The King's Secret Service is the topic of many stories and myths. No one truly knows who they are, leading to much talk of them being ghouls, demons, and other creatures bound to the royal family.
They do, exist, though. As evidenced by raiding parties brought down before villages even know they're in danger. By the decrees acknowledging their work bringing in criminals. Scariest of all, by their courting.
If a woman wakes up to a bouquet of blue roses, impossible to be grown by normal methods, she must prepare to be whisked away in the night. Her family will receive a payment worthy of a noble, regardless of their actual status.
People try to keep watch to see the selected woman taken away but everyone who tries reports their eyes closing for but a moment, a mere blink. And when their eyes open again, the woman and her belongings are gone, replaced by the promised bride price.
Admiration - Celestial Steve Rogers
Rescue;
Warmth - Ice Demon Curtis Everett
Chosen;
Treasure - Red Dragon Johnny Storm
Appearances;
The Kingdom - general stories from the world
Left for Dead - Healing; Learning;
Asks:
About Dragon Johnny
Future ideas I'm still considering:
Shapeshifter Ari Levinson; Spectre Bucky Barnes; Mage Chris Beck; King Sam Wilson; Hunter James Conrad;
ao3 is not changing anything by the way! some people just want them to change for some reason. my guess is that these people just don't understand how the site works and refuse to actually learn how it works, so they blame the site because it's easier for them that way.
the best fanfiction you've ever read was written by a woman in her 40s before she made dinner for her kids. it was written by a teenager after school when they should've been studying for a history test. and a barista came up with the idea while they cleaned the espresso machine and busser fact-checked it on their break and the post-doc edited between writing grant proposals and the nurse apologized for typos in the notes after a long shift and behind every drabble and one-shot and multi-chapter fic there is a person with a wonderful and interesting and chaotic life and it is such a privilege that we get to be apart of it because they decided to do this thing we all share, for fun.
Baelor x OC, Maekar x OC, Valarr x Kiera of Tyrosh x Daeron
A year after the disastrous events at Ashford Meadow, King Daeron II Targaryen decided that his two widower sons should remarry to increase the bonds with the city of Tyrosh.
However, there is more going on that meets the eye as the echos of The Blackfyre Rebellion are still echoing in this modern paranormal version of Westeros.
CW: bad language, future violence, future smut, Targaryens being Targaryens
in honour of matthew tkachuck (unsurprisingly) showing his ass in his post game interview by saying “i never want to be back in this tournament, i want to be in the playoffs.”, i would like to say something to him and the people that are riding his dick defending him with “every player in this tournament would agree with him, everyone would rather be in the playoffs than at worlds”:
1) the nhl is not the only hockey league on this planet, dipshit. every league that i personally know of in europe has crowned its winner and wrapped up its season. a lot of players aren’t there because they couldn’t hack it in their playoffs but because it is a chance to compete at an international level, representing their country. which brings me to
2) many players, nhl players included, do actually feel pride in representing their home countries in a tournament like this. is every nhler’s goal to make the stanley cup playoffs? sure. but that doesn’t mean they are going to be dicks about an entire other tournament that they are competing in in the meantime if they don’t.
tkachuck is a rude, classless asshole, not that i expected anything else from him, and i’d be more than happy to never see him at worlds again. he didn’t need to come in the first place, his wife (? girlfriend? idk their relationship status) just had a CHILD. one of austria’s best players chose to sit the tournament out for exactly that reason, because he wanted to be there for his wife and child.
what he said could have been phrased several other ways that would have been way less disrespectful, but he chose to be an ass about it.
Hii, I saw that you're accepting Maekar requests!! I'm thinking on a Reader whose family is planning an arranged marriage with the Targaryens (could be with Daeron or Aerion) but when she sees Maekar she refuses to marry one of his sons since she's more interested in him, could you write it? If you do, thank you so much<33 I'm loving 'Portraits' so far
The Wrong Prince
Pairing: Maekar Targaryen x F!Reader
Warning(s): Nothing particular, some filthy thoughts, romantic situation, personal struggling in wanting another man, slight embarrassment, happy ending.
No use of y/n, the reader has no physical description.
No AI involved, all of my garbage is mine, and I'm still human.
English is not my first language; my apologies for any eventual mistakes.
Don't copy, translate, upload, or use my works anywhere.
Like, Comments and Reblogs are always welcome :D
A/N: uhhhh my dear anon, I completely misread the part of your request where you specify the reader must marry Daeron or Aerion, and I chose Valarr. I swear, I don't know why. I'll probably write another story with your specific idea, and I'll add some angst in it!
Tag List: @orson-pope @californiablues88 @risefallrise @ghostlybfgf
Divider by targaryen-dynasty
“It’s just a meeting.”
“An engagement meeting. You already arranged everything.” You spat out your irritation as your private maids were preparing you for that important day.
“I’m not going to force my only daughter into a wedding she doesn’t desire.”
You always thought your father was one of the most good-hearted men in the world, and his permission for your marital choice was a confirmation of your idea of him. He never imposed anything on you, and he was open to talking about almost everything.
“Don’t be a fool, father. We can’t refuse this marriage.” You sighed with resignation. “The last thing I wish is to drag our family into shame.”
“My dear. Prince Valarr is a much-desired bachelor. Every family was waiting for him to be on the marriage mart. When Prince Baelor informed me about his decision, my heart rejoiced for you.”
“Alright, father. Understood.” You nodded vigorously with the intent to interrupt the poor man from humiliating himself in front of you.
Your dress was part of the best collection your family could afford, only to impress the Prince, and it wasn’t all; your father bought a new carriage to let you arrive at King’s Landing at your best. You were grateful, of course, but still not necessary.
During the short journey from your home to the capital, your father couldn’t stay quiet even for a moment. He dispensed suggestions, he reminded you of your duties, and shared his enthusiasm at the idea of walking you to the aisle. You haven't seen him this happy in a while, definitely not after your mother's death.
You were calm, still thinking it would have been just a meeting. What didn’t you expect was the crowded welcoming committee. Half of the royal family was present, not to mention the numerous servants, maids, and guards. No one except the noble guests could approach the entrance square, and suddenly you realised where you were getting yourself into.
“Are you ready, my dear?” Your father asked.
“I… I’m not.” You admitted quietly, peeking from the curtain. Your heartbeat increased significantly, and your throat dried suddenly.
“You’ll be fine.” He kissed your hand as encouragement.
You quickly covered your face with the light veil of your headgear as your father left the carriage first and gave you his hand to help you out. All the eyes were on you while you moved to meet Prince Valarr.
The tension was so high that your head felt dizzy, and you started sweating. It was impossible for you to hear people’s comments, and yet it was as if you could hear a fly buzzing miles away. You took a deep breath when Valarr walked toward you, leaving the rest of the family behind. The prince stopped a couple of steps from you as you bowed and proceeded to lift the veil from your face.
Both of you stared at each other for long moments, but nothing happened. No matter how beautiful you both were, the spark did not ignite, no butterflies in the stomach, no warm sensation deep inside you. A glimpse of panic emerged, a thousand intrusive thoughts overwhelmed your brain, keeping you quiet.
“My Lady, it is a pleasure to meet you under such delightful circumstances.” Lucky you, Valarr spoke first, understanding the situation. “Your presence here is of great happiness. The Red Keep is at your service.”
He was good with words indeed. There was no mistake from his sweet smile to his perfect attitude. No doubt he prepared at best, and yet, you couldn't shake off the feeling that something was out of place.
“The pleasure is mine, your highness. My heart is full of joy for this moment.” A diplomatic smile emerged with your words.
“Please, let me accompany you inside.”
When you accepted his hand and walked together at the castle entrance, the crowd erupted in thunderous applause. Baelor was waiting for you, clapping his hands as well and smiling, all proud of his son. You formally greeted the heir to the throne, your future brother-in-law, Matarys and then moved on to meet Maekar Targaryen.
That was the moment you were certain everything was going to go wrong. The deep emotion you should have felt with Valarr suddenly pervaded you when you met Maekar’s intense gaze. He was rigid, standing straight with his hands behind his back, head up but his eyes down at you. There was no trace of a smile or gentleness in his expression, but maybe that was what made your blood boil into your veins. You were used to gentleness and softness, but you could see half of it was a lie. Maekar felt direct, true and raw, and something clicked in your brain.
You bowed without saying a word, too scared of saying something wrong, too scared of receiving a hypothetical sharp response, because Maekar looked exactly like a man of sharp responses.
What a surprise it was when he just welcomed you like everyone else.
“Welcome to the Red Keep, my lady.”
“Thank you, Your Highness. It’s an honour to be here.”
Other forms of courtesy were exchanged; words of circumstance, formal gestures and the eagerness of that moment vanished the same way it had begun. Baelor invited you and your father as guests for the days that followed, emphasising the importance of you and Valarr staying together as much as possible to get to know each other. Of course, your father was eager for it; his dream to see his daughter in a wedding gown was slowly coming true.
So the torture started. You and Valarr had to do those stupid supervised walks together, at least once a day. Not to mention the face-to-face breakfasts in a separate room, far from the rest of the family to avoid any kind of embarrassment.
You and Valarr had very little in common. He was gentle in asking you what your favourite book was, or if you could play some instrument, but it was clear he wasn’t interested in it. Your replies were always concise because you didn’t want to get him bored. Valarr talked about his interests without conviction, clearly forced into it, and you tried your best to appear interested.
Dinner time was your favourite moment. You could eat at the royal table with the rest of the family, and you were happy to sit in a place where you had a clear view of Maekar. The Prince hunted your thoughts since the first time you met, and you could barely control your emotions at his presence. There were many moments when you got lost in your thoughts, imagining what a conversation would have been like with him, how he would have acted if he were the man who had to court you instead of Valarr, and getting lost in many more inappropriate fantasies.
One particular evening, something tragic happened. You were ready to observe Maekar from your seat, lost in your fantasy while the rest of the men talked, as always happened. Your eyes immediately landed on him when he started to speak up with Baelor and your father, but you kept staring at him even when they concluded the talk and focused on their meals. You didn’t realise it, and when you retrieved your senses, you noticed Valarr had caught you in the act. The embarrassment was so great you couldn’t move your attention from your plate for the rest of the dinner.
The next morning, you were sitting in the gardens, waiting for the usual walk with Valarr. You barely slept the night before, thinking of a way to apologise to the Prince. You smelled the flower in your hand before throwing it to the ground with frustration and standing up to take a walk. At this point, you weren’t surprised if Valarr would have refused the marriage.
“My lady.”
Maekar’s voice reached your heart with such emotional strength that you struggled to turn around and face him. You hated how good you felt in being alone with him, considering there was the possibility he was there because Valarr said something to him about what happened the evening before.
“Your Grace.” You bowed instantly.
“I think you lost something.”
He had picked the flower you threw away and used it as an excuse to approach you significantly. Your hand was trembling when you took the flower from his, slightly brushing his fingers.
His purple gems lingered on your hand and slowly moved on your throat, on your lips. Feral ideas woke his limbs. How your sweet voice would sound as he wrapped his hand around your throat, and how your body felt if he pulled your hair as he buried himself in your untouched body. He had to move his attention elsewhere to suffocate the sensation you caused him.
“Is something wrong?” He asked, clearing his throat.
You pulled out a smile, shaking your head. “No, Your Grace. I am just excited to meet Prince Valarr.”
“Prince Valarr is not coming this morning.” He announced, carefully observing your reaction. It was a bait to be sure that what he noticed the days before wasn’t just his imagination, and he had the confirmation of it when you pursed your lips and slightly nodded. It was clear you didn’t care about Valarr, or at least, you weren’t sorry if he wasn’t there.
“May I ask why? Is the Prince not feeling well?” You asked with gentleness.
He could have continued speaking through his nephew, but his abrupt nature led him to go straight to the point. “Do you care for real?” He asked without preamble but especially without formalities.
You were speechless and very much scared, sure that Valarr got offended and sent his uncle to break the engagement.
“Why would I not?” Again, you tried your best to be gentle and respectful. “Prince Valarr is…”
“Stop this farce. It doesn’t suit you.”
Your smile dropped, and you had to swallow the knot in your throat. “I’m so sorry, Your Grace. Whatever I did that offended Prince Valarr wasn’t my intent.”
“I know.” Maekar said as he slowly moved around you, like a predator with his prey. Like a holder who was going to interrogate his prisoner. “I have seen how committed you and Valarr were to making things work.”
“Did the Prince say something?”
Maekar stopped, considering whether maintaining that conduct would be ideal for his intention. He could have spoken his mind, because he was too old to make a proper courtship, but you were a fresh flower who deserved to be courted properly.
“He was scared to break your heart until you turned your attention to me. He sent me here this morning to dissipate his doubts.” It was a bait to taste the water.
Your hand reached your mouth in a moment of hesitation and bitter-sweet sense of guilt. You felt bad for Valarr and for your father but having the occasion to get rid of that burden was liberating.
“It doesn't matter for whom my heart beats, I will never refuse this marriage.”
It was an indirect admission of your guilts and a subtly love confession for him. Maekar turned around, overwhelmed by his own feelings and the sweet idea he could fall in love once again after so many years.
“I owe you an apology, my lady.” He said then. “I lied to you because I wanted you to reveal your real thoughts.”
The warmth he felt in confessing it increased only when he felt your hand brushing against his. He turned to look down at your hands intertwined together and up to meet your begging eyes.
“I speak my heart if you do the same, Your Highness.” You dared to say.
His jaw tightened, and he swallowed as he briefly nodded. “My attention sharpened at the moment Valarr moved the veil from your face, and your beauty filled my dreams the nights that followed.”
Your sincere smile brightened your face and it widened when he kissed your hand.
“It’s the first time since your arrival that I see a real smile on you.”
You covered your mouth again unable to stop smiling. “It’s your fault… my lord.”
“Allow me to bring the smile to your face again, my lady. I am sure Prince Valarr will not object to my courtship.”
“My father won’t survive this.” You smirked and shook your head.
“I will speak to your father, if it makes you happy.”
Your slight nod of acceptance made him feel happy again after so many years of mourning and loneliness.
So about the a court of dragons au... and the forced proximity trope? 👀 Like, reader trying to avoid an annoying lord, so Maekar/Baelor pull her into a hidden corner? Or they pull her into a dance because they know how uncomfortable the reader is with said lord during a feast? Thank u for feeding us, i adore your writing!!
i lowkey wanted to write something for the forced proximity trope and this lovely request scratched that need in such a nice way¡¡ Thank you anon!
safe in their keeping
Includes: Baelor Targaryen x lady in waiting!reader / Maekar Targaryen x lady in waiting!reader
Warning(s): none that I can think of, just two dragons being protective and fluffy
The feast was loud in the way that all feasts were loud — a particular quality of noise that had nothing to do with volume and everything to do with density, all that ambition and performance pressed into one hall and gilded over with music and candlelight until it resembled, from a distance, something genuinely celebratory.
You had learned to manage it. Three months in Queen Myriah's service had taught you which walls to put your back to, which conversations to join and which to let pass, how to be present and pleasant and useful without becoming a target for the particular social hungers that feasts seemed to sharpen in people. You were not a political creature by nature — you had come to court soft-edged and a little wide-eyed and you were still, fundamentally, both of those things — but you had learned.
You had not yet learned Lord Vaeran Celtigar.
He had appeared in your periphery sometime during the second course.
Not intrusively. That was the thing that made it difficult to name, difficult to bring into focus as a problem rather than a feeling — he had done nothing you could point to. He had not said anything inappropriate. He had not touched you. He had simply been there, at the edges of your awareness, in the way that a sound you cannot quite identify is there — present enough to register, unclear enough to dismiss, persistent enough that dismissing it began to feel like a choice you kept having to remake.
He was a lord of middling rank and considerable self-regard, silver-haired in the way that suggested distinguished rather than aged, with a smile that arrived slightly before his eyes did. He had been introduced to you properly only once, briefly, at the beginning of the evening, and had held your hand a moment longer than courtesy required and said what a treasure the Queen keeps in her service in a tone that made the compliment feel like an assessment.
You had smiled and moved on and told yourself it was nothing.
That had been two hours ago.
He had not moved far. Wherever Queen Myriah was — and you were almost always near Queen Myriah, it was the nature of your position — Lord Celtigar seemed to find reason to be in the same quarter of the room. Not close enough to be remarkable. Just close enough that you kept finding him in the corner of your eye, and each time you did the small cold feeling in your chest tightened slightly, like a knot being drawn incrementally tighter by a very patient hand.
You were good at not showing things. You smiled when smiled at and answered when spoken to and kept your posture easy and your expression pleasant, and underneath all of it you were counting the distance between yourself and the nearest exit with the quiet desperation of someone who could not use it.
Baelor noticed.
You did not know this yet. You were not looking at him — you had been carefully not looking at him for most of the evening, which was its own particular exercise, because Baelor Targaryen at a feast had a gravity to him that made not-looking a conscious effort. He was at the high table with his father and the small council, fulfilling the particular duty of being the Crown Prince in public, which he did with the same quiet authority he brought to everything, and you were across the hall with the Queen's ladies, and there was no reason for your awareness to keep finding him.
It found him anyway.
What you did not know was that his had been finding you as well.
He had noticed the way you laughed with the other ladies and then went still when a certain figure crossed the middle distance. Had noticed the almost imperceptible straightening of your spine, the way your hand found the stem of your wine cup and held it without drinking. Had noticed the smile that stayed on your face through all of it — perfectly intact, betraying nothing to anyone who did not know how to look — and the thing underneath it that was not quite distress and was not quite fear but was its own quiet misery.
He had been watching Lord Celtigar for the better part of an hour.
He had been deciding, also for the better part of an hour, what to do about it.
The music shifted — something slower, couples beginning to move toward the floor — and Baelor set down his cup and said something brief to the man beside him and stood, and crossed the hall.
You did not see him coming until he was there.
Lord Celtigar had drifted closer during the music change, as he always seemed to drift closer when the configuration of the room shifted, and you had just recalculated your position relative to Lady Mira on your left when the space on your right changed quality entirely.
Baelor stopped beside you.
He did not look at you immediately. He looked, with the particular calm of a man who had all the time in the world, at Lord Celtigar, and the look lasted approximately three seconds and contained, in those three seconds, the entire weight of what he was and what he was prepared to do with it.
Lord Celtigar went very still.
Then Baelor turned to you, and the look changed completely — warm, unhurried, the private version of his expression that you had been quietly cataloguing for months — and he offered his hand with a slight incline of his head.
"Would you honor me with this dance, my lady?" he said.
His voice was even. Conversational. As though this were a perfectly ordinary moment and he had simply decided, on a whim, to cross a hall and ask.
You were aware of Lord Celtigar in your peripheral vision.
You were aware, more acutely, of Baelor's hand, held out with that calm certainty, and the mismatched eyes on your face, and the fact that every person in the immediate vicinity had just noticed the Crown Prince standing at your elbow.
"Of course, my prince," you said, and took his hand.
You did not look back.
You felt the moment Lord Celtigar ceased to be a presence at your shoulder — some peripheral awareness of him receding, a decision being made in the space of your turning away — and then you were on the floor and Baelor's hand was at your waist and the music was slow and everything else became, blessedly, less immediate.
He danced the way he did most things. With quiet, complete competence, no performance in it. His hand at your waist was proper, the distance between you precisely what courtesy required, and yet there was something in the steadiness of his hold that felt like shelter — not the confining kind, but the kind that existed at the edge of an open field, the kind that said nothing will reach you from this direction.
You exhaled.
It came out longer than you intended, and you felt him notice it — not a reaction exactly, more a quality of attention, the slight shift of someone who has registered something and chosen not to remark on it immediately. His hand at your waist adjusted, fractionally. Settled more fully. Still entirely proper. Still precisely what the dance required.
Something in your chest loosened that had been tight for two hours.
You looked up at him.
He was already looking at you, which should not have surprised you and did anyway — that particular quality of his attention, direct and unhurried, as though looking at you were something he had decided to do and saw no reason to be indirect about. In the candlelight his mismatched eyes were very warm, one dark and one lighter, both of them entirely on your face.
"Better?" he said, quietly. Low enough that it belonged only to the two of you and the space between.
"Yes," you said, equally quiet. "Thank you."
"It was nothing," he said.
"It truly was not nothing, my prince," you said. As you had before. And as before, he considered it — turned it over with the seriousness he brought to things that mattered, which was more things than most people realised.
"Lord Celtigar has been near the Queen's ladies all evening," he said, after a moment. Still that same conversational evenness, nothing inflamed in it.
"Yes," you said.
"And near you particularly."
The observation was precise and gentle and left you no comfortable distance to retreat into. You said nothing. Which was, you understood, its own answer.
Something moved through his expression — not anger, something quieter and more decided than anger, the kind of feeling that had already resolved itself into action and no longer needed announcement.
The music moved around you. Other couples turned through the candlelight, the hall a blur of colour at the edges of your attention, and there was only the measured pace of the dance and his hand at your waist and his eyes on your face.
"You hide it well," he said.
You looked up at him.
"The discomfort," he clarified. His voice was careful. Not clinical — careful, the way he was careful with things he did not want to damage. "You have been hiding it for some time in regard to other things, I believe. Not only this evening."
The accuracy of it caught you somewhere undefended.
"I did not think it was visible," you said.
"It is not," he said. "To most."
The qualification hung between you, precise and unambiguous, and you understood what it meant — that he had been watching, that he had learned the specific grammar of your expressions, that most was a category he had quietly and deliberately placed himself outside of.
Your heart did something you did not give permission for.
"I did not wish to make it anyone's difficulty," you said, carefully.
"It is not a difficulty," he said, with a finality that closed that particular door very gently. "It is—" He paused. Considered. "It is something I would prefer to know about."
He said it the way he said things that were simply true. No weight placed on them, no performance. Just the fact of it, offered plainly.
You looked at him for a moment — this careful, principled man, who had crossed a hall full of people and offered his hand and was now turning you slowly through candlelight and telling you, in the most Baelor way imaginable, that your discomfort was something he wanted to know about, wanted to carry some portion of, and was not going to make a declaration out of—
"All right," you said softly.
The corner of his mouth moved.
There it was — the thing before the smile, the quiet precursor, and then the smile itself, the real one, rare and low and completely undoing, gone almost before it arrived but not before you had seen it, not before it had done its full damage.
You looked away first. You had to.
The hall turned around you. His hand was steady at your waist, the warmth of it present through the fabric of your gown, and you were very aware of the precise distance between you — proper, correct, exactly what the dance required — and of the fact that it somehow felt closer than it was. Or perhaps that was simply him. The way his attention made everything feel like it had been drawn in.
"He will not bother you again this evening," he said, after a while. Simply. Finally.
"Is it because of the look you gave him?" you asked.
Something moved in his expression. "Among other things."
"What other things?"
He looked at you, and there was something almost like warmth edged with amusement in it, the expression of a man who was choosing, with great deliberateness, how much to say.
"Dancing with the Crown Prince tends to communicate certain things," he said, mildly, "without requiring anyone to say them aloud."
The implications of this settled over you slowly, like light through a window. The full weight of what he had done — not just stepping in, but stepping in visibly, publicly, in a hall full of people who would all draw the same conclusion and carry it with them—
"You did not have to do that, my prince" you said, quietly.
"No," he agreed. And then, with the same quietness, "I wanted to."
The admission was small and simply delivered and landed with the full force of something that had been building for months.
You did not trust your voice immediately.
"It is the least I could do," he said, after a moment, with a faint return of the formal phrasing, giving you both the retreat of propriety — the door that preserved exactly as much as it concealed.
"Of course," you said, matching his tone. Taking the door. Both of you knowing, precisely, that you were taking it.
The music began to slow toward its ending. His hand at your waist did not move. His eyes stayed on your face.
"You are not hiding it now," he observed, very quietly.
You realised he was right. Whatever had been tight in your expression for two hours had come loose entirely, somewhere in the last few minutes, and you were looking up at him with something unguarded and warm and probably very legible, and you could not quite find it in yourself to correct it.
"No," you said. "I suppose I am not."
The music ended.
He held the final position a breath longer than strictly necessary — his hand at your waist, yours at his shoulder, the dance finished and neither of you quite moving — and then he stepped back, correctly, with a slight bow, and offered his arm to return you to the Queen's ladies.
You took it.
The walk back across the hall was brief and unhurried, his arm steady under your hand, and when he delivered you back with perfect propriety and a slight inclination of his head you watched him return to the high table and felt your heart doing the thing it had no permission to do, steadily and without apology.
Queen Myriah, at your elbow, said nothing.
But when you glanced at her she was watching the middle distance with the expression of a woman who had just had something confirmed that she had suspected for quite some time, and was quietly, privately delighted about it.
You looked away before she could see your face.
You were not certain you succeeded.
You had not wanted to go.
This was not a feeling you were accustomed to — you were, by nature and by genuine preference, someone who liked people, liked rooms full of them, liked the particular texture of an evening when conversation ran easy and the wine was good and the music was something you could feel in your chest. Feasts had never been something to endure. They had always been something to enjoy.
Lord Aldric Rowan had been attending court for three weeks.
You disliked him in a way you could not entirely justify and had therefore not articulated to anyone. He had done nothing. That was the maddening part — every time you tried to assemble the case against him it dissolved into impressions, into the way his eyes moved over you when he thought you weren't watching, into the particular quality of his attention when you were near Queen Myriah, into the smile that was warm enough on its surface and wrong underneath in a way you could not name.
Your instincts were good. You had always trusted them.
You did not trust Lord Rowan.
And so the feast — which you could not avoid, which was your duty as much as anything else in your position was your duty — sat in your chest all afternoon like something you had to get through rather than something to look forward to, and you dressed carefully and arranged your face and went.
The first hour was fine.
Lord Rowan was present, as he always seemed to be present at anything Queen Myriah attended, but he was on the other side of the hall and you were with the other ladies and the distance was sufficient for you to breathe easily and remind yourself that you were being watched over, that the hall was full, that nothing could happen in a hall full of people.
The second hour was less fine.
The configurations of a feast were treacherous — people moved, groups reformed, the natural drift of a long evening had a way of rearranging things — and by the time the third course arrived Lord Rowan had drifted, as he always drifted, into your quarter of the room. Not close. Never close enough to be remarked upon. Just present, in that specific persistent way, at the edge of your awareness like a splinter you couldn't quite locate.
You smiled at whatever Lady Elyse was saying.
You tracked him in your peripheral vision without meaning to.
You were good at not showing it. You had become, over three weeks, very practiced at the particular skill of being fine when you were not entirely fine, and you performed it well enough that you did not think anyone had noticed.
You did not hear him arrive.
This was the thing about Maekar — for a man of his size, for a man who moved through the world with the physical certainty of someone who had never once doubted his own capacity to take up space, he could be remarkably quiet when he chose to be. Or perhaps you were simply distracted in tracking every potential move of Lord Rowan. Either way, one moment the space at your left shoulder was empty, and the next it was not, and you registered his presence before you saw him — a shift in the air, a change in the quality of the space, the particular density of him.
You glanced up.
He was not looking at you.
He was looking at Lord Rowan with an expression you could not fully see from your angle, and Lord Rowan — who had been in the middle of saying something directly to you — had gone slightly still in the way that people went still when they became aware of being looked at by something they instinctively recognised as larger than themselves.
Maekar let the moment sit.
Then he said, to no one in particular and everyone within earshot, in the flat conversational tone he used for most things.
"The lady would appreciate some fresh air, I think. The air in here has gone rather stale."
It was not a question. It was barely even addressed to you. It was a statement about the state of the air, delivered to the general vicinity, in the voice of a man who had noticed an atmospheric condition and was proposing to remedy it.
Lord Rowan's expression shifted. Something between affront and the instinct to assert himself flickered across his face, and he drew breath and opened his mouth—
And Maekar looked at him.
You did not see the look. You were beside him, not in front of him, and the look was directed at Lord Rowan, and whatever it contained — whatever was in it, whatever the particular quality of Maekar Targaryen's full attention felt like when it was aimed at you as a problem to be resolved rather than a person to be engaged with — was enough.
Lord Rowan closed his mouth. Made a brief, hurried courtesy that landed somewhere between obligation and retreat, and left.
Maekar watched him go for precisely as long as it took to confirm the departure was genuine.
Then he turned to you and offered his arm with the matter-of-fact briskness of a man who had decided something was happening and was now simply executing it.
"My prince—" you began.
"Fresh air," he said. As though this settled it.
You took his arm.
He did not take you to the courtyard.
The courtyard would have required navigating the main doors, crossing the path of half the court, being seen leaving together in a way that would have been remarked upon and discussed. Maekar, who noticed things that people did not expect him to notice, took you instead through a side passage — the kind that existed in old keeps for the use of servants and people who needed to move without being seen — and down a corridor that grew quieter with each turn, the noise of the feast becoming something distant and muffled, until he pushed open a door into a small chamber that was dark except for the moonlight through the narrow window and smelled like old stone and dust and quiet.
Not cold. Not unwelcoming. Just — still.
He let go of your arm and moved to the window, and you stood in the middle of the room and let the silence settle over you like something you had not realised you needed, and felt, slowly, the knot in your chest begin to loosen.
"Thank you," you said, after a moment.
"I too needed air," he said, to the window. "The feast was becoming unbearable."
The dismissal was so characteristic that it almost made you smile.
"My prince?"
He said nothing. His back was to you, the set of his shoulders doing the thing they did when he was attending to something more carefully than his posture was supposed to advertise.
"You were watching him," you said. Gently. Not an accusation.
A pause.
"He was watching you," Maekar said.
Simply. Finally. As though this explained everything, which it did.
You looked at his back. At the silver of his hair in the moonlight, the breadth of his shoulders, the stillness of a man who moved through the world like a force and was currently making himself very deliberate about not moving at all.
"Has he—" He stopped. Started again, more carefully. "Did he do something. Specifically."
"No," you said. "Nothing specific."
A silence.
"But."
"But," you agreed.
He turned from the window then, and looked at you, and his expression in the dim light was — not soft, Maekar's expressions were rarely soft, but stripped of the usual guardedness, the layers reduced to something more direct and less defended than he usually permitted in company.
"You do not need to justify it," he said. "The feeling."
You looked at him.
"Some people earn it before they have done anything you can name," he said. "The feeling is the warning. You should always trust it."
It was more words than he usually offered at once on anything that wasn't military or logistical, and he seemed to know it, because he looked away after, jaw set, with the expression of a man who had said a thing and was now waiting to see what would be done with it.
"I do trust it," you said. "I just couldn't explain it to anyone."
"You do not need to explain it to me."
The simplicity of it. The complete, matter-of-fact simplicity, you do not need to explain it to me, as though your instinct were simply a given, as though it had not occurred to him to require justification.
Something warm moved through your chest.
"The look you gave him," you said, carefully. "What was in it?"
The corner of his mouth shifted. Not a smile. The suggestion of one, brief and quickly suppressed.
"Nothing he would want to test," he said.
You believed him entirely.
You stayed in the small chamber until the feast had wound down to something manageable — until enough time had passed that returning would not require explanation, until the quiet had done its work and you felt like yourself again rather than like someone performing being fine.
Maekar stayed with you.
He did not make a production of it. He stood at the window for a while and then sat on the stone ledge of it and said very little, and you sat in the chair by the door and said equally little, and the silence between you had the quality you had been slowly learning to recognise — not absence, not awkwardness, but the specific silence of two people who had found, without quite intending to, a frequency they both inhabited naturally.
When you finally stood to go he stood too, and walked you back through the side passage back to the hall, now quieter due to the departure of most of its attendees.
"If he approaches you again," he said. "Directly. You will tell me."
Not a question.
"I will tell you," you said.
He nodded. Started to turn.
"Maekar." You called him by name in a voice soft enough only for him to listen. He paused. "I am glad it was you," you said, quietly. "That noticed."
He was still for a moment.
"I notice," he said, gruffly, to the middle distance, "most things."
And left before you could see his face turn red at the edges.
You stood in the entrance of the hall for a moment before returning to your group of ladies, and felt the warmth in your chest that his company always left behind.
him fucking you feral because you have been apart for a week, but it has felt like an eternity — him fucking you with all of his weight and so deep, kissing a spot inside of you that’s been ignored for so long. him spilling all of his seed inside of you, until it’s overflowing and he’s cooing at how precious you look underneath him, how well you take him
