banastard

28, she/her, TX. Free Palestine and FUCK ICE.

[catbayunthestoryteller]

How to Train Your Raven (Part 3)

Pairing: Brynden Rivers x f!reader

Summary: A noble lady from a disgraced house that supported Blackfyres is married off to Lord Bloodraven as a reward for his loyalty and prowess in battle. But he prefers to occupy his time with duties as the Hand of the King. Comfortable but lonely, she befriends one of his ravens. Part 1 here, part 2 here.Warnings: arranged marriage, yearning, angst, fluff, childbirth, blood, Westeros politics.

The ravens were behaving oddly. You noticed them before Brynden did, which was unusual, given that Brynden noticed everything. But you were the one who spent your mornings in the gardens now, walking the gravel paths with a hand resting on the swell of your belly, and you were the one who saw them gathering in the trees. At first it was only a few, Pebble and his usual companions from the Tower rookery. Then it was a dozen. Then two dozen. Then so many that the branches bent under their weight, and the garden rang with their hoarse, chattering cries.

"They are watching me," you told Brynden one evening, settling into the chair beside his desk. "The ravens in the garden. Every time I walk there, they turn their heads and watch. It is a little unsettling."

Brynden looked up from his parchment. His single eye swept over you, then drifted toward the window, where the evening sky was thick with wheeling black shapes.

"They are my ravens," he said, as though that explained everything.

"Yes, I know they are your ravens. But they are not behaving like your ravens. They are behaving like…" You searched for the word. "Like courtiers waiting for an audience."

He set down his quill. "Come here."

You rose and crossed to him, and he took your hand and drew you down onto his lap. It was a familiar position now, one you had grown to love: his arms around you, his chest solid against your back, his chin resting on your shoulder. His hand came to rest on your belly, a gesture that had become natural to him.

"They are curious," he said. "They can sense the child. My child. It calls to them."

"Your child is the size of a pie. How can a pie call to ravens?"

He was quiet for a moment. "I do not fully understand it myself," he admitted. "But the old gods are in my blood. The blood of the First Men, the blood of the greenseers. It passes from parent to child. And while the child grows within you, some of that blood…touches you. Just a little. Enough for the ravens to notice."

You turned your head to look at him. "You mean I am becoming like you?"

"No." His hand tightened on your belly. "You are carrying something like me. There is a difference. But the ravens do not make fine distinctions. They know what they feel, and they are drawn to it."

You considered this. The thought of sharing even a fraction of your husband's strange gifts was not entirely unwelcome. You had watched him work his magic, if magic it was, and the fear you had once felt had long since given way to something closer to wonder. If your child was to share his nature, you would love that child no less for it.

"Ravens better not start leaving droppings on my new gown," you said.

He laughed, that rusty, still-rare sound that never failed to warm you. "I shall have words with them."

The dreams began a fortnight later.

At first, they were ordinary. The strange, disjointed dreams of pregnancy that the septas and the older ladies of the court had warned you about. You dreamed of falling, of drowning, of losing the baby in a dozen different ways. You woke gasping and tearful, and Brynden was always there, hand on your brow, his voice low and steady in the darkness.

"It is only a dream," he would say. "The baby is safe. You are safe. I am here."

You would burrow against him and let his heartbeat lull you back to sleep, and by morning the nightmare would be nothing but a fading wisp.

But then the dreams began to change.

You dreamed you were flying. Not as yourself, but as something with wings that caught the wind and eyes that saw the world in different colors. You soared over the Red Keep, over the city, over the bay, and you saw ships with crimson sails and men in golden cloaks and a woman weeping on a balcony. The dream was so vivid that when you woke, you could still feel the wind in your feathers, the ache in your wings, the strange, sharp hunger in your belly.

"The ships," you murmured, still half-asleep. "The ships from Lys. They are bringing silks. And the woman...she has a bruise on her wrist. Her husband gave it to her. She is going to poison him."

Beside you, Brynden froze.

"What did you say?" His voice was carefully neutral, the voice he used when interrogating a suspected traitor.

You blinked, the dream already fading. "I…I don't know. Ships? There was a woman…" You yawned, the exhaustion of pregnancy pulling you back down. "I think I was dreaming about flying. It was rather nice, actually."

You fell asleep again before you could see the expression on his face.

The next morning, you found him standing at the window, his back to you, three ravens perched on the sill before him. He was speaking to them in low tones, and they were answering in soft croaks. When he heard you stir, he dismissed them with a flick of his wrist and came to sit on the edge of the bed.

"How do you feel?" he asked.

"Well enough." You stretched, your hand drifting to your belly. The baby was kicking: tiny flutters, like the wings of a moth. "The babe is active this morning. Here, feel."

You took his hand and pressed it to the spot. He waited, patient as ever, until a small thump greeted his palm. His expression softened.

"Strong," he said.

"Stubborn, more like. Just like his father."

"Or her father."

You smiled. "Or her father."

He was quiet for a moment, his thumb tracing circles on your belly. Then he said, without looking up: "The ships from Lys arrived this morning. They are carrying silks, as you predicted. And the woman on the balcony, Lady Staunton. She has a bruise on her wrist. Her husband gave it to her. The servants found poison in her chambers last night. She was planning to kill him."

You stared at him. "What?"

"You told me. Last night, in your sleep. You spoke of ships with crimson sails and a woman weeping on a balcony." His eye lifted to yours. "I saw those things through a raven's eyes three days ago. I did not tell you. There was no way for you to know."

The room felt very cold suddenly. You pulled the blankets up around your shoulders. "That is not possible."

"I would have said the same, once." He reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind your ear. "You are seeing through my ravens. Or rather, the child is. The connection I spoke of, it is stronger than I realized. The old blood is waking in you, channeled through our son or daughter. You are dreaming my dreams."

"Am I becoming a sorcerer?" Your voice came out smaller than you intended.

"No. You are carrying one." His hand cupped your cheek. "I am sorry. I did not expect this. I did not know it would affect you so directly."

You sat with the knowledge for a moment, turning it over in your mind.

"Is it dangerous?" you asked. "For the babe?"

"I do not believe so. The magic is in the blood. It is not a sickness. It is simply…more active than I anticipated."

"Then I do not mind." You leaned into his touch. "It is only dreams. And they are not nightmares, not really. Flying was beautiful."

Brynden's expression was unreadable. "You are not frightened?"

"A few strange dreams will not send me running."

His eye closed for a moment, and when it opened again, there was a brightness in it that might have been relief. "You are remarkable."

"I am pregnant and tired and my feet hurt. But I am also, apparently, a little bit magic. I shall add it to my list of accomplishments."

"I will watch over you," he kissed you. "More closely than before. If the dreams trouble you, if anything feels wrong, you must tell me immediately."

"I will."

"And the ravens, if they become too much, I will keep them away."

"Let them come." You settled back against the pillows. "They are only curious. I do not mind the company when you are away."

The ravens always followed you now. They lined the branches like black leaves, watching you with their bright, knowing eyes, and you spoke to them as you once had spoken only to Pebble.

"You are all Pebbles now," you told them. "I cannot possibly name you all. You shall have to share."

One of the ravens croaked. It sounded almost amused.

Pebble had taken to perching on the arm of your chair, keeping watch over you with a vigilance that belied his lazy nature. You were fairly certain Brynden had given him orders. When you asked, Brynden only said, "He is your raven. He does as he pleases."

You laughed, then winced as the baby kicked hard against your ribs. "Your child is trying to break my bones."

"Our child." He knelt before your chair and pressed both hands to your belly. The baby kicked again, and his lips curved into that small smile he reserved for moments like this. "Restless. Eager to be born."

"Like his father. Always wanting to know things before anyone else."

"I have already seen her."

You blinked. "What?"

"I have seen her," he repeated. "A glimpse, in the godswood, when you were sitting under the oak tree. The future is…unclear. But I saw a child with silver hair and your smile. A girl."

Your heart squeezed. "A girl?"

"I could be wrong. The visions are not always reliable." But his voice was thick. "But I think we shall have a daughter, my love."

You covered his hands with yours. "Alysanne?" You had discussed names. Alysanne was a name that had been given to a Targaryen, Blackwood and Reach ladies alike.

"Yes." He looked up at you, and his eye was wet. "Alysanne."

The pains began in the ninth month, three weeks before the maester had predicted.

You had been in the godswood, as had become your custom, sitting beneath the old oak with your hands folded over the great swell of your belly. The ravens were there, of course. Pebble was on your knee, dozing, his round breast rising and falling.

The first pain came like a fist closing around your spine.

You gasped. Pebble startled, flapping his wings in alarm, and the ravens in the branches above set up a sudden, raucous cawing that echoed through the godswood like a storm of angry voices. The pain faded, and you pressed a hand to your belly, your heart hammering.

"It is too early," you whispered. "It is too early."

The second pain came ten minutes later, as you were struggling to your feet. It was sharper this time, a tearing sensation that made you cry out and clutch the trunk of the oak for support. The ravens erupted into the sky, a black cloud of wings and screaming. Pebble was shrieking. Somewhere in the distance you heard footsteps running.

"My lady!" It was one of the gardeners, a boy of perhaps four and ten, his face white with terror. "My lady, are you...should I fetch the maester?"

"The babe," you gasped. "The babe is coming. It is too early..."

The third pain took your legs out from under you.

Brynden was in a meeting of the small council when the ravens came.

He told you later how it happened. The window of the council chamber had suddenly filled with black wings, the birds had battered themselves against the glass with a frenzy that made Lord Tyrell knock over his chair and the Grand Maester drop his papers. He had felt them through the bond that connected him to every raven in his network, a surge of animal panic.

He did not wait for the king's dismissal. He ran.

By the time he reached the godswood, you were on the ground, surrounded by a ring of servants and guards, your face twisted with pain. The gardener's boy had found a septa, the septa had sent for the maester, someone had brought blankets, someone else was crying, and the ravens were still circling overhead in a great black wheel, their cries drowning out every other sound.

"Move, you blithering..." Brynden started, panicked, but the crowd parted before him like water before he could finish. He knelt at your side, his hands found yours. His face was tight with a fear you had never seen in him before.

"I am here," he said. "I am here. You are going to be fine."

"It is too early," you sobbed. "Brynden, it is too early, the babe..."

"The child is strong." His voice was steady, but his hands were trembling. "You are strong. I will not let anything happen to you. To either of you." He looked up at the servants, his single eye blazing. "Where is the maester?"

"Coming, my lord," someone stammered. "He is coming."

"Then someone run faster."

A guardsman sprinted toward the maester's tower. Brynden turned back to you, his hand came up to cup your cheek, his thumb wiping away the tears that were streaming down your face.

"I cannot do this," you whispered. "It is too early. What if something is wrong? What if..."

"Do not." His voice was fierce. "Do not go there. Stay here. With me. Look at me. We are going to get through this. You are going to bring our child into the world, and I am going to be here, and the maester is going to do his job, and everything is going to be fine. Do you understand me?"

You nodded, though the next contraction was already building, a wave of pressure and pain that made your vision swim.

The maester arrived, red-faced and breathless, his chain clanking. "We must get her inside," he said. "The birthing chamber..."

"Then carry her," Brynden snapped. "Carefully."

It was the Grand Maester himself who organized the litter, who directed the servants, who spoke to you in calm, measured tones about breathing and pushing and time. But it was Brynden who lifted you onto the litter himself. He refused to leave the birthing chamber, even when the septas clucked their tongues and the maester suggested, gently, that the Hand of the King might be more comfortable waiting outside.

"No," he said, and there was no arguing with that voice. "I am staying."

The labor was long and hard. You lost track of time. There was only the pain, coming in waves.

Brynden's did not leave your side. He did not flinch at the blood or the screams or the chaos of the birthing chamber. He held your hand and murmured to you in a voice so low that only you could hear, a stream of words that wove together love and reassurance and the occasional threat of violence against anyone who did not do their job properly.

"If the maester drops his instrument one more time," he said at one point, his voice perfectly conversational, "I will have him reassigned to the Night's Watch."

A startled laugh burst out of you, cut short by another contraction. "You cannot send the Grand Maester to the Wall."

"I am the Hand of the King. I can do whatever I want."

Hours passed. The sun sank below the windows and rose again, and still the baby did not come. The maester's face grew grave, and the septas exchanged worried glances, and you were so tired, so terribly tired, your body wrung out like a rag.

"I cannot," you gasped, after what felt like an eternity. "I cannot do this anymore. Please. Please."

Brynden leaned close, his forehead pressing against yours. "Yes, you can," he said. "You are the bravest person I have ever known. You walked into this court alone, into a marriage with a man you had every reason to fear, and you made a life here. You made a home here. You made me love you." His voice cracked. "You can do this. One more time. For me. For our daughter. One more push. I am here. I am not leaving."

You pushed.

"A girl," the maester announced after a few more excruciating minutes. "A healthy girl."

You collapsed against the pillows, body shaking, vision blurred with tears and exhaustion. You heard a thin cry.

The septas bustled around you, cleaning and swaddling, their voices a distant murmur. Brynden was there, he was holding something small and white-wrapped, and his face...You had never seen his face like that.

He looked young. Younger than you had ever seen him, the lines of worry and weariness smoothed away, his eye bright with a joy so pure it made your heart clench. His hands, those long, pale, clever hands, cradled the tiny bundle with a reverence that belonged in a sept.

"She has your eyes," his voice was hoarse, broken, wonderful. "She has your eyes and my hair. She is absolutely perfect."

"Let me see her," you whispered. "Please. Let me hold her."

He brought her to you, settling the bundle into your waiting arms with infinite care. And there she was, your daughter, Alysanne, small and squalling, with a tuft of silver-white hair on her tiny head.

"Hello," you breathed. "Hello, my love. My little one. My Alysanne."

Alysanne was a hungry, loud baby, who seemed to have inherited her father's distaste for sleep. She nursed eagerly and often, and when she was not nursing, she was wailing, and when she was not wailing, she was watching the world with those uncanny eyes that seemed to see more than any infant's eyes should see.

But she was healthy. The maester pronounced her strong and well-formed, with no signs of the frailty that sometimes plagued early babes. "She is small," he admitted, "but she has a fighter's spirit. She will grow quickly."

You were too tired to do much more than nod and smile and fall asleep at odd hours, the babe cradled against your chest. The septas and the wet nurses hovered, offering to take Alysanne so you could rest, but you could not bear to let her go. You had waited so long for her. You had dreamed of her and carried her and labored to bring her into the world. You were not about to hand her off to strangers now.

Brynden, for his part, had become utterly insufferable.

It started the day after the birth, when you tried to sit up in bed and he appeared at your elbow as if conjured by magic, which, you supposed, he might well have been.

"What are you doing?" he demanded.

"I am sitting up."

"You should not be sitting up. The maester said you need to rest."

"The maester said I need to recover. Recovery involves moving occasionally."

He hovered, his hands outstretched as though he expected you to collapse at any moment. "Let me help you."

"Brynden, I am sitting up in bed. It is not a complex maneuver."

"Nevertheless."

You sighed and let him arrange the pillows behind your back, his long fingers tucking and adjusting with the meticulous care he usually reserved for intelligence reports. When he was satisfied, he stepped back and surveyed his work with a critical eye.

"There," he said. "Is that comfortable? Do you need more pillows? A blanket? Some water? Are you hungry? The kitchens have prepared a broth..."

"Brynden."

"..and there is bread, fresh bread, and cheese, the maester said you should eat to regain your strength..."

"Brynden."

He stopped, his mouth still half-open.

"I am fine," you said, as gently as you could. "I am tired, and I am sore, but I am fine. You do not need to fuss."

"I am not fussing." He paused. "I am attending to my wife's needs."

"You sent a servant to fetch the maester because I sneezed."

"Sneezing can indicate a number of underlying conditions. It is important to be vigilant."

"You threatened to have the cook executed because the broth was too salty."

"It was inedible. I merely suggested that he might benefit from a change of career. Possibly in a location with a colder climate and fewer cooking implements."

You stared at him. He stared back, his single eye wide and earnest. He had not slept, you could see the shadows beneath his eye, the slight tremor in his hands. He had been awake for three days straight, by your count, attending to you and the baby and the affairs of the realm with the manic energy of a man who had decided that sleep was for people with fewer responsibilities.

"Come here," you said.

He came, and you caught his hand and pulled him down to sit on the edge of the bed.

"You are exhausted," you said.

"I am perfectly fine."

"You are not. You have been running yourself ragged taking care of me and the babe and the entire Seven Kingdoms, and you have not slept since before I went into labor."

"The realm does not pause for..."

"The realm can wait." You squeezed his hand. "Your wife and your daughter need you alive and healthy. You cannot pour from an empty cup."

He was silent for a moment. Then, slowly, he sagged, the tension draining from his shoulders. "I was afraid," he admitted. "When the ravens came, when I found you in the godswood...I was afraid I was going to lose you. Both of you. And I could not..." He stopped, his jaw tightening. "I could not bear it."

"You did not lose us." You lifted his hand to your lips and kissed his knuckles. "We are here. We are safe. And we need you to rest."

"Perhaps," he said, "I could lie down. Just for a little while."

"Just for a little while," you agreed.

He removed his boots and his doublet and climbed into the bed beside you, moving with the careful deliberation of a man who was trying very hard not to jostle anything. When he was settled, he reached out and pulled you gently against his side, your head coming to rest on his shoulder.

"This is nice," he murmured.

"It is."

"I should do this more often."

"You should."

His arm tightened around you, his breathing began to slow. "I love you," he murmured, the words slurring slightly. "I love Alysanne. I love…" He yawned. "I even love that wretched raven of yours."

"Pebble is your raven."

"He was my raven. Now he is a nursemaid. He watches the cradle. Did you notice?"

You had. Pebble had barely left the cradle since Alysanne had been placed in it. He perched on the rail, his head cocked, his black eyes fixed on the baby.

"She has already charmed him," you said.

"She charms everyone." His voice was fading, sleep pulling him under. "Like her mother."

You smiled and pressed a kiss to his cheek.

He did not answer. He was already gone, his face slack with exhaustion, his arm still wrapped protectively around you.

The wet nurses had taken Alysanne for the night.

It was a practice that had become routine in the weeks since her birth, though you still felt a pang of guilt every time they carried her away. The maester had recommended it: your body was still recovering from the early labor, and the interrupted sleep was wearing on you more than you wanted to admit. Alysanne was a hungry baby, demanding and vocal, she woke every two hours with the relentless regularity of a water clock. The wet nurses could feed her through the night while you rested.

"You need your strength," Brynden had insisted. "The wet nurses are here for a reason. Use them."

So you had relented, and now, two months into your daughter's life, the night feedings had become a ritual. The maids would come at the hour of the bat, lifting Alysanne from her cradle, and Brynden would pull you back against his chest and murmur sleepily into your hair until you relaxed.

It worked, mostly. You slept more deeply than you had since before the birth. But your body had not yet adjusted to the new rhythm, and your breasts still filled with milk at the hours when Alysanne would normally feed, heavy and aching and sometimes leaking despite the cloths you tucked into your nightgown.

Tonight was one of those nights.

You were dreaming. You stirred in your sleep, turning onto your side, and the movement pressed your heavy breast against the mattress. A warm wetness spread through the linen of your nightgown.

Beside you, Brynden stirred.

He was a light sleeper at the best of times, a lifetime of vigilance had made sure of that, and the early days of fatherhood had sharpened his senses. The slightest sound from the cradle could pull him from sleep, his hand reaching for the dagger he kept on the nightstand.

But this was not a sound. This was a sensation. Wetness, seeping through the sheets, warm against him where your body pressed against his.

His eye snapped open.

In the darkness of the bedchamber, his mind, still fogged with sleep, still caught in the grip of whatever dreams a greenseer dreamed, registered only one thing. Something wet. His first memory was of the battle of the Redgrass field, his mind flashing back to grass painted red with sticky blood. Then he sensed something leaking from his wife's body. His wife, who had labored early and nearly died, who had bled and screamed and clutched his hand with a grip like iron. His wife, who was lying still and silent beside him, and there was wetness spreading between them, and...

Blood. His mind supplied the word with cold, absolute certainty. It's blood. She's bleeding. She's...

He sat up so fast the blankets tangled around his legs. His hands found your shoulders, he turned you onto your back, his heart hammering against his ribs, his breath coming in short, ragged gasps.

"Brynden..." Your voice was thick with sleep, confused, your hands coming up to push weakly at his. "What...what is it..."

"Where are you hurt?" His voice was urgent, his hands already moving over your body. He pushed aside the blankets, ran his palms down your arms, your torso, your legs, searching for the wound, the source of the wetness. "Tell me where you are hurt."

"I am not hurt..."

"There is wetness." He was babbling now, his usual composure shattered. "I felt it. You're bleeding. I can feel it."

"Brynden." You caught his wrists, stilling his frantic examination. "Brynden, stop. Look at me."

He looked at you. In the dim light of the dying fire, his face was a mask of barely controlled terror. His red eye was wild, the pupil blown wide.

"I am not hurt," you assured. "It is not blood."

"Then what..."

You released one of his wrists and guided his hand to your chest, pressing his palm against the damp fabric of your nightgown. "Milk," you said. "It is only milk. Alysanne did not feed tonight, and I am…full. It happens sometimes. It is perfectly normal."

He stared at you. Then at his hand, which was cupping the curve of your breast, the wetness seeping through his fingers. Then back at you.

"Milk," he repeated.

"Milk," you confirmed.

The tension drained out of him so suddenly that he slumped, his forehead dropping to your shoulder, his breath leaving him in a shuddering exhale. "I thought you were bleeding. I thought...Gods, I thought I had lost you. I felt the wetness and I thought..."

"I know." You lifted your hand and stroked his hair, the silver strands slipping through your fingers like silk. "I know what you thought. But I am fine. I am not going anywhere."

He was silent, his face pressed against your shoulder, his hand still resting on your breast. When he spoke again, his voice was muffled and miserable.

"I am a fool."

"You are a husband."

"A fool of a husband."

"A husband who loves his wife." You pressed a kiss to the top of his head. "There is no shame in that."

"I woke you."

"You did. Rather rudely, I might add. You grabbed me like a sack of grain."

"I am sorry."

"You will make it up to me." You shifted, trying to find a more comfortable position, and winced as the movement sent another small gush of milk soaking into your nightgown. "Oh, for the love of..I am going to have to get up and change. The sheets will need changing too. I should probably pump, or the maids will have a mess to deal with in the morning..."

"Wait."

You paused, halfway to sitting up. Brynden was looking at you with an expression you could not quite read, curiosity, you thought, but hesitant.

"You do not need to get up," he said.

"Brynden, I am leaking all over the bed."

"The wet nurses will not come until morning. And you are tired." His hand, still resting on your breast, moved in a slow, almost unconscious circle. "I have heard that milk…that it is sweet."

You felt heat rise to your cheeks. "You have heard?"

"I hear many things." His voice was regaining some of its usual dry composure. "I am the Master of Whisperers. It is my business to know things."

"And the Master of Whisperers has made a study of breast milk?"

"The Master of Whisperers is curious." He paused, the hesitation was back. "And you are in discomfort. I do not want you to get up. I thought perhaps I could…help."

The silence stretched between you. Brynden was asking, with the awkward hesitancy of a boy asking for his first kiss, if he could taste your milk.

"All right," you said softly.

He blinked. "All right?"

"All right. If you want to."

"I do not want to make you uncomfortable..."

"Brynden." You cupped his cheek, the marked one, the one he had spent so many years believing made him monstrous. "You are my husband. You have seen me through childbirth, nightmares and ravens roosting in my hair. I think we are past the point of being uncomfortable with each other."

The last of the tension left his shoulders. He lowered his head to your chest.

His lips were cool against your skin, a familiar sensation after years of marriage. He hesitated for just a moment, as though giving you one last chance to change your mind, then his mouth closed around you.

The sensation was strange at first, not unpleasant, but different from the eager, demanding pull of Alysanne's tiny mouth. Brynden was tentative, as though he were afraid of hurting you. His eye closed.

Then the milk let down, and he made a small sound in the back of his throat, surprise, maybe, or satisfaction.

"It is sweet and warm," he murmured, the words vibrating against your skin.

"I told you."

He lowered his head again, this time with more confidence. His mouth worked gently, drawing the milk from you in slow, rhythmic pulls, you felt the ache in your breast begin to ease.

When he finally pulled back, his lips were wet and his expression was drowsy and peaceful.

"Better?" he asked.

"Better," you confirmed. The pressure was gone, and the wetness had stopped. "Thank you."

"Mm." He settled against you, his head coming to rest on your chest, his arm draped across your waist. He dozed off quicker than Alyssane.

Pebble was upset.

Alysanne was four months old now, a plump and solemn baby who had recently discovered the joy of grabbing things. Specifically, she had discovered the joy of grabbing Pebble's tail feathers and yanking them with the surprising strength of an infant who had inherited her father's stubbornness. Pebble, for his part, bore this treatment with the long-suffering patience of a creature who had been spoiled rotten for years and knew, on some fundamental level, that he deserved this.

But even the most patient of ravens had limits.

You were in the nursery, rocking Alysanne in your arms while she gummed at a silver rattle, a gift from her father, who had commissioned it from a smith and had it engraved with tiny ravens in flight. Pebble was perched on the windowsill, his feathers ruffled, his black eyes fixed on the baby with an expression that could only be described as wounded dignity.

"She pulled out three feathers," you told him. "Three. That is hardly any feathers at all. You have hundreds."

Pebble made a sound that was distinctly indignant.

"You are being dramatic."

Another indignant caw, this one accompanied by a pointed turn of his head.

"Pebble. Look at me."

He refused. He stared resolutely out the window, his round body silhouetted against the pale morning sky. You sighed and shifted Alysanne to your other hip. The baby had abandoned her rattle and was now reaching toward the raven with both hands, making the grabby motion that Pebble had learned to dread.

"Fine," you said. "Go. Do whatever it is ravens do. But be back before sundown, do you hear me? I do not want to have to send Brynden after you."

Pebble turned his head just enough to give you a look that said, clear as words: you would not dare.

"I would dare. I have dared before. Ask your master."

The raven let out a croak, spread his wings, and launched himself from the windowsill. You watched him go, a black shape against the blue sky, wheeling once over the Tower before disappearing into the maze of rooftops and chimneys.

"Your brother is very dramatic," you told Alysanne. "I hope you do not learn that from him."

Alysanne responded by grabbing a fistful of your hair and yanking.

"Ow. You have inherited enough from your father already, thank you."

Pebble did not return by sundown.

You noticed his absence at dusk, when you went to close the nursery windows against the evening chill. The perch by the window was empty. The little dish of shredded meat that you always left for him was untouched. The sky outside was a deepening purple, the first stars pricking through the velvet darkness, and there was no sign of a fat black raven winging his way home.

A small knot of anxiety tightened in your chest.

"He is probably hunting," you said aloud, to no one in particular. Alysanne was already asleep in her cradle. "Or he found a particularly interesting bit of rubbish to investigate. You know how he is about rubbish."

You went to bed, telling yourself that Pebble would be back by morning. He always came back. He had been your companion for years now, your confidant and your comfort, the first friend you had made in this cold stone Tower. He would not abandon you. He would not.

You did not sleep well.

Morning came. Pebble did not.

You stood at the window in your nightgown, your hands pressed against the cold glass, scanning the sky for any sign of a returning raven. The sun rose over Blackwater Bay, painting the water in shades of gold and rose, and the other ravens began to stir on their perches in the Tower rookery. But none of them were Pebble. None of them were your raven.

The knot in your chest became panic.

He was domesticated. That was the problem. Years of sleeping on silk sheets and eating from your fingers had softened him. He was plump and slow and accustomed to having his meals delivered to him on a silver platter. What if a hawk had caught him? What if he had flown into a window and broken his wing? What if he had gotten lost, confused by the winding streets of King's Landing, unable to find his way back to the Tower?

What if he was hurt? What if he was dying? What if he was already dead, and you would never see him again, and the last thing you had said to him was that he was being dramatic?

By the time the maids arrived to take Alysanne for her morning feeding, you were in a state of barely contained distress. Every few minutes, you went to the window and looked out, hoping to see a familiar black shape flying toward you.

Nothing.

At midday, you went to find your husband.

Brynden was in his solar, bent over a stack of parchments with a quill in his hand. The ravens on their perches stirred as you entered, cocking their heads at you with their bright, knowing eyes. Brynden looked up, and the moment he saw your face, he set down his quill.

"What is wrong?"

"Pebble is missing."

He blinked. "Missing?"

"He flew away yesterday morning, and he has not come back. He always comes back. He has never been gone this long." The words came out in a rush, tumbling over each other. "I am worried about him. He cannot survive in the wild. What if a hawk got him? What if he is hurt? What if..."

Brynden rose from his chair and crossed to you, his hands closing around your upper arms. "Breathe," he said. "You are spiraling."

"I am not spiraling. I am concerned."

The corner of his mouth twitched, but his eye was serious. "Pebble is a raven. He was bred for long-distance flight. He is capable of surviving outside for more than a day."

"But he is not a normal raven. He is domesticated. You said so yourself. You said I made him into a lap-raven."

"I may have been…exaggerating."

"You said he was spherical."

"That was also an exaggeration." He paused. "A slight exaggeration. He is merely…robust."

You pulled away from him and began to pace, your skirts swirling around your ankles. "Can you find him? You can see through the eyes of your ravens. Can you look through their eyes and find Pebble? Can you tell him to come home?"

Brynden watched you pace, his expression unreadable. "I could," he said slowly. "But it would require me to divert my attention from several rather pressing matters of state. Lord Greyjoy is making noises about reaving again, and there is a trade dispute in the Vale that requires my..."

"Please." You stopped pacing and turned to face him, and you felt the sting of tears in your eyes. "Please, Brynden. I know it is foolish. I know he is just a raven. But he is my raven. I love him. I cannot bear the thought of something happening to him. Please."

"Come here," he said.

You went to him, he pulled you into his arms. "I will find him. I will look through the eyes of the flock and locate your errant raven. But you must promise me something in return."

"What?"

"You must stop tormenting yourself with worst-case scenarios. Pebble is a grown raven. He has survived this long despite your best efforts to turn him into a feathered housecat. He will be fine."

"You do not know that."

"I know that he is too stubborn to die. He learned it from you."

You let out a sound that was half-laugh, half-sob. "That was almost sweet."

"I am capable of sweetness. Occasionally." He pressed a kiss to the top of your head. "Now sit. I will do my work, you will wait here. I will tell you the moment I find him."

You sat in the chair by the fire, the same chair you had sat in during the early days of your marriage, when you had been too shy to speak and he had been too preoccupied to notice you. It felt like a lifetime ago. Now, you watched your husband close his eye and reach out with his mind, his consciousness spreading through the network of ravens.

The minutes stretched. The fire crackled. You twisted your hands in your lap and tried not to think about hawks, about broken wings, about small black bodies lying still in dark alleys.

Then Brynden opened his eye.

"He is in Flea Bottom," he said.

"Flea Bottom? What in seven hells is he doing in Flea Bottom?"

"It appears he has made friends with a baker. A baker who gives him day-old pastries." Brynden's mouth pressed into a thin line. "He is sitting on the baker's windowsill, eating pumpkin filling, and he appears to be...singing."

"Singing? Ravens do not sing."

"They can mimick sounds. The baker has taught him a tune. It is obscene."

A laugh bubbled up in your throat, startling and slightly hysterical. The tears that had been threatening spilled over, but they were tears of relief now, not fear. "He is not dead."

"He is emphatically not dead. He is, in fact, having the time of his life."

"Can you make him come home?"

Brynden was quiet for a moment, his eye distant. "I have sent a command. He is...ignoring it." A pause. "He has just finished the pumpkin pastry and is now begging for another. The baker is obliging him."

"He is ignoring a direct command from the Hand of the King?"

"It appears that your influence has made him immune to authority." Brynden's voice was dry, but his expression was fond. "He has become a creature of pure appetite. He goes where the food is and he does not care about the consequences. He will come back when the pastries run out or when he remembers that he has a warm perch and a woman who loves him. Whichever comes first."

"You are certain?"

"I am certain. In the meantime, you are going to eat. You missed breakfast, and I suspect you missed supper last night as well."

"How did you..."

"I have my ways." He helped you to your feet and guided you toward the door. "The kitchens have prepared a lamb stew. You will eat it, then you will rest, and by the time you wake, your raven will be back on his perch, fatter than ever and smelling of Flea Bottom."

You let him lead you, too drained to argue. "You are very good at this."

"At what?"

"Taking care of me."

He paused at the door, his hand on the frame. "It is my privilege," he said quietly. "And my penance."

"Penance?"

"For the time I did not." He did not look at you as he said it.

You reached up and touched his cheek, turning his face toward you. "You have more than made up for it."

"I am still making up for it." He leaned down and pressed his lips to your forehead. "Now come. Lamb stew. Rest. Then tonight, when your raven has returned and you have stopped fretting, I intend to have you to myself for a few hours."

"Have me to yourself?"

"The wet nurses have Alysanne for the night. The small council is not meeting until tomorrow. There are no pressing crises requiring my attention." His eye met yours, there was a glint in it that made your stomach flutter. "I intend to take full advantage of the situation."

You felt heat rise to your cheeks. "I see. Then I shall eat quickly."

He smiled. "See that you do."

Pebble returned at dusk, just as Brynden had predicted.

You were sitting in the solar, finishing the last of the lamb stew, when you heard the familiar scratch of claws on the windowsill. You looked up to see a black shape squeezing through the narrow opening, a rather tighter fit than it used to be, you noted with a mixture of exasperation and affection. Pebble tumbled onto the perch with a graceless flop, his feathers ruffled, his beak smeared with pumpkin paste.

"There you are," you rose from your chair. "You wretched, ungrateful, insolent bird."

Pebble cocked his head at you and let out a croak that sounded distinctly unrepentant.

"Do you have any idea how worried I was? I thought a hawk had eaten you. I thought you had broken your wing. I made Brynden search for you with his magic."

Pebble preened his breast feathers, utterly unimpressed by your scolding.

"You smell like a bakery. You have jam on your face. You are..." You broke off, your voice catching. "You are home."

You crossed to the perch and scooped him up, holding him against your chest. He was warm and slightly sticky.

"Do not do that again," you whispered into his feathers. "Do not disappear like that. I cannot lose you too."

You had not meant to say that last part. It had slipped out, unbidden, a truth you had not quite acknowledged to yourself. You had lost so much already: your home, your family's honor, the life you had expected to lead. Pebble had been your constant through all of it, your small, feathered anchor in a world that had been cold, strange and unwelcoming. The thought of losing him, even now, even with Brynden and Alysanne to love, was more than you could bear.

Pebble, for once, did not squirm or complain. He let you hold him, his black eyes half-closed, and when you finally set him back on his perch, he reached out with his beak and gently preened a strand of your hair.

You laughed, a watery sound. "I forgive you. But you are not getting any more cakes for a week."

Pebble's eyes snapped open. He let out an indignant caw.

"A week," you repeated. "Maybe two. We shall see how repentant you are."

From the doorway, a voice spoke. "I would not count on repentance. He looks entirely unashamed."

You turned to see Brynden leaning against the doorframe, his arms crossed, his expression wry. He had changed out of his formal doublet and was wearing a simpler black tunic, his silver hair loose around his shoulders.

"He came home."

"I see that." He pushed off the doorframe and crossed to you, his eye flicking to Pebble with an expression of mild exasperation. "You," he told the raven, "have caused my wife considerable distress. I hope the pastries were worth it."

Pebble made a sound that strongly implied they had been.

"I am going to put him on a diet," you said. "A proper diet. No more scraps from the kitchen. No more pastries from bakers in Flea Bottom."

"An excellent idea. I will believe it when I see it." Brynden's hand found the small of your back, his touch warm through the fabric of your gown. "But that is a project for tomorrow. Tonight, as I recall, you have other obligations."

"Obligations?"

"To your husband." He leaned down, his breath against your ear. "Who has been very patient. And Pebble..." He shot a pointed look at the raven. "...is going to stay on his perch and not cause any more trouble."

Pebble tucked his head under his wing with an air of supreme indifference.

Part 4: coming soon...

a/n: I decided to unite two parts so sorry if it's a bit choppy. There will be smut in the next chapter. Please don't let this flop guys, I have an entire series planned out. Comments, reblogs and likes are appreciated! <3

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[catbayunthestoryteller]

Dragons Caught in the Storm

Aerion Targaryen x f!reader x Valarr Targaryen

Summary: Based on the request "A fic where you tried to give Valarr a love potion but Aerion drinks it instead (like what one of Egg's sisters did)". Reader is a Baratheon (but no physical descriptions are given), who is a childhood friend of Valarr's.

The first thing your uncle ever told you about the Red Keep was that it was full of lizards.

Not the small, harmless kind that skittered across sun-warmed stone in the Stormlands, but the silver-haired, violet-eyed kind that wore crowns and called themselves dragons.

“You mind me,” your uncle, Lyonel Baratheon had said, gripping your shoulders with wine-warmed hands, his laugh already rumbling in his chest as if he could not help himself, “you don’t let any of those Targaryen lizards sit on your head. We were kings before they ever sailed their pretty ships over.”

You had nodded solemnly, though you had been too young to fully understand what he meant.

Lyonel had loved in every way a man such as him could love his dear departed brother's only child: fine dresses when he remembered, sweetmeats by the handful, a pony that threw you twice before you learned to master it, but there had always been a certain…gap. He did not know what to do with a girl. He did not know how to teach you the delicate, invisible rules that governed courts and queens and the careful dance of words.

So he sent you away. You remembered the day clearly, the wind whipping through your hair, the smell of salt and storm lingering even inland, his hand heavy on your head for once, not careless.

“Go on, then,” he had said, softer than you had ever heard him. “Learn your letters. Learn your courtesies. But don’t you forget what you are. You carry storm in your bones that can extinguish any fire.”

A Baratheon. Proud. Unyielding. You carried that with you into the Red Keep like armor.

At first, the court had been overwhelming.

Too many people, too many rules, too many eyes watching to see if you would stumble.

But you did not. You learned. You sat in lessons with princes and princesses, your back straight, your voice steady even when you stumbled over the words. You learned how to move through halls without drawing attention, how to speak just enough and no more, how to listen.

Somewhere along the way, you found him.

Valarr. He had been just a boy with careful manners and a softness that the others did not always notice. He had been kind to you when others were merely polite. He had shared books with you, helped you through lessons, laughed quietly at things no one else seemed to find amusing.

You became inseparable without meaning to.

When his mother died, you were there.

You remembered that night. He had sat too still, hands clenched in his lap, as if grief might shatter him if he moved too suddenly.

You had not known what to say. You barely remembered your parents. His grief was different. So you had simply sat beside him. Close enough that your shoulders touched.

He had leaned in to you, and so you had stayed.

When he grew older and was expected to speak before the court, it was you he came to. Nervous, though he tried to hide it.

“I’ll forget,” he had muttered, pacing before you. “I know I will.”

“You won’t,” you had said, seated with your hands folded neatly, though your heart had been strangely tight in your chest. “And if you do, no one will dare laugh.”

He had huffed a soft, disbelieving breath. “They will.”

“Then they’ll answer to me,” you had replied, and something in your voice had made him stop.

He had looked at you then, not as one looks at a friend, but something searching. Something warmer.

He had smiled.

He had rehearsed the speech in front of you until his voice stopped trembling.

You had clapped for him when he finished, grinning despite yourself.

When he had his hair cut short for the first time, he sought you first immediately, asking if you thought it suited him well.

So after a few years of residing in the Red Keep, you had fallen in love with him. It had been gradual. Certain. Inevitable. Like realizing the tide had come in only when you were already standing in water. How could you not fall in love with Valarr?

You had thought, foolishly, perhaps, that he might feel the same.

Or that even if he did not, your bond would be enough. That the closeness you shared would naturally lead to something more. That when the time came for him to wed, he would look at you and think...Her. Of course her.

You had not entertained other offers. Not seriously. Not truly.

Why would you, when your heart had already chosen?

The news came to you from court whispers, not even from Valarr's own mouth.

A merchant’s daughter from Tyrosh.

You remembered the way your stomach had dropped, though you had kept your face perfectly composed.

You had gone to him, trying to not let what you felt show on your face.

“Is this what you want?” you had asked.

He had looked at you, surprised. Then shrugged.

“I don’t mind.”

You had waited for more. For something. A hesitation. A confession. A flicker of regret.

There had been nothing.

Not even the consideration of you. Not even the thought.

And in that moment, something in your chest had cracked, fractured and ugly and devastating.

You, who had not even looked at another man.

You, who had shaped your future around him without ever saying it aloud.

You had not even crossed his mind.

You decided to leave.

You did not belong here if you could be so easily overlooked.

If all your careful learning, your presence, your loyalty meant nothing in the end.

But you had made a promise. And Baratheons did not break their promises. Maekar Targaryen was coming to court with his children, and you had sworn to his daughters, Daella and Rhae, that you would spend time with them when they arrived, given you had not seen each other in so long.

So you stayed. Just a little longer.

They were a welcome distraction.

Daella was bright and warm, quick to laugh and quicker to pull you into mischief. Rhae was something else entirely: intense, forever hunched over some scroll or mixture, convinced she possessed the makings of a great Valyrian sorceress.

Most of her potions smelled terrible. None of them had ever worked.

One evening, you found yourselves tucked away in a smaller chamber, far from the prying eyes of the court.

Wine flowed freely. Too freely.

Daella leaned against you, laughing, her cheeks flushed. You felt warm, pleasantly untethered, the tightness in your chest dulled by drink.

Rhae sat nearby, entirely sober, muttering to herself as she carefully stirred something in a small vial.

“I swear,” you said, your words loosening before you could stop them, “it is an insult.”

Daella turned toward you, blinking. “What is?”

You laughed, though it came out sharper than you intended. “That he did not even think of me.”

The words spilled out after that, messy and unrestrained.

“I have been there for him for years, Daella. Years. And he chooses...what? Some merchant’s daughter from across the sea? Not even a noble house here, not even...” You cut yourself off, pressing your lips together before continuing, quieter but no less bitter. “Am I so little in his eyes?”

Daella’s expression softened, but before she could speak, you pressed on.

“I wanted to be a princess,” you admitted, the words heavy with something raw and proud and wounded all at once. “I am a Baratheon. I am not meant to be overlooked. I will not be some…forgotten lady, passed over like I was never even a possibility.”

Rhae’s head snapped up.

Her eyes gleamed.

“I have something to remedy your anguish,” she said.

You and Daella both turned to her.

“The potion,” she continued, holding up the vial triumphantically. “I made it for Egg. So he would fall in love with me.”

Daella snorted.

You laughed outright.

But Rhae only frowned, stubborn.

“It works,” she insisted. “I know it does.”

“You say that every time,” Daella said, waving her hand dismissively.

Rhae ignored her, her gaze fixed on you.

“I will give it to you,” she said. “For Valarr.”

You laughed again, shaking your head. “No. No, that is not necessary...”

“It will make him love you,” Rhae said simply.

The wine dulled your better judgment.

The hurt in your chest sharpened something reckless.

Daella rolled her eyes. “Fine. Fine. Let’s do it. For the story, if nothing else.”

You should have refused.

You found Valarr in his chambers, already half in disarray.

Daeron was drunk out of his mind, slumped in his chair as Matarys tried, with questionable success, to tie his hand to the table leg.

“Stay,” Matarys muttered, as if Daeron were a particularly unruly animal.

Valarr stood beside, looking faintly amused, though he made a half-hearted attempt to intervene.

“Perhaps you should let him go...”

Rhae moved silently, unnoticed. You barely paid attention as she poured the contents of her vial into a goblet of wine.

She handed it to you.

Your heart beat a little faster as you approached Valarr.

“Here,” you said, as casually as you could manage, offering it to him.

And in the very next moment, everything went horribly wrong. It happened so quickly that you struggled to recall it afterwards.

A hand. Sudden, uninvited, pinching your hip hard enough to startle, to make you jolt.

You turned sharply, heat flaring in your cheeks.

Aerion. Who else would've done such a thing.

He had always unsettled you. From the moment he arrived, the way he had looked at you: openly, boldly, his tongue dragging slowly across his lip in a gesture so obscene it had made your stomach twist.

Now he stood far too close, smirking.

“Tavern girls serve better,” he said lightly, though his eyes lingered on you in a way that made your skin crawl.

Before you could react, before you could even gather your thoughts, he snatched the goblet from your hand.

“Waste not,” he added.

And drank it.

All of it. In one swallow.

You stared. Rhae made a small, horrified sound behind you.

Aerion did not notice.

He grabbed Daeron by the arm, hauling him up with ease.

“Come,” he said sharply. “You’ve embarrassed yourself enough.”

And just like that, he was gone.

The goblet gone with him.

The potion gone with him, now in his stomach.

You stood there, stunned. Then you laughed. Because what else could you do?

“It would not have worked anyway,” you said, dismissing it, even as Rhae looked like she might faint.

Daella laughed with you.

The matter, you thought, ended there.

You woke late the next morn, your head pounding, your mouth dry.

You missed breaking fast. Your handmaidens had long since learned to not wake you the morn after you had drunk the previous night unless the King himself would be present at the table. You would have slept longer, if not for the sudden, frantic burst of noise as your chamber door flew open.

Daella rushed in first, breathless. Rhae followed, nearly bouncing with barely contained excitement.

“You will not believe...” Daella began.

“Aerion...” Rhae interrupted.

You groaned, pressing a hand to your temple. “If this is about last night....”

“He is in love with you,” Rhae exclaimed.

You froze. “…what?”

“He has been asking for you all morning,” Daella added, eyes wide with disbelief. “Praising you. Your beauty, your wit...everything.”

“And then,” Rhae said, almost vibrating, “he told his father.”

Your stomach dropped. “What did he tell him?”

“That he wants to marry you.”

Your ears rang.

Daella and Rhae continued talking over each other, though you could barely register the following words.

Maekar had agreed. A raven had already been sent. Your uncle would be receiving the offer.

The room seemed to tilt.

“This is not...” you began, shaking your head. “This is not real.”

“It is!” Rhae insisted. “My potion worked!”

“Do not say that again,” Daella snapped, grabbing her arm. “To anyone.”

Your head swam.

Marriage. To Aerion. The very thought made your insides chill with dread.

A knock sounded at the door.

Before you could respond, it opened.

Valarr stepped inside. He looked unsettled, confused, almost hurt.

That made your blood boil. He had the audacity to look like he'd been betrayed and left in the dark when he had done the exact same thing with a mere shrug.

“Is it true?” Valarr asked.

You met his gaze. And for the first time, you did not soften for him.

“Is what true?”

“That you are to marry Aerion.”

There was something in his voice. Something you had once longed for.

Too late.

You straightened, lifting your chin. “Yes.”

A flicker of something crossed his face.

You held his gaze. Let him feel it. Just a fraction of what you had.

“Yes, I am,” you repeated.

a/n: Okay, I know there hasn't been much of Aerion here but there will be in chapter 2!

part 2: see here

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[catbayunthestoryteller]

How to Train Your Raven (Part 2)

Pairing: Brynden Rivers x f!reader

Summary: A noble lady from a disgraced house that supported Blackfyres is married off to Lord Bloodraven as a reward for his loyalty and prowess in battle. But he prefers to occupy his time with duties as the Hand of the King. Comfortable but lonely, she befriends one of his ravens. Part 1 here .Warnings: arranged marriage, yearning, angst, fluff, Westeros politics, Shiera.

King Daeron's court was full of whispers, and the whispers about the Hand and his lady wife were among the most persistent.

You heard them, of course. You could not help but hear them. The serving girls who thought you out of earshot, the lords who forgot you were standing in the shadow of a pillar, the ladies who smiled at you sweetly with acidic eyes. They spoke of the Oakheart girl who had married the sorcerer, who had been given to the one-eyed bastard as punishment for her family's treachery. They pitied you, mocked you, or marveled at your composure in the face of such a grotesque match.

What they did not know, what they could not see from their distant tables and their whispered huddles, was that you were quite happy.

It was an odd thing to admit, even to yourself. Brynden Rivers was not a man who inspired joy in the hearts of maidens. He was strange and secretive, pale as a corpse, with his missing eye and his wine-stain birthmark and his unsettling habit of knowing things he should not know. He did not dance, did not laugh loudly, did not shower you with the flowery compliments that other lords bestowed on their ladies.

Yet you woke each morning in his bed, your head pillowed on his chest. He rarely slept, you had learned that his strange nature included an ability to go for days with only the briefest snatches of rest, but he would lie still for hours in the darkness, one hand resting on your back, his heartbeat slow and steady beneath your ear. Sometimes you would wake in the small hours and find his single eye open, watching the ceiling. You would murmur his name and feel his hand tighten on your shoulder in wordless acknowledgment.

"Am I keeping you?" you would ask, in the early days.

"No," he would answer every time.

This morning was like the others. You woke to dawn light filtering through the narrow windows of the Tower, to the familiar scent of old parchment and candle wax, to the gentle rise and fall of your husband's chest. His arm was around you, his long fingers splayed against the curve of your waist. His eye was closed, his breathing even. He looked, in these rare moments of counterfeit sleep, almost peaceful.

You propped yourself up on one elbow and studied his face. The birthmark that others whispered about, the blotch of deep red that climbed his neck and pooled on his cheek, no longer seemed odd to you. It was simply part of him, like the silver of his hair or the pale arch of his brow. You traced a finger lightly along its edge. His eye opened.

"Good morrow," you said.

"Good morrow." His voice was rough with disuse. "You are staring."

"I am admiring."

A faint crease appeared between his brows, his version of a puzzled expression. "There is little to admire."

"There is everything to admire." You leaned down and pressed a kiss to his forehead, then to the bridge of his nose, then to the scarred hollow where his missing eye had once been. He held still for this ritual, as he always did, and when you reached his mouth, his hand came up to cup the back of your head and hold you there for a moment longer.

"You are very odd," he said when you pulled back.

"I am your wife. I am allowed to be odd."

"Hm." The sound was almost amused. He released you and sat up, the sheets pooling around his waist. The morning light caught the pale angles of his torso, the lean muscle. "I have something for you."

"You always have something for me."

He rose from the bed and crossed to his desk, where a small wooden box sat beside a stack of parchments. You watched him, the way he moved with that uncanny grace, the way his silver hair fell across his bare shoulders. When he turned back, the box was in his hands.

"For you," he said, placing it on the bed beside you.

You opened it. Inside, nestled on a bed of black velvet, lay a necklace. The chain was white gold, so fine it seemed spun from spider silk, and from it hung a pendant of deep green emerald, carved into the shape of a leaf. Oak leaves. Your house sigil.

"Brynden." Your voice caught in your throat. "This is…where did you find this?"

"A craftsman in Myr. I commissioned it some moons ago. It arrived by ship yesterday."

The emerald caught the light, flashing green fire. You lifted it reverently, and the chain slithered through your fingers like water.

"It is beautiful," you breathed.

"You said once that you missed the Reach. The trees, the green." He was standing awkwardly now, his hands clasped behind his back, his eye fixed on your face with slight anxiety. "I thought perhaps you might like to carry a piece of it with you."

"I love it." You rose from the bed and went to him, the necklace clutched in your fist. "Put it on me please."

He took the chain with careful fingers and fastened it around your neck. The pendant rested against your collarbone, a small green anchor to the home you had left behind.

"There," he said. "It suits you."

You looked down at the emerald leaf, then up at your husband's pale, strange, beloved face. "You give me so many things," you said. "The ruby bracelets, the sapphire hairpins, the pearl drop earrings. The ivory comb from Volantis, the silk shawl from Yi Ti. My jewelry chest is overflowing."

He tilted his head, that familiar birdlike gesture. "Do you not like them?"

"I adore them. Every piece." You reached up and touched his cheek, the smooth skin beside the birthmark. "But you do not need to bring me treasures every week, Brynden. I am not Shiera."

The name hung in the air between you. It was the first time you had spoken it since that night in the solar, the night everything had changed. You watched his face carefully, looking for the flinch, the shadow of old pain. It flickered there for a heartbeat, and then it was gone.

"I know you are not," he said.

"I only mean that I do not require rare jewels to be happy. Shiera collected beautiful things. I…" You hesitated, searching for the right words. "I collect moments."

He was silent for a while, his eye searching your face. Then, slowly, he leaned down. It was a gesture he had developed in the first weeks of your true marriage, when he had noticed how you stretched onto your toes to reach his mouth. So he had taken to bending toward you whenever you were close, a small, unconscious courtesy.

You kissed him. When you pulled back, he looked thoughtful.

"I see," he said.

"I am not ungrateful…"

"You are not." He touched the emerald leaf at your throat. "But I have been foolish. I have been courting you with the wrong currency."

"Brynden…"

"I have a meeting with the Master of Coin this morning." He was already turning toward his wardrobe, reaching for his doublet. "It will be tedious and I will likely have to threaten someone before it is done. But afterward…" He paused, his shirt half-buttoned. "Afterward, I have no obligations. The afternoon is clear."

You blinked at him. "It is?"

"I have ensured it." He finished the buttons. "I thought we might take a walk in the gardens. I have heard there is a new fountain, some ghastly thing from Braavos with mermaids. I would like to hear your opinion on it."

A walk in the gardens. Such an ordinary, unremarkable thing that any husband might do with any wife. Yet your eyes stung with sudden tears, because you understood what he was offering. Time. His time, which was the rarest treasure of all.

"I would like that," you said, and your voice came out steadier than you felt. "Very much."

He nodded, a crisp, businesslike gesture, but you had learned to read him now. The faint relaxation around his mouth, the slight softening of his red eye. He was pleased.

"Good," he said. "I shall send for you when the meeting is done."

He crossed to the door, then stopped, turned, came back to you and leaned down again, pressing a kiss to your forehead.

"Wear the necklace," he said. "It truly does suit you."

True to his word, Brynden sent a servant to fetch you in the early afternoon. You had dressed with care, a gown of pale cream silk, simple in cut but elegant in drape, the emerald necklace displayed against the bare skin of your throat. Your hair you had left loose, the way he seemed to prefer it. When you descended the Tower stairs and found him waiting in the courtyard, his single eye swept over you with an intensity that made your cheeks heat.

"You look lovely," he said.

"You look like you have just threatened the Master of Coin."

The corner of his mouth twitched. "I did. He was most cooperative afterward."

The gardens of the Red Keep were beautiful in the afternoon light, the roses in full bloom, the lemon trees heavy with fruit, the sea breeze carrying the salt-tang of Blackwater Bay. Lords and ladies strolled along the gravel paths, their silks and velvets a shifting tapestry of color. As you walked at Brynden's side, his arm tucked through yours, you felt their eyes on you. The whispers, too, rising like the hum of insects.

"…the Oakheart girl and the sorcerer…"

"…look at his face, gods be good…"

"…she seems happy enough, poor deluded thing…"

You had learned to ignore them. More than ignore them, you had learned to pity them, for they could not see what you saw. They could not know the quiet sweetness of the man beside you, the way he described the Braavosi fountain in a dry, precise deadpan that made you laugh aloud. The way he paused to point out a particularly clever raven perched on a fig tree, explaining how it had been trained to deliver messages. The way his hand tightened on your arm when you stumbled on an uneven stone, steadying you before you could fall.

"That fountain," he said, gesturing to the marble monstrosity ahead, "The mermaids were supposed to spout water from their mouths. As you can see, they are spouting from their…elsewhere."

You clapped a hand over your mouth, but the laugh escaped anyway, bright and startled. The mermaids were indeed spouting water from anatomically dubious locations, their stone faces frozen in expressions of eternal surprise.

"Who commissioned this?" you managed.

"Lord Redwyne, as a gift to the king. I suspect it was revenge for the wine tariffs."

You laughed again, and the sound drew stares from a nearby cluster of ladies. You did not care. You were walking in the gardens with your husband, your arm in his, he was making you laugh, the afternoon sun was warm on your face, and the emerald leaf was a cool weight against your skin.

"Brynden," you said, when your laughter had subsided.

"Yes?"

"Thank you. For this afternoon."

He was quiet for a moment, his eye on the fountain. The mermaids continued to spout water from various unseemly places.

"I have been thinking," he said, "about what you said this morning. About collecting moments. I have realized that I do not know how to be a husband. All of my tools are wrong." He turned to face you. "I gave Shiera jewels because jewels were what she wanted. I gave you jewels because I did not know what else to give."

"You give me plenty," you said, touching the emerald. "I was not complaining."

"But you were teaching me." He took your hand, his cool fingers wrapping around yours. "And I am a quick learner."

He lifted your hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss to your knuckles, right there in the middle of the garden path, with half the court looking on. The whispers rose to a crescendo, but you did not hear them. You only heard the beat of your own heart, the soft intake of your husband's breath, the rustle of the wind through the trees.

"Come," he said, releasing your hand but keeping your arm in his. "There is a bench by the sea wall. I am told the view is tolerable."

It was more than tolerable. It was magnificent, the bay spreading out before you in a sheet of hammered gold, the sails of ships glinting in the distance, the sky a pale, washed blue. You sat together on the stone bench, your shoulder brushing his, and watched the waves.

"May I ask you something?" you said after a while.

"You may."

"What do the ravens see? When you look through their eyes?"

He was silent for a moment, and you worried you had overstepped. But then he spoke, his voice low and contemplative.

"It is difficult to describe. It is like…being in two places at once. I am here, with you, but I am also above the city, riding the wind. I see the rooftops and the streets and the people going about their lives. I see ships coming into harbor and carts rumbling along the roads. I see a thousand small moments that no one else notices, all happening at once." He paused. "It is overwhelming, sometimes. It is why I do not sleep well. There is always something to see."

"Does it hurt?"

"No. It is simply…much." His eye found yours. "Does it frighten you? Knowing that I can see through them?"

You considered the question. "It should," you admitted. "But I have grown rather fond of ravens."

"One raven in particular, I suspect."

"Pebble is a good friend."

"Useless creature."

"You could stand to be kinder to Pebble."

Brynden Rivers laughed. It was a small sound, rusty, as though his throat had forgotten how to make it. But it was unmistakably a laugh, and it transformed his face. For a moment he looked young.

"I shall endeavor to be kinder to the raven," he said. "For your sake."

"Thank you."

A raven fluttered past, disappearing into the dusk sky towards rookery. You slipped your arms around his waist, pressing your cheek to his shoulder.

"Bad news?" you asked.

"No. Merely information." He turned in your embrace, his hands settling on your hips. "Lord Butterwell has been buying up land. I will need to look into it."

"Tomorrow."

He blinked. "Tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow." You reached up and traced the line of his jaw. "Tonight, you are mine."

His eye softened, the red dimming to something warmer. "Am I?"

"You are." You tugged gently at his collar, pulling him down. He leaned obligingly, bending to your level, and you pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth. "We are going to have supper. You are going to eat more than three bites. And then we are going to sit by the fire, and you are going to tell me about the most ridiculous thing you have seen through your ravens this week."

"The most ridiculous thing?"

"Surely there must be something. Courtiers are absurd creatures."

He considered this. "Lord Bracken was seen attempting to serenade a milkmaid last Tuesday. He fell into a cow pat."

You laughed, delighted. "There. That is exactly what I mean."

A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Very well," he obliged. "Supper. And cows. And…being yours."

"Good." You kissed him again. "Brynden."

"Yes?"

"I am happy."

"So am I," he said, and there was wonder in his voice, as though he had only just realized it was true.

The hour was late, and the Tower of the Hand was silent save for the crackle of the fire in the hearth and the distant cry of gulls over Blackwater Bay. You had retired to your chambers hours ago, leaving Brynden to his endless parchments and his murmured consultations with agents who came and went like shadows. You had grown accustomed to these nights, they no longer stung the way they once had, back in the cold early days of your marriage, when every empty hour had felt like a rejection.

Now, you simply waited. You knew he would come to you eventually.

You were half-drowsing when you heard the door open and close, the soft tread of boots on stone. The mattress dipped as Brynden sat on the edge of the bed, and you heard the familiar sounds of him undressing: the rustle of his doublet, the soft thump of his boots hitting the floor. You kept your eyes closed, a small smile playing at your lips, savoring the anticipation.

He slid under the covers beside you, and his hand found your hip in the darkness. His touch was urgent in a way it rarely was. Usually, he came to bed with a kind of restrained gentleness, as though he were still learning the language of intimacy and wanted to pronounce every word correctly. Tonight, his grip was firmer, his body pressing closer, his voice was rough with a weariness that went beyond the physical.

"I need you," he muttered. "Today was…I need to not think. I need to be here. With you. Only you."

Your heart clenched. You knew his burdens, the weight of a kingdom pressing down on his shoulders, the endless schemes and counter-schemes, the dark whispers that followed him wherever he went. You opened your eyes to tell him that you were here, that you would always be here, that he could lose himself in you as much as he needed…and then you remembered.

"Brynden," you whispered carefully. "Wait."

His hand had been sliding up your thigh. It stopped. "What is wrong?"

"Nothing is wrong. It is only…" You bit your lip. "There is something under the covers."

He went still. You felt the shift in him, the instinctive alertness of a spymaster who had survived a dozen assassination attempts. "Something," he repeated.

"A friend."

"A fr…" He stopped. His eye, adjusted to the darkness, dropped to the lump in the blankets between your bodies. A small lump.

From beneath the covers came a soft, contented squawk.

Brynden reached over and pulled back the blankets with a sharp flick of his wrist. There, sprawled across the soft mound of your stomach, wings spread as though drunken, lay Pebble. The raven's eyes were closed, his beak slightly open, his round belly rising and falling with each tiny breath. One of your hands was still resting on his breast feathers, frozen mid-stroke.

There was a long silence.

"My lady," Brynden said, in the tone of a man who was choosing his words with extreme care, "why is there a raven in our bed?"

"He was lonely."

"Lonely."

"He was tapping at the window. It is cold outside tonight. And you were working so late, and I was alone, and he looked so sad with his little beak pressed against the glass…"

"So you brought him into the bed."

"I put down a towel," you said weakly. "In case of…accidents."

Brynden stared at Pebble. Pebble, perhaps sensing that he was the subject of discussion, opened one bleary black eye, regarded the Hand of the King with casual insolence, and closed it again.

"He is lying on your stomach," Brynden said.

"He likes to be close to me."

"He is lying on your stomach in our bed, where I was about to…" He stopped himself, took a breath, and pinched the bridge of his nose. "My love. You have made my raven into a lapdog."

"He is not a lapdog. He is a raven."

"A lapraven, then. A creature that does not exist in nature. You have invented it." He reached down and scooped Pebble up with one hand. The raven let out an indignant squawk, his wings flapping uselessly. "This bird was bred to carry messages across the Seven Kingdoms. To fly through storms and evade hawks. To serve as my eyes and ears in places no man could reach. And now he sleeps on silk sheets and eats from your fingers."

You sat up, clutching the blankets to your chest. "He still carries messages."

"Once a fortnight. To the kitchens. Begging for scraps."

You tried to look dignified. It was difficult when your hair was mussed and your husband was holding your pet like a naughty child. "I will put him back on his perch," you offered.

Brynden sighed. It was a long, tortured sigh of a man who had spent the day dealing with treasonous lords and bickering councilors and who had come to bed wanting nothing more than to bury himself in his wife's warmth, only to find a plump bird in his place.

"Stay," he said. He crossed to the perch near the window and deposited Pebble onto it with more gentleness than you had expected. The raven ruffled his feathers, gave Brynden a reproachful look, and tucked his head under his wing with the air of a monarch who had been grievously insulted.

Brynden returned to the bed. He did not lie down. Instead, he sat on the edge, his back to you, his silver hair catching the firelight. The scars on his shoulders, old and pale, traced patterns you had memorized with your fingertips.

"I am not angry," he said, without turning around.

"I know."

"I am…concerned."

You crawled across the bed and knelt behind him, wrapping your arms around his chest and pressing your cheek to his back. He was tense, the muscles hard. "Concerned about what?"

"Pebble is not a pet. He was never meant to be a pet. He is a tool that has forgotten its purpose. And you…" He paused, and his hand came up to cover yours where they rested on his chest. "You have made him forget. With your kindness, with your attention, with your need to nurture something."

"Is that wrong?"

"It is not wrong. But it is…misdirected." He turned, shifting so that he faced you, his single eye found yours in the dim light. "A raven cannot love you back. Not truly. It can only take what you give and grow lazy on it. You deserve something that can return your affection."

"Pebble returns my affection."

"Pebble returns to anyone who feeds him. I have seen him beg from the kitchen maids."

You wanted to argue, but the image of Pebble waddling after the scullery girls, croaking pitifully for bacon rinds, was unfortunately vivid. "I like ravens," you said instead, a little defensively. "They remind me of you."

Brynden went still. "They remind you of me."

"Your eyes. Your cleverness. The way you tilt your head when you are thinking." You reached up and touched his cheek. "When you are away, which is often, Pebble is…a piece of you that stays with me. A small, feathery, ill-behaved piece. But a piece regardless."

"Then perhaps," he said slowly, "what you want is not a raven at all."

"What do you mean?"

He took your hand from his cheek and held it in both of his.

"Perhaps what you want is a child."

The word hung in the air between you. A child. Your breath caught, your heart stuttered, and you felt the blood rush to your cheeks.

"I…" you started, and stopped. "I did not mean to suggest…"

"You did not suggest. I am suggesting." His thumb traced circles on the back of your hand. "You have made this Tower warmer than it has ever been. You have filled it with your laughter and your gentleness and your stubborn insistence on loving things that are not easy to love." His eye met yours, and there was something almost vulnerable in its depths. "A child would be lucky to have you as a mother. And I…" He hesitated. "I would be honored to give you one."

Your throat tightened. "Brynden, you do not have to…you said once that you were not a man given to tender feeling. That you were strange and secretive and cold. If you do not want children…"

"I did not say that."

"Then what are you saying?"

He leaned closer, his forehead nearly touching yours. "I am saying that I have spent my life serving the realm. I have given my eye, my youth, my conscience, everything I have, to the Iron Throne. And I would do it again. But there is a part of me that is tired. A part of me that wants something that is not duty." His hand tightened on yours. "Something that is ours."

Your eyes were burning. You blinked rapidly, but a tear escaped anyway, tracing a hot path down your cheek.

"You want a child with me?" you whispered.

"I want a family with you." He said it simply, as though it were a fact he had long since established and was only now reporting. "I want to see you holding our son or daughter in your arms. I want to teach them to read and to shoot a bow and to understand the language of ravens. I want to watch you be the mother I know you will be: patient, kind, fierce when you need to be." He paused, a ghost of a smile crossed his lips. "And I want to stop finding birds in my bed."

A laugh burst out of you, wet and startled. "That is what this is about? You are jealous of Pebble?"

"I am not jealous of a raven."

"You are. You are jealous of a useless raven."

"I am not…" He stopped, his smile widened involuntarily. "Perhaps a little. He sees more of you than I do, some days. And he is always on your stomach."

You laughed again, it the tears spilled over. You threw your arms around his neck and kissed him. He caught you and kissed you back with a fervor.

"You are a ridiculous man," you murmured against his mouth.

"I am a pragmatic man. I see a problem, I propose a solution."

"A child is a solution?"

"A child is many things." He pulled back, his red eye bright in the firelight. "A legacy. A hope. A piece of us that will outlast all the schemes and wars. A child is the one thing that matters more than the realm." He gently brushed a strand of hair from your face. "You asked me once what I wished for. I told you I had wished for foolish things. But this…this is not foolish. This is the wisest thing I have ever wanted."

You kissed him again. His hands slid up your back, pressing you closer. You felt the tension drain from his shoulders as he let himself sink into you.

"What about Pebble?" you asked breathlessly as his lips traced a path down your throat.

"Pebble," he said between kisses, "can sleep on his perch tonight. And every night hereafter. Our bed is about to become considerably less accommodating to ravens."

"That seems unfair to him."

"I will buy him a larger perch. The finest perch in the Seven Kingdoms." He lifted his head and looked at you, his expression was serious now. "But this is not about the raven. This is about us."

Part 3: coming soon...

a/n: Please don't let this flop guys, I have an entire series planned out. Comments, reblogs and likes are appreciated! <3

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[koiagain]

Being 11 was terrible i would not wish it on anyone

[irlplasticlamb]

i know you.

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[moveslikekeithrichards]

[pnglove]

[roscolux]

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[reallyreallyreallytrying]

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[kosmogrl]

[amnesiaguy]

all my haters become tomaters in my lovely summer garden

[eebie]

[slimegargoyle]

guys you gotta stop thinking of women in their 30s as elderly it’s just misogyny

[courtesyname]

you also gotta stop thinking about actual elderly women as lesser human beings. Youth is not a measure of one’s worth.

[wifegideonnav]

gonna be honest i don’t know how many more ‘enter the 6 digit code we sent to your phone’s i got left in me

[letseyx]

Revolutionary Rom

[lazuelazuli]

@imadoctornotanescalator Him!

[escuerzoresucitado]

Pedestrian traffic lights

[abyssalaquarist00]

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[dogpuppy]