpse given motion. Eyes so red rimmed and shadowed they appeared bruised. Dark circles that looked more like wounds than exhaustion. His hair was a wild snarl, his clothes rumpled and stained with days of wear, and there was a half healed cut across his forehead that had scabbed over but not closed. He looked like he had not slept in days. He looked like he had not eaten in days. He looked like a man who had been running on nothing but grief and stubborn, irrational hope and had burned through both of them down to the dregs.

And he had a sword in his hand. The blade caught the faint light and glittered, and his knuckles were bone white around the hilt, and his mismatched eyes were fixed on Moonfyre with an expression of absolute, primal terror.

"Y/N!" His voice tore on your name. "Y/N, get away from it! Get away!"

Moonfyre roared. The sound hit you like a physical blow, reverberating through the stone and your bones and the very air in your lungs. She lunged forward, placing her body between you and the threat, her vast wings spreading wide enough to brush both walls of the chamber. Her jaws opened, and you saw the fire blooming at the back of her throat.

"STOP!" You threw yourself in front of her, your arms spread wide, your heart beating so hard you could feel it in your teeth. "Moonfyre, stop! Don't!"

Valarr had frozen mid stride. His sword was still raised, his chest heaving, his face a mask of terror and disbelief. He stared at Moonfyre as if the world had cracked open beneath his feet, and you watched the realization strike him like a physical force. She was real. The dragon was real. Everything you had told him, everything you had tried so hard to make him believe, was standing in front of him with teeth like daggers and eyes like molten gold.

"Valarr." Your voice cut through the growling and the pounding of your heart, sharp as a blade. "Drop the sword. Right now. Drop it and kick it away."

He did not move. His eyes stayed fixed on Moonfyre, wide and glassy with shock.

"Valarr!" you shouted. "She thinks you're going to hurt me. She is scared and she is furious and if you do not drop that sword in the next three seconds she will incinerate you where you stand. Do you understand me? Look at her teeth. Look at the fire in her throat. You cannot fight her. You cannot protect me from her. The only thing keeping you alive right now is the fact that my body is between you and her. So drop. The. Sword."

Something in your voice reached him. He blinked, his eyes finally moving from the dragon to your face, and for a long, suspended moment he simply stared at you as if you were a ghost.

"Y/N," he breathed. "You're alive. We found your cloak on the rocks, there was blood on the stones, I thought..."

"The sword, Valarr!"

He looked down at his hand as if noticing the blade for the first time. Slowly, with the jerky movements of a man in shock, he lowered it to the stone floor. He straightened, his hands raised, and kicked the weapon away into the shadows where it clattered against the wall and lay still.

"I'm not going to hurt her," he said, his voice shaking. He was speaking to Moonfyre now, his eyes fixed somewhere near her feet rather than meeting her gaze. "I would never hurt her. I'm sorry. I thought she was in danger. I thought you had taken her, I thought you were..."

Moonfyre growled again, low and threatening, a sound like boulders grinding together deep underground. You turned back to her and pressed both hands against her snout, forcing her to focus on you.

"Hey," you said, your voice softening. "Hey. Look at me. Look at me, sweet girl. He is not a threat. He is an idiot, but he is not a threat. I need you to stay here while I go talk to him. Can you do that? Can you let me handle the idiot?"

She huffed, a warm blast of air that stirred your hair, and you chose to read it as agreement. You pressed a kiss to her snout and then turned and walked toward Valarr.

He was trembling. His hands were still raised, still shaking, and his eyes were fixed on your face with an intensity that made your chest ache. He looked at you like you were a miracle. Like you were something he had been praying to see and had never expected to find.

You stopped a few feet away from him. Close enough to touch. Not touching. You opened your mouth to say something, though you had no idea what, but before you could form a single syllable he closed the distance and pulled you into his arms.

It was desperate. Crushing. His arms wrapped around you so tightly that you could barely draw breath, one hand fisting in the back of your dress, the other pressed flat against your spine like he was trying to feel your heartbeat through your skin. His face buried itself in your hair, and you felt his tears hot and wet against your neck, felt the way his entire body was shuddering against yours.

"You're alive," he choked out. "You're alive. We searched everywhere, we couldn't find you, I thought you fell, I thought you drowned, I thought you were dead..."

And maybe it was the shock of seeing him. Or the adrenaline still surging through your veins from the flight and the screams and the near disaster of his arrival. Or maybe it was the fact that you had spent days alone on an island with nothing but a dragon for company and you had done a great deal of thinking, a great deal of feeling, a great deal of sitting with your grief and your anger and your hurt. Maybe it was all of those things at once. But instead of melting into his embrace, instead of weeping with relief and telling him everything was forgiven, you felt something hard and hot and furious rise up in your chest.

Your hands, which had been hanging limp at your sides, came up to his chest. And you pushed. It was not a hard push. Just enough to create a few inches of space between you. Just enough to look him in the eye. His arms loosened reluctantly, his hands sliding to your shoulders, and he gazed down at you with those red rimmed, desperate, hopeful eyes, and you felt the anger surge up your throat like bile.

"Don't," you said. Your voice came out rough and scraped raw. "Don't you dare hold me like that. Don't you dare cry on my shoulder as though you are the one who has been wronged."

He flinched. Actually flinched, as if you had struck him across the face. His hands dropped from your shoulders, hovering uncertainly in the air between you. His mouth opened, but no sound came out.

"Y/N," he managed at last, his voice barely above a whisper. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I should have believed you. I should have..."

"Oh, you're sorry." The words came out bitter and cutting, sharp edged as broken glass. You stepped back, putting more distance between you, and his hands fell to his sides like dead things. "You're sorry. Well, that fixes everything, doesn't it? the whole time, the entire time, you were looking at me like I was a child telling stories about fairies. And now you're sorry."

"I was wrong." His voice cracked down the middle. "I was so wrong, and I know that now, and I..."

"You know that now." You laughed, and it was an ugly sound, hollow and humorless. "You know that now because you saw her with your own eyes. You know that now because the evidence is standing twenty feet away from you, breathing fire and very nearly ending your life. Tell me, Valarr. If she hadn't come back, if I had stayed on that island forever, would you have gone to your grave believing I was mad? Would you have told your children about the crazy village girl you once humored, the one who thought she had a dragon?"

"No." He shook his head violently, his tangled hair falling into his eyes. "No, I would never. I didn't think you were crazy. I thought you were lonely. I thought you needed something to believe in, and I didn't want to take that away from you. I thought I was being..."

"Kind." You spat the word like poison. "You thought you were being kind. Do you have any idea what that felt like? Do you have any idea what it is like to pour your heart out to someone, to share the most precious thing in your life with them, and to watch them nod and smile and ask polite questions while behind their eyes they are thinking poor thing, she really believes it, how terribly sad?"

Valarr's face crumpled. "That's not what I thought. I never thought..."

"I stood in front of your father," you continued, your voice shaking now, "and he offered me silver to disappear. Silver. Like I was a stain on his floor. Like I was a problem to be solved and discarded. And I refused it. Do you know why I refused it?" You did not wait for him to answer. "Because I believed what we had was worth more than silver. Because I believed you loved me. But you didn't, did you? You pitied me. There is a difference. There is a very great difference."

"That's not true." His voice was hoarse and raw, scraped down to nothing. "That's not. I love you, Y/N. I have loved you since the moment I met you in the market, when you told me I was terrifying in a different way and made me laugh for the first time in weeks. I love the way you talk too much when you're nervous. I love the way you embroider flowers on your cloak even though you think they're ugly. I love the way you care about everything and everyone, the goats and the herbs and the old women in the village and the dragons that everyone else was certain were dead. I love you. Not some sad, broken version of you I invented in my head. You. The real you. The you who is standing in front of me right now, furious and beautiful and so alive it makes my chest ache."

He reached for you then, his hands coming up to cup your face with a gentleness that seemed impossible after the violence of the last few minutes. His thumbs brushed across your cheekbones, catching tears you had not realized you were shedding, and his eyes searched yours with a desperation that made your breath catch.

"I was wrong," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "I was so wrong about so many things. I should have believed you from the beginning. I should have trusted you when you told me she was real. I should have told you about Kiera the moment I knew how I felt about you instead of hiding it like a coward. I should have done a hundred things differently, and I did none of them, and you got hurt because of it. You got hurt, and you ran, and I thought you died. I thought you died believing I pitied you. I thought you died thinking you meant nothing to me. And I have been living in hell for three days, Y/N. Three days of believing the woman I love was dead at the bottom of the sea, and it was my fault."

His voice broke on the final word, and a tear slipped down his cheek, trailing over his thumb where it rested against your skin.

"Don't," you whispered, but your voice had lost its sharp edge. "Don't you dare cry. You don't get to cry. I am the one who was wronged. I am the one who gets to be angry."

"Then be angry." His thumbs traced the curve of your cheekbones, feather light and trembling. "Be as furious as you need to be. Shout at me. Strike me. Tell me everything I did wrong. I will stand here and accept all of it. I will accept anything you throw at me, as long as you are here to throw it. As long as you are alive."

"I am angry." Your voice wobbled dangerously. "I am so angry, Valarr. I am angry about the dragon, and I am angry about Kiera, and I am angry that you let me find out from your father instead of from you."

"I know." His voice was barely audible now.

"No, you don't know. Not yet. Not until I've said it all." You pulled back from him, your hands still twisted in the front of his tunic, your eyes burning into his. "Do you know how humiliating that was? Standing in that room while your father told me you were promised to someone else as if it was nothing? As if I was nothing? I had to hear it from him, Valarr. From a stranger who looked at me like I was dirt on his boot. Not from you. Not from the man who claimed to love me. You let me walk into that room completely unprepared. You let me be blindsided and humiliated, and you weren't even there to see it."

"I know." His face was ashen. "I know, and I hate myself for it. I should have told you myself. I should have told you the first time I kissed you. The first time I realized I was falling in love with you. But I was a coward. I was so terrified of losing you that I did the one thing guaranteed to make it happen."

"You kept me in the dark." Your fingers twisted tighter in the fabric of his tunic, your knuckles pressing against his chest. "You let me believe there was a future for us. You let me hope and plan and dream, and all the while there was a girl in Tyrosh with your ring on her finger. You were never going to be mine. You were never going to choose me."

"That is not true."

"Isn't it?"

"No." His voice was fierce suddenly, his hands tightening on your face. "It isn't true. I did choose you. I chose you when I told my father I would not marry her. I chose you when I told him I would abdicate. I chose you when I said I would give up the throne, the crown, my birthright, everything I had ever been raised to value, if it meant I could be with you. He said yes, Y/N. He said if I found you alive, I could marry you. Not Kiera. Not some political alliance. You."

You stared at him. The words hung in the air between you, heavy and solid and impossible.

"You abdicated?"

"I told him I didn't want it. Any of it. Not if it meant losing you." His eyes burned into yours, fierce and desperate and blazing with a sincerity that made your heart stutter. "He was furious. We shouted at each other for an hour. He told me I was throwing away my future, my birthright, everything I had ever been raised to be. And I told him I didn't care. I told him none of it mattered without you. I told him I would rather be a farmer or a fisherman or a beggar on the streets of King's Landing, as long as I had you by my side."

"Valarr." Your voice came out as a whisper. "You cannot simply abdicate. You are the heir's heir. The future of the realm depends on..."

"The future of the realm can hang itself." His voice cracked, but his gaze did not waver. "I don't care about the realm. I care about you. I have spent my entire life doing what was expected of me, being what everyone else wanted me to be, and the only time I have ever felt like myself was when I was with you. You are the only real thing in my life. Everything else is politics and duty and masks."

"That isn't fair." You pulled back further, shaking your head. "You cannot put that on me. You cannot make me responsible for your entire sense of self. That isn't love. That is..."

"I know what it is." His voice was steady now, steadier than it had been since he entered the cave. "It is love. Messy and desperate and probably unhealthy, and I don't care. I am not asking you to fix me, Y/N. I am not asking you to be my salvation. I am telling you that you showed me what it felt like to be seen, and I am never going to stop being grateful for that, whether you take me back or not."

You stared at him. The anger was still there, hot and hard and stubborn, but it was fading now, slowly and reluctantly, replaced by something else. Something that had been there all along, buried beneath the hurt and the betrayal, waiting to be found again.

A long silence stretched between them. Moonfyre made a soft sound behind you, and you realized you had been standing with your back to her this whole time, trusting her not to attack while your attention was elsewhere. You turned to look at her and found her watching you with those golden eyes, her head tilted, her tail twitching with what might have been impatience or might have been curiosity.

"Your father is probably on his way here right now," you said, turning back to Valarr. "With knights. With swords. With orders to kill her if she so much as looks at anyone the wrong way."

"Probably."

"And what are you going to do when he arrives? Stand between her and his men? Fight your own family?"

"If I have to." His voice was quiet but absolutely certain. "I will not let anyone hurt her. I will not let anyone hurt you. Not my father. Not the Kingsguard. Not anyone."

"You're an idiot," you said at last. Your voice came out thick and unsteady.

"I know."

"A complete and utter fool."

"I know."

"You broke my heart, Valarr. You shattered it into a thousand pieces, and I had to fly across the sea on a dragon's back to put it back together. Do you understand that? Do you understand what you did to me?"

His face went pale. "I..."

"I'm not finished." You reached up and pressed two fingers to his lips, silencing him. "You hurt me. And I am still angry. And I am going to be angry for a while, probably. You're going to have to be patient with me. You're going to have to prove to me that you mean what you say. Every day. For a long time. Do you understand?"

He nodded, his lips moving against your fingers.

"And if you ever lie to me again," you continued, "if you ever keep a secret from me again, if you ever look at me with pity instead of trust, I will leave. I will get on my dragon and fly away and I will never come back. I mean that, Valarr. I will not give you a third chance."

"I understand." He said the words against your fingers, his breath warm on your skin. "No more secrets. No more lies. No more pity. Ever. I swear it on my life."

You held his gaze for a long moment, searching his face for any sign of hesitation, any flicker of doubt. You found none.

"Alright," you said quietly, and you lowered your fingers from his lips.

He blinked. "Alright?"

"Alright. I'm willing to try. But you're going to have to earn back my trust. Every day. For a long time. Possibly years."

A sound escaped him, something between a laugh and a sob. "I can do years. I can do decades. I can do the rest of my life."

"It might take that long."

"Then I'll spend the rest of my life earning it." He pressed his forehead against yours, his breath warm on your lips. "Every day. Every moment. I'll prove to you that you made the right choice. I'll prove to you that I'm worthy of the chance you're giving me."

"You'd better," you murmured, and then you pulled him down and kissed him.

It was not a gentle kiss. It was fierce and desperate and full of all the grief and fear and love that had been building between you for days. His arms wrapped around you, pulling you against him with that same crushing desperation, and your hands fisted in his tunic, and you held onto each other like the world was ending and this was the only thing that mattered.

When you finally broke apart, you were both breathing hard. His forehead rested against yours, and his hands were still cupping your face, and he was looking at you with an expression of such pure, unguarded joy that it made your heart clench.

"I love you," he said. "I love you, Y/N. I should have said it a thousand times before, and I'll say it a thousand times now to make up for every time I didn't. I love you. I love you. I love you."

Behind you, Moonfyre made a sound. A soft, questioning chirp that was so incongruous with her size. You turned to look at her and found her watching you with those golden eyes, her head tilted, her tail twitching. She did not look angry anymore. She did not look threatened. She looked curious, and perhaps slightly disgruntled that your attention was focused on someone other than her.

"It's okay, sweet girl," you said, reaching one hand toward her. "He's with me. He's mine. Just like you're mine. And I know you two got off to a terrible start, but I'm hoping you can learn to tolerate each other. Because I'm not giving up either of you."

Moonfyre huffed, a puff of smoke escaping her nostrils, and then she lowered her head back down to rest on her front claws. Her golden eyes stayed fixed on Valarr, still watchful, still wary, but the killing fury had faded. She was willing to give him a chance.

Valarr let out a shaky breath. "Is she going to let me live?"

"For now. But I'd stay on her good side if I were you. She's very protective."

"I noticed." He looked at Moonfyre, then back at you, and a smile spread across his face. The first real smile you had seen from him since he burst into the chamber. It made him look younger, lighter, like the weight of the world had been lifted from his shoulders. "She's magnificent. Terrifying, but magnificent. Just like her rider."

"Flattery won't save you if she decides she doesn't like you."

Moonfyre blinked at him slowly, her golden eyes unreadable. Then she made a sound, a low rumbling that was not quite a growl and not quite a purr, and closed her eyes, apparently deciding he was not interesting enough to warrant her continued attention.

"I think that went well," Valarr said. "All things considered."

You laughed, and the sound surprised you. Bright and warm and full of a joy you had not felt in days. "She'll come around. She just needs time. Like me."

"Time." Valarr turned back to you, his hand finding yours and lacing your fingers together. "Time, I have. All the time in the world."

You heard them before you saw them, the thunder of hooves on rock, the metallic jangle of tack and armor, the low, urgent murmur of many voices trying to speak quietly and failing utterly. They were outside the cave now, assembling in the narrow ravine that led to the entrance, and the sound of them echoed through the tunnels like water rushing through a gorge, building and building until it reached you in the deep chamber where you stood with Valarr's hand still laced in yours and Moonfyre's warmth still pressed against your back like a living furnace.

Then Baelor's voice cut through the noise, sharp with a fear he was trying very hard to conceal and not quite succeeding.

"Valarr! Valarr, can you hear me? Are you in there?"

Valarr tensed beside you, every muscle going rigid. His hand tightened around yours with a force that would have been painful if you hadn't been so grateful for the anchor of it, and you felt him draw breath to answer, felt the relief flooding through him at the sound of his father's voice. You squeezed his fingers before he could speak.

"Wait," you whispered.

He looked at you, his brow furrowing, the question already forming on his lips. "What is it? He's worried. He thinks I'm dead."

"I know." You pulled your hand free of his, gently, but with purpose and turned to face Moonfyre. She had lifted her head again at the sound of the voices, her golden eyes fixed on the tunnel that led to the entrance with an intensity that made your stomach clench. Her body had gone rigid with that same tension you had worked so hard to calm, every scale and sinew coiled tight as a spring. The growl was not back yet, but you could feel it waiting just beneath the surface, a tremor in her chest that vibrated through the stone floor. "But if you call him in here, he won't come alone. You know he won't. He'll bring his knights. He'll bring their swords. And she just barely accepted you. After hours of work and two near-death experiences. She won't accept a dozen armed men."

Valarr's face shifted as understanding took hold, the relief draining away and leaving something harder in its place. "You're right. You're right, of course." He turned toward the tunnel, squared his shoulders, and raised his voice. "Father! I'm in here. I'm alive and I'm unharmed. But you need to stay where you are. Do not bring the knights inside."

A pause. The kind of pause that stretches out like a held breath. Then Baelor's voice came again, closer this time, he must have dismounted and walked to the very mouth of the cave, close enough that you could hear the edge of an echo. "Valarr, thank the gods. Is the girl with you? Is she safe?"

You stiffened at the word. The girl. Even now, even after everything he couldn't be bothered to use your name. Valarr shot you an apologetic look, the kind that said I know, I'm sorry, he's like this, and called back, "She's here. She's safe. But Father, listen to me carefully. The dragon is also here, and she is very protective. She nearly killed me when I came in carrying a sword, and the only reason I'm still breathing is because Y/N here talked her down. If you bring armed men into this cave, there will be blood, and it will not be hers. Do you understand?"

Another pause. Longer this time. You could almost hear the calculations running behind it, the prince's mind turning over the tactical realities of the situation and finding them wanting. When Baelor spoke again, his voice had shifted the sharp edge of command giving way to something more measured, more careful. The voice of a man who understood that he was not in control of this situation and was intelligent enough to accept it.

"What do you propose?"

Valarr looked at you. You took a breath and stepped forward, your hand finding the warm scales of her shoulder and resting there, drawing courage from the contact.

"Prince Baelor," you called out. Your voice was steadier than you expected it to be, given the circumstances. Given that you were addressing the man who had tried to buy your disappearance with a pouch of silver. "Moonfyre does not like crowds. She does not like humans in general, if I'm being honest. She barely tolerates your son, and it took me the better part of an afternoon to convince her not to turn him into ash. If you want to come inside, you will come alone. No knights. No weapons. No sudden movements. No raised voices. If you can accept those terms, you may enter. If you cannot, then you will wait outside until I decide otherwise."

The silence that followed was so complete you could hear the wind whistling through the ravine outside, the distant cry of seabirds, the soft whisper of Moonfyre's breathing. You imagined Baelor standing at the cave mouth, his scarred face unreadable, his mind turning over the unprecedented reality of being given conditions by a village girl and her dragon. Being given orders. Being told to wait.

Then he said, "Very well. I will come alone. Ser Raymund, you have command until I return. No one follows me inside. No one acts without my direct order. No one so much as draws a blade, no matter what you hear. Is that understood?"

A murmur of assent, reluctant and nervous, the sound of men who did not like what was happening but knew better than to argue with that tone. Then the sound of a sword belt being unbuckled, leather sliding through metal, the distinctive clank of a blade being set down on stone. Footsteps, slow and deliberate, echoing through the tunnel. One man. Alone.

You stroked Moonfyre's jaw, feeling the heat of her beneath your palm, the vibration of that barely-suppressed growl. "He's coming alone, sweet girl. Just one man. No weapons. Just like the other one. Can you be calm for me? Can you trust me one more time?"

She huffed, a warm breath that stirred your hair and smelled faintly of smoke and something older, something that made you think of the heart of a mountain. Her great golden eye fixed on the tunnel entrance, the pupil contracting and expanding as she tracked the sound of footsteps. But she did not growl. She did not kindle the fire at the back of her throat. She simply watched, and waited, and trusted you.

Baelor emerged from the darkness of the tunnel and stopped dead at the edge of the chamber. He looked different than the last time you had seen him, his eyes were fixed on Moonfyre with an expression that stopped the breath in your throat.

Wonder. Pure, unguarded, absolute wonder.

He stared at her the way a scholar might stare at a lost text thought destroyed centuries ago, the way a septon might stare at a miracle he had prayed for but never expected to witness, the way a man who had grown up on stories of dragons and had accepted long ago that they were only stories might stare at proof that the stories had been true all along. The stories had been true, and she was magnificent. His lips parted slightly, as if he wanted to speak and had forgotten how. His hands, which had been clenched into fists at his sides, slowly uncurled, the fingers spreading wide in an unconscious gesture of surrender or reverence or both.

Valarr cleared his throat, the sound startling in the quiet. "Father. Are you alright?"

Baelor blinked, visibly shaking himself out of his trance with the effort of a man surfacing from deep water. He looked at Valarr, then at you, then back at Moonfyre. When he spoke, his voice was rough with something that might have been awe, or might have been the beginning of tears.

"She's real. The dragon is real."

"She's real," you confirmed. Your voice came out flatter than you intended, edged with something you didn't bother to disguise. "She has been real this entire time. Her name is Moonfyre. Not that anyone believed me when I told you all." The bitterness crept in despite your best efforts, old and familiar and impossible to fully suppress. "Not that anyone thought I was worth listening to."

Baelor's eyes met yours. He held your gaze for a long moment, and you saw something shift in his expression, a crack in the armor, a crumbling of some internal wall.

"My lady," he said, and the words came out heavy, weighted with something that sounded almost like humility. "It appears that I owe you a great many apologies. And I suspect we all owe you a great deal more than that."

You had not been expecting that. You had been steeling yourself for anger. For demands. For the cold, dismissive authority he had wielded so easily in his hall, the assumption that everything and everyone existed to serve the interests of House Targaryen. You had prepared yourself for a confrontation, for the need to plant your feet and defend Moonfyre and yourself against a man who had already tried to remove you from his son's life, who had looked at you and seen nothing but an obstacle to be cleared. You had not prepared for an apology. You had not prepared for the way his voice caught on the word, or the way his shoulders had dropped, almost imperceptibly, as if setting down a burden he had been carrying for a very long time.

"An apology," you repeated, your voice carefully neutral. Not accepting. Not rejecting. Just waiting.

"Several, in fact." Baelor took a step closer slow and deliberate and stopped when Moonfyre's tail twitched warningly against the stone, a rattle of scales that echoed through the chamber. He raised his hands slightly, palms out, a gesture of peace that looked almost strange on a man like him. A man built for command, not for supplication. "I misjudged you. Profoundly. And my failure to see it—my arrogance, my blindness—very nearly cost my son his life and this family something more precious than I can put into words."

He turned back to Moonfyre, and the wonder returned to his face, softening the hard lines of his scars, making him look younger and older all at once. "A dragon. A living dragon. In the caves of Dragonstone. After seventy years of emptiness and silence." His voice cracked on the final word, splintering like old wood. "Do you understand what this means? Do you understand what you have done?"

You stiffened. The old fear rose up in your chest, sharp and immediate and viscerally familiar, the fear that had been with you since you first decided to return to the island instead of fleeing across the Narrow Sea. The fear of being separated from Moonfyre. The fear of her being taken away locked up in some pit like the dragons of old, turned into a weapon, reduced to a symbol for a house that had forgotten how to love the creatures it claimed to revere. Your hand tightened on her scales, the edges pressing into your palm.

"She is not a thing to be used," you said, and your voice came out sharper than you intended, honed by months of fear and loneliness and desperate love. "She is not a weapon. She is not a political tool. She is not a symbol for your house or a prop for your restoration. She is my friend. My family. The only family I have ever truly had. And I will not—I will not—let anyone take her from me. I don't care who you are. I don't care what throne you sit on. I will burn that throne to ash before I let you use her."

Baelor turned back to you, and something in his expression softened further—not the condescending softness of an adult humoring a child, but something gentler, something almost sorrowful. "No one is going to take her from you, my lady. I give you my word on that, and I do not give my word lightly. I suspect anyone who tried would find themselves facing both a very angry dragon and my son, and I am not eager to lose either of those confrontations. Nor would I wish to."

"He's right." Valarr moved to stand beside you, his hand finding yours again, his fingers interlacing with yours in a grip that was steady and sure. "No one is taking her from you. No one is taking you from here. You're safe. Both of you. I swear it on everything I am."

"Then what did you mean?" You looked at Baelor, your eyes narrowing, the fear still coiled in your chest like a serpent waiting to strike. "What does it mean? What do you think I have done?"

Baelor was quiet for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was slower, more deliberate, the voice of a man choosing his words with extreme care and measuring their weight before he let them fall.

"For seventy years, House Targaryen has been without dragons. Our power, our identity, our very reason for existing—it was all tied to them. When the last dragon died, something in us died with it. Something essential. We have been lesser ever since. Diminished. Clinging to a throne through nothing but tradition and politics and the fading memory of a greatness we could no longer claim and could never seem to reclaim." He paused, his eyes moving back to Moonfyre with that same stunned reverence. "You have returned that greatness to us. You found a wounded creature in the dark and you healed her. You showed her love when anyone else would have shown her a saddle, and she loved you in return. You did what none of us could do, what none of us even thought to try. And I suspect that says more about you—about your heart, your character, your worth—than it says about any of us."

You stared at him. The words were so unexpected, so far from what you had braced yourself to hear, that you did not know how to respond. You had prepared for a dozen different versions of this moment, and none of them had looked like this.

He drew a breath and continued, his voice growing steadier even as it grew quieter. "When I offered you coin to leave my son, I told myself I was protecting him. Protecting him from a mistake, from an entanglement beneath his station, from a girl who could bring him nothing but complications. And protecting you as well, or so I told myself, from future heartbreak when the world inevitably tore you apart." He shook his head slowly, the gesture heavy with self recrimination. "I was wrong. Not just about the dragon. About you. About what you are worth. About what you mean to him—and what he means to you." He glanced at Valarr, and something passed between father and son, something complicated and pained and long in the making. "My son abdicated for you. He stood in my hall, in front of my entire court, and told me he would give up everything—his title, his inheritance, his future, his place in this family—for the chance to be with you. And I thought he was being a fool. A romantic fool, throwing his life away for a village girl who had no family and no name and no value beyond what he had imagined in her."

"But she has a dragon," Valarr said quietly. His voice was calm, but there was steel beneath it, a blade wrapped in silk. "And now suddenly she has value. Now suddenly she matters. Now suddenly you're standing here apologizing and calling her 'my lady' and speaking of greatness."

"That is not what I meant."

"Isn't it?" Valarr's voice was hard now, the silk falling away. "If she had returned without Moonfyre, if she had come back alone with nothing but the truth, would you still be standing here apologizing? Would you still be calling her 'my lady' and speaking of returning greatness? Or would you be trying to find some other way to remove her?"

The silence that followed was brutal in its honesty. Baelor did not answer immediately, and his failure to do so was an answer in itself, a confession written in hesitation.

Then he said, very quietly, "I would like to think so. I would like to think that seeing you nearly destroy yourself with grief would have been enough. That hearing the truth from you—really hearing it, without my own prejudices in the way—would have been enough. But I cannot say for certain. I cannot stand here and claim a virtue I am not sure I possess. And that uncertainty is a failing I will have to live with. A failing I will have to work to overcome." He turned to you, meeting your eyes directly, and you saw something in his face that you had never expected to see there: vulnerability. "My son is right to be angry with me. And you are right to be angry with me as well. I treated you poorly. I treated you as something disposable, something to be swept aside and forgotten. I did not see you as a person. I did not give you even the basic dignity of using your name. I was wrong, and I am sorry. Truly sorry. Not because you have a dragon. Not because circumstances have changed. But because I failed, and you deserve better than what I gave you."

You looked at him for a long moment. At his scarred face and his windblown hair and the dust on his fine clothes. At the way his hands hung open at his sides, unthreatening, fingers slightly curled as if he were holding onto something invisible. At the way his eyes kept drifting back to Moonfyre not with greed or calculation or the cold assessment of a military asset, but with that same stunned wonder, the wonder of a boy who had grown up on stories of dragons and had never stopped mourning their loss.

"I don't trust you," you said bluntly. The words came out flat and unadorned, a simple statement of fact.

Baelor nodded slowly, accepting it. "I understand. I have given you no reason to trust me, and every reason not to. I would not expect you to forget what happened between us. But I hope—genuinely hope—that in time, I might earn your trust. Earn it the hard way, through actions rather than words. The way my son is earning it." He paused, glancing at Valarr with something that might have been pride or sorrow or both. "He is earning it, I take it? Given that he is still standing here, and the dragon has not eaten him?"

"The dragon came very close to eating him," you said, and despite everything you felt the corner of your mouth twitch, an almost-smile breaking through. "He walked in waving a sword around like an absolute idiot."

"It was a mistake," Valarr muttered, his ears going red. "I already admitted it was a mistake. I panicked. I thought you were dead and I was going to avenge you, and I wasn't thinking clearly."

"You could have died."

"But I didn't." He squeezed your hand, his thumb tracing a circle on your palm. "Because you stopped her. Because she listens to you. Because you're remarkable, and I am the luckiest fool who ever lived, and I am never going to stop being grateful for either of those facts."

Baelor watched this exchange with an expression that was difficult to parse, something between bemusement and approval and a kind of wistfulness, as if he were watching a language being spoken that he had never learned. Then he cleared his throat, the sound deliberate and slightly awkward.

"I realize this is a great deal to ask, given our history and how recently you've been through an ordeal. But I would like to discuss what happens next. With you, with the dragon, with my son. Not here, perhaps—not with half my household guard waiting outside and the entire village in a state of panic and my knees slowly giving out on this stone floor. But soon. When you are ready. When she is ready." He inclined his head toward Moonfyre, who had lowered her head slightly, still watching him with those unblinking golden eyes. "I would like to do this properly, if you'll permit it."

"Not today," you said, and your voice came out steadier than you felt. "Today I need to stay here with her. She's been through a lot. We both have. She was frightened, and she needs me, and I'm not going to leave her alone in the dark. But soon. I'll come to the castle when she's calm enough to be left, when I know she'll be alright without me for a few hours."

Baelor nodded immediately, no hesitation. "That is more than fair. More than I expected, honestly. Take whatever time you need." He hesitated, something flickering across his face, uncertainty, perhaps, or the effort of a proud man trying to learn humility in real time. Then he added, "For what it is worth, my lady, I am glad you are alive. Genuinely and without qualification. My son has been a ghost without you, a hollow thing going through the motions of living, and it was terrible to witness. I would not have wished that grief on him for anything. And I am... I am sorry that my actions contributed to it."

"Thank you," you said, because it seemed like the thing to say, even if you were not entirely sure you meant it, even if a part of you was still bracing for the other shoe to drop. It was a start, at least. Small and fragile and tentative, but a start.

Baelor turned to go, his footsteps slow and reluctant. But he paused at the edge of the chamber, where the tunnel opened into the darkness, and he looked back at Moonfyre one last time. That wonder crossed his face again, softening the hard edges, erasing the years and the scars and the weight of command until all that remained was a man standing in the presence of something he had believed lost forever.

"A dragon," he murmured, almost to himself, his voice barely above a whisper. "After all these years. After all this silence. A dragon in the caves of Dragonstone." He shook his head slowly, the gesture full of something that looked almost like prayer. "Welcome home, Moonfyre. Welcome home."

And then he was gone, his footsteps fading into the darkness of the tunnel, leaving the three of you alone in the warm glow of the lichen light. Moonfyre let out a long breath and lowered her head to rest on her foreclaws. Valarr pulled you closer, his arm coming around your shoulders. And for the first time in days, in months, in what felt like a lifetime, you allowed yourself to believe that everything might, somehow, be alright.

Then Valarr let out a breath that sounded like it had been trapped in his chest for days. He turned to you, and before you could speak, before you could even think, his arms were around you again. Not desperate this time. Not crushing. Just holding you, his face buried in your hair, his hands spread warm and steady against your back.

"Thank you," he murmured against your temple. "Thank you for that. For hearing him out. For giving him a chance when you had every right to turn him away."

You let yourself lean into him, just slightly, your cheek pressing against the rumpled fabric of his tunic. "I didn't do it for him."

"I know. You did it for me." His arms tightened. "You didn't have to. After everything I did, after everything he did, you could have told us both to go to hell and flown away on your dragon. I wouldn't have blamed you. No one would have blamed you."

"I considered it," you admitted. "When you burst in here waving a sword around like a character from a bad ballad, I very seriously considered it."

He laughed, a soft huff of air against your hair. "I really did make a spectacular first impression on her, didn't I? Charging in with a blade drawn, shouting at the top of my lungs. She's never going to forget that. I'm going to be the idiot with the sword for the rest of her very long life."

"Probably." You pulled back just enough to look up at him, and the expression on his face made your breath catch. He was looking at you with such naked adoration, such desperate, disbelieving gratitude, that it was almost painful to witness. "But she didn't kill you. That's a good sign. She only kills people she really doesn't like."

"Then I'll take it as a compliment." He cupped your face in his hands, his thumbs brushing across your cheekbones with that same impossible gentleness. "I meant what I said before. What I told my father. You are the most remarkable person I have ever met. You tamed a dragon with kindness. You came back here even though you were terrified, even though you had no idea what was waiting for you. And you gave me a second chance when I deserved nothing but your contempt."

"You're right," you said, and you felt your lips twitch. "You didn't deserve it. Neither did your father."

"No. We didn't." His voice was utterly sincere. "What you gave us in this cave today is far more than either of us earned. Far more than I ever could have hoped for. And I want you to know that I understand that. I understand how much it cost you to stand there and listen to him. I understand how much it cost you to let me hold you after what I did. And I am not going to forget it. Not ever."

He leaned down and pressed his lips to your forehead, soft and lingering, like a promise. Then your cheek. Then the corner of your mouth. Each kiss was deliberate, reverent, as if he was trying to communicate through touch what words could not quite capture.

"I love you," he said against your skin. "I know I keep saying it, and I know words aren't enough to fix what I broke. But I'm going to keep saying it anyway. Every day. Until you're sick of hearing it. Until you believe it as completely as I do."

You reached up and covered his hands with your own, holding them against your face. "I believe you. I'm still angry, and I don't trust your father as far as I could throw him, and if you ever lie to me again I will feed you to Moonfyre myself. But I believe you."

"That's all I ask." He kissed you properly then, soft and slow and full of a tenderness that made your chest ache. When he pulled back, his eyes were bright. "More than I deserve. Far more."

You pulled back from Valarr's embrace, though his hand stayed laced with yours, his thumb tracing slow circles across your knuckles. The warmth of the moment still lingered in your chest, but the thought that had been nagging at the edges of your mind since you first saw Dragonstone rising from the sea finally pushed its way to the forefront.

"I need to go to the village." The words came out before you'd fully formed the thought. "I need to see Marta. She probably thinks I'm dead. She probably thinks I fell off the cliffs or got swept out to sea or—"

"Y/N." He caught your hand, his fingers warm and steady, and you stopped, your breath coming too fast. "I know. We'll go. But first—" He glanced at Moonfyre, who had lifted her head and was watching you with those golden eyes, her tail twitching. "You need to tell her where you're going. Otherwise she might follow you, and I don't think the village is ready for that."

He was right. Of course he was right. You turned back to Moonfyre, her scales shimmered in the dim light, pale and beautiful, and her eyes met yours with an intelligence that still took your breath away.

"Hey, sweet girl." You approached her slowly, your hand outstretched, and she lowered her head to press her snout into your palm. The gesture was so familiar now, so automatic, that it made your chest ache. "I have to go. Just for a little while."

She made a sound, a low, questioning rumble, and her tail curled around your legs like she was trying to anchor you in place.

"I know. I know, I don't want to leave you either. But there's someone I need to see. Someone important." You stroked the ridge of her eye, the way she liked, and felt her lean into your touch. Moonfyre blinked at you slowly. Her tail tightened around your legs, just for a moment, and then released. She made another sound, this one lower, more grudging—the dragon equivalent of a sigh.

"I'll come back," you promised. "I'll always come back. You know that, don't you? After everything we've been through, you have to know that."

She huffed, a puff of warm air that stirred your hair and smelled of sulfur and something sweet. Then, slowly, deliberately, she lowered herself back down onto the stone floor, her head coming to rest on her front claws, her eyes still fixed on you. It was surrender. Reluctant, begrudging, but surrender all the same.

"Rest," you told her, pressing a kiss to her snout. "You've had a long day. We both have. Rest, and I'll be back before you know it."

She rumbled, and her eyes slid half-closed. Not quite trusting, not quite relaxed, but willing to let you go. You felt a lump rise in your throat as you pulled away, your hand lingering on her scales until the last possible moment.

Valarr was waiting for you at the entrance to the chamber, his expression soft. "She really does love you."

"I know." You wiped at your eyes with the back of your hand. "I love her too. That's why this is so hard."

"Leaving her?"

"Leaving her alone. She's been alone so much. I don't want her to think I'm abandoning her."

Valarr was quiet for a moment. Then he reached out and took your hand, his fingers lacing through yours. "She knows you're coming back. She trusts you. You've proven that to her a hundred times over."

You nodded, swallowing the lump in your throat. "Let's go. Before I change my mind."

The walk down from the caves was strange. Familiar and unfamiliar all at once. The path was the same one you had walked a thousand times, the rocks worn smooth by your feet, the wild onions growing in the gully, the Dragon's Tooth looming above you like a sentinel. But everything felt different now. The air was sharper. The colors were brighter. You had flown across the sea on a dragon's back. You had slept on a beach under the stars. You had come back to find your world turned inside out, and now you were walking down a path you'd known your whole life, holding hands with a prince, on your way to apologize to the woman who had raised you for disappearing without a word.

"I took care of her," Valarr said quietly, as if he could hear your thoughts. "While you were gone. Marta, I mean."

You looked at him sharply. "What?"

"After we found your cloak. After we thought..." He trailed off, his jaw tightening. "I went to see her. To tell her what had happened. She was—" He paused, searching for the right word. "She was not well. The news hit her hard. She couldn't stop shaking. She kept saying your name, over and over, like she was trying to call you back."

Your throat tightened. "Valarr..."

"I stayed with her. That first night. I didn't know what else to do. She made me tea, even though her hands were shaking so badly she could barely hold the kettle. We sat in her cottage and we waited. She told me stories about you. About when you were little. About the time you fell in the river chasing butterflies, and she had to pull you out. About the time you tried to adopt a stray cat and it scratched you so badly she thought you'd need stitches. About the way you always talked to the goats like they could understand you." He smiled, a small, sad smile. "She loves you so much, Y/N. It's like watching the sun love the moon. She talked about you like you were the only good thing she'd ever done."

You couldn't speak. Your eyes were burning, and your throat was so tight you could barely breathe.

"I made sure she ate," Valarr continued. "I made sure she had firewood. I sent someone to check on her every day while I was out searching for you. I know it wasn't—I know I couldn't replace you. No one could. But I couldn't just leave her alone. Not when I knew how much you loved her."

"You did all that?" Your voice came out as a whisper.

"Of course I did." He looked at you, his mismatched eyes earnest and steady. "She's your family. That makes her my family too. Or it will, if you'll have me."

You didn't know what to say. You had spent so many hours being angry at him, holding onto your hurt like a shield, and now here he was, telling you he had taken care of your mother while you were gone. He had sat with her in the dark and listened to her stories and made sure she ate. He had done the things you should have been there to do.

"Thank you," you managed. "I don't—thank you."

"You don't have to thank me." He squeezed your hand. "Just don't disappear again. I don't think either of us could survive it a second time."

You walked the rest of the way in silence. The village appeared below you, huddled against the mountainside, its grey roofs and narrow streets looking smaller and more fragile than you remembered. There were people moving around down there, going about their business, but the atmosphere was different. Tense. You could see clusters of villagers gathered in the square, talking in low voices, their heads bent together. You could see guards on the outskirts, more than usual, their armor glinting in the afternoon sun. Word of the dragon had spread. Everyone was on edge.

You didn't care about any of them. Your eyes were fixed on the cottage at the edge of the village, the smallest and shabbiest of them all, with its worn wooden door and its overgrown herb garden and its chimney that always smoked when the wind blew from the east. Home. It was still standing. It was still there.

You let go of Valarr's hand and started walking faster. Your legs were tired, your body aching from the flight and the confrontation and the long, emotional day, but you didn't care. You broke into a jog, then a run, your boots slapping against the packed earth of the path, your heart pounding in your chest. The cottage grew closer and closer, and you could see the light burning in the window, could see the thin wisp of smoke curling from the chimney. She was home. She was home, and you were almost there.

You burst through the door without knocking.

Marta was sitting at the table, her gnarled hands wrapped around a cup of tea, her grey hair escaping from its braid in wisps that the wind had tugged free. She looked up when the door slammed open, and her sharp old eyes went wide with shock.

For a moment, no one moved. No one spoke. The only sound was the crackle of the fire in the hearth and the distant cry of gulls outside. Then Marta set down her cup with a clatter and rose to her feet.

"You stupid girl."

Her voice was rough, scraped raw by worry and sleepless nights, and there were tears streaming down her weathered cheeks. She crossed the room in three quick strides, faster than you had ever seen her move, and then her arms were around you, pulling you against her with a strength that belied her age. She smelled of woodsmoke and chamomile and the sharp, herbal scent of the poultices she made for the villagers. She smelled like home.

"You stupid, reckless, foolish girl," she said, her voice muffled against your hair. "You gave me a heart attack. A heart attack, do you hear me? At my age, that's practically a death sentence. I've been worried sick for days. Days! I thought you were dead. I thought you'd fallen off the cliffs. I thought I'd lost you."

"I'm sorry." The words came out choked, barely audible. You were crying now, tears streaming down your face, soaking into the rough fabric of Marta's shawl. "I'm sorry, Marta. I didn't mean to scare you. I didn't mean to leave. I just—"

"And then I hear you're alive." Marta pulled back just enough to look at your face, her hands cupping your cheeks, her thumbs brushing away your tears with a gentleness that made your chest ache. "Do you know how I found out? Not from you. Not from a message. I heard the screaming. The whole village was screaming, and I went outside, and there was a dragon. A dragon, Y/N. Flying over my house. And I thought—I thought, that's her. That's my girl. She's gone and done something impossible again."

"I was going to tell you. I was coming to tell you right now."

"A dragon." Marta shook her head slowly, her eyes still wide with disbelief. "All those times you told me about Moonfyre. All those times I nodded and smiled and thought you had an imaginary friend. And she was real. She was real the whole time."

"She was real." Your voice cracked. "I tried to tell you. I tried to tell everyone. But no one believed me."

"I know." Marta's face crumpled, and fresh tears spilled down her cheeks. "I know, child. And I'm sorry. I should have believed you. You've never been a liar. You've never been one for tall tales. I should have known you were telling the truth."

You couldn't speak. You just held onto her, your face pressed into her shoulder, your body shaking with sobs you hadn't realized you'd been holding back. All the fear and the grief and the loneliness of the past days came pouring out of you, and Marta held you through it, her gnarled hands rubbing slow circles on your back, her voice a low, soothing murmur in your ear.

"Shh," she said. "Shh, child. I've got you. You're home now. You're home."

"I left without telling you." The words came out muffled against her shawl. "I just went to the cave, and I was so sad, and I fell asleep, and when I woke up Moonfyre was there, and she took me away, and I didn't even think—I didn't even say goodbye—"

"You came back." Marta's voice was firm. "That's what matters. You came back."

"I was so scared you'd hate me."

"Hate you?" Marta pulled back again, her hands still cupping your face, her eyes fierce despite the tears. "Y/N, I could never hate you. You're my daughter. Not by blood, maybe, but in every way that counts. I raised you from a squalling infant. I taught you to walk, to talk, to gather herbs and milk goats and stand up for yourself. I have loved you every day of your life, and I will love you every day of mine. Nothing you could do would ever change that. Do you understand?"

You nodded, your throat too tight to speak.

"Good." Marta released your face and pulled you into another hug, this one gentler, longer. "Now. You said you flew on a dragon. A dragon, Y/N. You could have fallen. You could have slipped right off her back and fallen into the sea. Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?"

"She wouldn't let me fall." You pulled back, wiping at your eyes with your sleeve. "She's careful with me. She's never let me get hurt."

"Never let you—" Marta shook her head, a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob escaping her. "Only you, child. Only you would tame a dragon and then talk about her like she's a particularly large horse."

"She's not a horse. She's much smarter than a horse."

"I'm glad you're home, child. I'm glad you're safe. And I'm glad you brought the prince. Even if he does hover."

"I don't hover," Valarr protested weakly.

"You hover," Marta and you said in unison, and then you looked at each other and laughed. It was a watery, unsteady laugh, but it was real, and it felt like the first real laugh you'd had in days.

"Come here, Prince." Marta beckoned him over, and when he was close enough, she reached up and patted his cheek with her gnarled hand. "You took care of her mother while she was gone. That's not nothing. I don't know what you did to upset her before she left, and I'm sure you deserved it, but you've earned a second chance in my book. Don't waste it."

"I won't." Valarr's voice was quiet but steady. "I swear it."

She was already moving toward the hearth, her gnarled hands reaching for the kettle. "Sit down. Both of you. I'm making tea, and then you're going to tell me everything. Every single thing. Starting from the beginning."

You sat at Marta's table with a cup of tea warming your hands, the familiar smell of chamomile and honey filling your lungs, and for the first time in days you felt something close to safe. The fire crackled in the hearth, Marta was bustling around the kitchen muttering about how thin you'd gotten, and Valarr was sitting across from you, his chair tilted back against the wall, his mismatched eyes watching you with a quiet intensity that made your stomach flutter.

But the warmth of the tea couldn't mask the fact that you were absolutely disgusting.

You'd been wearing the same clothes for three days. Your dress was stiff with dried seawater and dragon sweat and probably a dozen other things you didn't want to think about. Your hair was a wild, tangled nest, matted with salt and sand and the faint, lingering smell of Moonfyre's sulfurous breath. There was dirt under your fingernails, a scrape on your elbow you didn't remember getting, and what might have been goat grease smeared across your collar. You looked, in short, like you'd been dragged backward through the Dragonmont and then set on fire.

"I need a bath," you announced, setting down your cup. "Marta, is the washtub still—"

"In the back, where it always is." Marta didn't look up from the pot she was stirring. "There's water heating over the fire. I put it on as soon as I heard the screaming start. Figured if you were alive, you'd need it."

You blinked. "You put water on to heat before you even knew I was coming back?"

"I hoped you were coming back." Marta's voice was gruff, but you caught the tremor in it. "I've been heating water every day. Just in case."

Your throat tightened, and you had to look away. "I'll go wash up, then."

You rose from the table, your legs still shaky, your body aching in places you hadn't known existed. Flying was hard work. Flying while terrified was even harder. You'd been running on adrenaline and stubbornness for so long that the exhaustion had become background noise, something you'd learned to ignore. But now, in the warmth of Marta's kitchen, with the fire crackling and the tea settling in your stomach, it was catching up to you.

At the door to the back room, you paused and turned. Valarr was still sitting at the table, still watching you. He looked as tired as you felt, his hollow cheeks and dark circled eyes a testament to the days he'd spent searching for you. His tunic was rumpled beyond saving, his hair was a wild mess, and there was a smear of dirt across his forehead where he'd wiped his brow at some point.

"You should go home," you said. "Get some rest. Wash up. Your mother's probably waiting for you."

Valarr didn't move. "I'm not leaving."

"Valarr, I'm just taking a bath. I'll be fine."

"I'm not leaving," he repeated, and there was something in his voice that hadn't been there before. Something harder. Something that sounded almost like steel.

You frowned. "What are you talking about?"

He rose from his chair, crossing the room to stand in front of you. Up close, you could see the exhaustion in his face, the red rims around his mismatched eyes, the way his jaw was set with a determination that seemed almost out of place in Marta's cozy kitchen.

"You're the first dragonrider in seventy years," he said quietly. "Do you understand what that means? Not for House Targaryen, not for the realm. For you. For your safety."

"I have a dragon. I think my safety is pretty well handled."

"Your dragon is in the caves. You're here." He stepped closer, his voice dropping even lower. "The whole island saw you fly in. The whole island knows what you are now. Word is going to spread—it's probably already spreading. Merchants in the harbor, fishermen heading out to sea, ravens flying to every corner of the Seven Kingdoms. By tomorrow, everyone is going to know that a girl from Dragonstone tamed a living dragon."

"Valarr—"

"And most people will be awed. Most people will be grateful. But some people won't." His hand found yours, his fingers lacing through your cold ones. "Some people will see you as a threat. Some people will see you as a weapon to be stolen. And some people are just stupid enough to think that if they get rid of you, the dragon will be up for grabs."

You stared at him. "You think someone in the village is going to attack me while I'm taking a bath?"

"I think I'm not taking any chances." His grip on your hand tightened. "I spent three days thinking you were dead, Y/N. Three days of believing I'd lost you forever. I'm not going to let something happen to you now because I was too careless to stand guard while you washed your hair."

"That's ridiculous."

"Maybe. I don't care."

"You can't just stand outside the door while I bathe. That's—" You felt your cheeks flush. "That's not appropriate."

"Then I'll wait in the front room. With Marta." He tilted his head, his eyes searching your face. "But I'm not leaving this cottage tonight. Not unless you really want me to. And even then, I'd probably just camp outside the door."

You wanted to argue. You wanted to tell him he was being absurd, that you'd survived a dragon and a flight across the sea and a confrontation with his father, and you could certainly survive a bath without a prince hovering nearby. But there was something in his expression a tightness around his eyes, a tension in his jaw that made you stop. He wasn't just being protective. He was scared. Genuinely, deeply scared. Three days of thinking you were dead had done something to him, carved a wound that hadn't started to heal until he'd burst into that cave and seen you alive.

"Fine," you said, and his shoulders sagged with visible relief. "But you're not allowed to loom. Marta doesn't like looming."

"I don't loom."

"You definitely loom."

"I have never loomed in my life."

"You're looming right now."

Marta's voice cut through from the kitchen. "He's looming. I can feel it from here."

Valarr looked offended. "I'm standing perfectly normally."

"You're standing like a guardsman outside a treasury," you told him, and despite everything, you felt the corner of your mouth twitch upward. "Relax. I'm just getting clean."

His expression softened, the hard edges smoothing away. "Go take your bath. I'll be here when you're done."

You nodded, pulling your hand free from his, and slipped into the back room. The washtub was there, just as Marta had promised, already filled with steaming water. A bar of rough soap sat on the edge, and a clean towel was draped over a stool nearby. You peeled off your filthy clothes, wincing at the soreness in your muscles, and lowered yourself into the water.

It was glorious. The heat seeped into your aching body, loosening the knots in your shoulders and the tension in your spine. You closed your eyes and let yourself sink deeper, the water rising up to your chin, and for a long moment you just breathed. The steam filled your lungs, warm and clean, chasing away the last traces of salt and smoke.

You could hear Valarr's voice from the other room, low and steady, and Marta's answering chuckle. You couldn't make out the words, but the tone was companionable, familiar. Like they'd been doing this for years instead of days. You thought about what he'd said, that he'd taken care of her while you were gone, that he'd sat with her and listened to her stories and made sure she ate. You thought about the way he'd looked at you when he said it, like it was the most natural thing in the world, like taking care of your family was just something he did.

You thought about a lot of things. And when you finally emerged from the bath, clean and warm and wrapped in Marta's towel, you found Valarr exactly where he'd promised to be. Sitting at the table, a cup of tea in his hands, not looming. Waiting.

"Better?" he asked.

"Better," you said, and you meant it.

Later that night Valarr had settled into a chair by the door, his sword propped against the wall within easy reach, his long legs stretched out before him. He'd insisted on taking the first watch, even though Marta had told him repeatedly that no one in the village was going to attack her home.

"Old habits," he'd said, and Marta had snorted and told him he wasn't old enough to have habits.

Now the fire had burned down to embers, and the cottage was quiet except for Marta's soft snoring from the back room and the distant whisper of the sea. You were curled on your pallet, wrapped in the same worn blanket you'd used since childhood, your body heavy with exhaustion. Valarr's silhouette was just visible in the dim orange glow, his head tipped back against the wall, his breathing slow and even. You thought he might have fallen asleep sitting up, and the thought made something warm bloom in your chest.

You were just drifting off, your mind going soft and hazy at the edges, when the screaming started.

It was distant at first, muffled by the cottage walls, but it grew quickly voices raised in panic, the sound of doors slamming, a woman's high-pitched shriek cutting through the night. You were on your feet before you were fully awake, your heart hammering, your hand reaching instinctively for a weapon that wasn't there. Valarr was already up, his sword in his hand, his body positioned between you and the door.

"What is that?" you breathed.

"Stay here." His voice was sharp, alert. "I'll check—"

But you were already moving, because you knew. You didn't know how you knew, but you did. There was a feeling in your chest, a pull, a warmth that had nothing to do with the fire. It was the same feeling you'd had in the cave, when Moonfyre had come back to you. The same feeling you'd had on the island, when she'd returned with a goat and dropped it at your feet. A thread of connection, invisible but unbreakable, tugging at the space behind your ribs.

You threw open the door and ran outside.

The village was in chaos. People were spilling out of their homes in various states of undress, clutching children and makeshift weapons, a broom, a fishing gaff, a cast iron pan. Some were running toward the source of the commotion, others away from it. Lanterns bobbed in the darkness like fireflies, their flickering light casting wild shadows across the cobblestones. And in the center of it all, in the narrow lane between Marta's cottage and the baker's house, was Moonfyre.

She was enormous in the confined space, her pale scales reflecting the lantern light and scattering it like jewels. Her wings were folded tight against her body, her head low to the ground, her tail curled around her haunches. She wasn't growling. She wasn't snarling. She was just... there. Crouched in the lane like a cat that had decided to nap in an inconvenient doorway, her golden eyes scanning the crowd with an expression that was more wary than aggressive.

But the villagers didn't know that. They saw teeth. They saw claws. They saw fire flickering at the back of her throat, because of course she was nervous, of course she was agitated, there were people everywhere and they were screaming and waving things at her, and she didn't understand.

"It's the dragon!"

"She's come to burn us!"

"Get the children inside!"

"Someone get a spear!"

"No!" You threw yourself between Moonfyre and the crowd, your arms spread wide, your voice cutting through the chaos with a force that surprised even you. "Stop! Everyone stop! She's not going to hurt you!"

The crowd faltered. Faces turned toward you, faces you recognized, faces you'd known your whole life. Old Tom the fisherman, his gaff still raised. The baker's wife, clutching her rolling pin. The blacksmith, bare chested and holding a hammer. Neighbors. People who had known you since you were a child, who had called you the Silver Lark and humored your stories about dragons.

"Y/N?" The baker's wife lowered her rolling pin, her round face pale with shock. "Y/N, is that you? We thought you were dead!"

"I'm not dead." You kept your arms spread, your voice steady even though your heart was pounding. "I'm fine. She's not going to hurt anyone. She's just—she's scared, and she doesn't like crowds, and she came looking for me. That's all. She came looking for me."

Moonfyre made a sound behind you a low, plaintive chirp that was so at odds with her size that several villagers actually flinched backward. You turned to look at her, and she was watching you with those golden eyes, her head low, her tail twitching nervously. She looked... anxious. Not aggressive. Not threatening. Just anxious. Like a child who had woken from a nightmare and gone looking for their mother.

"Oh, sweet girl," you murmured, and you stepped toward her, your hand outstretched. "What are you doing here? You were supposed to stay in the cave."

She chirped again and pushed her snout into your palm, her warm scales pressing against your skin. You felt the tension in her, the fine tremor running through her body, and you understood. She had been alone. She had been alone, and she hadn't wanted to be, and so she had come to find you. It didn't matter that she'd been fine sleeping alone in the caves for months before you'd ridden her. Something had changed. The bond between you had deepened, solidified, become something more than it was before. She didn't want to be apart from you. Not tonight. Maybe not ever again.

"It's alright," you said softly, stroking her snout. "It's alright. I'm here. You found me."

Behind you, the villagers were still frozen, still watching with wide eyes and white knuckles. You turned to face them, one hand still pressed against Moonfyre's scales.

"She's not a monster," you said, and your voice carried in the night air. "She's my friend. She's not here to attack you. She's here because she wanted to be near me."

"Near you?" Old Tom's voice was incredulous. "That thing is the size of my boat!"

"She's not a thing. Her name is Moonfyre." You looked at him steadily. "And she's going to sleep outside my house tonight, and she's not going to bother anyone. Is that going to be a problem?"

A long silence. The villagers exchanged glances, fear and uncertainty warring on their faces. But no one raised their weapon. No one shouted. No one lunged forward to attack.

Finally, the baker's wife let out a long breath and tucked her rolling pin under her arm. "Well, if she eats my chickens, you're paying for them."

A startled laugh escaped you. "I will. I promise."

Slowly, reluctantly, the crowd began to disperse. Some people went back to their homes, casting nervous glances over their shoulders. Others lingered at a safe distance, watching with a mixture of terror and fascination. But the immediate danger was over. No one was screaming anymore. No one was threatening violence. Moonfyre had stopped trembling, her breathing evening out as she pressed closer to you.

"Alright, sweet girl," you murmured, stroking her scales. "If you're going to stay, you need to settle down. Can you do that? Can you lie down and be quiet?"

She made a soft, rumbling sound and, very slowly, lowered herself onto the ground beside Marta's cottage. There wasn't much space the lane was narrow, and she was far too large for it but she managed to curl herself into a crescent shape, her tail wrapping around the side of the house, her head coming to rest near the front door. Her wing spread slightly, creating a sheltered space against the cottage wall, and she looked up at you with an expression that was almost hopeful.

"You want me to sleep out here with you," you said. It wasn't a question.

She blinked at you slowly, and her tail twitched, and you knew that was exactly what she wanted. She had flown across the island to find you. She had braved the screaming and the lanterns and the crowd of strangers. And all she wanted was to curl up beside you and feel you close, to know that you were safe and near and not going anywhere.

"Alright," you said, and you pressed a kiss to her snout. "Alright. Give me a minute."

You slipped back inside the cottage. Marta was standing in the doorway, her shawl wrapped around her shoulders, her expression caught somewhere between terror and wonder. Valarr was right behind her, his sword still in his hand, his face pale.

"She came looking for me," you said, and you couldn't quite keep the amazement from your voice. "She didn't want to be alone."

"I gathered that." Marta shook her head slowly. "Only you, child. Only you would have a dragon showing up at your doorstep like a stray cat."

"She's not a cat."

"No, cats are smaller and less likely to set the roof on fire." But her voice was warm, and there was something almost like pride in her eyes. "Go on, then. If she needs you, she needs you."

You turned to Valarr. He was still holding his sword, still tense, but the panic had faded from his face. He was looking at you with an expression you couldn't quite read.

"She's anxious," you said. "Something's changed. I don't know what, but she doesn't want to be alone. She wants me nearby. I have to stay with her."

"I know." He sheathed his sword and stepped toward you. "I'm coming with you."

"Valarr—"

"I told you. I'm not leaving you tonight." His voice was quiet but firm. "If that means sleeping outside under a dragon's wing, then that's what I'm doing."

"She might not let you. She barely tolerates you."

"Then I'll ask her nicely."

You stared at him for a moment, at his tired eyes and his set jaw and the stubborn determination in every line of his body. Then you shook your head, a reluctant smile tugging at your lips. "You're ridiculous."

"I've been told."

You went back outside, Valarr following close behind. Moonfyre's head came up when she saw him, a low rumble starting in her chest, but you pressed your hand against her scales before it could grow into a growl.

"He's with me," you told her. "He's staying. I know you don't like him much, but I do. So you need to be nice. Can you do that? Can you let him stay?"

Moonfyre looked at Valarr for a long moment. Her golden eyes were unblinking, assessing. Valarr stood very still, his hands at his sides, his posture open and unthreatening. He didn't reach for his sword. He didn't flinch. He just waited.

Then, slowly, Moonfyre let out a huff and lowered her head back to the ground. Her wing lifted, just slightly, creating a space against the cottage wall. An invitation. Or at least, not a refusal.

"I think that's a yes," Valarr said quietly.

"I think it's a 'fine, but I'm watching you.'"

"That too."

For a long moment, you just sat there, your back against the wall, Moonfyre's wing sheltering you, Valarr warm and solid at your side. Above you, the stars were scattered across the sky like seeds of light. The village was quiet again, the panic faded, the only sound the distant crash of waves and the slow, steady rhythm of Moonfyre's breathing.

"She came all the way here," you said quietly. "She flew across the island because she didn't want to sleep alone."

"She loves you." Valarr's voice was soft. "You saved her life. You're her person."

"I think... I think something changed. When I rode her. When we flew together." You paused, trying to find the right words. "Before, she was fine being apart from me. She'd stay in the cave and I'd go home and we'd see each other the next day. But now..." You looked at Moonfyre, at her golden eyes reflecting the starlight. "Now she doesn't want to be apart. Like the bond got stronger. Like she needs to know I'm close."

"That makes sense." Valarr shifted beside you, his arm brushing yours. "The old stories say that when a dragon bonds with a rider, it's for life. It's not just friendship. Like a bonding of the soul. Something that changes both of you. I read that when dragonriding women gave birth their dragons also screamed and roared in pain along with them."

You turned your head to look at him. "You read about dragons?"

"I read about a lot of things. Especially recently." A small smile flickered across his tired face. "I am a Targaryen, reading about dragons is a requirement."

Something warm bloomed in your chest, and you leaned into him, letting your head rest against his shoulder. He was solid and warm and steady, and he smelled of woodsmoke and leather and something clean that you couldn't name. His arm came up to wrap around you, pulling you closer, and you felt him press a kiss to the top of your head.

"Sleep," he murmured. "I'll be here. She'll be here. Nothing's going to happen."

And for the first time in days, you let yourself relax completely. Moonfyre's wing was warm above you, her breathing a steady rhythm beneath the sound of the waves. Valarr's arm was around you, his heartbeat steady against your ear. You were safe. You were loved. You were home.

—

To His Grace, King Daeron II Targaryen, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, Protector of the Realm,

Father,

I write to you with news that I scarcely know how to put into words, though I have rehearsed this letter a dozen times in my head and discarded each version as inadequate. Perhaps the simplest way is best: a dragon has returned to House Targaryen.

Not a skull. Not an egg turned to stone. A living dragon, pale as sea foam with a purple undertone that catches the light like dusk on the water. She is young and she is healthy and whole and utterly, breathtakingly real. I have seen her with my own eyes. I have stood in the same chamber as her and felt the heat of her breath. This is not a rumor, not a peasant's fancy, not a clever mummer's trick. This is truth.

She was found in the eastern caves of the Dragonmont, where she had hidden herself away after sustaining a wing injury. How she came to be there—whether she hatched from some long-dormant egg or migrated from some place beyond our knowledge—I cannot say. What matters is that she was found, and healed, and claimed.

And here, Father, is where the story becomes something stranger than any maester's account.

She was found by a girl. A village girl, no older than sixteen, a bastard of Dragonstone with no family name and no prospects beyond the goats she tended for the old woman who raised her, she bears our look, though which of our kin planted that seed, I cannot say and she does not know. She came to me when I first arrived on the island, seeking an audience at the petitions. She told me there was a dragon in the caves. She told me she had been feeding it, healing it, that it had let her touch its scales and sleep beside its warmth.

I did not believe her.

I will sit with that shame for the rest of my life, Father. I looked at this girl—earnest and hopeful and wearing a cloak that was more patches than original fabric—and I saw only what I expected to see. A lonely child with an imaginary friend. A bastard reaching for something to make herself feel special. I humored her. I smiled, and I nodded, and I told her she could keep her dragon as a gift from the crown, because I thought I was being kind. I thought I was being generous to a girl who was not quite right in the head.

She was telling the truth. All of it. Every word.

Her name is Y/N. She lives with an old healer woman named Marta who took her in as an infant and she saved a dragon's life through nothing more than stubbornness and kindness, because she could not walk away from something that was hurting, even when it tried to bite her head off.

I know what you must be thinking. A common girl. A bastard. This is not how dragons are supposed to return to us. They are supposed to be claimed by princes and princesses, by trueborn children of our line, by people who will use them to restore our house to its former glory.

But the dragon chose her, Father. The bond between them is as real as any in the old histories. Perhaps more so. She did not claim the dragon through blood or fire or conquest. She claimed it through love.

I am not so foolish as to think this will not complicate things. A dragon bonded to a common girl, a bastard with no name and no title, is not what any of us would have chosen. There will be those who say she cannot be trusted with such power. There will be those who say the dragon should be taken from her, by force if necessary, and bonded to someone more suitable.

I am writing to tell you, as plainly as I can, that I will not allow that to happen.

Not only because it would be wrong—though it would be. Not only because the dragon would likely kill anyone who tried—though she would. But because I have seen this girl, and I have spoken with her, and I believe with all my heart that she is the best thing that could have happened to this dragon and to our house. She does not want power. She does not want gold or titles or lands. She is more noble than half the lords I have met at court, and she has nothing to her name but a worn cloak and a dragon who loves her.

My son has fallen in love with her.

I did not encourage it. At first, I did everything in my power to discourage it. I reminded him of his betrothal to Kiera of Tyrosh. I told him, in terms that left no room for ambiguity, that a prince of the blood could not throw away his future for a village girl with an imaginary dragon.

The dragon, as it turns out, was not imaginary.

Valarr has made his choice, Father, and I have made mine. I have given my consent for him to marry her. I know this is not what we planned. I know the alliance with Tyrosh was carefully negotiated, and Kiera's family will be insulted, and there will be political consequences that I will spend the next several years managing. But I am asking you—as your son, as your heir, as the man who has spent his entire life doing what was expected of him—to trust me on this.

A dragon is worth more then any coin or fleet the tyroshi can give us.

And her children will be Targaryens.Do you see it, Father? The path forward? Valarr's children— trueborn children, born of his marriage to this girl—will carry our name and our blood and, if the gods are good, the bond with this dragon. A dragon who will, in time, produce more dragons. Eggs, perhaps, if the old stories are true and dragons can shift their sex as need requires. Or perhaps there are more out there, hidden in the caves of the Dragonmont, waiting to be found. But even if Moonfyre is the only one, she is a start. She is hope. She is the first living proof in Seventy years that our house is not finished, that the fire has not gone out, that the blood of Old Valyria still carries its ancient power.

I will write to the Archon of Tyrosh myself. I will explain the situation and offer what recompense I can. Perhaps we can salvage the alliance by betrothing Kiera to Matarys instead—he is younger than Valarr, true, but not by so many years that the match would be unseemly. He is charming and handsome and will make a good husband to someone, even if that someone was originally promised to his brother. It is not a perfect solution, but it is something. A branch to catch us before we fall entirely.

I know you will have questions. I know you will have concerns. I will answer them all when I return to King's Landing, which I expect will be sooner than originally planned now that the situation here has grown so complicated. But for now, Father, I am asking you to sit with this news and consider it carefully before you respond. The dragon has chosen her rider. The rider has chosen my son. And I have chosen to stand with them, however messy and inconvenient that choice may be.

Your loving son, Baelor

[lalalovelyly]

Bastards, Dragons And Royals: The Island

VALARR TARGARYEN X BASTARD!READER SUMMARY: In which home can be everywhere TW:NONE WC: 15K PART FOUR

You had no idea how long you had been flying. Time had become a strange, slippery thing, measured only in the beat of Moonfyre's wings and the burning ache in your thighs and the way the stars wheeled overhead like they were dancing just for you. The terror had not faded, not really. It had settled into something you could carry, a low hum of fear that lived in your chest alongside the wonder, because how could anyone be truly calm when they were clinging to the back of a dragon with nothing but their own trembling fingers to keep them from falling into the endless dark sea below?

The wind was pushing against you, pulling at your hair, stealing your breath every time you tried to take a full one. Your eyes were streaming from the cold and the speed and the salt spray that occasionally kicked up from the waves far beneath you, and you had long since given up trying to wipe them clear. You just squinted, your cheek pressed against Moonfyre's warm scales, and watched the world blur past in shades of silver and black and the deep, impossible blue of the night sea. Every now and then you caught a glimpse of something below, a whitecap on a wave, the dark shape of a rocky outcropping, once the distant glow of what might have been a ship's lantern far to the south. But mostly there was nothing. Just water and sky and the steady, powerful rhythm of the dragon carrying you away from everything you had ever known.

Your hands hurt. That was the thing you kept coming back to, the mundane, ridiculous detail that anchored you to reality when the wonder of it all threatened to sweep you away entirely. Your fingers were cramping from gripping Moonfyre's scales so tightly, the ridges of her spine digging into your palms, your knuckles white and aching. You had tried shifting your grip a few times, loosening one hand at a time to shake out the stiffness, but every time you did, a gust of wind would catch you or Moonfyre would adjust her course with a subtle tilt of her wings, and you would grab on again with renewed desperation, your heart leaping into your throat. You were not going to fall. You were not going to fall. You repeated it like a prayer, like a spell, like if you said it enough times it would become true.

Moonfyre did not seem concerned about the possibility of you falling. She flew with a steady, purposeful grace, her wings beating in a rhythm that felt as natural as breathing, her body warm and solid beneath you. Every now and then she would turn her head, just slightly, and you would catch a glimpse of one golden eye looking back at you, checking, perhaps, to make sure you were still there. You always were. You always would be. Where else would you go, clinging to the back of a dragon a thousand feet above the sea?

Moonfyre banked slightly to the left, and you grabbed her scales with renewed panic, your knuckles screaming in protest. The sea tilted beneath you, a vast expanse of darkness that suddenly felt much closer than it had a moment before, and you squeezed your eyes shut and pressed your face into her spine and waited for the world to right itself again.

The stars began to fade. You noticed it slowly, the way the black of the sky softened to a deep, bruised purple, then to grey, then to something that was almost blue. The horizon ahead of you began to glow, a thin line of gold and pink that spread like a promise across the edge of the world, and you watched it with aching eyes and a heart that was too full to speak. You had seen sunrises before, of course. You had seen them from the cliffs of Dragonstone, from the window of Marta's cottage, from the deck of a fishing boat on the rare mornings when old Tom let you come along. But you had never seen a sunrise like this. You had never seen the sun rise from above the clouds, from the back of a dragon, with the whole world spread out beneath you like a gift you had never asked for and never deserved.

The light grew stronger, painting the sea in shades of rose and gold, and you could see the water clearly now, endless and empty and beautiful. There was nothing out here. No ships, no islands, no signs of land at all. Just the sea and the sky and the dragon carrying you toward a horizon that never seemed to get any closer.

And then, just as the sun crested the edge of the world and the sky exploded into color, you saw it.

A speck of green in all that blue. Small at first, so small you thought you might be imagining it, a trick of the light or a wishful thought given shape by exhaustion. But it grew as you flew toward it, resolving from a blur into a shape, from a shape into an island. A small island, perhaps no larger than Dragonstone itself, but greener than anything you had ever seen. The cliffs of your home were grey and jagged, bare rock and sparse grass and the constant, unforgiving wind. This island was different. This island was lush and verdant, its slopes covered in trees that looked almost tropical from this distance, its beaches pale and soft and utterly untouched.

Moonfyre began to descend.

Your stomach dropped along with her, a sickening lurch that made you grab her scales so hard your fingers went numb. The island rushed up to meet you, the green slopes and pale beaches growing larger and larger, and you could see now that there was a waterfall on the far side of the island, a thin ribbon of silver that cascaded down the rocks and disappeared into the trees. You could see birds wheeling in the sky below you, startled by the dragon's approach, their cries lost in the rush of wind. You could see flowers, actual flowers, splashes of color against all that green, red and yellow and purple and white.

Moonfyre landed hard on the beach, her claws digging into the pale sand, her wings folding against her body with a final, decisive snap. The impact jarred through your entire body, rattling your teeth and nearly dislodging you from her back, but you held on, your legs shaking, your arms trembling, your whole body one long ache from your shoulders to your ankles.

For a long moment, you didn't move. You couldn't move. You just sat there, slumped against Moonfyre's neck, your face pressed into her warm scales, breathing. Just breathing. The air was different here, warmer than Dragonstone, sweeter, carrying the scent of flowers and earth and something else, something green and alive that you had no name for. The sun was warm on your back, truly warm, not the pale, grudging warmth of the Dragonstone sun but a real, honest heat that seeped through your worn cloak and into your cold bones.

You were alive. You were on an island somewhere in the middle of the sea. You had flown here on the back of a dragon.

You started to laugh. It was a weak, breathless sound, more of a wheeze really, but it was laughter all the same. You laughed until your sides ached, until tears were streaming down your cheeks, until you couldn't tell if you were laughing or crying or both. Moonfyre rumbled beneath you, a questioning sound, and you patted her scales with a hand that was still shaking.

"I'm fine," you managed, your voice hoarse. "I'm fine. I just flew. On a dragon. Across the sea. And now I'm on an island. A beautiful island. A completely unknown island. And I have no idea where we are or how to get back or what we're going to eat or—"

Moonfyre shifted beneath you, her body lowering, and you took the hint. You slid off her back with all the grace of a sack of potatoes, your legs buckling the moment they hit the sand. You fell to your knees, then to your hands, then flat on your face, and you lay there for a moment, just feeling the warmth of the sand beneath you, the solid, unmoving ground, the blessed stillness of a world that was no longer tilting and swaying and threatening to drop you into the sea.

You heard Moonfyre move behind you, the soft crunch of her claws in the sand, the rustle of her wings as she stretched them wide. You turned your head just enough to look at her, and she was magnificent, her pale scales catching the morning light and shimmering with that faint purple undertone you loved so much. Her golden eyes were fixed on you, patient and warm, and she made a sound that was almost a purr.

"Where are we?" you asked her, pushing yourself up to sit. Your legs were still shaking, your hands still aching, but the world had stopped spinning and you could think again, more or less. "Why did you bring me here?"

Moonfyre blinked at you slowly, and then, without any warning at all, she launched herself into the air.

You stared, your mouth hanging open, as she rose above the beach, her wings beating hard, her body climbing higher and higher. She circled once, twice, and then she turned and flew back out over the sea, the same direction you had come from, her pale form growing smaller and smaller until she was nothing but a speck against the endless blue, she was gone.

You sat in the sand, staring at the empty sky, and waited for her to come back. She didn't.

The silence was overwhelming. On Dragonstone, there was always noise, the crash of the sea against the rocks, the cry of gulls, the distant shouts of fishermen, the bleating of Marta's goats. Here, there was nothing but the gentle whisper of the waves on the shore and the rustle of wind through the trees. It should have been peaceful. It was peaceful. It was also deeply, profoundly unsettling.

You pulled your knees up to your chest and wrapped your arms around them, your eyes still fixed on the horizon. She would come back. She had to come back. She had brought you here for a reason, and that reason was not to abandon you on a deserted island in the middle of nowhere. She was your dragon. You had saved her life. You had named her. You had kissed her on the snout. You had a bond. A connection. A thing that dragons and riders were supposed to have.

She would come back.

Any minute now.

You waited. The sun climbed higher, warm and golden, and you shrugged off your cloak and laid it on the sand beside you. The beach was beautiful, really beautiful, the sand pale and soft, the water clear and blue and nothing like the churning grey sea around Dragonstone. If you were going to be abandoned on a deserted island, you thought, this was probably the best possible deserted island to be abandoned on. That was something. That was almost comforting.

She would come back.

You waited some more. Your stomach growled, a loud, insistent sound that reminded you that you had not eaten since the bread and cheese you had shared with Marta what felt like a lifetime ago. You had been so focused on the cave, on the empty chamber, on the cold stone and the ashes and the bone deep grief of believing you had imagined the only thing that had ever been truly yours. You had not thought to bring food. You had not thought to bring anything. You had just walked into the darkness and curled up on the cold stone and waited to disappear.

And then she had come back. And she had taken you here. And now she was gone again.

"I'm not crazy," you said aloud, and your voice sounded strange in the silence, too loud and too small at the same time. "I didn't imagine her. She's real. She carried me here. I'm sitting on a beach on an island I've never seen before, and I got here on the back of a dragon. That happened. That's real. I'm not imagining this."

You paused, considering.

"Unless I'm imagining all of this. Unless I'm still in the cave, lying on the cold stone, dreaming that I'm on a beautiful island with warm sand and clear water and a dragon who might or might not come back. That would be very like me, wouldn't it? To dream something wonderful and then wake up alone in the dark."

You pinched yourself, hard, on the soft skin of your inner arm. It hurt. It throbbed for several seconds after you let go. You were not dreaming. Probably. You had heard that people who were dreaming could pinch themselves and feel it, if they believed hard enough that they would feel it. But you didn't feel like you were dreaming. You felt awake. Tired and hungry and sore and a little bit scared, but awake.

"I'm not on Dragonstone anymore," you said, continuing your argument with yourself because there was no one else to argue with. "I've never seen this place before. I didn't know it existed. I couldn't have imagined it, because I didn't know what to imagine. I didn't know there were islands like this, with trees like that and sand like this and water that color. So I must be here. Really here. Which means Moonfyre is real. Which means I'm not crazy. Which means Valarr was wrong and I was right and everyone who ever looked at me with pity in their eyes can go jump in the sea."

You felt better after saying that. Not a lot better, but a little. Enough to uncurl from your tight ball and stretch your legs out in front of you and actually look at the island instead of just staring at the horizon waiting for a dragon who might or might not return.

It really was beautiful. The beach curved in a gentle crescent, bordered by trees that looked like nothing you had ever seen on Dragonstone. They were tall and slender, with smooth grey bark and broad green leaves that rustled softly in the warm breeze. Beyond them, the island rose into low hills covered in more trees and what looked like flowering bushes, splashes of color that stood out against all that green. The waterfall you had seen from the air was visible now, a thin white ribbon against the dark rock of a small cliff face, and you could hear it if you listened carefully, a distant, musical sound beneath the whisper of the waves.

You should explore. You knew you should explore. You should find fresh water, and shelter, and something to eat. You should figure out if the island had any dangers, wild animals or poisonous plants or anything else that might kill a girl who had survived a dragon only to be taken out by a berry. You should be practical and resourceful and brave, the way Marta had raised you to be.

Instead, you sat in the sand and watched the waves and waited for your dragon to come back.

A crow landed on the sand about ten feet away from you.

You blinked at it. It was a large crow, larger than the one you had rescued from the cliffs, with glossy black feathers and bright, intelligent eyes. It tilted its head at you, regarding you with an expression that was almost curious, and you tilted your head back at it, because it seemed like the polite thing to do.

"Hello," you said.

The crow cawed. It was not a friendly sound. It was more of a statement, a declaration of presence, a this is my island and who are you kind of sound. You had heard crows make that sound before, on Dragonstone, when they were defending their territory from other crows.

"I'm Y/N," you said, because you had already established that you were talking to yourself and talking to a crow was only slightly stranger. "I came here on a dragon. She left, but I think she's coming back. I hope she's coming back. If she doesn't come back, I suppose I live here now. Is that alright with you?"

The crow stared at you. Its black eyes were unreadable, but there was something in its posture that suggested it was thinking, weighing, considering. You had never been looked at like that by a bird before. It was unsettling. It was also, in a strange way, comforting. At least something on this island acknowledged your existence.

"I saved a crow once," you offered. "On Dragonstone. Its wing was broken. I found it on the cliffs and I took it home and I fixed it. Marta helped. She knows a lot about healing. We fed it scraps and kept it warm and when its wing was healed, I let it go. It flew away, just like that, without looking back. I was sad, but I understood. It had bigger things waiting for it. A sky. A flock. A life that was bigger than my cottage."

The crow took a hop closer. Then another. You held very still, barely breathing, as it approached. It stopped about three feet away, its head tilted, its black eyes fixed on your face.

"I don't have any food," you said apologetically. "I didn't exactly plan for this trip. I was just going to the cave to be sad, and then there was a dragon, and now I'm here. It's been a very strange day. Night. Whatever. I've lost track of time."

The crow made a softer sound, almost a chuckle, and you could have sworn it was laughing at you. It hopped a little closer, then stopped, its head turning toward the sea. You followed its gaze, and your heart leaped into your throat.

There was a shape on the horizon. A familiar shape, growing larger by the second. Wings, pale and shimmering, catching the sunlight and scattering it like jewels.

Moonfyre.

You scrambled to your feet, your legs shaking, your heart pounding, your eyes fixed on the dragon as she grew closer and closer. The crow took off with an indignant caw, wheeling into the sky and disappearing into the trees, but you barely noticed. All your attention was on Moonfyre, on the graceful sweep of her wings, on the way the sun caught her scales and made them glow, on the dark shape she was carrying in her claws.

She landed on the beach with a heavy thud, sand spraying out from beneath her feet, and dropped her burden onto the pale shore in front of you. It landed with a wet, heavy sound, and you stared at it, trying to make sense of what you were seeing.

It was a goat. Or what had once been a goat. It was charred and smoking, its fur burned away in patches, its flesh cooked through in some places and blackened in others. The smell hit you a moment later, rich and savory and so delicious that your mouth watered despite the strangeness of the situation. It was the smell of roasted meat, real meat, the kind of meat you had only ever tasted in tiny portions, scraps from the butcher's stall or the occasional gift from a grateful patient of Marta's.

Moonfyre nudged the goat toward you with her snout, her golden eyes bright and expectant. She made a sound, a soft, encouraging rumble, and nudged it again, pushing it closer to your feet.

You stared at her. You stared at the goat. You stared back at her.

"You brought me food," you said slowly. "You flew all the way back to Dragonstone, or wherever you found a goat, and you caught it, and you cooked it, and you brought it here. For me."

Moonfyre rumbled again, and this time there was no mistaking the pride in the sound. She sat back on her haunches, her chest puffed out slightly, her golden eyes watching you with an expression that could only be described as smug satisfaction. She looked like a cat who had just deposited a mouse on its owner's pillow and was waiting to be praised for its hunting prowess.

You laughed. It started small, a surprised huff of air, and then it grew, bubbling up from your chest until you were doubled over, your hands on your knees, tears streaming down your face. You laughed until your sides ached, until you couldn't breathe, until Moonfyre started to look concerned and nudged you gently with her snout.

"You ridiculous creature," you gasped, straightening up and wiping your eyes. "You ridiculous, wonderful, absurd creature. You brought me a goat. You roasted it with your fire and you carried it across the sea and you dropped it at my feet like a cat bringing home a bird."

Moonfyre made a sound that was definitely pleased, and nudged the goat again, pushing it even closer to you. The message was clear. Eat. You're hungry. I brought you food.

You knelt in the sand beside the charred goat, and up close it was both more and less appetizing than it had seemed from a distance. The fire had done its work unevenly, some parts were perfectly cooked, the meat tender and falling off the bone, while others were blackened to ash or still pink and raw in the center. But it was food. It was real, fresh meat, and your stomach was growling so loudly now that you were pretty sure Moonfyre could hear it.

You reached out and tore off a piece from what looked like the most cooked section. It was hot, almost too hot to hold, and you juggled it between your fingers for a moment before bringing it to your mouth. The first bite was so good you almost cried. It was rich and savory and slightly smoky, with a depth of flavor you had never experienced before. The meat was tender, falling apart on your tongue, and there was fat that had crisped up from the fire and added a crunch that made your eyes roll back in your head.

"This is the best thing I've ever eaten," you said around a mouthful of goat. "This is better than anything I've ever had. This is better than Marta's cooking. Don't tell her I said that."

Moonfyre rumbled contentedly and settled onto the sand beside you, her great body curling around you in a familiar crescent, her tail sweeping out to encircle your little eating area. Her warmth seeped into your back, and you leaned against her, eating your roasted goat on a beautiful beach with your dragon wrapped around you, and you thought that maybe, just maybe, everything was going to be alright.

You ate until you couldn't eat anymore, until your stomach was full and round and slightly aching in the best possible way. There was still so much goat left, more than you could eat in days, and you looked at it with a kind of wondering gratitude. Moonfyre had brought you food. She had flown across the sea, hunted, cooked, and delivered a meal to you because you were hungry and she knew it. She had taken care of you the way you had taken care of her, all those weeks in the cave, bringing her rabbits and fish and the occasional sheep.

"Is this what it's going to be like?" you asked her, wiping your greasy hands on your already stained cloak. "You bring me food, I eat it, we sit on a beautiful beach and watch the waves? Because I could get used to this. I could very easily get used to this."

Moonfyre blinked at you slowly, and her tail curled tighter around you, pulling you closer against her warm side. The sun was high now, warm and golden, and the beach was peaceful and quiet, and you were full of good food and safe in the curve of your dragon's body. Your eyes began to droop. The exhaustion of the night, the flight, the terror and the wonder and the waiting, all of it crashed over you at once, a wave of tiredness so profound you couldn't fight it even if you wanted to.

You leaned your head back against Moonfyre's scales and closed your eyes.

"Thank you," you murmured, already half asleep. "For coming back. For the goat. For everything."

Moonfyre's only response was a deep, rumbling purr that vibrated through your bones and followed you down into sleep.

—

The sun had been up for hours, but Valarr hadn't noticed. Time had become something that happened to other people, people who weren't tearing apart the eastern cliffs with their bare hands, people who weren't running through the village shouting a name that no one answered, people who weren't slowly coming apart at the seams with every passing moment that she remained gone.

He had barely slept, his dreams full of her hair and eyes and the sound of her voice saying you already lost me over and over until he woke with her name on his lips and tears on his face. He had laid there in the grey dawn light, staring at the ceiling, trying to figure out what to do. How to fix this. How to make her understand that he would give up everything, everything, if she would just let him.

He had gone to the village first thing, before anyone could stop him. He had walked the familiar path with his heart in his throat, rehearsing what he would say. That he had told his father. That he had chosen her. That the betrothal didn't matter, the throne didn't matter, none of it mattered except her. That he was sorry, so sorry, for not telling her sooner, for letting her find out from his father instead of from him, for every moment he had let her believe she was alone in this.

The cottage had been quiet when he arrived. Too quiet. Marta was in the yard, her gnarled hands wrapped around a cup of tea, her old face pale and drawn in a way that made his stomach drop before she even spoke.

"She's gone," Marta had said, and her voice was rough, scraped raw by worry. "She didn't come home last night. I thought she was with you. I thought—" She had stopped, her mouth trembling, and Valarr had felt the world tilt beneath his feet.

"She's not with me," he had said, and the words had come out strange, distant, like someone else was speaking them. "She's not—when did you last see her?"

Marta had told him. Evening, after she had returned from the castle. She had been quiet, Marta said, too quiet, the kind of quiet that meant she was hurting and didn't want anyone to see. She had eaten a little supper, helped with the evening chores, and then she had said she was going for a walk.

He had run. He had run from the cottage to the village, shouting her name, asking everyone he passed if they had seen her. The fishermen shaking their heads, the baker's wife clutching her apron and looking frightened, the children staring at him with wide eyes as he tore past them. No one had seen her. No one had seen her since yesterday afternoon, when the guards had come to take her to the castle.

The caves. She had gone to the caves. He had known it with a certainty that settled into his bones like ice. She had gone back to the empty chamber, back to the cold stone and the ashes and the darkness, because she had nowhere else to go. Because he had failed her. Because his father had offered her silver to disappear, and she had refused it, and then she had disappeared anyway.

He had run to the eastern tunnels, his lungs burning, his legs screaming, the path that had become so familiar over the past weeks blurring beneath his feet. He had plunged into the darkness without a torch, his hands outstretched, his voice echoing off the walls as he called her name again and again and again. The chamber had been empty. Of course it had been empty. There was nothing there but cold stone and old ashes and the ghost of a girl who had loved a dragon that wasn't real.

He had searched anyway. He had searched every corner, every crevice, every shadowed hollow where she might have curled up to sleep. He had run his hands over the stone, looking for any sign that she had been there, a scrap of fabric, a strand of hair, anything. There was nothing. She had been there, he was sure of it, he could feel her presence lingering in the cold air like a memory, but she was gone now. She was gone, and he didn't know where.

That was when the panic had truly set in.

He had returned to the castle in a state of barely controlled desperation and had done something he had never done before. He had pulled rank. He had gathered every guard who wasn't on essential duty, every knight who owed his family fealty, every able-bodied servant who could be spared, and he had ordered them to search. His voice had been sharp and commanding, the voice of a prince who expected to be obeyed, and they had obeyed, scattering across the island in search parties, combing the cliffs and the beaches and the village and the caves.

That had been hours ago. Hours of waiting, of pacing, of sending runners back and forth with increasingly frantic messages. Hours of watching the sun climb higher and higher while his heart sank lower and lower. Hours of his father standing in the corner of the great hall, silent and grim, watching his son unravel with an expression that Valarr couldn't read and didn't care to.

The first reports came back negative. No sign of her in the village. No sign of her in the western caves. No sign of her on the northern cliffs. Each report was a blow, a stone dropped into the pit of his stomach, and he absorbed them all with a calm that felt like the eye of a storm, still and quiet on the surface while everything inside him was screaming.

And then Ser Raymund returned. Valarr saw him coming across the yard, his scarred face set in an expression that made Valarr's blood run cold before the man even opened his mouth. He was carrying something. A bundle of wool, stained and torn, clutched in his gauntleted hands like it was something precious and terrible all at once.

"We found this, my prince." Ser Raymund's voice was rough, carefully controlled. "On the rocks below the eastern cliffs. Near the entrance to the caves."

Valarr took the bundle. His hands were shaking, though he didn't remember them starting. The fabric was familiar, painfully familiar, the worn wool of her cloak, the one she always wore, the one she had been embroidering with flowers. The one with the bluebell she had stitched while he watched, her tongue poking out in concentration, her eyes escaping him when he told her she was cute. The fabric was torn, caught on something sharp, and there were dark stains on it that might have been mud or might have been something he couldn't let himself think about.

"The tide was coming in," Ser Raymund continued, and his voice was gentler now, the voice of a man who had delivered bad news before and hated it every time. "The rocks there are treacherous, my prince. If she fell in the dark..."

"No." Valarr's voice was flat. Empty. "No."

"We found no other sign of her, but the sea—"

"No." Louder this time, sharper. He clutched the cloak to his chest, his fingers digging into the worn wool. "She's not dead. She's not. She wouldn't—she promised me. She promised she wouldn't go back to the caves alone. She promised."

Ser Raymund said nothing. There was nothing to say. The evidence was in Valarr's hands, torn and stained, and the sea was vast and hungry and had never cared about promises.

"Search again." Valarr's voice was rising now, cracking at the edges. "Search the water. Search the cliffs. Search everywhere. She's out there somewhere, she has to be, she wouldn't just—she wouldn't leave me. She wouldn't."

"My prince—"

"That's an order!" He was shouting now, his voice echoing off the stone walls of the yard, and he didn't care. He didn't care that servants were stopping to stare, that guards were exchanging uncomfortable glances, that his father was watching from the doorway with an expression that was slowly hardening into something Valarr recognized. "Search the shoreline. Search the caves again. Search the—"

"That's enough."

His father's voice cut through his like a blade, sharp and cold and final. Baelor stepped out of the doorway, his face set in lines of grim authority, and behind him came four guards, their expressions carefully blank, their hands on their swords.

"Valarr." Baelor's voice was quieter now, but no less firm. "You need to come inside."

"No." Valarr backed away, still clutching the cloak. "No, I'm not leaving. I'm not stopping. She's out there, Father. She's out there somewhere, and I have to find her. I have to—"

"Ser Raymund." Baelor didn't look at the knight. His eyes were fixed on his son. "Take him inside."

The guards moved forward. Valarr saw them coming and something inside him snapped.

"Don't touch me!" He stumbled backward, his hand going to his sword, though he had no intention of drawing it, though he didn't even know what he was doing anymore. "Don't—I'm your prince, I order you to keep searching, I order you—"

The guards hesitated, looking to Baelor for guidance. Baelor's jaw tightened.

"Restrain him."

They moved as one, trained and efficient, and Valarr fought them. He fought them like a wild thing, kicking and twisting and shouting, the cloak still clutched in one hand, his sword still sheathed because even in his madness he couldn't bring himself to draw steel on his father's men. But there were four of them and one of him, and he was exhausted and grief-stricken and not thinking clearly, and they had him pinned and disarmed before he could do more than bruise his own pride.

"Let me go!" His voice cracked, raw and desperate. "Let me go, I have to find her, I have to—"

"Inside." Baelor's voice was iron. "Now."

They dragged him into the great hall, still struggling, still shouting, and the heavy doors slammed shut behind them with a sound like a tomb closing. The guards released him only when Baelor gave the signal, and Valarr stumbled forward, catching himself on the edge of the long table, his chest heaving, his eyes wild.

The hall was empty except for the two of them. Baelor had dismissed everyone else, the guards, the servants, the knights who had been hovering in the corners waiting for orders. It was just father and son, standing in the cold grey light, with the torn cloak on the floor between them like an accusation.

"She's dead." Baelor's voice was quiet, but it carried in the empty hall. "You know she's dead. The cliffs, the tide, the dark—you know what happened. You just can't accept it."

"She's not dead." Valarr's voice was raw, scraped clean of everything but denial. "She's not. I would know. I would feel it. She's out there somewhere, and you're wasting time, you're keeping me here while she's—"

"While she's what?" Baelor's voice sharpened. "While she's drowned? While her body is washing out to sea? While there's nothing left to find but a torn cloak and a few strands of hair on the rocks?"

Valarr flinched like his father had struck him. "Don't. Don't say that."

"It's the truth." Baelor stepped closer, his face hard, his eyes blazing with a fire that Valarr had rarely seen. "It's the truth, and you need to hear it. She's gone, Valarr. She's gone, and you are still here, and you have duties and responsibilities and a future that doesn't disappear just because you're in pain."

"A future?" Valarr laughed, and it was an ugly sound, broken and bitter. "What future? The one where I marry a woman I don't love and sit on a throne I don't want and spend the rest of my life wondering what might have been? That future?"

"The future you were born to." Baelor's voice was rising now, matching his son's. "The future I have spent your entire life preparing you for. The future you would throw away for a girl you met in a fishing village, a girl who—"

"Don't." Valarr's voice was dangerous now, low and shaking. "Don't you dare speak of her like that. Don't you dare reduce her to nothing, to some village girl who didn't matter. She mattered. She mattered more than anything. More than the throne, more than the betrothal, more than you."

"You think I don't understand?" He stepped forward, his hands clenched at his sides. "You think I've never loved someone I couldn't have? You think I don't know what it is to want something so badly you can't breathe, and to know that you can never, ever have it?"

Valarr stared at him. "What are you talking about?"

Baelor's jaw tightened, and for a moment, just a moment, something flickered in his eyes. Something old and buried and painful. Then it was gone, smoothed away by years of discipline and duty.

"I'm talking about you," he said, and his voice was hard again. "I'm talking about my son, who is standing in the great hall of his ancestors, weeping over a dead girl and throwing away everything his family has built for two hundred years. I'm talking about the heir's heir, who would let a dynasty crumble because he can't control his own heart."

"You don't get to do that." Valarr's voice shook. "You don't get to make this about duty and dynasty and all the things you care about more than people. You did this. You sent her away. You offered her silver to disappear, and when she wouldn't take it, you let her walk out of this castle alone and heartbroken, and now she's gone. She's gone because of you."

Baelor recoiled. "That's not fair."

"Isn't it?" Valarr stepped forward, his grief transmuting into something hotter, something that burned. "You told her about Kiera. You made her feel like she was nothing, like she was a problem to be solved with a pouch of silver. You took the one good thing I had, the one person who made me feel like I wasn't just a title and a duty and a future I never asked for, and you crushed her. You crushed her, and she ran, and now she's dead. So don't tell me about duty. Don't tell me about responsibility. You killed her. You killed her, and I will never forgive you."

Baelor's face went grey. For a long moment, he said nothing, just stood there with his son's words hanging between them like a blade. When he spoke again, his voice was quiet, rough.

"You think I don't know what I did?" He looked away, toward the window, toward the grey sea and the grey sky. "You think I don't lie awake at night, wondering if I could have done something different? If I should have let you have her, let you be happy, let the dynasty and the alliances and everything else burn?"

He turned back to Valarr, and his eyes were bright, too bright.

"But I couldn't. I couldn't, because I am the heir to the Iron Throne, and you are my heir, and we do not have the luxury of following our hearts. We have duties. We have responsibilities. We have millions of people who depend on us to make the hard choices, the choices that keep the realm stable and the peace intact. That is what it means to be a prince. That is what it means to be a king. And if you can't accept that, if you can't put the realm before your own heart, then you are not fit to wear the crown."

"Good." Valarr's voice was flat. Empty. "Because I don't want it. I abdicate. I renounce my claim. Let Matarys have it. Let someone else carry the weight. I'm done."

Baelor stared at him. "You don't mean that."

"I mean every word." Valarr's hands were shaking, but his voice was steady. "I told you before, and I'll tell you again. I choose her. I choose her over the throne, over the betrothal, over everything. And if she's dead—" His voice cracked, but he forced himself to continue. "If she's dead, then none of it matters anyway. I won't be king. I won't marry Kiera. I won't do any of it. I'll go back to the village and I'll help Marta with her goats and I'll spend the rest of my life mourning the only person who ever made me feel alive."

The silence that followed was absolute. Baelor stood motionless, his face a mask of conflicting emotions, grief and anger and something that might have been despair. When he spoke again, his voice was barely a whisper.

"You would really do that. You would really throw away everything, for a dead girl."

"She's not dead." The words came out fierce, defiant, even though Valarr could feel the doubt creeping in at the edges. "She's not. I would know. I would feel it. She's out there somewhere, and I'm going to find her."

"Valarr—"

"I'm going to find her," he repeated, and his voice broke on her name. "I'm going to find her, and I'm going to marry her, and I don't care what I have to give up to do it. I don't care about the throne or the betrothal or anything else. I only care about her. I only ever cared about her."

Baelor was quiet for a long, long moment. His face was pale, his shoulders slumped, and he looked older than Valarr had ever seen him. Older and tireder and utterly, completely defeated.

"If she's alive," Baelor said slowly, each word dragged out of him like a confession, "and if you find her... then you can marry her."

Valarr's breath caught. "What?"

"I said you can marry her." Baelor's voice was heavy, exhausted. "If she's alive. If you find her. If she'll still have you after everything that's happened. Then I will break the betrothal to Kiera. I will accept the political consequences. I will let you marry your village girl, and I will figure out the succession later." He met his son's eyes, and there was something in them that might have been grief or might have been love or might have been both. "Is that what you want? Is that enough? Will you revoke your abdication if I give you this?"

Valarr stared at his father. His heart was pounding, hope and fear and disbelief warring in his chest. "You mean it. You actually mean it."

"I mean it." Baelor's voice was bitter, but sincere. "I have lost enough today. I will not lose my son as well. If this is what it takes to keep you, to bring you back from whatever edge you're standing on, then yes. I mean it. Find her. Marry her. And come home."

Valarr's knees buckled. He caught himself on the table, his breath coming in short, sharp gasps, his eyes burning with tears he refused to shed. She was out there. She had to be out there. And now, if he found her, he could have her. Really have her. Not in secret, not in shame, but openly, legally, with his father's blessing.

"I'll find her," he said, and his voice was raw but determined. "I'll find her, Father. I swear it. I'll find her and I'll bring her home and I'll marry her, and I'll never let anyone hurt her again."

Baelor nodded slowly, his face old and tired and full of something that might have been regret."If she's gone... if she's really gone... you have to accept it. You have to come back. You have to live. Do you understand me?"

Valarr looked at his father, at the fear and love and exhaustion in his eyes, and he nodded slowly.

"I understand," he said. "But she's not gone. I would know. I would feel it. She's out there somewhere. And I'm going to find her."

—

You woke to the sound of waves. A hushed, rhythmic conversation between water and sand, each retreat leaving behind a brief, shimmering silence before the next whisper rolled in. The sun pressed warm against your closed eyelids, filtering gold and green through the broad, unfamiliar leaves of the trees that fringed your little beach, and for one long, suspended moment, you drifted in the space between sleeping and waking, untethered from place and time and identity.

Then you felt the warmth against your back. The vast, slow rise and fall of something enormous breathing behind you. The particular weight of a tail draped possessively across your hip. And it all came rushing back, you were still here. You were still on the island. You were still with your dragon.

The relief that moved through you was so profound it was almost indistinguishable from grief. You turned your head slowly, careful not to disturb her, and found Moonfyre's great golden eye already open, already watching you. The pupil contracted slightly in the morning light, a vertical slit of darkness in a sea of molten gold, and the expression in that eye—a creature who could bite a horse in half, who could reduce a village to ash and ember with a single exhalation—was impossibly, devastatingly fond.

Her scales shimmered where the sun caught them, pale white shot through with that amethyst undertone you had adored since the moment she first pushed her way into your world. Her wing remained curved over you like a canopy, sheltering you from the salt breeze that rustled through the strange broad-leafed trees, and beneath you, the sand had molded itself to the shape of your bodies, warm and yielding.

"Good morning," you whispered, your voice scraping out of you like something unused to being heard.

Moonfyre made a sound in response, her snout descended, massive and lethal and capable of incinerating anything it pointed at, and nudged against your cheek with a gentleness so precise it stole the breath from your lungs. It was the gesture of a creature who had learned, somehow, that you were breakable. That you required a different kind of care than her own armored, fireproof self.

Your eyes stung. You blinked hard, once, twice, and reached up to scratch behind the ridge of her eye, the spot you had discovered she loved. Her purr deepened immediately into something that was almost a groan of pleasure, her eye sliding half-closed, her wing tightening around you to draw you more firmly against the great warm wall of her side. The sheer domesticity of it made something in your chest crack open and bloom.

"You're ridiculous," you told her, though there was no edge to it, no sting. "You're a terror of the skies. A legend made flesh. Entire armies would flee at the sight of you." Your voice caught, just slightly. "And all you want is cuddles."

Moonfyre opened her eye again, fixed you with a look that communicated with perfect, crystalline clarity: And what of it? Then she closed it once more and settled more heavily against the sand, radiating the unmistakable intention of a creature who had no plans to move anytime soon. You found that you didn't either. The sand was soft and warm beneath you, the dragon was soft and warm beside you, and the world was very far away.

But your stomach had no patience for transcendent moments.

It growled, loud and insistent and deeply unromantic, dragging you back into your body with all its inconvenient, mortal needs. The goat. You sat up, dislodging Moonfyre's wing with an apologetic pat to her scales, and scanned the beach until you spotted the remains of your meal from the night before. It lay a little distance down the shore, looking considerably less miraculous in the unforgiving light of morning. The meat was cold now, the fat congealed into waxy white rivulets, and a constellation of flies had gathered around the blackened edges, their droning a thin, irritable counterpoint to the whisper of the waves.

You approached it with the particular reluctance of someone who had been spoiled by a dragon's freshly fire-roasted offering. Moonfyre made a soft, interrogative sound as you crouched beside the carcass, and you looked back at her with a grimace that you could feel all the way to your eyebrows.

"I don't suppose," you said, hating how plaintive your voice sounded, "you could warm it up? Just a little? A very small, very contained breath of fire?"

She blinked at you with the slow, deliberate patience of a creature who had already gone significantly out of her way to provide you with cooked food and was now being asked to reheat leftovers. There was judgment in those golden eyes. You were certain of it. You want me, the winged death, the scourge of the skies, to breathe fire on your breakfast because you're too refined for cold goat?

"I'm not too refined," you protested, though you absolutely, undeniably were. "I've eaten cold meat before. Plenty of times. In various circumstances. It's simply a matter of preference."

Moonfyre snorted, a delicate plume of smoke escaping her nostrils and dissipating on the morning breeze, and you interpreted that as a definitive no.

Fine. Cold goat it was. You tore off a piece that looked the least compromised by its overnight exposure to the elements and ate it quickly, mechanically, trying not to dwell on the texture. The meat was still good beneath the chill but it was a shadow of last night's feast. Nothing could replicate that meal, eaten in a state of such profound exhaustion and wonder that it had transcended mere sustenance. You had been starving and overwhelmed and trembling with the sheer impossibility of a dragon bringing you a cooked offering, and hunger, you were learning, was the most powerful spice in the world.

When you had eaten enough to quiet your stomach's complaints, you walked down to the water's edge to wash your hands and face. The sea here was breathtakingly clear, the color of pale turquoise glass, and you could see straight down through the water to the sandy bottom, where small silver fish wove between the rocks in darting, synchronized patterns. You knelt at the edge of the surf, cupping the water in your hands and splashing it onto your face. The salt stung your sunburned cheeks, sharp and bracing, startling you fully into wakefulness.

When you looked down at your reflection in the still surface of a tidal pool, you barely recognized the face that stared back.

Your hair was a wild with salt and sand, knotted into shapes that would take hours of patient work to untangle. Your lips were chapped. There was a smear of ash across your forehead.

But your eyes were different. Brighter than they had been in weeks, in months, in maybe your whole life. There was a light in them that you had almost forgotten existed, a wild and blazing thing that had been buried under months of whispers and pitying looks and the slow, grinding erosion of being told, over and over, that the thing you knew to be true was nothing but a delusion. You were not crazy, and you had never been more certain of anything in your existence.

When you turned back toward the beach, Moonfyre was standing. She had risen while you were at the water's edge, her great body unfurling from the sand with the liquid grace of something that belonged equally to earth and sky. Her wings were stretched wide, the pale membrane catching the morning light and glowing faintly at the edges, and her golden eyes were fixed on the vast blue expanse above. She looked at you, then at the ridge of her back, then at you again.

The message required no translation. Get on. We're flying.

"Okay," you said, and you were proud of how steady your voice emerged. "Okay. Let's fly."

Climbing onto her back was easier this time, still not graceful, but easier. Your body had begun to learn the geography of her: where to place your hands, how to find purchase on the ridges of her spine, the precise angle at which to settle your weight between her shoulders so that you wouldn't slide. Moonfyre held herself perfectly still while you arranged yourself, a mountain of patience and warm scales, and when you finally gripped the ridge before you and pressed your knees against her sides, she made a low, questioning sound.

Ready?

"Ready," you said, and the world fell away.

The first seconds were still terrifying. There was no circumventing that particular truth. The ground dropped out from beneath you with a violence that defied the smoothness of Moonfyre's motion, and your stomach stayed behind on the sand for a long, lurching moment before catching up. The wind hit your face like a physical blow, flattening your hair back, tearing tears from the corners of your eyes. Your hands clenched white-knuckled on her scales, your thighs clamped against her back, and for a heartbeat you were nothing but a collection of desperate, clinging instincts.

Then Moonfyre leveled out, her wings catching the currents, her body found its rhythm and you discovered that you could lift your head from where you had pressed it against her spine. You could open your eyes, which you hadn't realized you'd squeezed shut. You could look.

Oh.

You could see the waterfall you had spotted from the air during your desperate flight, a silver ribbon that cascaded down the black volcanic face of the island's central peak and disappeared into a mist of rainbows before emerging again as a river that wound its way to the sea. Beyond it, a hidden valley cupped between two ridges, filled with flowering trees that looked from this height like clouds of pink and white drifting just above the ground. The northern shore gave way to cliffs, black and sheer, against which the sea threw itself in explosions of white foam that you could hear even from this distance, a distant, rhythmic thunder.

The sky was so vast it seemed to have no edges. You felt, suddenly and vertiginously, that you could tip forward and fall into it and never, ever stop falling.

You laughed. The sound was torn from your mouth and flung away by the wind before you could hear it, but you felt it in your chest, bright and wild and ferocious, a joy so sharp it was almost indistinguishable from pain. You were flying. You were actually, truly flying. On a dragon. Over the sea. And the world, which had been so small and cruel and suffocating for so long, had opened up into this, this infinity of light and wind and motion, this impossible gift.

Hours passed. Or perhaps minutes. Time behaved strangely in the sky, stretching and compressing in ways that had nothing to do with the movement of the sun and everything to do with the rhythm of wings. You flew until your thighs ached from gripping, until your hands cramped from holding, until your face was windburned raw and your hair was a disaster beyond all hope of redemption. And you loved every single second of it. You loved the wildness of it, the impossibility, the way the world looked from above—small and beautiful and full of mysteries waiting to be uncovered.

When Moonfyre finally began her descent back toward the beach, spiraling down in wide, lazy circles that made your stomach swoop with each rotation, you felt a pang of genuine loss. You didn't want to land. You wanted to stay up here forever, suspended between sea and sky, a creature of the air with no past and no future and nothing but the endless blue.

But your body had other ideas. Just like last time when you slid off her back onto the familiar pale sand, your legs buckled immediately. They felt like water, like seaweed, like something that had forgotten entirely how to perform the basic function of holding you upright. You stumbled forward, caught yourself on your hands, and then before you could think better of it, you pushed yourself back up and threw your arms around her neck, pressing your windburned face into her warm scales.

"That," you breathed, "was the most incredible thing I have ever experienced. You are the most incredible dragon in the history of dragons. You are magnificent. You are perfect. You are—"

Moonfyre rumbled, a deep and deeply satisfied sound, and her tail came around to curl against your back in that familiar, grounding embrace. She was warm and solid beneath your cheek, her scales smooth as polished stone, and you held onto her as if you might never let go. As if you could, through sheer force of grip, anchor yourself permanently to this moment, this improbable, impossible life.

The rest of the day passed in a blur of discovery, each hour revealing some new wonder of your strange, uncharted home.

You found the fruit trees you had seen from the air, following a narrow deer trail through the forest until you emerged into a grove so beautiful it stopped you in your tracks. The trees were tall and silver-barked, their broad leaves forming a canopy that dappled the sunlight into coins of gold, and from their branches hung hundreds of the luminous fruit you had spotted from above. You plucked one carefully, turning it in your hands—it was roughly the size of your fist, its skin smooth and slightly warm to the touch, glowing from within like a paper lantern—and when you bit into it, the taste was so extraordinary that you actually laughed out loud. Sweet and bright and complicated, honey and sunshine and something floral you couldn't name, the flesh yielding and juicy against your tongue.

Moonfyre, who had followed you into the grove with the patient, slightly exasperated air of an adult humoring a child's treasure hunt, sniffed at the fruit when you offered it. Her nostrils flared. She drew her head back and fixed you with a look of polite but absolute disgust.

You're eating that? Voluntarily?

"It's delicious," you told her, taking another bite to prove your point. Juice ran down your chin. "You don't know what you're missing."

She snorted, a dismissive puff of smoke, and turned away to investigate something more interesting at the edge of the grove. Probably a goat.

You found a stream, the same water that fed the waterfall, running clear and cold over a bed of smooth black stones. You knelt beside it and drank straight from the source, the water so pure and cold it made your teeth ache in the best possible way. You washed the salt and sand from your hair as best you could, working your fingers through the worst of the tangles, and the sensation of being clean, even just marginally cleaner than before, was so exquisite that you almost cried.

You found a cave set into the base of the cliffs on the eastern shore, not deep and dark like the ones on Dragonstone but shallow and warm, its sandy floor soft beneath your bare feet and its walls glittering with veins of something that might have been gold. It would make a good shelter if the weather turned, you thought. A good place to store things, to build something like a home. The thought startled you—home, you were thinking about home, about staying here, about building something permanent on this island that had appeared in your path like a miracle—but it didn't frighten you the way it should have. It felt, instead, like the most natural thing in the world.

As the sun began its slow descent toward the western horizon, painting the sky in watercolor washes of coral and amber and bruised violet, you made your way back to the beach. Moonfyre had disappeared a while earlier, launching herself toward the sea with a purposeful drive of her wings, and you knew without question that she would return with another offering. She was your hunter now, your provider, your fierce and improbable caretaker.

You settled onto the sand, your back against a smooth piece of driftwood, and watched the sun sink toward the edge of the world. The sky was so beautiful it almost hurt to look at, every shade of fire and rose and deepening indigo bleeding into the endless blue of the sea. And for the first time since you had arrived on this island, for the first time since you had fled Dragonstone in the darkness with tears streaming down your face and your heart shattering in your chest, you let yourself think about what you had left behind.

About Marta.

The guilt came immediately, heavy and cold, settling into your stomach like a stone swallowed by accident. Marta would be worried by now. No, more than worried. She would be frantic, pacing the cramped confines of your little cottage with her knotted hands twisting in her apron, her sharp old eyes scanning the path that wound down from the hills. She had raised you from infancy. She had fed you and clothed you and held you through nightmares and defended you against the whispers of the village children. She had loved you with a fierce, uncomplicated love that asked for nothing in return, and you had repaid her by vanishing into the night without a word of explanation.

You should go back. You knew you should go back. Not forever but at least for long enough to tell Marta you were alive. To explain, as best you could, what had happened. To say a proper goodbye, if that was what needed to happen. She deserved better than that life, you would take her with you if she agreed.

And Valarr. Your hand moved to the pendant at your throat without your conscious permission, your fingers finding the familiar shape of it. You hadn't taken it off. You had thought about it, in the dark hours before sleep, but you hadn't been able to bring yourself to unclasp it. Even now, even after everything, it still felt like a piece of you. Like a promise you hadn't quite broken yet.

Valarr, who had kissed you in the meadow with the sunset gilding his dark hair and a tenderness in his hands that had made you feel, for the first time in your life, like something precious. Valarr, who had held you in the suffocating dark and whispered that you weren't alone, that you weren't crazy, that he believed you. Valarr, who had kept the truth of his betrothal from you—the castle, the duty, the woman who was not you—because he was afraid of losing you, and in doing so had lost you anyway.

Valarr, who had looked at you at the end with pity in his eyes.

That was the part that stayed with you, sharp as a splinter that had worked its way too deep to remove. Not the betrothal. Not even the lie. But that loo, the same look everyone else had ever given you. Poor girl. Poor sad, mad girl, inventing dragons because she has nothing else.

You weren't ready to think about Valarr. You weren't ready to untangle that knot of love and fury and hurt and longing. The wound was still too fresh, still weeping beneath the careful bandage of distance and distraction.

So you pushed the thoughts away and focused on the sunset instead. The sky had deepened to violet, the first stars beginning to emerge in the east, and on the horizon, a dark shape was growing larger by the moment. Moonfyre, returning.

She landed beside you with her usual heavy grace, the sand shivering beneath the impact, and deposited her offering at your feet. Another goat or something goat-adjacent, some local variant with slightly longer ears and a sleeker coat, already cooked. And this time, you noticed, the cooking was more even. The meat was tender rather than charred, the skin crisped to a perfect golden brown rather than blackened to ash. She was learning, refining her technique, figuring out exactly how much fire was required to produce a meal that wouldn't make you grimace. A dragon, perfecting her culinary abilities for your sake.

The thought did something complicated to your heart. You ate until you were full and curled up against Moonfyre's warm side. Her wing came down around you like a canopy, blocking the cool night breeze, and her tail curled around your waist with that particular, possessive tenderness you had come to recognize as affection.

"Goodnight," you whispered, your cheek pressed to the smooth warmth of her scales. "Thank you. For today. For everything."

She rumbled, the sound resonating through her body and into yours, deep and content and full of something that might have been love. And you closed your eyes and let the steady rhythm of her breathing carry you down into sleep, into dreams that were not dark and not empty but filled with the wild, impossible joy of flight.

—

The dream started gently, the way the best dreams do, the ones that feel like memories because they are.

You were a child again, small and skinny and perpetually scraped-kneed, with that wild tangle of hair that Marta was always threatening to cut if you didn't sit still long enough for her to braid it properly. You could feel the sun on your face, warm and golden, the kind of sun that only existed in childhood memories, before you learned that the world was mostly grey and cold and full of things that could hurt you. The grass beneath your bare feet was soft and cool, tickling your toes, and the air smelled of wild onions and sea salt and the faint, familiar scent of Marta's herb garden drifting up from the cottage below.

You were in the meadow beneath the Dragon's Tooth, the one where the ghost-flowers grew thickest in the shadows of the rocks, their pale petals glowing faintly even in the daylight. You had spent so many hours here as a child, chasing butterflies and collecting flowers for Marta's tinctures and lying on your back in the grass, staring up at the grey sky and dreaming of places you would never see. It was your secret kingdom, this meadow, the one place in the world that felt like it belonged to you and you alone.

And Marta was there. Of course she was. She was always there, in your memories, a constant presence like the sea or the sky or the beating of your own heart. She sat on a flat rock near the edge of the meadow, her gnarled hands busy with a basket of herbs, her sharp old eyes watching you with that familiar mixture of fondness and exasperation that you had seen a thousand times. She was younger in this memory, her hair more brown than grey, the lines on her face less deeply carved, but she was still Marta, still your Marta, the only mother you had ever known.

"Don't go too far," she called, and her voice carried across the meadow, rough and warm and full of a love she had never quite learned to put into words. "And don't touch the ghost-flowers. They'll give you a rash that'll itch for a week, and I'm not wasting my good salve on foolishness."

"I know, Marta," you called back, and your voice was high and bright, a child's voice, untouched by grief or doubt or the weight of knowing that the world was not as kind as you wanted it to be. You were chasing butterflies, their wings flashing blue and gold in the sunlight, and you were happy. So completely, uncomplicatedly happy. The kind of happy that only exists when you're young enough to believe that happiness is something that can last.

The butterflies led you in dizzying circles around the meadow, their wings catching the light and scattering it like jewels. You ran after them with your arms outstretched, your laughter ringing out across the hillside, and every time you got close enough to touch one, it would flutter just out of reach, leading you farther and farther from where Marta sat with her basket of herbs. You didn't notice how far you had wandered. You didn't notice how the light had begun to change, the warm gold fading to something cooler, greyer.

And then the crow attacked. It came from nowhere and everywhere at once, a blur of black feathers and sharp claws and furious, cawing rage. One moment you were reaching for a butterfly, your fingers outstretched, your face bright with wonder, and the next moment the world was nothing but darkness and pain. The crow's claws raked across your cheek, sharp and hot, and you screamed a high, thin sound that was more surprise than pain, at first. You stumbled backward, your hands flying up to protect your face, but the crow was relentless, diving at you again and again, its beak jabbing at your fingers, its wings beating against your head.

"Stop!" you cried, your voice breaking. "Stop it, please, stop—"

Your foot caught on something, a stone or a root or just the uneven ground, and you felt yourself falling. The world tilted, the grey sky and the green grass and the black crow all blurring together into a smear of color and motion. You reached out, trying to catch yourself, but there was nothing to grab onto, nothing but empty air and the sickening sensation of the ground disappearing beneath you.

You fell.

And fell.

And kept falling.

The meadow was gone. Marta was gone. The crow was gone. There was only darkness, cold and absolute, pressing in on you from all sides. You couldn't see anything, couldn't hear anything but the rush of wind past your ears and the pounding of your own heart. You tried to scream, but the darkness swallowed the sound, swallowed everything, left you alone and terrified and falling through nothing.

Time stretched and warped. You didn't know how long you fell. It could have been seconds or hours or years. There was only the darkness and the wind and the terrible, gut-wrenching certainty that you would never stop falling, that this was all there was now, an endless descent into nothing.

And then you hit the ground.

The impact drove the breath from your lungs, sent shockwaves of pain through your entire body. But it wasn't ground, not really. It was stone, cold and smooth and unforgiving, the kind of stone that had been worn down by centuries of footsteps. You lay there for what felt like a very long time, gasping, trying to remember how to breathe, your cheek pressed against the cold floor, your fingers splayed out against the smooth surface. The stone was real. Solid. You could feel it beneath you, grounding you, anchoring you to something after the endless, terrifying fall.

Slowly, painfully, you pushed yourself up. You were in a corridor. A long, narrow corridor lined with doors on either side, all of them closed, all of them identical. The walls were grey stone, ancient and imposing, and the only light came from torches set in iron brackets along the walls, their flames flickering and casting dancing shadows that seemed to move and shift when you weren't looking directly at them. The air was heavy, stifling, thick with the smell of smoke and something else, something sharp and medicinal that caught in the back of your throat and made your eyes water.

You didn't recognize this place. But you were here. And you couldn't leave. You stood slowly, your legs shaking, your arms wrapped around yourself. The corridor stretched out before you in both directions, identical and endless, and you had no idea which way to go. The doors on either side were all the same, dark wood banded with iron, their handles gleaming dully in the torchlight. You could try one, you thought. You could open one of the doors and see what was behind it. But the thought filled you with a cold, creeping dread that you couldn't explain. You didn't want to know what was behind those doors. You didn't want to be here at all. And then you heard it.

Coughing.

It was faint at first, so faint you thought you might be imagining it. Just a sound at the very edge of hearing, a wet, hacking sound that made your stomach clench. You held your breath, listening, and the sound came again, louder this time, closer. It was coming from somewhere down the corridor, from behind one of the closed doors, and it was a terrible sound, the kind of cough that came from deep in the chest, from lungs that were drowning in something they couldn't clear.

You started walking toward it. You didn't want to. Every instinct you had was screaming at you to turn around, to run in the opposite direction, to get away from that sound and whatever was making it. But your feet moved anyway, carrying you down the corridor, past door after door after door. The coughing grew louder with every step, more desperate, more agonizing. Between the coughing fits, you could hear someone gasping for breath, could hear a thin, high sound that might have been a whimper of pain or might have been a word you couldn't quite make out.

The sound was familiar. That was the worst part. You had never heard this person before, you were sure of it, and yet the cough, the gasp, the whimper, they all felt like something you knew. Like a name that was sitting on the tip of your tongue, refusing to be spoken.

The corridor seemed to stretch on forever, the doors blurring past you, the coughing growing louder and more desperate with every step. The smoke was thicker here, stinging your eyes, making it hard to breathe. You could feel the heat now, radiating from somewhere ahead, and the smell of burning wood and cloth and something else, something that smelled like meat left too long over a fire. Your eyes were streaming, your throat was raw, but you kept walking. You couldn't stop and you reached the door.

It was larger than the others, made of dark wood that gleamed with age and polish, banded with iron that had been worked into intricate patterns, dragons, you realized, their bodies coiling and twisting around each other in an endless dance. The door loomed over you, imposing and important, the coughing was coming from inside. Loud and wet and agonizing, each spasm followed by a desperate, gasping breath. You could hear the person choking on something they couldn't get out, could hear the way their breath rattled in their chest, wet and wrong. They were dying. You didn't know how you knew, but you knew. Whoever was behind this door was dying, and they were dying alone.

You reached for the handle. The iron was hot against your palm, almost burning, but you gripped it anyway, your fingers wrapping around the metal, your heart pounding so hard you could feel it in your throat. The coughing continued, worse now, mixed with a sound that was almost a scream, a high, thin wail of pain that made your blood run cold. You pulled.

The door swung open and you fell.

The corridor disappeared. The coughing disappeared. The smoke and the heat and the door and the dragons carved into the iron—all of it vanished, swallowed by the same endless darkness that had claimed you before. You were falling again and you hit the ground hard.

But this time, when you looked up, you were somewhere else entirely. Somewhere you recognized, even though you had never been there before.

The throne room. It was vast, cavernous, so huge that the ceiling was lost in shadows, so huge that your footsteps would echo for seconds after you took them. The walls were stone, grey and ancient, and the light came from high windows, tall and arched, their glass stained in shades of red and gold and deep, royal purple.

And in the center of the room, rising like a mountain of blades, was the Iron Throne. You had heard stories about it all your life. Everyone had. The thousand swords of Aegon's enemies, melted and forged into a seat of power, a monument to conquest and fire and blood. But the stories hadn't prepared you for the reality of it. It was huge, impossibly huge, a jagged, twisted mass of metal that seemed to reach toward the ceiling like a grasping hand. The swords caught the light from the windows and glittered like frozen fire, their edges still sharp after three hundred years, their points aimed outward like a warning. It was beautiful. It was terrible. It was the most frightening thing you had ever seen.

And there was someone sitting on it, a woman.

You couldn't see her face. The light from the windows was behind her, casting her in silhouette, turning her into a shape of shadow and light. She sat tall and straight, her hands resting on the arms of the throne, her posture radiating a quiet, absolute authority. She wore a crown, you thought, or maybe it was just the way the light caught her hair, turning it into a halo of silver and gold. She was looking at you. You couldn't see her eyes, but you could feel her gaze, heavy and assessing, pressing down on you like a physical weight.

You wanted to speak. You wanted to ask who she was, what this place was, why you were here. You opened your mouth, but before you could form the words, a sound filled the throne room that drove every thought from your head.

You got to your feet slowly, your eyes fixed on the woman, and you started walking toward the throne. You had to get closer. You had to see her properly. The throne room seemed to stretch on forever, the windows always just out of reach, and then you looked down, and there were dragons at your feet.

You stopped so suddenly you nearly fell. They were everywhere, swarming around your ankles, tiny and perfect and impossibly alive. Five of them, no bigger than kittens, their scales every color you could imagine, red like rubies, gold like sunlight, green like the forest in spring, blue like the deep sea, silver like your the moon. They chirped and squeaked, their little wings fluttering, their tiny claws scratching at your legs as they tried to climb up. They wanted your attention. All of them, at once, demanding to be seen, to be held, to be loved.

You didn't know what to do. You stood frozen, staring down at them, your heart pounding, your mind blank. They were so small. So fragile. So utterly dependent on you, even though you had no idea who they were or where they had come from or why they were here. One of them, the silver one, managed to scramble up your leg and into the palm of your hand, its tiny claws pricking your skin, its warm little body curling against your fingers. It looked up at you with eyes that were gold and green and ancient and new all at once, and your heart cracked open.

"Where did you come from?" you whispered, but the words came out strange, echoing, like you were speaking from very far away.

The baby dragon chirped and nuzzled against your thumb, and you felt tears prick at your eyes. You didn't understand. You didn't understand any of this. The throne room, the woman on the Iron Throne, the dragons in the sky, these tiny creatures at your feet, none of it made sense. But it felt important. It felt like a message you were supposed to understand, a glimpse of something that was waiting for you, somewhere in the future, if you could only find your way to it.

You tried to step around the baby dragons, tried to keep walking toward the throne, toward the woman, but they were everywhere, underfoot, demanding, and you stumbled, your foot catching on one of them—the red one, its scales bright as blood—and you fell.

You were drowning. The water closed over your head, cold and dark and absolute. It filled your mouth, your nose, your lungs, choking you, stealing the breath from your body before you could even think to hold it. You thrashed, your arms flailing, your legs kicking, but there was nothing to grab onto, nothing but water and darkness and the terrible, crushing weight of the deep pressing down on you from all sides. You couldn't see. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. There was only the water and the cold and the slow, creeping certainty that this was it, this was how you died, alone and afraid and so very far from everything you had ever loved.

And then a hand closed around your arm and pulled.

You broke the surface gasping, choking, water streaming from your mouth and nose, your lungs burning as they filled with air. The hand was still there, gripping your arm, strong and sure and unyielding, pulling you toward the shore. You were too weak to fight, too weak to do anything but let yourself be dragged through the water, your body limp and shivering and utterly spent.

When you reached the shallows, you collapsed onto the muddy bank, your cheek pressed against the wet earth, your chest heaving as you tried to remember how to breathe. The hand released your arm, and you heard a voice, rough and familiar, cutting through the roaring in your ears.

"I've got you, child. I've got you. You're alright."

Marta.

You were small again. A child. Your arms were thin and your legs were short and you were shivering so hard your teeth chattered. You remembered this. You remembered the cold of the river, the terror of the current pulling you under, the way Marta's voice had cut through the roaring in your ears and given you something to hold onto. You had been ten years old, chasing butterflies along the riverbank, not watching where you were going. The bank had given way beneath your feet, and you had fallen in, and the current had grabbed you and pulled you under before you could even scream.

Marta had saved you. She had waded into the water without hesitation, her old body moving faster than you had ever seen it move, and she had grabbed you and pulled you out and carried you home. She had wrapped you in every blanket she owned and made you drink hot tea with honey and sat beside you all night, her hand on your forehead, her voice a constant, soothing murmur in the darkness.

"I'm sorry," you tried to say, but the words came out wrong, garbled and weak, lost in the chattering of your teeth. "I'm sorry, Marta. I'm sorry."

She couldn't hear you. This was a memory, just a memory, and you were watching it from outside yourself, standing on the riverbank as Marta gathered your small, shivering body into her arms and carried you up the path toward the cottage. You followed behind her, your feet making no sound on the muddy ground, your voice echoing in the dream-space.

"I'm sorry I left," you whispered, and the words felt heavy, important, like something you had been needing to say for a very long time. "I'm sorry I disappeared without telling you. I'm sorry I made you worry. I didn't mean to. I never meant to hurt you. You're the only mother I've ever known, and I left you without a word, and I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Marta reached the cottage and pushed open the door with her shoulder, carrying your small, dripping body inside. You followed her across the threshold, and then you weren't in the cottage anymore.

You were in a different room. It was darker than Marta's cottage, colder, the walls made of grey stone instead of worn wood. There was a single window, high up, letting in a thin, grey light that did little to illuminate the space. The air smelled of dust and old stone and something else, something faint and familiar that you couldn't quite name. You were standing behind a door, not the door to Marta's cottage but a different door, heavy and wooden and slightly ajar. Through the gap, you could see a man.

He was taller then you, with long pale hair that fell straight and smooth past his shoulders. It was beautiful hair. He was facing away from you, his features hidden in shadow, and no matter how hard you tried, no matter how much you strained your eyes, you couldn't make out his face. It was like trying to see through fog, like trying to remember a dream that was already fading upon waking.

He was holding something in his arms. A bundle of cloth, pale and soft, that he cradled against his chest with a gentleness that seemed at odds with his imposing presence. He held it like it was preciou. A blanket. And in the blanket, a child.

A baby. Small and new, with a wisp of hair on its tiny head, so fine it was almost invisible. The man was looking down at it, and even though you couldn't see his face, you could feel the weight of his gaze, the intensity of it, the way he was drinking in every detail of that tiny face like he was trying to memorize it forever.

"I did not expect this," he said, and his voice was low and rough, rougher than you had expected, touched with something that might have been wonder or might have been grief or might have been both. He spoke slowly, carefully, like each word cost him something. "Three moons. I have only had her for three moons. And already..."

He stopped. His hand came up, large and strong, and touched the baby's cheek with a tenderness that made your chest ache. The baby stirred, made a small sound, and he went very still, waiting until she settled again before he continued.

"Already she has carved herself into my heart," he said quietly. "I did not think... I did not know it was possible to love something so quickly. So completely. She is nothing. She is a scrap of a thing, barely larger than my two hands together, and yet she has undone me. She has remade me. She has become the center of everything, and I do not know how to let her go."

A woman's voice answered him, soft and warm, coming from somewhere you couldn't see. "Then keep her. Your plans will still work. She doesn't have to change anything. You can find another way."

He shook his head slowly, his hair swaying with the motion. "I cannot. You know I cannot. The life I lead, the things I must do... she would not be safe with me. She would be a target, a weakness, a thing that could be used against me. And I cannot afford weakness. Not now. Not with what is coming."

"She deserves to be loved," the woman said, and there was something in her voice, a gentle reproach, a sadness that spoke of long familiarity with this argument. "And you love her. I can see it. Anyone can see it. You hold her like she is the most precious thing in the world."

"Because she is." His voice cracked on the words. "and that is precisely why I cannot keep her. If I let myself love her, if I let myself become the father she deserves... I will become weak. I will change. I will hesitate when I should act, falter when I should be strong. I will put her before everything else, before duty and honor and the fate of the realm itself. And I cannot afford to do that. Not now. Not with everything that hangs in the balance."

He was quiet for a moment, still looking down at the baby, his thumb tracing slow circles on her tiny cheek. When he spoke again, his voice was barely a whisper.

"She has a greater destiny than I can give her. I have dreamed it. She will be something I cannot be, something I was never meant to be. And I... I am not meant to be part of it. I am meant to set her on the path and then step aside. That is my role. That is all I am meant to be. The one who lets her go so she can become what she was born to become."

The woman was silent for a long moment. Then she said, very softly, "You will regret this. For the rest of your life, you will regret this."

"I know." His voice was heavy with grief, with a sorrow so deep it seemed to fill the whole room.

You wanted to push the door open. You wanted to see his face, to understand who he was, why he felt so familiar, why the sight of him holding that baby made your chest ache with a longing you couldn't name. You reached for the door, your hand outstretched, your fingers brushing against the rough wood. If you could just open it, just a little more, just enough to see—

A hand closed around your arm and pulled you back and then you woke.

The beach was quiet. The stars were still overhead, scattered across the sky like seeds of light, and the moon hung low and silver over the water, casting a pale glow across the sand. Moonfyre was still curled around you, her wing sheltering you, her warmth seeping into your bones, her breathing slow and steady and deep. The pendant was warm against your chest, the two dragons and their ruby heart, and your cheeks were wet. You had been crying in your sleep.

You lay there for a long moment, staring up at the stars, your heart pounding, the fragments of the dream still clinging to you like cobwebs. The corridor, the coughing, the woman on the Iron Throne. The dragons in the sky, Moonfyre and the blue one and the five tiny ones at your feet. The river, Marta's hands pulling you out, her voice cutting through the water. The man with the silver hair and the baby in his arms, the baby he loved but couldn't keep.

She has a greater destiny. I am meant to set her on the path and then step aside.

You pressed your hand to your chest, over your heart, and felt the pendant warm against your palm. You didn't know if the dream was real. You didn't know if it was a vision, a memory, or just the random firing of a sleeping mind. But it felt real. It felt true. It felt like a piece of a puzzle you had been trying to solve your whole life, clicking into place.

And Marta. Marta, who had pulled you from the river and carried you home and raised you with nothing but her own two hands and her endless, stubborn love. Marta, who was probably worried sick right now, pacing the cottage, wondering if you were dead or alive. Marta, who had given you everything when she had nothing to give.

You had to go back.

The thought crystallized in your mind, clear and certain. You had to go back to Dragonstone. Not forever, maybe. Not to stay. But to see Marta. To let her know you were alive. To thank her for everything she had given you, and to tell her that you loved her, that you would always love her, that she was the only mother you had ever known. And maybe, just maybe, to find out if there was anything left of the life you had left behind.

You looked up at Moonfyre. She blinked at you slowly, and you could see the stars reflected in her eyes, tiny points of light in all that gold.

"We have to go back," you whispered. "Just for a little while. Just to say goodbye. And then... then we can come back here. Or go somewhere else. Anywhere. Everywhere. Just you and me."

Moonfyre made a sound, a low, rumbling purr that vibrated through your bones. Her wing tightened around you, pulling you closer, and you knew that she understood. She would take you wherever you needed to go. She would follow you to the ends of the earth.

But first, you had to go home.

[lalalovelyly]

Bastards, Dragons and Royals

Valarr Targaryen x Targ!reader

Part 1

tags: dragonseed!reader, silver hair and/or purple eyes reader, injured dragon, healing arc, slow burn (but like… platonic soulbond dragonbondvibes), girl just wants to help, kindness as a core trait (dunk core), soft but stubborn reader, hidden dragon, dragonstone setting, canon divergence, original dragon (moonfyre my beloved), female dragon, no romance (for now, next chapter will be valarr/reader centric). content warnings: injured dragon :(, infection/wound stuff, mentions of blood, non-graphic gore, animal in pain, fear/defensive aggression from the dragon, emotional hurt/comfort vibes reader info / note: yn is a targaryen dragonseed, but her parentage is completely unknown on purpose so you can project however you want the only fixed thing is that you have at least one valyrian feature so silver hair and/or purple eyes, because it needs to be obvious you’ve got targaryen blood everything else is up to you

The sea crashed against the base of Dragonstone with a rhythm as old as the island itself, sending plumes of salt spray into the grey morning air. From the village nestled in the shadow of the great castle, the sound was a constant companion, a lullaby, a warning, a heartbeat.

You had lived beside that sound for all of your sixteen years.

You pulled your worn woolen cloak tighter around your shoulders as you made your way along the familiar path that wound up the rocky hillside. It was early—the sun barely beginning to paint the eastern sky in pale pinks and golds—but sleep had abandoned you hours ago, chased away by dreams you could never quite remember upon waking.

The villagers called you the "Silver/Purple Lark" sometimes, when they were feeling poetic. Others simply called you "that pretty bastard who helps old Marta with her goats." You didn't mind either. You had known your place in the world since you could understand words: you were a dragonseed, a child of Targaryen blood left to grow among the common folk. Which Targaryen had planted that seed, no one would say. You had been found abandoned by the woman who raised you, kind Marta with her gnarled hands and endless patience.

The silver hair and/or violet eyes that marked your heritage were both gift and burden. Gift, because they made you striking in a way that turned heads in the village marketplace. Burden, because they marked you as something other, someone who didn't quite belong among the fishermen's daughters and the farmers' wives.

But you had learned to belong anyway. You smiled often, helped wherever help was needed, and asked for nothing. You tried to be good. You wanted to be good. Marta had raised you to be kind, and kindness was the one thing you had to offer a world that had never offered you much in return.

It had been an ordinary morning, or what passed for ordinary on Dragonstone, which meant grey skies, salt wind, and the distant crash of waves against the Dragon's Tail. You had woken early, before the fishing boats went out, and slipped away from the cottage while Marta was still muttering over her morning tea. You had a basket on your arm and a purpose in mind: the eastern tunnels, where the ghost-flowers grew thickest, their pale petals closing at midday if you didn't reach them in time.

You knew the path by heart. Past the Dragon's Tooth—that great outcropping of rock that the villagers said was the fossilized fang of some ancient beast—down through the gully where the wild onions grew, and into the low arch that marked the entrance to the lesser caverns. These were not the great halls beneath the castle, the ones the Targaryens had used as dragonpits in the old days. These were smaller, humbler, the kind of tunnels that shepherds used for shelter during storms and children used for games of hide-and-seek.

You had been walking for perhaps half an hour, your torch casting flickering shadows on the walls, when you noticed the warmth.

It was subtle at first a gentle heat rising from the stone beneath your feet, as if you were walking over ground that had been baking in the sun. But there was no sun here, and the deeper you went, the warmer it became, until you could feel sweat beginning to prickle at your hairline. Strange, you thought. The caves were always cool, always damp. That was why the ghost-flowers grew here, in the chill dark where no other plants could survive.

But these were not cool. These were warm, and growing warmer, and there was something else too a smell, faint but unmistakable, rising from the darkness ahead.

Sulfur. And beneath it, something coppery, something that made your stomach clench. Blood.

You should have turned back. Any sensible person would have turned back, would have retraced their steps and gone home to Marta and forgotten they had ever noticed anything strange about the eastern tunnels. But you had always been too curious for your own good, and besides, there might be someone hurt. Someone who needed help. You couldn't just walk away from that.

You kept walking.

The tunnel opened into a chamber you had never seen before, a vast space that must have been carved by water or fire or both, its walls streaked with veins of obsidian that glittered in the torchlight. And in the center of that chamber, curled against the far wall like a cat seeking shelter from the rain, was a dragon.

Your torch slipped from your fingers.

You didn't scream. You couldn't. Your throat had closed up, your lungs had stopped working, your entire body had become a single pulse of pure, primal terror that drowned out everything else, your thoughts, your name, the memory of your own face. You were nothing but eyes, and those eyes were fixed on the creature before you.

It was smaller than the dragons of stories, the ones that filled the songs about the Dance. Only about the size of two horses, you guessed, but what it lacked in size it made up in menace. Its scales were pale, white, but with a hint of purple in certain lights, like sea foam at dusk. Its wings were folded tight against its body, but you could see that one of them was wrong, bent at an angle that made you wince.

Its lips peeled back from teeth the length of your forearm, and a sound came from its throat that was pure warning.

Your heart hammered so hard you could feel it in your throat. Every story you had ever heard about dragons flashed through your mind, the terrible beasts of the Dance, the conquerors who had burned armies, the wild ones that ate children who wandered too close to their lairs. And this one looked ready to live up to every one of those stories.

But it didn't attack. It couldn't.

You saw it now, the way its body was pressed against the stone, as if it could barely hold itself upright. The way its flank heaved with each ragged breath. The wounded wing was not just twisted but festering, the scales around it discolored and cracked. It was in agony.

"You're hurt," you whispered before you could stop yourself.

The dragon's response was immediate and violent. It snapped its jaws toward you, a warning shot that fell several feet short, but the force of it sent you stumbling backward. Its golden eyes blazed with such pure loathing that you nearly fled then and there.

You took a slow step back instead, your hands raised. "I'm sorry," you said quickly. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—I'll go. I'll leave you alone."

The dragon hissed, a sound like water on hot stone, and you took the hint. You retreated to the entrance, your heart still pounding. At the threshold, you paused and looked back.

The dragon had not moved from its defensive coil, but its head had lowered slightly, the effort of its outburst draining what little strength it had left. It watched you go with those hateful golden eyes, and beneath the hatred, you thought you saw something else: exhaustion. And fear.

You left without looking back.

The next day, you returned with a rabbit.

It was probably a stupid thing to do. Marta would have said it was stupid, anyway. But you had lain awake all night thinking about that dragon. About the wound on its wing, the way the flesh around it had looked black and wrong. About the way it could barely lift its head after that one burst of aggression. If no one helped it, the dragon would die in that cave, alone and in pain.

You couldn't let that happen. You just couldn't. It wasn't in you to walk away from something that was hurting, even something that had tried to bite your head off.

You found it in the same spot, exactly as you had left it. When you entered the chamber, its head came up immediately, and that same snarl rumbled through the darkness.

"I brought you something," you said, stopping well outside what you guessed was striking distance. You held up the rabbit. "I'm leaving it here. Then I'll go."

The dragon watched you with unblinking suspicion as you placed the rabbit on the stone floor twenty feet from its head. Its lips were still pulled back from its teeth, a continuous low growl emanating from its chest.

"I know you're scared," you said softly. "I'd be scared too. But you need to eat."

You backed away slowly, keeping your hands visible. At the entrance, you sat down just around the corner, out of sight but close enough to hear. You didn't know why you stayed. Maybe to make sure it ate. Maybe just because you couldn't bear to leave it completely alone.

Silence stretched for a long time. Then, a rustle of scales against stone. A soft thump. And finally, the crunch of bones.

You smiled in the darkness and went home.

The pattern continued for a fortnight. Every day, you brought something rabbit, fish, once a mutton chop you had traded three days of goat-milking to obtain. Every day, you entered the chamber, set the food down, and retreated while the dragon snarled and snapped at you from its place against the wall.

It never got better. It never got friendlier. But it ate, and that was what mattered.

On the fifteenth day, you brought something else: a poultice.

You had watched Marta make them a hundred times for sheep with infected wounds. Comfrey and yarrow, honey from the village apiary, all mashed together into a stinking green paste that Marta swore could draw poison from any wound. You had no idea if it would work on a dragon, but you had to try. The infection was getting worse. You had seen it yesterday, how the scales around the break were cracking, how the smell of rot was stronger than before.

The dragon's snarl when you entered was weaker now. That worried you more than the hostility.

"I brought food," you said, setting down a fish. Your hands were trembling slightly, but you tried to keep your voice calm. "And... something else."

You held up the poultice, wrapped in a clean cloth. The dragon's nostrils flared, tasting the air. Its golden eyes narrowed.

"It's for your wing," you said. "Please. The infection will kill you if we don't—"

The dragon lunged.

It was a pathetic thing compared to what it might have done healthy, a lurch forward, jaws snapping, that carried it barely halfway to where you stood. But the intent was clear, and the fury in its eyes was absolute. You stumbled back, your heart in your throat, and your foot caught on a loose stone.

You fell.

The impact drove the breath from your lungs. For a moment, you just lay there, stunned, staring up at the dark ceiling of the cave. Your hands were scraped, your knee throbbing where it had hit the stone. When you finally pushed yourself up, the poultice was gonelo, lost somewhere in the darkness behind you.

The dragon had collapsed back against the wall, chest heaving, but its gaze never left your face. It looked exhausted. It looked miserable. It looked, you thought with a sudden ache in your chest, like it hated being seen like this even more than it hated you.

"Okay," you said quietly, brushing dirt from your palms. "Okay. I understand."

You got to your feet slowly, wincing at the sting in your knee. The poultice was ruined, smashed somewhere in the dark. You would have to make another. You would come back tomorrow, and you would try again.

You turned to go, then stopped. The dragon was still watching you, its sides heaving, its golden eyes bright with pain and fear and something that might have been confusion.

"I'm coming back," you said. "I know you don't want me to. But I'm coming back anyway."

You left before it could snarl at you again.

The next day, you brought another poultice. And the day after that, you brought another. Each time, the dragon snarled. Each time, it snapped. Each time, you retreated, waited, came back the next day with fresh food and fresh hope.

You never got close enough to apply it. Not once.bBut you kept trying.

On the twenty-third day, you arrived to find the dragon had moved.

It was a small thing, it had shifted perhaps six feet from its original position, dragging itself closer to the entrance of the chamber. But the effort must have been enormous, and when you entered, it didn't snarl.

It just looked at you. Its golden eyes were dull now, clouded with fever. The wound on its wing had worsened despite everything you'd tried. The smell of rot hung thick in the air, and you could see the infection spreading, black lines creeping up toward the dragon's shoulder.

"Oh," you breathed. "Oh, no."

You crossed the chamber without thinking. You didn't stop to consider distance, didn't calculate striking range, didn't do any of the careful, cautious things you had been doing for weeks. You just walked straight up to the dragon and knelt beside its wing.

The dragon's head came up, slow and heavy. Its jaws opened, and you saw the flicker of fire deep in its throat, a dying ember trying to catch.

"Please," you whispered. "Please, I'm trying to help."

You don't know if it understood your words. But something in your voice must have reached it, because the fire died. The dragon's jaws closed. Its head sank back to the stone, and it watched you with those clouded, feverish eyes, and for the first time since you had found it, it did not try to drive you away.

Your hands were shaking as you unwrapped the poultice. The wound was worse than you had realized the flesh was black and weeping, the bone beneath visible in places. You wanted to be sick. Instead, you pressed the poultice against the wound as gently as you could.

The dragon made a sound. Not a snarl, not a scream. Something smaller. Something that might have been a whimper.

"I know," you said, your voice wobbling. "I know it hurts. I'm sorry."

You sat there for a long time, your hands pressed against the dragon's wounded wing, not knowing if the poultice would do any good, not knowing if you were just making things worse. The dragon's breathing was labored, its chest rising and falling in great, shuddering waves.

After a while, you became aware of something warm against your side. You looked down. The dragon's snout had moved while you weren't paying attention, coming to rest against your hip. Its eyes were closed now, its breathing still ragged but slower, steadier.

You didn't move. You didn't dare.

"I'll come back tomorrow," you whispered. "I'll keep coming back. I promise."

The dragon did not snarl. It did not snap. It simply lay there, its head against you, and let you stay.

Slowly, carefully, you reached out with your other hand and laid it on the dragon's neck.

The scales were smoother than you had expected, warm, like stone that had been baking in the sun, but with a faint pulse of heat beneath. The dragon tensed for a moment, and you held your breath. Then, slowly, it relaxed, and a sound rumbled from its chest that was nothing like a growl.

It was almost a purr.

You laughed, the sound surprising you. You stroked the warm scales, and the dragon's eyes half-closed. Its head tilted ever so slightly into your touch, and your heart swelled so full you thought it might burst.

"You're beautiful," you whispered. "Do you know that? So beautiful."

The dragon's eyes opened, fixing on you with an intensity that made your cheeks warm. There was something in that gaze, something that made you feel seen in a way you never had before. Not as the bastarg get. Not as Marta's helper. Just... you.

"You must be a girl," you said suddenly, and the certainty of it surprised you. "You're too pretty to be a boy."

The dragon huffed, a puff of warm air that stirred your hair, and you laughed again.

"I mean it. Look at you. All pale and shimmering like... like moonlight on the water."

You ran your hand along her jaw, marveling at the way her scales caught the dim light of the cave, that faint purple sheen beneath the white. She was exquisite. Delicate, almost, despite the teeth and the claws and the fire you had seen flickering at the back of her throat.

"You need a name," you said.

You thought of the stories Marta used to tell you when you were small, tucked up in your cot while the wind howled outside. Stories of dragons and riders, of the Targaryen princesses who had flown above Westeros on wings of fire and scale. Your favorite had always been Baela the Brave.

Baela Targaryen, who had ridden the dragon Moondancer. Who had fought against usurpers and survived fire and war and loss, who had never stopped fighting even when the whole world seemed against her. You had loved her story as a child, loved the way she refused to be broken, the way she burned bright even in the darkest times.

Moondancer.

You looked at your dragon, at her pale scales that seemed to glow in the darkness, at the grace in her long neck and the quiet strength in her coiled body.

"Moonfyre," you breathed. The dragon's head lifted. Her golden eyes met yours, and for a moment, the world went very still.

"Moonfyre," you said again, firmer this time. "Like Moondancer, from the stories. Baela's dragon. But you're not quite the same, are you? You're a bit bigger. Paler. Prettier,i think." You smiled, stroking her snout.

Moonfyre made a sound, a low, rumbling thing that vibrated through your bones and settled somewhere deep in your chest. It was not quite a purr and not quite a growl, you chose to take it as approval.

"Moonfyre," you said one more time, testing the shape of it on your tongue. It felt right. It felt like hers.

The dragon—Moonfyre, you thought, and the name sang in your mind—pressed her snout against your shoulder, hard enough to nearly knock you over. You caught yourself with a laugh, your arms coming up around her neck without thinking.

"Alright, alright," you said, your face pressed against her warm scales. "You like it, I'm glad."

She made that sound again, and you could feel it humming through her entire body, through your own. You held on, and she let you, and for a long while neither of you moved.

When you finally pulled back, your cheeks ached from smiling. Moonfyre's eyes were half-lidded, her posture loose and comfortable in a way you had never seen before. The wound on her wing was healing—slowly, but healing—and the fever that had clouded her eyes had faded to nothing.

She was going to live.

You had done that. You, the village bastard who had never been anything more than a helping hand, had saved a dragon.

"Moonfyre," you said again, just to say it.

She blinked at you slowly, and you could have sworn there was affection in those golden depths.

You sat beside her for a long time that day, your back against her warm side, your hand resting on her scales. She let you. She even seemed to like it, if the gentle rumble in her chest was any indication.

And you thought about Baela the Brave, who had flown into battle with her dragon and never given up. Who had been blood of the dragon, even when the world tried to tell her she wasn't enough.

You weren't Baela. You weren't anything, really, just a dragonseed with silver hair and/or violet eyes that marked you as something you had never been allowed to claim.

But sitting beside Moonfyre, feeling the warmth of her through your worn woolen cloak, you thought that maybe you could be something. Maybe you already were.

You smiled and closed your eyes, and let the dragon's steady breathing lull you toward sleep.

"You and me," you murmured, already half-dreaming. "We'll be brave together."

Moonfyre's tail curled around you, and you knew, with the certainty of something that had always been true, that she had understood every word.

----

The news reached the village on a grey morning when the sea was calm and the gulls were quiet.

"Prince Baelor is coming," old Tom the fisherman announced in the common room of the inn, where everyone had gathered to escape the damp. "Riding to Dragonstone with his household. Something about petitions."

The inn erupted in excited chatter. Prince Baelor, Baelor Breakspear, the heir to the Iron Throne, the most beloved prince in the Seven Kingdoms. He was famous for his honor, his skill at arms, his fairness. And he was coming to Dragonstone.

You listened with half an ear, your mind elsewhere. Moonfyre's wing was almost healed now, though you still brought food every day. She had grown used to your presence, even affectionate in her way, she would curl her neck around you when you arrived, and sometimes she would let you lean against her warm side while you talked.

You had not told anyone. It was your secret, yours alone, and you guarded it fiercely.

But the news of Prince Baelor's visit stirred something in you. For years, you had wondered about your father, about the Targaryen blood that ran in your veins. You had never asked, never sought answers—it seemed pointless, like asking the sea to give back a drowned sailor.

But the news of Prince Baelor's visit stirred something in you, despite yourself. For years, you had wondered about your father or mother, about the Targaryen who had left a dragonseed child on Marta's doorstep and never looked back. You had trained yourself not to wonder. It was a waste of hope, like asking the tide to bring back a message you had whispered to the waves.

Now, with a dragon in the caves and a prince in the castle, the wondering crept back.

You pushed it down. Foolishness. The guards would never let you near the prince, and even if they did, what would you say? My prince, I found a dragon. Also, I think I might be your cousin? Or your half-sister? Or your something? They would laugh. Or worse, they would investigate. And then Moonfyre would be taken away, chained in some pit beneath the castle, studied like a curiosity.

No. Some things were worth more than answers.

---

Three days later, Prince Baelor arrived.

The whole village turned out. You had tried to stay home, you truly had, but Marta had shooed you out with a broom and told you that a girl your age should have some joy in her life, even if she had to be forced into it at broom-point.

So you stood with the others along the causeway, craning for a glimpse, and when the prince rode past on his magnificent grey destrier, you found yourself surprised.

He was not what you expected. The Targaryens in the old tapestries were silver gold-haired and otherworldly, their beauty as sharp as Valyrian steel. This man had dark hair cropped short, a strong jaw with a beard, and a face that looked like it had been shaped for smiling. He rode easily, nodding to the crowd, and when his eyes swept over you for a brief moment, he did not look away.

He smiled. A small thing, just a flicker, but it was there.

Your heart did something complicated in your chest. You looked down at your worn boots and told yourself it meant nothing.

The petitions were held in the castle, you hadn't planned to go. It was foolishness, you told yourself. But Marta had needed herbs from the castle's healer, and the healer's apprentice was a boy you had grown up with who might give you a better price if you asked nicely, and the petitions were happening, and...

And so you found yourself standing at the edge of the crowd, watching as common folk and minor lords alike approached where Prince Baelor sat, listening to their grievances and dispensing justice.

He was patient, you observed. He listened to everyone, the farmer whose sheep had been stolen, the woman whose husband had abandoned her and wanted their son back, the merchant whose goods had been seized by an overzealous customs officer. He asked questions, considered answers, and gave judgments that seemed fair.

You watched for longer than you meant to, until the crowd began to thin and the afternoon shadows grew long. The healer's apprentice had given you the herbs at a good price, and you should be heading back to the village before dark.

But your feet wouldn't move. And then, somehow, you were walking forward. Toward the prince. The guards noticed you when you were still twenty feet away. One of them stepped forward, hand on his sword.

"Halt. Petitions are closed for the day. Come back tomorrow."

You stopped, your heart suddenly pounding. What were you doing? This was madness. But you had come this far.

"I... I'm not here for a petition, exactly," you said, and your voice came out steadier than you felt. "I have... information. About something on the island. Something important."

The guard frowned. "What kind of information?"

"A dragon."

The word hung in the air between you. The guard's frown deepened, and behind him, you saw a few other people turn to look.

"A dragon," the guard repeated flatly.

"In the caves. It's wounded, but it's real. I've been... I've been feeding it."

There was a moment of silence. Then someone in the crowd laughed—a short, sharp sound. Another person snickered. The guard's expression shifted from confusion to something like pity.

"Girl, all the dragons died sixty years ago. Everyone knows that."

"I know what I saw." You lifted your chin, meeting his eyes. "I've been seeing it for moons now. It's white, with purple in its scales. About the size of two horses. Its wing was hurt, but it's healing."

The guard opened his mouth to respond, but a voice from behind him cut him off.

"What's this about a dragon?"

The crowd parted, and Prince Baelor himself stepped forward. Up close, he was even more striking than you had expected, not handsome in the conventional way, but with a presence that made you want to pay attention when he spoke. His dark eyes studied you with curiosity.

Your throat went dry. You dipped into a clumsy curtsey, the kind the village women used when the septon came to visit.

"Your Grace. I'm sorry to bother you. I just... I thought someone should know."

"Know what?" His voice was kind, patient. "Tell me your name, child."

"Y/N, Your Grace. I live in the village."

"Well, Y/N of the village. Tell me about this dragon."

You told him, the first discovery, the wounded wing, the moons of bringing food and water. The crowd had gone quiet. Some were still smiling, the way adults smile at children's fanciful tales. Others were watching the prince, waiting to see how he would respond.

When you finished, Prince Baelor was silent for a long moment. Then he asked, very quietly, "You say it lets you touch it?"

"Yes, Your Grace. It... I think it trusts me. I was the first person who didn't try to hurt it."

"And you've told no one else?"

"No, Your Grace. I was afraid they wouldn't believe me. Or that they would... try to take it."

The prince nodded slowly, and something flickered in his eyes, not disbelief, but consideration. He glanced at one of his knights, a big man with a scarred face, and something passed between them that you couldn't read.

Then he turned back to you, and a small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

"Y/N of the village, you've brought me an interesting tale. I confess, I'm curious to see if it's true. But if there is a dragon in those caves—a wild dragon, wounded and alone—it could be dangerous. To you, to the villagers, to anyone who stumbles upon it."

"It's not dangerous!" you said quickly. "It's never tried to hurt me. Not once." You lied, a white lie you thought.

"You've been lucky, then. Or perhaps you're right, and it knows you mean it no harm." He paused, studying your face. "What would you have me do with this information? Did you come seeking a reward?"

You shook your head. "No, Your Grace. I just... I thought someone should know. And I was worried that if I didn't tell anyone, and something happened..."

"You felt it was your duty." The prince's smile widened slightly. "That's commendable."

He was quiet for another moment, and you became acutely aware of all the eyes on you, the guards, the courtiers, the villagers who had lingered to watch. Your face burned.

Then the prince spoke again, and his voice carried to everyone in the yard.

"Well, children are often more imaginative than we give them credit for. But I see no harm in humoring them." He looked directly at you. "If there is a dragon in those caves, and if it has chosen to accept your company... then I suppose it's yours. Finders keepers, as they say."

A ripple of laughter ran through the crowd. Someone called out, "Better them than me!" and more laughter followed.

You stared at him, hardly daring to believe what you were hearing. "You... you mean it? I can keep it?"

Prince Baelor's eyes sparkled with amusement. "If it exists, and if it allows you to keep it, then yes. Consider it a gift from the crown. Though I should warn you, dragons have a way of belonging to no one but themselves. Ask my ancestors."

"Thank you, Your Grace!" The words tumbled out of you, overflowing with relief and joy. "Thank you, thank you—"

"Go on, then." He waved a hand, still smiling. "Go tend to your dragon. And if you ever need anything for it—within reason, mind you—you may come to the castle and ask. Consider that my promise."

You curtseyed again, nearly tripping over your own feet in your haste, and fled the yard before anyone could change their mind.

Behind you, you heard the laughter and chatter resume, and someone saying, "Well, that was a kind thing to do. That one's clearly touched in the head, but no harm in letting them have their fantasy."

Let them laugh. Let them think you mad. You knew what you had found.

And now, officially, it was yours.

----

In the evening, over supper, Valarr brought it up.

"I've been thinking about that girl," he said, pushing eggs around his plate with the focused attention of someone who was thinking about anything but his breakfast. "The one with the dragon."

Matarys looked up, interested. "The mad girl?"

"She wasn't mad." Valarr frowned at his brother. "She was... mistaken, perhaps. But not mad."

"Mad, mistaken—she thinks there's a dragon in the caves." Matarys shrugged. "That's not normal."

"Lots of people believe things that aren't normal. That doesn't make them mad."

Baelor hid a smile behind his cup of watered wine. This was a familiar dynamic, Valarr the serious, always striving to be fair and just; Matarys the impulsive, speaking before he thought. They balanced each other well, these two.

"What about her, Valarr?" he asked.

"I was wondering if someone should check. The caves, I mean. Just to be sure." Valarr met his father's eyes steadily. "If there is something there—even just a wounded animal she's mistaken for a dragon—it might need help. Real help. And if there's nothing..." He trailed off.

"Then at least we'll know," Baelor finished. "And we can stop wondering."

"Exactly."

It was a sensible suggestion. Practical. The kind of thing Valarr would think of, with his methodical mind and his desire to set things right.

Baelor considered it. A search party would take time and men, but it wasn't an unreasonable request. And it would set his son's mind at ease, which was worth something.

But something held him back. A memory of the girl's face when he'd told her she could keep her dragon, that radiant, disbelieving joy. A search party would find nothing, most likely. And then that joy would be replaced by something else. Embarrassment, perhaps. Shame. The crushing weight of having been wrong about something that mattered deeply.

Was it worth that, just to satisfy curiosity?

"I think," Baelor said slowly, "that we should let it be. For now. The girl isn't hurting anyone, and she's not asking for anything except to be left alone with her... companion. If there's a wounded animal in those caves, she's already tending it better than we could. If there's nothing, then she'll figure that out eventually on her own." He met Valarr's eyes. "Sometimes the kindest thing is to let people keep their illusions."

Valarr considered this, his young face serious. Then he nodded slowly. "You're probably right, Father."

"I usually am." Baelor smiled. "Don't tell your mother I said that."

Matarys snorted. "Mother already knows. She says your wisdom is exceeded only by your modesty, and both are greatly exaggerated."

"Your mother," Baelor informed him, "is a very funny woman."

----

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[anxietyproblem]

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[memeuplift]

[chartedterritory]

[kurgy]

wheres seasons greasons

[kurgy]

[kurgy]

its that time of year again

[theangriestlittleunicorn]

It doesn’t have to be

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its not optional

[cryptidconservationcorps]

It’s that time of year again

[seven-winged-liar]

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[seven-winged-liar]

no white boy not like that

[seven-winged-liar]

white boy i've never seen anyone fuck it up like that

[not-prentiss]

[not-prentiss]

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