summary : you’re a ward of house targaryen, sent to the red keep after your betrothal to prince valarr. one summer, his cousins arrive. things escalate from there.
summary : you’re a ward of house targaryen, sent to the red keep after your betrothal to prince valarr. one summer, his cousins arrive. things escalate from there.
⤷.ᐟ you deal with guilt of your betrayal and the weight of daeron’s love.
w/c : 4.1k
content warnings : reader is a hightower, no description is used. explicit sex, emotional and physical cheating, codependent relationships, slight non-con/rape elements (dubious consent), obsession
➽──────────────❥ `✦ ˑ ִֶ 𓂃⊹જ⁀➴
Sunlight spills through the windows, painting golden stripes across your tangled sheets. Daeron wakes first. You were still asleep beside him; curled on your side and facing away, one arm tucked under your pillow. Your hair fanned out messy and wild across the cushion, strands stuck to your cheek where you’d breathed into fabric all night.
Daeron swallows hard against the dryness of his throat before carefully pushing himself up onto an elbow.
You wake slowly, shifting onto your back until your eyes flutter open, meeting him. You were both silent for a few moments. Daeron watches your chest rise and fall with your breathing, overcome with a sudden desire. And then, guilt.
The silence was heavy, thick with things unsaid.
Want coils sharply in your gut, sudden and hot enough to make your fingers twitch under the covers. You knew he was feeling similarly, judging by the clouded look in his gaze.
You groan and turn over towards him, grabbing hold of his pillow and holding it to your chest, your eyes slipping closed. “It’s too early,” you mutter.
Daeron stiffens, but then a tiny smirk tugs at his lips. Carefully, he shifts closer to you on the mattress, laying his head down where his pillow used to be. He reaches out one hand to brush a stray lock of hair from your forehead, letting his fingers trail down the curve of your cheekbone.
Your eyes open once more, staring at him thoughtfully. There was the slightest curve to your lips. You didn’t swat his hand away, or scowl or grumble at him being too close either. You simply look at him, with lidded eyes heavy from morning exhaustion, studying his face as if you were memorizing the way shadows fell across his features.
Daeron held perfectly still, a touch terrified that moving would shatter whatever fragile moment they were sharing right now…
Then you close the distance and press your mouth to his softly. It was just a press of your lips against his, but Daeron melts into it. There are no teeth, no urgency, and it's gone as quick as it came. Your forehead settles against his, and you are content to simply be in his space.
You stay like that, noses almost touching, breaths mingling quietly between you. His hands hover awkwardly for half a second before one slides up to carefully cradle the back of your head. You shuffle closer, the pillow still against your chest, until you can thread your legs with his. With the pillow between you, you let one hand trail down his side and to his bare hips—because he’s entirely naked next to you—and your fingers find his soft cock easily.
Daeron shivers. You can feel his whole body tense as your fingers close around him. His hips jerk slightly into that contact like a reflex, a sharp exhale escaping from his lips. The pillow was stupidly in the way, but you didn’t care enough to move it yet. Now when your palm slides over him with lazy curiosity, thumb brushing right over sensitive skin.
You rub him gently, more than content to simply listen to him. His gasps and whimpers came out breathy and uneven, half-formed sounds with no meaning. You were in absolutely no rush to finish him off. Deliberately slow, deliberately teasing, your touch featherlight but maddening in its patience. Daeron squirms, a desperate want crossing his face.
You kiss him again, softly once more, your grip on his cock tightening just the slightest. You smile against his mouth when his hips jerk once more, rubbing into the pillow for more friction. Daeron let out a ragged groan, his forehead falling onto your shoulder. He comes over your fingers, letting out shaky breaths as you rub him through his orgasm.
You go on a little too long, and the overstimulation becomes just a touch painful. He jolts, whines high and involuntary, face twisting into a grimace. “Sorry,” you murmur. The second your hand leaves him, he sags back into the pillows, chest heaving.
You bring your glistening fingers to your mouth, licking off every trace of him while holding his dazed gaze. You lean forward and kiss him for the third time that morning, your clean hand reaching for his cheek, brushing a strand of dirty blonde hair from his eyes. Instinctively, he leans into your touch.
He wants to return the favor, but the weight of sleep still lingers in his limbs. Daeron’s arms feel heavy, his movements sluggish—but the want is there, sharp and sweet.
Instead of getting up, because that would require too much effort, he hauls you closer by your hips, until you’re pressed flush against him. He throws the pillow somewhere to the side.
Your body fits perfectly against his—warm through your thin nightgown, soft where it was held to Daeron’s chest. He buries his nose into your hair before tilting your chin up with clumsy fingers.
He kisses you this time, then rolls you onto top of him, making you yelp. His hands were firm on your hips; you could feel his chest falling and rising underneath you, underneath your bare cunt, which you could already feel growing wet.
“I want to taste you,” he murmurs, voice rough with sleep.
The blush that exploded across your cheeks was instnat—deep and flustered, spreading from your nose all the way to the tips of your ears. You sat there on his chest, heart hammering inside you, and could barely manage to form any words beyond a tiny, “Oh.”
Your hands fidget against his shoulders, fingers curling into his soft flesh as if bracing yourself for something.
… You won’t pretend as if you’re some expert in. Sex. Indeed, yesterday had been your first time. You had not thought about it then, too caught up in desire to explore the exact ramifications of your decision, but now the weight of it seems to settle over you like a storm cloud.
You knew Daeron visits brothels. Or had in the past, at least. You didn’t like it—the idea made something squeeze in your chest—but at least he had some experience.
… You only had your purity. Or whatever was left of it.
Sexual acts outside of marriage is sinful, says your mother’s voice inside your head.
What would Valarr think?
The thought of it—of Valarr, of sin, of your mother’s voice—made you go perfectly still. You swallow hard against the sudden weight in your throat as Daeron’s words sink deeper. I want to taste you.
What am I doing?
Daeron’s beautiful face quiets your worries. You can worry about this later. Right now, you want him.
“How?” You ask in a hushed tone.
“On my face,” he answers.
It makes your stomach flip. To drive the point home, he drags his thumb slowly up your inner thigh, eyes locked onto yours as if daring you to look away. Your breath hitches when his grip tightens slightly, making heat pool low in your belly.
Later, you think stubbornly, moving forward until your knees bracketed the sides of his head, hovering right above his face. His hands spread over your thighs gently, warm and calloused. A silent command for you to sit lower.
And you obey. Knees sink into the soft mattress, the nightgown pooling around him as you straddle his face with trembling legs. The first swipe of Daeron’s tongue has you jumping, a soft gasp tearing from your throat as an unfamiliar sensation sparks through you.
Your hands fly to his hair, fingers tangling in the blond strands. Daeron doesn’t let you retreat; his grip on your thighs tightens like iron. Then he does it again, but slower this time. A deliberate drag of his rough tongue over your sensitive flesh, making you whimper. You roll your hips, sighing softly when you feel the bridge of his nose against your clit, warmth pooling in your stomach. You are so wet, you can feel the sticky fluids against his face as he licks you again and again.
He is very skilled with his mouth. You can feel the pleasure grow inside you as you roll your hips again, chasing the peak he was so willingly giving you.
A broken noise escapes your throat before you shatter, back arching. Daeron doesn’t stop, tongue lapping at you through every twitch and tremor, hands squeezing gently to keep you from collapsing entirely onto his face.
Your fingers yank his hair, pushing his head away from you before you slump forward bonelessly, forehead pressing against the headboard.
You can feel Daeron smiling underneath you. Idiot.
He lets you rest for a moment before dragging his tongue over your clit one last time—slowly—just to feel you jerk weakly above him. Then he eases you back, settling you back onto the bed next to him. Wetness smears across his chin, glistening softly in the daylight.
“Fuck,” you mutter into his shoulder.
You roll away from him, onto your back, staring at the canopy above. Your legs are damp, your chest rising and falling too fast. The weight of that you had done has finally caught up with you.
The worst part about this was that Valarr did not deserve such betrayal. He was kind and good. The memory of his gentle smile—the way he had kissed her knuckles that first night, completely oblivious to what was to come—made your heart twist. A man who never raises his voice, who always listens to you when you speak…
… And you had repaid that trust by letting Daeron out his mouth on you like some common whore in a brothel.
It would have been easier if you hated him. If you hated Valarr, you wouldn’t feel so guilty.
Your hands curl into firsts against the sheets, nails digging crescents into your palm. The shame burns hotter than the pleasure now.
Daeron shifts closer to you. The touch was unexpected, and you stiffen as his arms encircled you, pulling you back into his chest. His chin rests on top of your head.
You didn’t pull away, but you didn’t melt into it either.
“Don’t leave me, please,” he mutters against your hair, grip tightening. “Please, I need you.”
The plea cracks something open in your chest—maybe it is your heart, cracking like an egg yolk. You no longer know what you want. You can feel the tremor in his arms. Please, he says, making your throat close up.
A shaky inhale escapes from your lips as you finally turn within Daeron’s embrace, pressing closer until your foreheads touch once more.
“We need to talk,” you say, and meet Daeron’s pretty blue eyes.
➽──────────────❥ `✦ ˑ ִֶ 𓂃⊹જ⁀➴
You both agree it can never happen again. Well, you more than he. He looks at you a little betrayed, and you roll away to dress before your mind changes. He stares at the wall blankly as you wipe yourself down; by the time you came out of the privy chamber, both he and his clothes were gone.
You both had your duties, even if he spurs his own. You were Valarr’s betrothed, his future Queen, and your choices mattered. They had consequences. It was better to nip this in the bud before it ballooned into something neither of you could control.
… That’s what you said, of course.
But it didn’t last for long.
You think about your promise when Daeron corners you in the library, blue eyes wide with fervor. The library was supposed to be a safe place from prying eyes. But Daeron’s hands are rough on your waist as he lifts your skirts with zero preamble.
There’s no hesitation in him—and you don’t stop him either. There’s no remorse in his groan as he slides his cock inside of your already-wet heat, muffled against the curve of your neck. You bite down hard on his shoulder to stifle the sounds that fall from your lips while he thrusts into you, your hips greedily rolling back into his, betraying how much you still crave this.
“You feel too good,” he whimpers.
You think about his little whimpers when you meet with Valarr later that day. His smile is a twisting knife inside your gut, oblivious to Daeron’s dried seed on your thighs. You wonder distantly if he can smell the betrayal as you stand stiffly through the exchange, forcing out polite nods and soft replies.
Guilt gnaws at your insides like rats.
You simply can not stay away from Daeron. Every time you see him, that familiar beast of desire rises within your chest. Every time he passes by you in the hallways, a lazy smirk on his lips as he glances your way, your body betrays you.
Heat flares low in your belly like a traitorous fire. Your feet move without your permission, carrying you to him without your consent.
Weak. That is what you are. When Daeron reaches for you, when his fingers brush against yours, when his mouth finds your cunt in shadowed alcoves, you melt. You spend more nights together than apart now, your naked bodies tangled with each other. It becomes a secret, one you never intended on having.
The secret grew like the vines in the garden where you first met, thick and tangled, impossible to prune. Daeron knew every curve of your body, every meaning of every sound that left your lips. You memorized the rough texture of his palms; the scars across his soft body, leftovers from sparring accidents in his youth.
He is a lazy lover, you realize quite quickly. It’s something you can find amusing when you are not consumed by guilt. He prefers for you to do all the work. And you don’t mind—you like being above him, watching him squirm and whine. And he wasn’t selfish. He always made sure you were satisfied. With his mouth, his fingers, his cock.
He was content to lie back, his hands pawing at your thighs lazily, or just laying on the mattress while you rode him. When it is his turn to return the favor, he has you sit on his face, like that first morning.
You grow familiar with the taste of moon tea. It’s vile, and you know the possibility of complications. But.
A bastard was too dangerous of an idea to even think of. You choke it down every morning after he enters you, the cup clutched in your hands as you stare at the spot in the bed Daeron had been in just minutes before. You’re not a fool. You may have given Daeron your maidenhead, but there was no chance he would ever have your firstborn.
There would be nothing to tie a bastard child back to you—to Valarr’s betrothed, the future queen.
You repeat this in your head. You are going to be the future queen.
The words taste like ash on your tongue.
➽──────────────❥ `✦ ˑ ִֶ 𓂃⊹જ⁀➴
When you lay together, sweat on your skin and exhaustion in your limbs, with his arms around you and your face in his chest, your guilt goes away. You are able to focus on nothing but him; the scent of him, the shape of his body, the sound of his voice. There is only Daeron, warm and solid beside you, his heartbeat steady under your ear.
When you are apart, you begin to dislike him.
When you are with Valarr, you begin to dislike yourself.
The solar overlooking the gardens was warm with late summer sunlight. Dust drifts lazily through the shafts of gold spilling from the windows, turning the air itself soft and dreamlike. Beyond the glass you could see the Keep stretching away in roofs of red, the hedges trimmed into neat shapes, fountains glimmering beneath the sun, servants moving like little ants.
Valarr sits across from you. He has been talking for some time, but you have not been paying attention. You can see his mouth moving, but the rest escapes you entirely. His voice washes over you in gentle waves, rising and falling with the familiar cadence you have known for over a year, now.
You typically like listening to him. Valarr possesses a talent for making even the smallest matters sound important. When he spoke, one felt included in the shape of his thoughts. He never dominates conversations or demands attention.
Which makes what you are doing even worse.
“... and Father believes the Crown should intervene before the dispute worsens, though I am not entirely convinced…”
His words dissolve into meaningless sound. Suddenly you are remembering another voice. One roughened by wine, still thick with sleep. Don’t leave me, please. Please, I need you.
Stupid girl. The words have lodged themselves inside your mind like a splinter.
The way he had looked at you afterwards, golden hair spilled across your pillow, dawn creeping through the curtains. Don’t leave me.
Gods. You feel sick. And it’s not even because of what happened. No, what makes you sick is how easy it was for you to decide to stay. You had rolled onto your side, looked at him lying there amidst tangled sheets. You had told him no, we can’t, and then you let him fuck you the next day against the library bookshelves.
“... ok?”
You blink. Valarr is looking at you, concern flickering across his face. You realize that he has stopped speaking.
“What?” The word emerges more sharply than you intended it to be.
Valarr’s brow furrows. “You seem distracted.”
Your stomach tightens—not from regret, but from fear of being found out. Your pulse quickens. “I am listening.”
It was a poor lie, and they both knew it. Valarr glances toward the untouched cup beside your hand, then back to you. “You are somewhere else,” he says gently. There was no accusation in his voice, only confusion, and you hate yourself for the sudden flare of irritation that follows.
“Must I account for every wandering thought?” You snap.
You regret it immediately. Valarr falls silent. The sight of his face makes you physically ill.
“I did not mean—”
“You need not apologize,” he says softly. He looks away briefly then, toward the gardens beyond the windows. You stare at him as though seeing him clearly for the first time in months.
He really was beautiful. Not in the typical, dramatic fashion of the Targaryens. Not like Daeron, who was like lightning in a storm. Valarr’s beauty was quieter and warmer, like sunshine. You had once assumed that you could love him. Why wouldn’t you? Everyone else seemed to, even Daeron.
Daeron Daeron Daeron.
Daeron was chaos. Daeron was wine-stained sleeves and sleepless nights and half-finished thoughts. Daeron asked for nothing from everybody and everything from you. He was selfish and weak.
And you love him.
The realization settles heavily in your chest. It was a large and terrible thought, and it demanded your attention, your acknowledgement.
Valarr stands and approaches you, who are sitting stiff as a board. He kneels down and takes your hands again, pressing his cheek to your knuckles. “Will you talk to me?”
He has the makings of a future king. You think he will make an exemplary ruler. But you will not make a good queen. This you know now with certainty.
You smile, and try to make it look real. “There is nothing to say.”
Valarr still looks doubtful, so you lean down and kiss his mouth gently. You can feel his lips part underneath yours in shock. When you pull away, his cheeks are pink.
➽──────────────❥ `✦ ˑ ִֶ 𓂃⊹જ⁀➴
“I don’t care if you marry him,” he lies to you, breath heavy with the scent of wine. Tonight he crawls into your bed, presses his forehead into your back, and he lies to you.
You are on your stomach, face turned to the side. He’s a heavy and unfortunately familiar weight on your back; you can feel his chest rise and fall.
“I don’t,” Daeron repeats, and you say nothing. His hand sneaks around to press flat against your stomach, whispering your name against your nape. “Tell me how good it feels. Say you—say you won’t forget this. That I’ll always be on your mind when he makes you play at being a wife—”
His words betray his true feelings. It’s a ragged plea; he needs to hear you admit you won’t forget him. “Say it.”
“Shan’t,” you mutter finally, more into the pillows than to him. You feel the sting of tears prick at the corners of your eyes and quickly blink them away. “Get off me, you’re heavy.”
He doesn’t move, only leans down until his mouth brushes the shell of your ear. “Is this all I am to you?” He moans softly. “A drunk prince who stumbles into your room like a beggar?”
No, you think. Yes. I’m not sure anymore.
Daeron’s free hand fists weakly in the sheets beside your head, his breath uneven with hurt more than anger. You feel yourself shiver despite yourself, before you regain your senses and try to buck him off, struggling under his weight.
“Stop,” he pleads, bracing one forearm beside your head. Despite his drunken state, he’s still strong; a testament to his princely training. His voice drops low with a cross between accusation and anguish. “You think I don’t know how wrong this is?”
“Get off,” you hiss at him again, but your struggling is useless. He won’t let you go.
Daeron flinches like he’s been struck at your words. For a breath, his grip loosens. Then his hold tightens, determined. “No,” he says quietly. It’s the first command he’s given all night, not shouted or slurred at all, simply clear and firm, in a way you hadn’t expected him to be capable of. “No.”
He shifts enough to cage you beneath his body without crushing you, your faces inches apart now, and you finally look at him.
His eyes are glassy, not from alcohol alone anymore, but also from unshed tears. His hands trace down your back, fingering the hem of your nightgown and slowly pushing it upwards. Your breath hitches—if it’s in fear or anticipation, even you yourself can’t tell. Regardless, you say nothing.
Daeron’s fingers tremble slightly as they push the fabric higher. Cool air brushes against your bare skin, covered by the heat of his palm as it follows right after. He leans down slowly, watching your profile. Your jaw tenses as he presses a rough and clumsy kiss just below your ear.
A muffled sound escapes him as he nuzzles into the side of your neck, inhaling your scent as if this might be the last time he ever gets to breathe you in properly. Then higher, teeth grazing over the edge of your jaw before his mouth finds yours.
He kisses you deeply as he exposes you to the cool night air. You moan into his mouth and you hate yourself for it. But then his fingers are brushing against your cunt, already wet. For him, just for him.
“Look at me.”
His hand fists roughly in your hair, not enough to hurt but enough to make you obey. When you turn toward him, something in your chest cracks in half.
“Say it,” he demands against your lips between ragged kisses. “Tell me who does this to you. Who makes you react like this.” Two fingers thrust inside, and there’s no reason for you to speak at all. The slick that covers his fingers speaks for itself.
“Daeron,” you breath, gasping when his fingers curl inside of you.
He kisses you again—harder this time, messy with teeth and tongue and the salt of the tears now falling down his cheeks. His fingers move inside you with desperate precision, curling just right, waiting for every gasp and sigh he knows you can make, have made for him, in secret hours like these.
But it’s not enough, not nearly enough anymore. His jealousy burns hotter inside him than ever before. In one fluid motion, Daeron shifts over you, flipping you over until your noses pressed together.
His cock enters you smoothly, and you forget your first misgivings. This is right, there is no denying it. Now on your back, your arms wrap around him, holding him to you tightly as he fucks into you slowly.
“Say it,” he murmurs once more. “Say you love me.”
Your arms tighten around his back, your body yielding to his with every slow thrust. He shudders against you, breath ragged where it fans over your skin as he presses deeper. He says your name, over and over again, until his voice breaks apart and his hips stutter. He stays there, pushing his seed into you, desperately trying to keep it from spilling out.
“Say it.”
You keep silent.
a/n : sorry for the long wait! i had like 2 tests right after each other to focus on
She can feel him inside of her and all around her, grunting and moaning like some kind of boywhore. She just lays there and takes it, utterly dry, very quiet, and quite bored as well. Her brother was handsome only if one looked at him in dim lighting, but he was also her husband, so there was no way to really get away from him.
Aeria brings a hand to hold onto Daeron’s back, trying to shift underneath him to change the angle just slightly, to find some way to make this experience more pleasurable for her. It’s no use. It only takes a few more minutes until Daeron passes out on top of her, heavy and smelly and still ugly.
She pushes him off of her with disgust. Daeron slumps beside her, saliva trailing down his chin. He’s disgusting. She can’t look away from him.
It should’ve been me born a man, and him the sister, she thinks to herself, a hand sneaking down between her thighs. Her sweet Daera. She imagines what her sister would look like; large breasts and a large ass, for her—his—hands to hold, to mould. He would bring his mouth to her cunt and make her come just with his tongue, no need for her to touch herself after. His cock would never go flaccid when he was inside her, he would never pass out drunk on top of her.
Aeria moans, soft and low, as her fingers circle around her clit faster and faster, her eyes fixed on Daeron.
She imagines Daera fat and swollen with a baby, her breasts heavy and leaking. She imagines closing his mouth around her nipple, drinking the sweet milk that would fall from it. Would she moan? Aeria thinks it would not be so pleasurable for her if she were to fall pregnant; her tits were small like a boys, and when Daeron put his mouth around them, she felt more teeth than tongue.
Aeria would never bite Daera. Not on the nipples, at least. He would bite her on the neck, where everybody could see, a mark of his ownership. She comes with a soft sigh, her fingers slowing. Daeron was still useless beside her, his brows furrowed in fear or whatever nightmares were plaguing him now.
summary : you’re a ward of house targaryen, sent to the red keep after your betrothal to prince valarr. one summer, his cousins arrive. things escalate from there.
⤷.ᐟ daeron targaryen is quite pitiful. you find him pathetic, and more than a little bit interesting.
w/c : ~6.7k
content warnings : reader is a hightower, no description is used. explicit sex, penis in vagina sex, emotional and physical cheating, drunk sex (it’s daeron), sleeping in the same bed, codependent relationships, slight daerion
➽──────────────❥ `✦ ˑ ִֶ 𓂃⊹જ⁀➴
He is quite shameless, you notice. You think it is carelessness at first, but no. Shamelessness implies awareness, and Daeron Targaryen is painfully aware of himself at nearly all times. Perhaps that, you think, is the problem.
Despite your first confrontation in the gardens, it becomes quickly obvious that he has no intention of stopping his drinking. He only becomes more discreet about it around you.
This irritates you in ways you cannot properly articulate without feeling cruel. It’s not because you are particularly pious—because you really aren’t. Perhaps you are annoyed because he simply won’t listen to you, despite your obvious righteousness. Your words seemed to matter laughably little to him.
When you attempt to ask him why, he only smiles at you in that strange, weary manner of his. “Would you like the truthful answer, or the pleasant one? I’m afraid both will only make you dislike me.”
You narrow your eyes at him. “I already dislike you,” you lie.
Daeron laughs, low and rough around the edges. Then he changes the subject entirely, and you discover very quickly that Daeron possesses a remarkable talent for evasion whenever he chooses to employ it.
Well. Whatever.
When he is around you, at least, he makes some attempt to lessen the worst effects of it. He still smells faintly of wine more oft than not, but no longer enough that it makes your nose wrinkle. His hair remains perpetually in need of proper washing, blond strands hanging up untidily around his face. He favors dark cloaks despite the summer heat, always wrapping them close around his thin shoulders as though perpetually cold in ways no one else can feel.
But he is sober enough with you. Or sober-ish.
Enough to speak coherently and walk without swaying. Enough to sit beside you in the gardens and discuss books and dragons and court gossip. He is absently intelligent in a way that constantly surprises you.
You do not admonish him again after that first meeting.
It displeases you, of course. You are still of the opinion that the most righteous man is one properly aware of both body and soul, and who does not willingly destroy either. Intoxication feels indulgent and improper to you. In truth, that cup you stole from him was the first sip of alcohol you’ve had since you were first introduced to it two years ago, after which you had immediately sworn it off.
But Daeron is despite the blondeness of his hair and the duskier cast of his skin. There is something strange in him, something not entirely tethered to ordinary humanity. You begin suspecting, slowly, that wine is not pleasure to him.
And besides, you’re not nearly as fervent in your beliefs as you sometimes pretend to be.
You think it’s for this reason he prefers your company of Aerion’s or Valarr’s.
Valarr is kind to him, yes, but endlessly corrective. There is always some gentle reprimand lingering beneath his concern, some quiet disappointment when he watches Daeron drain another cup during dinner.
Aerion, meanwhile, is simply cruel. Not always intentionally, but cruel nonetheless.
Everything Aerion says to Daeron is sharpened into a weapon, even when it is technically a weapon. His concern emerges as mockery more often than tenderness, as though even the concept of softness embarrasses him too deeply.
You, however, keep your mean remarks to yourself. You don’t think of yourself as particularly kind, or even noble. In fact, you’re quite passive in your own emotions most of the time. You recognize that Daeron already hears enough cruelty in his own mind without any assistance from you.
Perhaps that is why he begins seeking you out with increasing frequency.
Incidental meetings in the gardens or hallways. Meals where he sits beside you without invitation. He brings you books, sometimes, ones he knows you’ll enjoy.
He is surprisingly well-read. His mind wanders constantly while speaking, drifting into strange tangents about poetry and obscure histories before circling abruptly back toward the original conversation.
Anyways, the point is that he likes you. And Daeron Targaryen, for all his carelessness elsewhere, behaves absurdly carefully around you.
He does not touch you. Not even casually.
Not to hide you through the crowded corridors. Not to brush leaves from your hair after walks through the gardens, not even the small thoughtless touches noble boys often inflict upon girls without consideration.
It is a strange contrast to Valarr, who never hesitates to hold your hand or rest a palm lightly against your back. He touches you easily and readily, with the easy confidence of somebody who has grown used to the concept of being owned by somebody.
Which makes sense, you suppose. You are, after all, his betrothed. And Daeron is his cousin. Clearly, you have been labeled off-limits.
This disquiets you. Daeron looks at you constantly, and there is something deeply peculiar about being watched so attentively by someone who refuses to touch you at all.
… Speaking of your betrothed.
You begin developing the sneaking suspicion that Valarr likes Daeron considerably more than he likes you.
This ought to offend you. A proper lady would surely feel wounded by the realization that her future husband watches another person with greater softness than he has ever directed toward her.
The difficulty lies in the fact that you also like Daeron more than Valarr. Not romantically. Probably… at least, not consciously.
It is simply because Valarr is understandable. Predictable in the way all good men are predictable. He is handsome and kind and thoughtful and entirely proper.
Daeron, meanwhile, feels like discovering a lit candle left burning in an abandoned room. You’re full of questions when you look at him, questions you ask repeatedly and ones he refuses to answer.
➽──────────────❥ `✦ ˑ ִֶ 𓂃⊹જ⁀➴
The servants move more quietly around the corridors at nighttime. It’s almost a serene type of silence, no sound of rowdy noble boys stumbling their ways back to their rooms, no giggling handmaidens to be found around the corner. You can’t sleep, so you leave your chambers and wander the halls instead.
You find Daeron half-curled into the alcove of a window seat overlooking Blackwater Bay, one knee drawn loosely to his chest, a wine cup hanging from his fingers. He looks exhausted.
“You missed supper,” you say, eyes narrowing when you see his shoulders stiffen.
He hums without looking at you. “A tragedy.”
“…you also missed the septon’s reading.”
He doesn’t deign that with an answer. You approach him despite the disrespect, because by now this has become a habit between the two of you; finding him being pathetic all on his own.
You settle beside him with a sigh, smoothing your skirts beneath you. The stone beneath the cushions is still warm from the day’s heat. For a while, neither of you speaks. Daeron stares outward towards the water, and you stare at the wine cup. It irritates you on instinct.
Unable to stop yourself, you say, “You’ll drink yourself into an early grave.”
“Perhaps that is for the best,” he murmurs. You glare at him. In the darkness, you can see his lips quirking upwards into a faint smile, but it fades quickly.
“You dislike it that much?” He asks quietly.
You consider lying for a second. “Yes. It makes you weak.”
“Right,” Daeron mutters, and something about his tone unsettles you. A strange feeling prickles unpleasantly in your chest.
“Why do you do it?” You ask him, for what might have been the hundredth time, half-expecting him to brush you off again.
There’s a slight draft through the window, enough to stir the pale strands of hair across his face. He does not bother to move them away. When he finally speaks, his voice is lower than before. “I have dreams,” he says unevenly.
“That is hardly unusual.”
Daeron laughs softly, though there is no amusement in his tone. You wait for him to continue. At first you think he will evade the subject once more, drift sideways into another conversation as he always does when anything becomes too personal. He remains still for so long you wonder if he regrets saying anything at all.
“I see things.”
Something in his voice keeps you silent.
“At first, I thought it coincidence. Children imagine nonsense constantly. But then…” he swallows. “Then things began occurring exactly as I’d seen them.”
The candlelight from the halls catches against the edge of his cup as his hand shifts faintly.
“I dream of people dying,” he says. “Sometimes strangers, but mostly people I know.” His mouth twists slightly. His eyes take on a glassy quality. “My mother…” he inhales shakily, trailing off into a restless quiet.
Finally, he glances at you. You stare at him. A thought crosses through your mind, briefly, that all Targaryens must be dramatic creatures. But Daeron is looking at you now with such reluctant vulnerability…
This matters deeply to him. You realize suddenly that he must expect you to laugh.
“Ah,” you say instead, and instantly the air turns awkward. Daeron snorts softly and looks away again. But his shoulders relax just the slightest bit after realizing you weren’t making fun of him.
You hesitate briefly, before reaching over and taking the wine cup from his hand, reminiscent of that first day. “You cannot drink this one,” you inform him when he blinks at you.
“You are very cruel.”
You ignore him, and tip the cup back to your mouth. The wine is tepid and stale-tasting, but it goes smoothly down your throat. Daeron watches you closely.
“Perhaps you ought not to sleep alone,” you muse thoughtfully, dabbing your mouth with your sleeve. It takes a moment before you recognize the words for what they are, and heat rushes into your face.
Daeron is very still beside you. You immediately regret meeting him at all. “I meant—” you begin stiffly. “If the dreams disturb you, perhaps companionship—”
“I know what you meant.”
Unfortunately, he sounds terribly pleased. You scowl at him. “Prostitution is also a sin.”
Daeron laughs then—genuinely this time, rough and warm and startlingly alive against the quiet dark.
➽──────────────❥ `✦ ˑ ִֶ 𓂃⊹જ⁀➴
If Daeron drifts towards you naturally, Aerion oft does the opposite. At first you believe he simply dislikes you in the ordinary way boys often dislike girls imposed suddenly upon their lives. You are Valarr’s betrothed. You are Daeron’s friend. Suddenly, you are present in spaces that once belong solely to the three of them, and Aerion is immature enough to dislike this.
But Aerion’s hostility possesses an odd specificity that unsettles you. His mood worsens noticeably around you, suddenly growing quiet and cold whenever you enter the room.
It takes you only a few days to figure out why, and it satisfies you immensely.
You are alone when he confronts you, crossing one of the quieter outer corridors near Maegor’s Holdfast with a book tucked beneath your arm and absolutely no expectation of conflict.
Aerion appears so suddenly in front of you that you nearly collide with him. He blocks your way.
Your eyes narrow. “Move.” Perhaps you should not be so rude to a prince of the blood, but something about his audacity enrages you. Also, he is four years younger than you, and you do not wish to entertain a child at this moment.
“No.”
He looks furious, silver hair falling down to his shoulder in tufts, longer than any of the other men in his family. His violet eyes were sharp with agitation. He would be quite pretty if it weren’t for the baby fat in his cheeks still left over, reminding you once more that he was a child.
You attempt to push past him, but he is surprisingly strong for his age, pushing you back against the wall. His jaw tightens as he stares up at you. You glare at him.
“What,” he says, voice low as it could be for a little boy and viciously controlled, “is so remarkable about you. You’re not even pretty.”
The insult catches you so off-guard you nearly forget to be offended. “What?”
“I don’t understand it,” he continues, speaking more to himself than to you. “You are severe half the time. Judgemental constantly. You’re ugly when your brows are furrowed.”
“I beg your pardon—”
“Yet he still prefers your company over mine.”
A slow smile spreads over your face as you come to an understanding. He’s jealous. Of you.
You laugh at him. Aerion stares at you, looking deeply offended that you might even chance at finding him amusing.
This is so stupid. He’s ten years old, and trying to confront you like a jilted lover, as if you’re the other woman. To his brother. The situation is so ridiculous you can’t help but laugh once more.
“What do you think this is?” You ask him, placing a hand on his small shoulder and shoving him away. It’s easy this time, and he stumbles backward a few steps. You feel mean for the large smile that fills your face. “Daeron doesn’t belong to you. Grow up." Then you walked past him, leaving him to glare holes into your back. Ridiculous.
➽──────────────❥ `✦ ˑ ִֶ 𓂃⊹જ⁀➴
A cold, relentless rain settles over King’s Landing for weeks and turns the entire Red Keep damp. The sea churns dark and violent beneath the windows, and corridors smell faintly of wet stone and smoke.
Everyone is irritable, most of all you. Daeron even more than that, which you originally did not think possible. He is quieter during meals, speaking only when spoken to. He disappears from your sight for days. Even Aerion seems unable to provoke much response from him beyond vague irritation.
With Daeron gone, you find yourself with Valarr once more, but there’s grown a rift between the two of you, the reason for which neither of you could name.
Still, he’s concerned too. You’ve caught him multiple times before, observing Daeron with tense helplessness, the look of someone forever standing just outside of reach of a person he desperately wants to steady.
“You should speak with him,” Valarr says to you one evening.
You don’t glance up from your embroidery. “I ha rdly know where he is these days.
He falls silent, watching you thread the needle for the umpteenth time that day.
Valarr speaks your name. You look up at him, brows furrowed, and your breath hitches when you meet his gaze. There’s something half-sad in his heterochromatic eyes, in the shape of his mouth, in his brows. He’s about to say something else, but—
The door bursts open, and in stumbles Daeron, pale and damp-haired from the rain outside. Aerion trails behind him, looking annoyed enough to bite someone. Probably you, if you got too close.
Valarr stood. “Did you go outside? In this weather?” The chiding tone is back as he grips his cousin’s arm and guides him to the couch he had been sitting on previously. Daeron shrugs, his eyes darting to you first, then to the wine cabinet behind you.
Aerion exhales sharply through his nose. “He’s impossible.” His eyes also find you, but the only attention you’re awarded is a roll of the eyes.
Valarr pushes Daeron back into the couch when he attempts to get up. Daeron groans, leaning against the cushion, his dirty golden hair wetting everything around him. His hands are trembling.
Something unpleasant twists in your chest.
You stay with the three of them for another hour before you decide to retire for the night. It’s awkward to be there and you feel like an outsider looking in. Aerion ignores you, Valarr bids you good night. You wait a second to see if Daeron will say anything, but he seems to be completely out of it, eyes closed, skin sallow.
As you prepare for bed, you think about him. As always, you’re left more frustrated than satisfied, and you go to bed tossing and turning.
Then, long after everyone has retired, you wake up to knocking. Three uneven taps against your chamber door. For one disorienting moment you think something terrible has happened. The storm still rages faintly outside your windows, rain striking against the stone.
The knocking comes again. You rise, grabbing the nearest slip of fabric and throwing it over your shoulders as a robe before crossing the room.
When you open the door, Daeron is standing there.
He looks awful. His hair, where it had been damp just hours before, is dripping wet, strands plastered to his skin and shoulders. He’s dressed informally, and his cheeks are red. You think he has just come from taking a bath.
You smell wine.
“Daeron.”
He blinks at you, then says, with strange formality, “I apologize for the hour.”
You stare at him. Water drips steadily from the edge of his sleeve onto the floor beneath him. Your nose wrinkles.
“Did you even dry yourself before putting on clothes?” The words are accompanied with you stepping aside, letting him into your room. You close the door behind him.
It’s… strange. He’s been in here before, of course. But now it feels different.
“You are ruining my carpets,” you say, taking another robe of yours and pushing it towards him, gesturing for him to do something about his sopping wet hair.
“A tragedy, I’m sure,” Daeron answers dryly, and he drapes the fabric over his head, letting the ends rest on his shoulders. At least now it was your robe being ruined, and not the carpets.
Despite yourself, you feel relief flicker through you at his banter. Relief that is instantly killed when he opens his mouth again.
“I dreamed again.”
You move closer out of instinct.
“They worsen with the weather,” he says, staring down at his feet. “Usually, the wine dulls them enough that I forget most before morning, but lately… lately they linger.”
The candlelight flickers across the sharp planes of his face as he speaks. “Dragons. Ash. People screaming.” His mouth twists slightly. “You, at one point.”
Your stomach drops unpleasantly.
He does not meet your gaze, still staring at the little spot where he stands in the middle of the room. After a few moments of silence, you move forward, grasping his arm, much like Valarr did earlier that evening.
He lets you pull him towards the bed, your bed, the backs of his knees hitting the edge and tumbling until he sits down roughly. You pick away the wet fabric around his neck, his hair now somewhat dry, then sit down next to him.
It’s only then you realize how close he is.
Daeron smells faintly of wet wool and wine and lavender soap. His shoulder brushes against yours through the fabric of your own silk robe, but even that minimal contact feels strangely intimate after days of distance.
“You can stay here tonight,” you hear yourself say.
Daeron looks at you sharply. “I assure you,” he says carefully, “that would be deeply improper.”
“You agree sleeping alone does not help?”
“…yes.”
“I dislike hearing you complain.”
A beat. Then, very softly, “You are not frightened of me?”
The question catches you entirely off guard. You frown. “Why would I be frightened of you?”
Daeron looks away for a moment, chewing on the inside of his cheek. With all the awkward dignity you can manage, you pull back the blankets and lie down in your bed. He watches you, slightly disbelieving.
You raise an eyebrow at him. Slowly, cautiously, he lies beside you. The movement makes his thin linen shirt cling faintly to the lines of his body. You look away, a sudden heat in your face. He doesn’t slip underneath the sheets like you, just remains laying on top of them. You almost want to laugh at his embarrassment.
The bed suddenly feels absurdly narrow despite being the largest bed you’ve ever slept in. You stare up at the canopy, acutely aware of every inch separating your bodies.
You turn your head slightly towards him. In the moonlight, his face looks softer. Younger. Without thinking, you reach over and brush damp hair away from his forehead.
He turns his face slightly into your palm. Outside, rain continues whispering against the windows.
➽──────────────❥ `✦ ˑ ִֶ 𓂃⊹જ⁀➴
Morning arrives slowly.
The storm has not yet fully passed, though the rain has softened into a steady whisper against the windows, and the thunder clouds are not as severe as they were before. Pale grey light spills through the curtains, turning the room colorless and dim.
For several long moments, you remain half-asleep. It’s warm and comfortable. Then awareness returns all at once.
Daeron is pressed against your side.
Not indecently. But sometime during the night, the careful distance between your bodies disappeared entirely. His arm is loosely draped across your waist beneath the blankets, his face turned toward your throat, breath warm against your skin.
One of your hands is tangled in his hair.
Beside you, Daeron sleeps on. You ought to wake him. Or untangle yourself. Instead, you lie there listening to the rain and the slow rhythm of his breathing and feel, quite irrationally, as though the whole world has settled into place around the two of you.
Daeron stirs slightly against you. His fingers tighten instinctively at your waist before relaxing again.
Somebody knocks on the door. Your entire body tenses. Daeron wakes immediately, and stills completely when he realizes where he is. His breath catches once against your throat.
The knock comes again. Valarr calls out your name.
Gods.
You hold Daeron close against your chest for a few horrified moments before he bolts upright so abruptly the mattress jolts beneath you.
His hair is a disaster. His shirt hangs half-open at the collar from sleep. There is a faint crease from the pillows against his cheek.
Another knock. Valarr says your name again, more uncertain this time. Panic finally takes over. Valarr is polite enough to knock. Unfortunately, Valarr is also persistent.
“Hide,” you hiss. Daeron mutters something deeply unprincely beneath his breath and slides off the bed. He is barefoot and disheveled and very obviously looks like a man who has spent the entire night in someone else’s chambers, participating in activities that were a sin.
Gods! You curse again.
He disappears behind the dressing screen moments before you manage to pull yourself together enough to open the door.
Valarr looks immaculate as always. His brown hair frames his face in curls, his doublet perfectly fastened despite the ridiculously early hour of the morning. He sees your face and immediately grows wary.
“Did I wake you?” He asks carefully.
“…yes.”
He pauses. Valarr’s eyes shift past you into the room. You try not to look guilty. His gaze lingers briefly on the wine cup beside the bed. Then the dirty robe you had used to dry Daeron’s hair, lying on the floor.
“Is Daeron here?”
Not for the first time, you consider lying. But when you look your betrothed in the eyes, you find yourself unable to. He would be more wounded if you lied than if you simply told the truth. Which was, yes, Daeron is here. He slept in my bed and held me half-naked.
You step closer to him, lowering your voice. “He had nightmares.”
Valarr’s face shifts slightly. Something complicated flickers there. Hurt, but relief also.
“He could not sleep,” you continue awkwardly. “And it was storming, and—”
“You do not need to explain,” he says softly, and the gentleness with which he says it makes your chest ache. He reaches forward and takes your hand in his, bringing your knuckles to his lips, kissing your skin softly. “I am… glad.”
You hate yourself for betraying his trust like this, even though nothing truly improper passed between you and Daeron. It would be easier if Valarr was mean like Aerion; at least then you would have an excuse for hating him.
But you cannot bring yourself to hate Valarr Targaryen. And neither can he hate you for betraying him.
➽──────────────❥ `✦ ˑ ִֶ 𓂃⊹જ⁀➴
You do not speak about it again. Daeron sleeps more now, and for this, Valarr forgives you. The shadows beneath his eyes soften, and he drinks far less around you, or anyone else. Some evenings, he simply appears outside your chambers carrying a book and settles beside you as if he belongs there.
The truly dangerous part is how quickly you become accustomed to him. To the sound of soft knocks late at night, to pale hair spilling untidily over your pillows when he falls asleep mid-conversation. He begins relying on your presence desperately, and at first it is small enough for you to dismiss it.
He searches for you in crowded rooms, settles immediately after he finds you, and stands too close for comfort. This you can ignore. But seeing him already sprawled across your bed when you slip inside your rooms makes you frown.
“You’ve upset my brother,” He drawls. The other thing— he’s much more arrogant than you first realized.
“Have I now?” You throw a grape at his head. For being in your rooms without you there.
It misses by a couple feet, rolling under the bed. Daeron grins and you roll your eyes, stepping forward to join him. On your bed, you might remind.
He shifts his head into your lap when you sit beside him, eyes closing. “You miss him,” you say flatly, though your fingers curl into his hair.
Something ugly twists in your chest before you can stop it. It’s jealousy. You do not want Daeron romantically (this is what you tell yourself) but the thought of his attention shifting elsewhere unsettles you in ways that feel increasingly difficult to justify.
Worse still, you suspect Aerion feels exactly the same. Gods, now you’re sympathizing with a ten year old.
You spend most of the afternoon wandering the halls of the Red Keep attempting to escape your thoughts. Eventually your feet carry you downward, beneath the castle proper and into the old galleries where the dragon skulls are kept.
You dislike this place.
The air is perpetually cold beneath the Red Keep, damp with the scent of stone that has not seen proper sunlight in centuries. Torchlight flickers weakly against the enormous black bones, leaving shadows pooled in the hollow sockets of dead dragons, their jaws hanging open in eternal silence.
You find Aerion here. He sits beneath the skull of Balerion himself, knees drawn loosely toward his chest, pale hair glowing silver beneath the wavering torchlight. The largest dragon ever to live towers above him in death, immense enough that it nearly swallows the room whole.
Aerion looks very small beneath it. For a long moment, you simply stand there watching him, unnoticed.
There is something strangely lonely about the sight. He has always tried so fiercely to seem sharp-edged and untouchable, all narrowed eyes and bared teeth and cruel little remarks. But here, alone, he looks exactly what he is. A child.
And suddenly, absurdly, you feel sorry for him.
You move closer slowly, your slippers whispering softly against the cold stone floor. Aerion startles at the sound, twisting around sharply. His expression hardens on instinct the moment he sees you, violet eyes narrowing into a sharp glare.
“Your brother,” you say before he can speak, “is under the impression that you are angry with me.”
Aerion’s mouth flattens. “Perhaps he is correct.”
You sigh dramatically and lower yourself onto the floor beside him despite the chill. Your skirts spill untidily across the stone, red velvet immediately beginning to collect dust. Aerion stares at you as though you have personally insulted him. For a while, neither of you speaks.
Aerion tilts his head back to stare up at the skull again. You study him from the corner of your eye.
His profile is still soft with youth despite how desperately he tries to disguise it. There remains something unfinished about him, with his sharp and restless energy and emotions too large for the body containing them
“You like it here?” you ask eventually.
“Yes.”
“It is dreadful.”
He deigns to give you an unimpressed look, nose wrinkling. You follow his gaze back toward the skull looming above you both.
“Are you really so angry with me?” You ask him.
Aerion does not answer you at once. His shoulders tighten, such a small movement that others would not have noticed. But here, so close to him, you can see his chest rise and fall with every breath he took. He is all instinct and reaction.
“You spend too much time with Daeron,” he says finally.
There is something dangerously close to amusement that flickers through you as you gaze at him. “You sound jealous.”
Aerion’s head snaps towards you immediately, a denial ready on his lips. Then he falters, the torchlight catching strangely across his face, turning the violet of his eyes a darker color. In truth, the only thing you can currently think is that he resembles an offended little kitten puffing its fur up in self-defense.
He turns back around, fixing his gaze stubbornly ahead, arms tightening around his knees slightly. “When the dreams were bad, he used to come to my rooms.” He spoke reluctantly, as if the words were dragged upward from somewhere deep and private.
The ugly thing inside your chest shifts painfully into something softer. “You miss him.”
He does not look at you, and silence stretches between you once more. You know you are right.
“He still loves you best, you know,” you murmur softly.
Aerion laughs. “That’s not true.”
“Of course it is. You’re his little brother.”
He turns to you once more, eyes flashing. There is something offended in his expression, as though you have exposed some private weakness he would rather die than acknowledge aloud. Every instinct he possesses bends inevitably back towards his brother, whom he has never known a day without. Even now, sitting beneath the skull of the Black Dread itself, all roads inside Aerion seem to lead back to Daeron.
“He frightens me too,” you say. “I am constantly worried about him despite myself.”
So quietly, you almost miss it entirely, he says, “I think one day he will drink himself to death.”
Without thinking much about it, you reach over and smooth your hand lightly over his pale hair. Aerion startles violently.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m comforting you,” you say, ruffling his hair like you sometimes do to the cats in the Red Keep.
“Stop that.”
“You sound like a widow,” you tease him, but you retract your hand anyways. Aerion is scowling, more embarrassed than angry, his face faintly pink. “I said the same thing to him once, you know.”
He glances at you.
“The ‘drink himself to death’ thing, I mean. I think it amused him, or he just didn’t care enough,” you muse. “He’s very sad, isn’t he?”
Aerion is silent for a moment before agreeing. “Yes. Very sad.”
➽──────────────❥ `✦ ˑ ִֶ 𓂃⊹જ⁀➴
The moon hung high, pale and cold through the window of your chambers. The castle was silent, save for the soft thump at your door.
You stir from sleep instantly, pushing back the covers and crossing to the door barefoot. Without a word, you open it just enough for him to slip inside.
Daeron’s eyes are wide and glassy when they meet yours under the candlelight. You don’t speak, waiting for him to explain himself as he always did. You only step forward and pull him into your arms, wrapping them tightly around his trembling frame.
Today must have been an especially bad one. You haven’t seen him this distressed since the first night.
He is cold, sinking into her like a drowning man finding shore. His breath hitches when he feels your arms around him, his fingers twisting into the fabric of your sleeping gown. You can hear the sound of his heartbeat, thudding wildly against yours through layers of cloth and skin.
You pull away softly, tugging at the cloak at his shoulders. “Take it off,” you say, but truthfully you meant all his clothes. Tonight he was dirty and unkempt, and you cared for him, but not enough to let him into your bed with dirty clothes.
You turn from him and pass over the closet, bringing a soft linen shirt out for him. It was his. He’d come to you so many times that you’d kept his clothes, washed and dried them for times like this.
You crook a finger at him. “Bath first. You’re filthy.”
Daeron flinches, his shirt already half off, one arm tangled in the fabric. He opens his mouth, perhaps to protest, but the words die on his tongue when he looks at your face. You curl your finger again. He shuffles towards you silently, throwing the shirt to the ground.
You lead him to the privy chamber, gesturing for him to wait by the small hearth as you heat up the water. It was awkward and quiet, but when the bath was prepared, you turned to him and commanded again, “Clothes off.”
His fingers twitch at his breeches, hesitating once before undoing the laces with shaky hands, his eyes fixed stubbornly on the floor. You turn around as he undresses, waiting for him to sink beneath the water and hide himself under the bubbles. Your cheeks are not flushed. It’s a trick of the light.
Daeron sinks into the water with a near-silent exhale, bubbles rising over his chest. You’ve mixed in citrus soap, different from the faint lavender scent he usually uses. You kneel beside the tub, a washcloth in your hands.
For a moment, you think to give the washcloth for him, make him scrub the dirt and stink off of himself. But then your body betrays you, and the washcloth misses his hands and finds itself against his bare chest. Your sleeves fall into the water, growing wet immediately, and you are suddenly aware of just how close he is, and how close to being naked you are, wearing nothing but a thin nightgown.
Daeron does not appear to be breathing.
You scrape the cloth over his collarbone—because now the only thing you can do is commit—lips pressed tightly together. He is looking at you carefully, you can feel it, but you refuse to look at him back. Your fingers stiffen.
He says your name softly.
Your breath hitches. Your lashes flutter as you blink. Finally you look at him, and it’s a mistake, because the surge of desire that rises within you is so great it makes you lightheaded.
You lean in first, but Daeron meets you halfway, his hands coming to clutch the back of your head, fingers tangling in your hair, pulling you closer to him. His lips are dry and rough, tasting of salt and sour wine, so you lick them with your tongue, coaxing them to open. Your own hands fly to cup his face, washcloth forgotten, rising slightly on your knees to tower over him as you kiss him.
Daeron groans into your mouth, his grip tightening. He mutters your name again as you break for air. “Fuck—”
You swallow whatever he was going to say next with your mouth, tilting your head to better slot your lips against his, mouth opening as if you wanted to swallow him whole. The kiss turns messy, all teeth and clashing tongues and exchanging spit. Daeron’s other hand slid up your back, pressing through the damp fabric to feel the dip of your spine.
When you break apart once more, spit is slicked between your lips, a string of saliva connecting them for half a second before it breaks. One side of your nightgown has fallen down your shoulder, revealing your collarbones and the curve of your breast and the sliver of your nipple. It is this realization you distract him with when you pull away.
Then you’re stepping into the bath, still dressed, settling against his lap. The nightgown pools around you before the fabric sinks to the bottom, heavy with water. You reach for his cock.
A sharp inhale tears itself from Daeron’s throat as your fingers close around him. He chokes out your name again as you guide him to the entrance of your cunt, only to groan when he feels the water-logged fabric of your smallclothes. You curse, letting go of him. You got too far ahead of yourself.
Precious seconds are lost as you drag your smallclothes down your thighs; you only have enough patience to get them past your knees before you’re grabbing him once more. His hips twitch, pushing the head of his cock through your folds and inside your tight, wet heat. He moves past the tight ring of muscle near your entrance, and the rest comes easy, until you’re sitting fully in his lap, full of his cock. Stuffed.
Your thighs bracket his hips, a soft exhale escaping through your lips swollen from kissing. He trembles underneath you, hands hovering uselessly before instinct kicks in and he rests them on your hips, sliding them up and down your waist.
You lean forward. Not to kiss this time, but to press your nose against his cheek, rolling your hips into his experimentally. You let out a soft breath against his skin as you move above him in small, slow circles. You’re pressed flush to his chest, wet fabric sticking to your breasts.
His arms lock around you, one hand splayed between your shoulder blades and the other to grip your bare thigh under the water. A sound falls from your lips when he thrusts his hips upward, your hands gripping onto his shoulders. You inhale deeply, taking in the scent of him. It was intoxicating.
Your little sounds undid him. Every slow grind of your hips had his toes curling against the tub’s bottom, fingers flexing into your thigh. He tries to meet you in the middle, but the sensation is so overwhelming, his thrusts are sporadic. When you duck your head to press an open-mouthed kiss just below his jawline, he too lets out a low moan.
His hips stutter, and you feel him tap your back rapidly. You feel his entire body lock and are off of him before you can think, watching his hips jerk helplessly, chasing for friction that was already gone. His back arches slightly against the edge of the tub as he comes, releasing pulse after pulse of white rope into the now tepid water between them.
For a heartbeat, he just breathes, and you look down at the cloudy water where the evidence of his climax floats, feeling frustration rise within you. While he’s still out of it, you creep closer, situating yourself onto his thigh.
You roll your hips once more, this time against his thigh, a whine coming from you. His hands find themselves once more on your thighs, his thumbs pressing bruises into your bare skin with every twitch of your body, guiding your hips.
The water sloshes with every movement. Your breath comes in short pants, lashes fluttering as you feel the peak of pleasure rise inside your chest.
Daeron ducks his head and catches the nipple that had slipped out of your nightgown between his teeth, his tongue pressing against the little bud hard enough to make you let out a sharp cry. Your hand comes flying to press his head against your breast, fingers fisting in his hair, body arching like a bowstring pulled too tight before finally snapping.
You let out a small and broken gasp as you came. Daeron keeps one hand anchored on the swell of your hip, while the other slides up to palm your breast gently. Then you slump against him tiredly, boneless limbs falling to your side. He doesn’t let go of you, holding you against his chest like he would his most prized possession
You twitch once before pulling away, eyes half-closed from exhaustion. He doesn’t want to let you go, his grip tightening before reluctantly loosening. You don’t want him to let you go either, but your heart is racing too fast to stay still.
summary : you’re a ward of house targaryen, sent to the red keep after your betrothal to prince valarr. one summer, his cousins arrive. things escalate from there.
w/c : ~1.2k
content warnings : reader is a hightower, no descriptive language is used. underage (no sex) relationships. mentions of drinking. reader is implied to follow the faith of the seven.
➽──────────────❥ `✦ ˑ ִֶ 𓂃⊹જ⁀➴
It was a strange little arrangement you had all settled into, though you supposed it had always been destined to become so. You have lived within the Red Keep for nearly a year now, long enough for the novelty of court to dull into a boring routine. There were ladies aplenty in the castle, but none who belonged to your world. The younger girls clung to you endlessly, shrill and overeager, forever tugging at your sleeves with foolish gossip and childish games until you felt less a companion and more a weary septa entertaining unruly children. The older women were no better suited to your company. Most were already wed, heavy with child or occupied entirely by the business of pleasing husbands and raising heirs, their conversations consumed by pregnancies, alliances, and household matters that made you feel old and young at once.
So you found yourself alone more often than not.
Not truly alone, of course. You had Valarr.
And you did like Valarr. Truly, you did.
He was gentle in a way few boys of noble birth ever managed to be, soft-spoken and patient, with the sort of beauty singers favored in their tales. When he looked at you it was always with such careful fondness that it warmed something quiet inside you. You liked sitting beside him while he spoke of whatever ancient history or dusty tome had most recently captured his attention. You liked the feel of his hand enclosing yours as you wandered the gardens together beneath flowering vines and drifting rose petals. You liked the safety of him.
You thought, sometimes, that you could be happy with him.
But happiness, you slowly realized, was not the same thing as feeling alive.
Valarr was constant. Endlessly, unshakably constant. And boring.
The books he loved were always alike: histories of old kings, treatises on dragons, stories whose endings never changed no matter how many times he revisited them. His hands remained smooth and unmarred, untouched by cuts or calluses or anything harsh enough to alter them. Even the gardens seemed frozen in perpetual perfection, forever blooming, forever fragrant, forever beautiful in exactly the same way.
Nothing ever changed.
Then Aerion arrived, and suddenly everything did.
He was smaller than Valarr, though still taller than you, and where Valarr carried himself with calm restraint, Aerion seemed forged from something far less stable. There was a dangerous sharpness to him, something restless beneath his skin, as though he were forever moments away from either laughter or violence. Yet he was beautiful too—beautiful in a way that stole your breath away. Long silver-gold hair falling untidily around a pale, angular face. Violet eyes too bright, too knowing, too alive with fire.
It was those eyes you noticed first.
Even now you could remember the precise moment the carriage door opened and Aerion stepped down into the courtyard. Before you could truly look at him, he had already found you within the crowd, as though drawn there by instinct alone. Your gazes locked, and for one dizzying instant you felt untethered from yourself entirely, weightless and floating and frighteningly exposed.
The spell broke only when Valarr stepped forward to greet his cousins with practiced courtesy.
Still, the feeling lingered.
You thought yourself in love with Aerion almost immediately. Or perhaps not love—you were wise enough to know you could not truly love a stranger. Lust, then. Fascination. Obsession. Whatever name it deserved, it consumed you with humiliating ease. You could not stop thinking of him afterward: the color of his eyes, the shape of his mouth, the careless arrogance in the tilt of his head.
And then he spoke.
“Greetings to you as well, cousin.”
The words slid from his tongue like warm honey, smooth and rich and deliberate. He was barely older than twelve, yet he spoke with the confidence of someone far older, someone already aware of the effect he had upon people. Beside you, Valarr’s expression tightened almost imperceptibly into a frown.
At the time, you did not yet understand the tension between them.
You would, soon.
Behind Aerion came Daeron, stumbling as he descended from the carriage, one hand clutching at his younger brother’s shoulder to steady himself. Aerion sneered immediately, all sharp disdain and poorly concealed irritation, yet he did not move away. If anything, he stepped subtly closer, positioning himself between Daeron and the watching crowd like a snarling little guard dog protecting something wounded.
Valarr’s frown deepened.
It took you little time to realize the nature of it all. Valarr and Daeron were friends, in their way. Daeron and Aerion were bound together even more tightly. But Aerion and Valarr seemed incapable of tolerating one another for long without some silent contest emerging between them. And at the center of it all stood poor Daeron, pulled endlessly between the two like a rope in a childish game of tug-of-war.
You watched them constantly after that.
You observed the lingering glances, the quiet hostilities, the strange possessiveness neither boy bothered to disguise. Often you would sit silently nearby with narrowed eyes, studying them as though they were pieces upon a cyvasse board you had not yet learned to master.
Daeron fascinated you most of all.
He drank too much. Even you could see that.
The scent of wine clung to him often enough, and there was a perpetual exhaustion in his face that made him seem older than any of them. You pitied him, though you could not entirely explain why. Perhaps because he looked lonely even in crowded rooms. Perhaps because no one else seemed to pity him at all.
Or perhaps because you sensed that beneath Aerion’s fury and Valarr’s frustration, neither truly knew how to help him.
So one humid morning, while the gardens still glistened with dew and the air hung heavy with the promise of heat, you approached him where he sat alone with a goblet of wine already in hand.
Without warning, you snatched the cup away.
The surprise on his face was almost comical.
He reached weakly for it at once, but you tipped the goblet back before he could reclaim it, swallowing the wine yourself despite its bitterness burning down your throat. When you finished, you wiped your mouth against your sleeve with deliberate satisfaction.
“It is a sin to be a drunkard,” you informed him primly.
His gaze dropped immediately to the seven-pointed star resting against your chest.
For a moment he simply stared. Then he laughed. It was not a pleasant laugh. It sounded rough and worn thin at the edges, fragile in a way that made your chest ache unexpectedly. But it was genuine.
And from that moment onward, you were friends.
Perhaps better friends than either Valarr or Aerion wished them to be.
Daeron preferred your company after that, and though neither boy ever said so aloud, their displeasure became impossible to miss. Valarr grew quieter whenever you and Daeron spoke together, while Aerion watched them both with narrowed violet eyes sharp enough to cut flesh.
You found, to your secret delight, that you rather enjoyed making them jealous.
a/n : more coming soon !!! comment if you want to be added to the tag list for this
What counsel is he giving? None can say. Yet Caranthir is not buying it, Maglor is living for it, and Curufin is agreeing with it. As ever, Fëanor and his favorite little prince wear matching jewels, naturally.
This work is part of an ongoing series. If you enjoyed it, see also: Copper Team | Fair Team
In the bloodraven fic, who's the parent of the daughter? Or was it just supposed to be ambiguous?
haha oops! so i wrote this on the authors note on the ao3 fic but forgot to mention it when i posted it here
this was originally an oc fic i wrote in second perspective. oc is a blackwood. i havent really fleshed out the exact backstory but the idea is that melissa blackwood had another child after she was dismissed by aegon and that child was your mother. this makes melissa ur grandma and bloodraven ur uncle!!!
but if you’d like you can imagine reader to be related to him via the targaryen side :) it doesn’t really matter in terms of the fic lol i just like uncle/niece
The Bloodraven is your uncle and you are his apprentice. There are certain things he must teach you. ~5.9k words
OK YALL THIS IS VERY VERY DEADDOVE AND NASTY. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE READ THE TRIGGER WARNINGS (below border) BEFORE READING.
tw: dub-con/non-con, underage sex, drunk sex, age gap, older man/younger woman, incest, uncle/niece incest, AGE GAP, blow jobs, hand jobs, penis in vagina sex, mentions of cunnilingus, mentions of vaginal fingering, improper use of a candle, POWER IMBALANCE, big BIG age gap
this is like the nastiest and horniest shit ive ever written
It was a mistake to talk to him. Even more of a mistake to let him get you drunk.
The wine wasn’t poisoned, thankfully, but the only one actually drinking it was you. Your uncle started to talk of state affairs, politics, and economics, while little by little he poured you fine Arbor Gold. He might have shared a cup or two at first, to appease your worry, but now the Bloodraven is still sober, while you are blissfully tipsy.
He watched you carefully, half shadow compared to you, giggling and playful, sitting beside the hearth, your body limp like putty. Still, you came when he beckoned you with a crooked finger, stumbling over on weak legs. Even sitting, he was taller than you standing. A girl of ten and five, and he is over twice your age. You stopped in front of him, standing between his legs, staring, waiting for his next orders. Your obedience both pleased and displeased him. You would not enjoy most of what was to come, but it was necessary.
For now, he would start easy. His hands came to grip your waist, pushing you to the floor until you were on your knees. The position was vulnerable— for you, not him. You blinked up at him, trying to focus, so he placed a large hand on the back of your head to keep you from going anywhere.
His crimson eye burned into you, the firelight casting eerie shadows across his pale face. You wobbled slightly where you knelt, your knees not used to pressing against hard stone. His thumb brushed absently over a strand of your hair before tightening just enough to make sure you felt it. A quiet warning.
“Now,” he murmured, voice low and smooth like honey. “Tell me what I want from you.”
You were silent for a few moments, thinking hard through the muddle of your drunken state. The reason for your presence in his chambers in the first place slowly came back to you. “Training,” you slurred.
This was true. He nodded as your eyes fluttered shut; that little bit of thinking apparently took a lot out of you. He would fix this soon. His fingers undid the laces of his pants, all while your eyes were closed, taking out his half-hard length. The scent of his evident arousal hit you first, and you opened your eyes in alarm, coming face to face with his cock.
Your eyes widened, darting up at him, trying to move back. His hand kept you in place, his other holding himself and guiding it to your mouth. You shut it tightly, trying to keep the intrusion away, so he pinched your nose until you were forced to take in a deep breath. He entered your mouth quickly, going as deep as he could without choking you.
Your mouth was small and hot, and you looked up at him in terror, brows furrowed as if asking him: What are you doing? It took him a few seconds to answer you.
“Your mother sent you here for a few reasons,” he said. “To apprentice under me was the biggest. I agreed. I told her I would make you into my greatest spy. But for that, you must learn a few things first, sweet girl.”
He moved your head closer, inch by inch, ignoring as tears began to spill down your cheeks. “This will be hard for you. It is hard for me, too, for I am your uncle by blood and you are not yet a woman grown. If I could go about this a different way, I would.”
The words were pretty, but you found that you didn’t care. It was an intrusion, an assault. You pleaded with your eyes, begging him as best you could with your mouth full, but he only let out a soft groan. “The sooner you get used to it, the sooner it will be over,” he told you, sinking deeper into the sweet wetness of your mouth.
You gagged. Never had you done anything like this before. But he did not relent, making you choke on him until you were tapping his thigh desperately, needing air. He pulled you back by the hair, and you gasped, tears still streaming down your swollen, red cheeks. “Others will not be so kind,” he said. “You must learn to take me in my entirety, sweet girl, without choking or gagging.
You coughed, the sound wet and ragged. His grip in your hair remained firm. “Breathe,” he ordered softly, though it was less kindness than practicality. He didn’t want you passing out on him yet. Not when they were just beginning.
His thumb traced the curve of your swollen lower lip—already reddened from struggling against him—and pressed down slightly to emphasize his point. “You will learn,” he said, more to himself than to you, as if he was noting down progress in a ledger. Then his gaze sharpened again, that eerie crimson eye drilling into you. “Again.”
He guided himself back to your tear-slick lips before you could protest or even think about resisting this time.
It continued like this for a few days; him forcing himself into your mouth until you could take him fully, face pressed against his pelvis, mouth full of cock. Then he began to fuck into your mouth, slowly at first, giving you orders to make the ordeal more pleasurable. Not for you, but for him, or whoever it would be you did this to. You applied all of these tips, quickly realizing there was nothing you could do about this whole situation.
You had toyed with the idea of running away after the first night, but the idea was folly. Your uncle was your one friend in King’s Landing; you could not escape him. There was no one to tell, either, for who would believe you over the Hand of the King? It was better to simply go along with his schemes, even though it made you feel dirty and disgusting every time you stumbled back into your rooms, mouth sore and full of his dried seed. He had ordered you to swallow it, all of it, until you could do it without sputtering.
After, he taught you how to pleasure a man with only your hand. This was much easier, and it only took you two nights to master it. You sat between his legs obediently, your small hand moving up and down his cock, eyes glancing up at him to gauge his reaction.
He watched you always with a detached sort of curiosity, like a man observing an experiment. His fingers twitched in his lap every so often, resisting the urge to guide your movements further. Again was the word muttered over and over.
His hand fisted roughly into your hair when you faltered for half a second. The sharp tug pulled at the roots, pain lacing through every nerve ending like salt on an open wound. It was a reminder: this was not about comfort.
He exhaled sharply when those small fingers tightened instinctively around him at the sting. An involuntary reaction, betraying your discomfort. Even now, after days spent enduring worse from him.
The next lesson was different, but no less vulnerable. You did not need to sit in front of him anymore, though your knees had taken on the toll, always bruised and aching now. Instead, he made you stand as he walked around you. “You must learn to undress yourself in a pleasurable way.”
You did as he asked, undoing the laces of your dress with trembling fingers, letting it fall to the floor. Being naked in front of him was a new type of embarrassment, as you had always been fully clothed when working his cock.
He tsked, only touching you to examine you fully, shaking his head.
“You must not tremble.” He made you redress and start from the top. “You have to show them that you want it as much as they do, even if the truth is farthest from it. Like so.”
He demonstrated for you. It was like a show you could not look away from, eyes fixed hungrily on his body. He was a master, you realized, a master at seduction. His pale limbs were moving like silk as he undressed, too effortlessly. Every shift of muscle beneath his alabaster skin was calculated, a lesson in control.
“You are too stiff,” he remarked, circling you once you stood bare again, the gown pooling at your feet like spilled wine. His fingers ghosted over the curve of your shoulder, assessing. “As if you expect to be punished for it.”
A pause; then his hand slid down to grip yours suddenly and yank it between the two of you, pressing your joined palms against the front of his half-hard cock, only a thin sheet of fabric clinging stubbornly to his hips separating you.
“Do you feel that?” The words felt like ice wrapped in velvet. Heat pulsed between you as he leaned in closer, his breath brushing over your ear. “Convince me.”
This skill took longer to master than the last two combined. You swallowed harshly as your hands came back to your gown, forcing yourself to appear at least marginally composed. As if you wanted it. You’d done many things over the past few weeks, tolerated several more, but this felt like the first real betrayal of self. You bit your lip, hard, the metallic taste of blood in your mouth as you looked away from your uncle’s judging, dispassionate gaze.
“I can’t,” you said finally, in a voice barely above a whisper. He made you too nervous.
He gripped your jaw, fingers digging into your soft flesh. He yanked your face upwards, forcing you to meet his gaze. “Do not look away.” He spoke bluntly.
You swallowed once more against his tight hold, the taste of your own blood like metal on your tongue. He waited, watching your expression flicker; the briefest hesitation before you nodded—an acquiescence rather than enthusiasm, but it would be enough for now.
It came to you eventually, simply from doing it over and over again. He was never quite happy with you on this, but eventually he agreed that it was sufficient. Often, he was forced to undress alongside you, making you copy his moves until you could do it so smoothly nobody but him would realize you were only putting on a show. In a way, he was stalling for you. Your next lesson would be a violation different from all the others.
One night, he bid you to lie on the bed, only ordering you to take off your smallclothes, allowing your thin nightgown to stay on. He sat on the edge of the bed next to you. “I do not think you will enjoy this,” he muttered. “But it must be done.”
His hand brushed down your body. You shivered where it passed, swallowing when it paused between your legs. A heavy sort of feeling washed over you. “Do you still have your maidenhead?” He asked, though he knew the answer to the question already.
Your body tensed, betraying the truth before you could even speak.
“Good,” he murmured, though there was nothing good about it. His thumb traced slow circles over your delicate skin, an imitation of tenderness. “This will hurt.” A clinical statement, presented as if he were talking about the weather. “Do not scream.”
His free hand braced against your hip suddenly, anchoring as he positioned himself between your trembling thighs, already slick with involuntary arousal.
Then came pain sharp as a dagger thrust through your ribcage. You took him with a soft whimper, all of your senses overwhelmed. Your nose was assaulted with the scent of him as he leaned over you, caging you in with his arms. Every thrust of his hips evoked another sound from your lips, until the chambers were filled with your moans and gasps, only broken by the wet sound of you meeting at the hips together.
You were tight. Tighter than anything he’d felt before, and a strange sort of light-headedness came over him at the thought of being your first. He was already your first in many things, but this particular one sent a shiver of pleasure down his spine. You fit him perfectly, as if you were made solely for him, his length hitting your inner walls with every thrust.
His breath hitched, just once, as he buried himself to the hilt, his body betraying him with a shudder of something too close to satisfaction.
“Tighter than I expected,” he mused aloud, voice rough as gravel. His hips snapped forward again without warning, no mercy in the rhythm now that you were taking him so well.
Your whimpers were like music, pathetic and sweet, but it was your heat that unraveled him. The way your cunt clung around his cock, begging for more, even as tears fell down your cheeks. He didn’t slow when blood smeared across your pale thighs or when your nails dug half-moons into his back, holding him tightly against you.
Somewhere along the line, this had turned from a lesson into pleasure. Pleasure for you both, as if you were lovers, as if you were man and wife. Not uncle and niece, not man and girl… he told himself he ought to stop being so harsh, switch to slower thrusts, so that he could focus, but you were so warm and pliant underneath him.
His breath came in sharp, controlled bursts. His hips stuttered for half a second before he caught himself, the muscles of his back tensing like bowstrings. This was not part of the lesson, he thought to himself. It wasn’t supposed to feel so good.
But you arched beneath him with another helpless little noise, and suddenly nothing else mattered save for how perfectly you took every inch of him. He hissed. “Do you want me to stop?”
You shook your head weakly, mind clear of everything but him and his body. You weren’t even aware of what he was truly asking you, just that you needed him.
He relented. He could give you this, he thought. It was kinder to do you this service now, and teach you the lesson later. They would start truly tomorrow, but for now, he could give this to you. His hips rolled forward again, deeper; slow and deliberate, savoring the way your body yielded around him.
Your moan curled into something ragged at the edges. Pain or pleasure; he couldn’t tell, nor did he care. Not when you were clenching around him so sweetly…
His hand closed around your throat.
You came around his cock for the first time in their lessons. The orgasm was violent, tearing through your entire body. He continued to thrust into you, seeking his own end, now caring how he overstimulated you. Your cunt fluttered around him, until finally he spilled inside you, coating your tight walls with his seed.
Your uncle’s breathing was harsh and uneven; his grip on your throat tightened to the point of bruising. “Good girl,” he murmured. You shuddered beneath him, still oversensitive and trembling with the aftershocks. He could feel it, every clench around his spent cock.
You gasped softly as he pulled out, thick white seed spilling out of your cunt, joining the blood on your pale thighs, a sign of your stolen innocence. He would have to fetch you moontea in the morning, and every morning after that, for this was not the last time something like this would happen. For now, he only slipped out of the bed, walking towards the bathing room where he had set up a bath in advance, the water still warm. He came back to gaze at you. “Can you walk?” He asked sharply, all previous tenderness gone.
You let out a strangled sound but managed to get to your feet. Cum dripped down your thighs as you joined him on shaking legs. Your nightgown was rumpled and completely stained with sweat, stinking of sex. You pulled it off before stepping into the tub, no longer shy to be naked in front of him as you had once been.
He did not join you in the water, only holding a clean washcloth, kneeling beside the tub.
“Make sure to always relieve yourself after sex,” he muttered as he cleaned your thighs, scrubbing the cloth over your skin with almost punishing force. The water sloshed as you flinched, still sensitive. His movements were clinical, detached.
The cum and blood turned the water pink around your thighs, steam curling between your bodies. He tossed aside the washcloth and handed you a towel. “Dry off,” he demanded.
You did as he bade, hastily. You always did what he commanded, he realized with a sinking feeling. His little slave.
“Can you walk back to your rooms?”
You made a face at the notion, stepping out of the tub. Clean now, but still exhausted. Your thighs were sore, legs trembling. He sighed and guided you back to his bed, quickly throwing away the soiled sheets. “Sleep here for tonight,” he said, softer now. “I’ll have moontea for you in the morning.”
You wanted to ask him if he was going to join you in bed, but something on his face stopped you. Your uncle’s jaw tightened as he watched you hesitate.
“I am not your husband,” he told you.
The sheets rustled as you settled in, but your uncle was already turning towards the door. “Sleep.” It was more a command than permission.
Not my husband, you think. But you still fuck me like one.
You drifted off to sleep easily, waking up to see a cup of tea on the bedside table, just like he’d said. You stared at it for a few seconds before downing it in one go, sliding from the bed. You had no clothes. Your uncle was nowhere to be seen, so you waited in his rooms with nothing else to do, naked. He came back shortly after noon, holding a cream colored dress in his hands. He’d been in your closets.
“Wear this.” He tossed it to you, and you slipped it on without a complaint. He hadn’t bothered to grab you a chemise, or any of your smallclothes, so the silk fabric slid against your body, your bare pussy clenching around nothing.
He went to an open space in the wall and pressed down on a brick. You watched as a small door appeared, brows furrowing in confusion as he turned back to you. “Maegor the Cruel finished the building of the Red Keep, killing all the craftsmen after it was done to hide the truth behind the secret tunnels and passageways,” he said, holding out his hand. You took it, letting him lead you into the tunnel. “They connect all the rooms in the castle.”
Another lesson for you, different from the others.
His fingers tightened around yours as he led you into the shadowed passage—cold stone, damp air, the king of darkness that swallowed all sound whole. “You will use these,” he murmured, his voice low but still echoing against the stone. The secret door clicked shut behind you with a finality that made your breath hitch.
The tunnel sloped downward before branching off like the roots of an ancient tree. He didn’t slow when you stumbled over uneven stone or shivered at the distant echoes of voices from beyond the walls. A hand clamped down on your shoulder, turning you to look at him.
“I wish for you to succeed me,” he said quietly. “You have the greensight, do you not?”
Things quickly clicked into place for you. Oh. You thought. That’s why.
He had taken you in as his apprentice because of your visions, your dreams. You had complained to your mother of them once, and she must have told him. Or he found out a different way—had he watched you in your bed at night as you woke from yet another nightmare? Now that you knew of the tunnels, this idea seemed extremely likely to you.
It all made startling sense. You were not only going to be a spy, but a spymaster, like him. The idea excited you, in a different way than his body did; this was something more traitorous. You wanted to be the one with the power, to be the all-seeing being everybody else was scared of.
You nodded slowly.
Your uncle did not smile, but satisfaction flickered in his crimson eye at your silent assent. His fingers traced down the sharp line of your collarbone—your skin goose-pimpled where he touched. Succession. Power. The two concepts were intertwined now, and you were the thread.
He led you to your chambers, pushing you into the light with a shove. He remained in the shadows. “Come to me when I call upon you.”
You nodded once more, a shiver running down your back. The secret entrance to your rooms was directly across from your bed. Once again, you wondered if he had ever watched you sleep; had watched others sleep, or drink, or fuck.
His eye followed you, taking in the nervous way your hand gripped the cream-colored silk of your dress—the way your hair was rumpled from sleep, the curve of your breasts visible beneath the thin material…
He turned away before his thoughts could stray too far.
He did not call on you for the next week. You had waited very patiently. At first eager, for once, then confused, then irritated. Before, you had joined him in his chambers every evening, and you had dreaded it. Now, you were looking forward to the next time you saw him. You wanted to get away from the sex. You wanted your actual lessons, on spying and watching and creeping.
Despite this, every night you crawled into your bed and let your hand fall between your legs. You touched yourself often now, sometimes more than once a day, growing more and more desperate for your uncle’s fingers and cock.
You hated waiting. You missed him dearly. You wondered if he was watching you, the thought always on your mind as you trailed off to sleep.
Of course he watched you.
Every night, he perched himself in the shadowed passage, silent as a ghost. In the dark, his crimson eye seemed to glow like a cat, watching you with a predator’s patience. He watched you brush your hair, he watched you undress… He watched you fall into bed, shivering at the chill of the sheets as you pulled them close. He watched you toss and turn as sleep evaded you.
He watched your hand slip down to comfort yourself, fingers seeking relief in the dark. His jaw clenched so hard it ached.
It was pathetic.
You were supposed to be learning control—not this feverish, desperate need that made you squirm like some common brothel girl. A week without calling was a test of restraint, and you had failed spectacularly.
Then, on the seventh day, a knock sounded on your door early in the morning. You answered it breathlessly, coming face to face with a page.
“The Hand has requested your presence in his chambers,” the boy said. Your heart quickened.
Finally.
You were about to step out, follow him, before you stopped yourself, turning back to where you knew the secret passageway was. Would he want you to use them? He had shown you them for a reason. “Thank you,” you heard yourself say distantly. “You may go.”
The page left, your doors shutting behind you. You walked over to the wall, fingers pressing hesitantly. The door opened with a soundless click, and you stepped into the shadows. The path to your uncle’s chambers was long and winding, but you remembered most of it. Still, it took you much longer to reach them than before, to the point where you started to suspect that you had gotten lost, until finally, you made it.
He didn’t glance up at you as the door opened, nor when your footsteps echoed through the quiet room. He sat at his writing desk, candlelight throwing shadows across his pale skin and white hair. He took his time, writing out the last of an order before finally setting his quill into his inkpot, turning to face you.
You looked wild, disheveled, and nervous; eyes wide and cheeks flushed, hair a silken mess. He frowned. “Do you know how to take care of yourself?” He asked, quite rudely, pointing you in the direction of his bathing room. “Tidy yourself up.”
You felt quite lost as you stumbled over to his mirror, taking his own brush and taming your hair into something more presentable. You were wearing nothing underneath your gown, expecting him to get straight to the point when you entered. But when you made your way back, he only had you sit at the table across from him.
“We will start with history.”
He pushed a book across the polished wood toward you. The spine cracked open to reveal yellowed parchment covered in dense script. His handwriting. “You will finish this by nightfall.”
The words on the page were brutal in their simplicity—names and dates of betrayals and wars spanning centuries back. This was how it went for the next few weeks. He did not touch you, not even a brush of his fingers against your skin, and you found yourself disconcerted. You did not know what you wanted from him. You wanted him to fuck you, to use you for nothing but his pleasure, but you also wanted the actual lessons of history and politics and war.
You went to bed every night aching. One day, after a particularly brutal lesson where you would’ve preferred to choke on his cock—he could be so mean whenever you remembered the dates wrong—you took a candle from your hearth and shoved it up your cunt. It was thin but long enough to satisfy you, and you went to bed with your sheets crumpled in between your legs, desperately thrusting against the mattress to get yourself off. It did not come close to the fullness you felt when his cock speared into you, but it was enough. You began to walk around with the candle inside you, held in place by tightly tied smallclothes. Every movement would send the candle brushing against your walls. At night, you imagined it was him.
He knew of this, obviously. It was torture. He was starting to go mad. You were driving him mad.
You were standing in front of his desk, weeks after that night, sorting files. He came up behind you, hands gripping your waist tightly. You gasped as he shoved your skirts up and her smallclothes off, fingers digging into your cunt to throw the candle out. You were so wet, no preparation needed before he was guiding his cock into you from behind, bending you over the table like a common whore.
He did not ask, did not warn you. It had been long, too long. You were his, and he needed you. Needed to feel you, all of you.
Your hands grasped blindly across the wooden table for an anchor, face down, finding none. Your cry as he filled you in a stroke almost made his hands shake against your waist. He hated how good it felt. Your body was so tight, so perfect— clenching around him like you’d been made for this, for him. His fingers dug bruises into your hips as he held you in place, forcing himself deeper with every thrust. Papers scattered under your weight, ink smeared across the parchment.
A low groan tore from his throat when your cunt tightened around him. “Fucking—” His voice broke on the curse as pleasure coiled white-hot behind his ribs. He came harder than intended, spilling inside of you until his vision blurred at the edges.
You slept in his chambers that night once more, drank the moontea he gave you the next morning. Every day, he gave you an assignment, and every night, he took you in a new way. On top, from behind, against the wall… You liked to sit in his lap the most, ride him until he couldn’t come anymore. And he finished inside you always, coating your walls with his seed. Always with the tea afterwards, but you went to bed dreaming of your belly, round and swollen with his seed.
He would never allow it. He never even kissed you.
Sometimes you were strong enough to walk back to your chambers, but often you collapsed into his bed, too exhausted. On these nights, he would go elsewhere, leaving you alone in his rooms. But one night, you felt him lie down beside you.
You stilled. His hand crept over your hip, trailing down to your cunt.
This was new.
His fingers traced slow circles over your swollen folds, smearing the wetness that still leaked from their tryst earlier. You were always so ready for him—always clenching around nothing when you weren’t fucking, as if even in sleep you craved the stretch of his cock…
He pressed a finger inside without warning and watched as your hips jerked upwards to meet it. Your eyes fluttered open just enough, feeling the familiar press of his erection against your back. You arched into him. This, too, was different.
Before, he could’ve written everything off as a lesson, no matter how flimsy that argument could be. But this was no lesson. This was only pleasure, and neither of them wanted to stop.
He rolled you onto your back in one swift motion. His body covered yours completely as he hitched one of your legs over his hip, his face inches away from hers, lips so close to touching. You moaned as he slid into you for the second time that night. This, however, was not fucking. It was making love, which grew more evident as you leaned up and caught his mouth with yours.
He allowed you to kiss him—not just on the lips; on his jawline, his chin, his neck. He didn’t move even as your tongue traced an outline of his birthmark on his cheek, possessive and passionate.
Too close, he thought. “This isn’t—”
He pulled away before the words slipped out fully, but not before you could understand the unspoken plea. This isn’t supposed to happen.
You snapped, finally, grabbing his shoulders and pulling him back for a bruising kiss. His mouth parted in surprise, and you slipped your tongue through. “You did this to me,” you hissed in between breaths. “You turned me into your whore.”
He stilled. Your words cut like a blade, sharp enough to make him bleed. He knew you were right, but he couldn’t admit it. Wouldn’t.
His hand tangled roughly in your hair to wrench you back, hard. Your eyes widened in pain and pleasure. “You wanted this,” he lied.
“No, I didn’t,” you said, and your eyes shone with tears. “You raped me. I’m nothing but your… your slave now, conditioned to bend over whenever you want me.” Your grip on his shoulders tightened. “You’re supposed to be my uncle, but you spill your seed inside me every night.”
He captured your lips in a furious kiss as if he could swallow you whole. “Stop,” he demanded. “Stop talking.”
You whimpered at the command, and he bit down on your bottom lip, only pulling back to nose against your neck, pressing soft kisses along your jaw. Finding a particularly sensitive part of your skin, he bit down gently—not to the point of drawing blood. A bruise formed there almost immediately, the indents of his teeth marking you as his. “You’re mine,” he said, his hips rolling into yours.
His mouth pressed deeper against the mark before he soothed it with a slow drag of his tongue. “Mine,” he repeated once more. Softer now but no less certain, as if testing the word on his own lips after weeks of pretending otherwise.
Your cunt clenched around him in response; hot and wet and too much. His hands skimmed over your sides and settled over your breasts, cupping them gently, a thumb skimming over your nipple. They had grown in the time they spent together, fuller and heavier than before. You were still a growing girl, and it was only a small difference, but noticeable when he spent every night examining your naked body. They bounced with every thrust of his hips.
His fingers pinched a nipple, and he leaned down to whisper in her ear, breath ragged. “Sweet girl. Do you like it?” You nodded, your face flushed. You were almost delirious with desire, your entire body feverish.
“I love it,” you cried. “Please don’t stop, I’ll be good, I swear, just don’t stop.”
He laughed, sharp and humorless, his thumb pressing down on your swollen nipple. His hips snapped forward once more. A candle flickered out nearby, but neither of you noticed.
You passed out almost immediately after finishing, exhausted, and he did too. You woke late the next morning to find him still inside you, and you spent the entire day fucking each other. In the bed, against the desk, even in the bath. The lust felt insatiable, even when you were both tired, out of breath; all it took was one look at each other to come back together. He made you come three different times just from his mouth, making you stand as he knelt before you, his tongue pressed against your clit. It was growing dark once more when, finally, finally, the energy seemed to run out. You lay intertwined on the bed, with his head against your chest, panting in unison.
He listened to the frantic rhythm of your heartbeat under his ear. He was spent. Your fingers brushed through his hair, candlelight flickering across your sweaty skin and stained sheets. “Uncle,” you murmured sleepily.
His jaw tightened at the word. “Do not call me that.”
“Ok,” you muttered. “Brynden, then.”
The name hung heavy in the air. It was the first time you had thought of him as such, but it felt right to call him that. You felt more like a lover now, less like a whore.
Brynden is quiet for a few moments, the silence broken only by your joined breaths. Your chest was warm beneath him, rising and falling with a pattern he found soothing.
“Go to sleep.” But he didn’t move an inch and remained pressed against you.
You closed your eyes, your fingers still tangling absently in his hair. He listened to your breathing even out, and the thought occurred to him that it was the most peaceful he had felt in a long, long time. He pushed it away before it could take root. There was no room for sentiment here, no room at all. He was your mentor, your teacher. Nothing more.
He could still get up. He should get up, but instead he stayed there with you, listening to the steady beat of your heart, pretending. Just for a few moments, just for as long as he could before it all came crashing down. A little longer…
if u know me irl no u dont no i dont wanna talk abt it yes there will be more ok bye
It's a fanfic writing event, featuring the incomparable narrative talent of Your OC. The Akatsuki is also here.
Your challenge, if you choose to accept it, is to complete and post a fic of at least 1,000 words and no more than 10,000 words, focused on the Akatsuki and your own original character.
The goal is to make a day of short, fun Akatsuki-and-OC fics.
WHEN IS IT?
The 27th of April 2026.
WHERE DO WE POST?
You post your fic to the akatsuki_oc collection on AO3 on the 27th of April 2026. The collection is currently closed and unrevealed. It will be opened on the 22nd and revealed after the 27th.
If you want to cross post or promote on tumblr, tag @akatsuki-oc-fic-challenge and your fanwork will get reblogged here after the reveal date. It'll be queued on a first-come-best-dressed basis after reveals.
If you make a promo post on tumblr, please put anything NSFW beneath a cut.
WHAT DO WE NEED TO DO?
Okay. So. The plan is thus:
We make or dust off an original character. Turn them upside down. Inspect them for damage. Rotate them.
You write your fic. (I also write my fic.)
We post our fics to the akatsuki_oc collection on AO3 on or before the 27th of April 2026.
We rub our little hands together like greedy flies as I reveal the collection in the early hours of the 28th of April.
We receive a modest number of exciting Akatsuki-and-OC fics to read?
Profit...! (ノ◕ヮ◕)ノ*.✧
Read on for more details:
--
WHAT COUNTS AN AKATSUKI-OC FIC?
The following are the basic requirements, which have been carefully crafted and presided over by a panel of experts:
The fic must be between 1,000 words and 10,000 words.
The fic must be complete and stand alone.
The fic must feature a named Original Character (OC).
The focus must be on the OC and their interactions with the Akatsuki.
The fic must be about the Akatsuki member(s) when they were actually Akatsuki members. No eliding the Akatsuki from the Akatsuki-OC fic event, okay?
--
Have more questions? I didn't want to overwhelm you, but you can check out the infrequently asked questions post here.