of The Watchers of Quiet Things
words: 8,679
CHAPTER I
okay I know I wrote a lot but I couldn't help ittt it helped me after watching episode 5 Baelor my dark-haired Targaryen... okay no spoilers I hope you enjoy reading this as much I enjoyed writing it
🌿🐉 🌿🐉🌿🐉 🌿🐉🌿🐉 🌿🐉🌿🐉 🌿🐉🌿🐉 🌿🐉🌿
Saelthira woke before the light reached her eyes.
For a few seconds she did not move. She lay still, staring at the pale canopy above her bed, waiting for the dream to fade the way dreams always did quickly, almost apologetically, dissolving when the mind reached for them.
It remained the way a sound remains in the ear after a bell stops ringing.
She turned onto her side.
Her hand was still half-raised, fingers curled as if she had meant to catch something and failed. A dull ache lingered in her palm. She flexed it once, then again.
“…I hate that,” she muttered quietly to no one.
The chamber was warm. The mountain always held warmth at night, but today the air felt occupied like entering a room where someone had just left moments before you arrived.
Normally, morning began gently: birds along the upper terraces, water running through the inner channels, servants whispering beyond the carved screens because they thought she slept deeply.
Today the birds were silent.
That unsettled her more than the dream.
Saelthira pushed her feet onto the floor.
The instant her skin touched the stone, she inhaled sharply.
The sensation passed, but not entirely. Like standing in shallow water where a current moves around your ankles even after you step away.
She stayed there a moment longer than she intended.
“…You felt it too,” she said under her breath, unsure whether she meant the stone or herself.
“He’s real,” she whispered and immediately wished she hadn’t said it aloud.
Real meant direction.
Real meant consequence.
Real meant the dream would not remain hers alone.
For the first time since childhood, she wanted the stones to be wrong.
No answer came but she had not expected one. The mountain rarely spoke plainly.
She dressed without calling anyone. The laces resisted her fingers; she had to redo them twice before they lay flat. Irritating. She usually did things correctly the first time.
Her thoughts would not stay still long enough.
The corridor outside her chamber curved gently downward, grown rather than built. Pale crystal threaded the walls, catching the early light. Normally she liked mornings here the quiet belonged to her, before court and expectation claimed it.
Today the quiet watched back.
Halfway to the terrace, she paused, resting her fingertips against the wall.
“Show me,” she whispered.
Saelthira withdrew her hand quickly, more unsettled by the absence of response than refusal. The stone did not ignore her. It never had.
The forest below should have been moving with dawn.
Instead mist clung low between the roots, thin and unmoving like breath held too long. Even the small silver-backed runners that nested near the steps remained perched along the branches, alert but not afraid.
She followed their gaze instinctively.
“You’re staring very hard at emptiness,” said a familiar voice behind her.
She exhaled not relief, but grounding before turning.
Vaelron stood in the doorway, already dressed, and already composed. He must have been awake for some time. He often was.
“Avēr ,you woke early,” she said. father
“Lýthara I didn’t sleep,” he answered simply. My light
That made her shoulders tighten.
Neither asked what it was. Naming would have made it smaller, and neither believed it small.
She leaned on the stone railing beside him. For a moment they stood without speaking, looking toward a horizon hidden by mountains.
“It wasn’t a vision,” she said eventually. “I tried to leave it. I couldn’t.”
Vaelron glanced at her hands. “You’re shaking.”
She curled her fingers inward. “It felt…” She searched for the word and failed twice before settling. “Mutual.”
That was worse than invasion. Worse than magic.
Vaelron’s jaw tightened slightly the only sign the word struck him.
“Then why are you afraid?”
“…Because it wasn’t afraid either”
🌿🐉 🌿🐉🌿🐉 🌿🐉🌿🐉 🌿🐉🌿🐉 🌿🐉🌿🐉 🌿🐉🌿🐉
They walked toward the inner sanctum.
The deeper passages were cooler. Here the mountain listened more closely, old places where their ancestors first learned the language of stone instead of shaping it.
She used to run here as a child. Now her steps have slowed without meaning to.
“Do you remember,” she said suddenly, “when I tried to speak to the roots beneath the southern terrace and frightened half the keep?”
Vaelron almost smiled. “You apologized to the tree for an hour.”
“It had reason,” she said defensively “This felt nothing like that.”
At the heart chamber the bondstones stood in their circle of pale pillars rising toward the ceiling like trunks of a petrified forest.
Saelthira approached slowly. Her heartbeat was louder here, she could hear it in her ears.
“Careful,” Vaelron said, softer than before.
She placed her hand against the nearest pillar.
Cold water under black sky
Stillness stretching too far
Someone standing alone, refusing to look away.
Not hers, at least or that's what she thought
She pulled back sharply, breath catching. The chamber spun for half a second before steadying.
“He’s real,” she whispered.
Vaelron watched her carefully. “You saw him?”
“He didn’t know I was there..” she said. “…but part of him did.”
Silence pressed between them.
She shook her head faintly. “Farther than distance should allow.”
The stones hummed uncertain, questioning.
Saelthira rested her forehead briefly against the pillar, eyes closed.
“I think he’s trying not to follow it,” she murmured. “Whatever this is.”
Vaelron’s voice was very quiet.
A faint tremor passed through the chamber, like a chord resolving. High above, wings shifted in the canopy.
At last, Vaelron turned away.
Saelthira looked once more at the stone, then at her still unsteady hand.
“…hm” she agreed softly but her fingers tightened in her sleeves where he could not see.
Waiting had always been safety in Aelthrys.
Waiting meant the world came to them.
This felt like waiting before a door opened that had never existed yesterday. But she knew she would not sleep easily again. And somewhere she felt it with strange certainty neither would he.
🌿🐉 🌿🐉🌿🐉 🌿🐉🌿🐉 🌿🐉🌿🐉 🌿🐉🌿🐉 🌿🐉🌿🐉
The western ship arrived beneath a pale morning. Its banners red dragons coiled on black fluttered faintly in the mist, marking it unmistakably as a vessel of House Targaryen. Mist clung low over the water, not drifting but resting, pooled between the black glass outcrops that guarded the approach to Aelthrys. The sea did not crash here. It breathed. Long, slow inhales against the stone terraces carved by centuries of tide rather than tools.
From above, the vessel seemed to hesitate at every current break, its sails tightening where local boats would have loosened. The helmsman corrected constantly. The water corrected back.
Along the cliff paths, pale grasses bent all in one direction, then another, as if following a pattern older than wind. The long-necked gliders resting on the high spires lifted their heads in sequence, one after another, tracking the foreign shape without taking flight.
But nothing ignored it either.
Vaelron watched from the high arch of the upper sanctum.
He did not lean forward. Aelthrys rulers were taught young, distance gave clearer truth than proximity. Still, his fingers rested lightly against the warm stone column beside him, feeling the faint internal vibration carried up from the surf chambers far below.
Someone approached behind him.
He knew who before she spoke.
Saelthira never announced herself.
“You woke early,” he said, “and you did not sleep.”
She stepped beside him. Their shoulders did not touch, but the space between them held familiarity the quiet awareness of two people who had spent years listening to the same silences.
Below, the foreign ship dropped anchor.
The sound metal against the stone-weighted chain rang sharply across the water.
Saelthira flinched slightly.
“They force their arrival,” she murmured.
“They must,” Vaelron said gently. “Their world answers force more easily than patience.”
“You felt it before the sails?”
She pressed her fingertips against the column. “The currents moved against themselves before dawn.”
He nodded once. That confirmed what he had sensed in the stone hours earlier a disturbance that did not come from the weather.
The letter reached them near midday.
Foreign intent always seemed heavier.
The messenger bowed, then withdrew quickly, as though the parchment itself listened.
Vaelron turned it slowly. The wax seal caught sunlight filtering through crystal veins in the ceiling, scattering red light across the floor in fractured reflections.
Saelthira watched the reflections instead of the seal.
“Deliberately,” Vaelron replied. “They made a symbol meant to travel farther than a voice.”
He did not read aloud immediately.
He read once for meaning.
By the third line he exhaled, not tension, recognition. A ruler who did not entirely trust his own strength anymore. That was rarer than power.
Saelthira waited. She never rushed words from him, as a child she learned he spoke fastest when allowed silence first.
When he finished, he handed it to her without comment.
Their fingers brushed brief, ordinary yet he felt the small shift in her pulse. The same one she had when storms formed beyond sight.
To Vaelron of House Aelthrys,
From Daeron of House Targaryen,
It has come to our attention, through sailors, merchants, and records older than some of our keeps, that your people endure beyond the eastern waters in stability rare in this age.
The world grows narrower than in former centuries. Distance no longer guarantees silence, nor difference of conflict. Where knowledge exists yet remains unspoken, misjudgment often follows. It is the desire of the Iron Throne that such misjudgment never arises between our realms.
We therefore write not in demand, nor warning, but introduction. There are houses that endure because they do not seek to be known And there are times when endurance itself becomes a form of strength the world must reckon with.
The histories of my House teach the cost of isolation as well as the danger of a careless alliance. Power that stands alone invites challenge; power that binds wisely preserves peace. The years following the passing of dragons have impressed this truth upon Westeros with particular clarity.
It is my wish that understanding a preceding rumor between us.
To that end, I propose an exchange of envoys, knowledge, and custom, that each realm may learn the nature of the other without presumption. Should goodwill be found between our houses, it would not be unwelcome to consider a stronger bond in time, one made not merely by word, but by blood, as has long secured peace among kingdoms and of paths that might be walked together should mutual regard to allow it.
No such matter is demanded nor assumed. It is spoken only in foresight, not expectation.
You may accept, refuse, or alter this proposal freely. The Iron Throne will regard an honest answer as the foundation of honest relations.
I place my faith in my grandson, Prince Valarr Targaryen, whose presence I offer not as demand, but as measure.
May this letter reach you in the spirit in which it is sent: not as a summon, but as an offered hand extended across distance before distance becomes division.
Written and sealed in the Red Keep at King’s Landing,
The wind threaded through the arches, lifting a strand of her hair across the parchment. She did not move it aside.
Halfway down, she stilled.
He watched her eyes, not the words. They focused somewhere beyond the ink.
“You know this already,” he said softly.
Her throat tightened before she answered.
“i..wasn't entirely sure..”
The parchment lowered slowly in her hands.
“He wrote this carefully...” she said, though she had not meant to speak.
Not a supplicant’s either.
Someone preparing for a future neither side could step back from once begun.
She folded the letter once and then stopped halfway.
“If we answer,” she murmured, “we will never be distant again.”
Vaelron did not correct her. He just watched her.
🌿🐉 🌿🐉🌿🐉 🌿🐉🌿🐉 🌿🐉🌿🐉 🌿🐉🌿🐉 🌿🐉🌿🐉
They moved to the open terrace.
Below them the terraces descended in wide crescent layers, gardens woven between pale stone channels where fresh water traveled toward the sea. Lantern glass chimed faintly where it hung beneath archways, touched by the breeze. Farther down, the western visitors stood contained within a receiving court, watched by wardens who pretended to study the horizon instead.
Saelthira leaned her forearms lightly on the railing.
“I have seen him standing where there is no sky,” she said quietly.
Vaelron did not react outwardly. Only shifted half a step closer grounding, the way he had when she first learned to walk the high paths.
“Water that reflects nothing,” she said. “And trees that notice.”
“He does not reach for anything. He waits… as if afraid the world will break if he chooses wrong.”
Vaelron’s gaze drifted west across the endless line of the sea.
“Then he carries weight too early.”
“He is not frightened,” she added.
For a while they watched the same horizon.
Gulls wheeled far below. A fishing skiff passed between tide pillars, its pilot raising a hand toward the sanctum in unconscious greeting before realizing the ruler himself stood above and quickly bowing instead. Vaelron returned the gesture with equal simplicity.
Saelthira smiled faintly.
“You always answer them.”
“They always speak honestly,” he said
She folded the letter again, slower this time
“so, they want connection,” she said
“They want permanence” Vaelron corrected gently.
He rested his hand over hers on the railing rare in public spaces, but there were no witnesses near enough to matter.
“We want balance,” he said.
“And balance sometimes asks us to stand where we would rather remain apart.”
Her breath wavered the smallest sign of youth breaking through composure.
“You are thinking as ruler.”
He squeezed her hand once.
“I am trying not to think as father.”
She leaned her head briefly against his shoulder, something she had not done in years and only realized after she had already done it.
For a moment, he did not move.
Then his hand rested lightly over her hair, the same way it had when storms frightened her as a child though neither of them pretended this was fear.
They stood like that only a few breaths before she straightened again.
Neither acknowledged it.
Both needed it.
The sea darkened as clouds passed overhead.
Saelthira looked down at the foreign men on a ship again.
Vaelron considered the terraces, the gardens, the ancient stone warmed by centuries of presence.
“Nothing changes what listens to itself.”
“But they will change you”
She did not look away from the horizon.
“I already feel it,” she admitted.
Below them waves moved through the black glass pillars in slow rhythm, and for the first time the sound did not end at the cliffs.
And both of them heard it.
The Deep Hall lay beneath the visible sanctum.
Few outsiders knew it existed. Even within Aelthrys, only those who had crossed into adulthood through the Listening Rite were permitted beyond its threshold.
The air there was cooler, dampened by underground water channels that ran beneath translucent stone. Light did not fall from above, it rose faintly from the floor itself, pale veins glowing like memory half-awake.
Saelthira descended alone.
The guards at the upper arch did not stop her. They bowed, not formally, but in quiet acknowledgment. She did not return it as heir.
She returned it as one of them and smiled.
The Elders did not sit in a circle as foreign legends might imagine.
Some leaned against pillars. One tended a low basin of clear water where tiny luminescent creatures drifted slowly. Another adjusted hanging chimes carved from hollow crystal roots. They spoke softly among themselves, conversation like wind through narrow passages overlapping, never competing.
They felt her before they saw her.
Old eyes turned, not surprised.
“She comes troubled,” murmured Elder Maeryn, her hair silver but her posture straight as a drawn bow.
“She comes changed,” corrected Elder Tharion.
Saelthira paused at the center of the chamber, letting herself sink onto the edge of a low stone bench, worn smoothly by generations of hands. The cold pressed against her legs, but she welcomed it, clinging to something solid while her mind still trembled from the dream.
“I dreamed,” she said simply, her voice almost a whisper, fragile yet heavy with the weight of what she could not fully name. Her fingers fidgeted at the hem of her sleeves, twisting and untwisting the fabric as though the motion could wring clarity from memory.
Elder Maeryn stepped closer, his gaze soft but steady, carrying an unspoken patience that felt like an embrace without touch. “Sit lightly, child,” he murmured. “Do not let the stone—or your own heart—overwhelm you. Dreams are loudest when we try to chase them away.”
Saelthira exhaled shakily, the air trembling from her chest as though the dream still pressed against it. Her shoulders sagged, just a fraction, and her eyes, wide and searching, betrayed the awe and fear that her words alone could not hold.
“It feels… real,” she admitted quietly, voice cracking at the end, “as if it is waiting for me.”
Maeryn inclined his head, not in judgment, but with a silent understanding. He let her sit there a heartbeat longer, letting the tremor in her hands and the quiver in her voice be enough to show the depth of what she carried.
“I saw water that was not ours,” she continued. “Black, at first glance reflective but if you looked closely, it reflects nothing and the trees... that did not bend.”
She closed her eyes. “…And someone was there. Not looking at me at first. Not moving toward me… . But I could feel him reaching, as if trying to touch me across the distance.”
Elder Tharion’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Reaching?”
“Yes,” Saelthira said, shivering. “I could feel the intention, the effort. And then…” She swallowed. “…then the world snapped awake. The moment he touched or tried to… we woke.”
A hush fell. Even the faint hum of the stone seemed to still.
Maeryn’s voice was gentle. “Recognition, then. The stone cannot lie, child. He tried, and the mountain answered but the waking world did not allow it.”
“And the figure?” Tharion asked, precise, careful.
“He… exists, and i think i know who he might be” Saelthira whispered. “Far beyond what we can measure. And yet… part of him brushed against me. Only part, not fully, not enough. And then it was gone.”
A long silence followed, heavy with unspoken meaning.
Elder Tharion stepped closer, studying her face with an intensity that was never intrusive, only precise.
“Did the mountain recoil?” He asked.
“You know the Song of the Third Echo,” Maeryn said finally.
Saelthira stiffened slightly. That was not a tale told lightly.
“It is a fragment,” she said carefully. “Not a full prophecy.”
“No prophecy is full,” Tharion replied. “They are warnings written as riddles, so we do not become obedient to them.”
When stone hears fire across water,
When silence answers flame,
Two lines divided by forgetting
Will remember what they were before they burned.
The chamber seemed to tighten around the words.
Saelthira’s pulse quickened.
“That speaks of the union,” she said.
“It speaks of return,” Tharion corrected.
“Return to what? Of what?” She asked.
Neither elder answered immediately.
Because prophecy in Aelthrys was not prediction.
“You were born the year the bondstones shifted,” Maeryn said quietly.
Saelthira’s gaze flicked upward.
“I was told it was seismic.”
“You were told what children are told,” Tharion replied gently.
“We think,” Maeryn said carefully, “that the stone has not stirred without reason in three generations.”
A weight settled in her chest, not fear but expectation.
He entered without an announcement.
The Elders inclined their heads not in deference to a king, but to a man who had once sat where Saelthira now stood.
“You told her nothing,” Maeryn said calmly.
“I told her what she was ready to carry,” Vaelron answered.
“There is more” There was no accusation in her voice. Only clarity.
He studied her for a long moment, then nodded.
“When the dragons of the west fell silent,” Vaelron said, “our stone pulsed once... Briefly. Then it quieted again.”
Saelthira’s breath caught.
“Now the pulse did not fade.”
The chamber’s faint glow seemed brighter suddenly or perhaps her vision sharpened.
“The king writes of blood,” she said slowly.
“And the prophecy speaks of fire and stone remembering.”
Finally, she asked what had been forming in her mind since dawn.
Vaelron’s expression softened With pride, love, and steadiness
“When the time comes,” he said gently, “you will not be leaving”
“You will be expanding the boundary.”
He squeezed her hand lightly, the smallest touch yet full of certainty. “And you will do it with all that you are ready to carry.”
The Elders did not smile.
They simply watched her absorb it.
Because in Aelthrys, destiny was not declared.
Above them, far above stone and prophecy, the western ship waited at anchor. And across the sea, the prince was consumed by her, thinking of his dream.
Saelthira sat at the edge of the inner terrace, the wind tugging gently at her hair. Vaelron stood nearby, silent, his fingers tracing the carved stone of the railing absentmindedly. The letter from King Daeron still lay folded between them a thread of possibility and obligation.
“We must answer,” Vaelron said finally, voice low. “But… when?”
Saelthira exhaled slowly, turning her gaze to the endless water below. The cliffs seemed to lean toward her, sharp and ancient, yet softened by mist. “If I go too soon, I risk being unprepared. Too late, and… I may have lost the chance to meet him on equal footing.”
He nodded, understanding more than she said. “Timing matters. The stone teaches patience, but life beyond these cliffs… it does not wait it's fast...too fast”
Her fingers traced the edge of the parchment, feeling the weight of history, duty, and something more fragile connection. “I keep thinking of him,” she said, voice barely audible. “I felt him, reaching across the distance. And then… he vanished. He feels...i don't know...”
Vaelron stepped closer but did not take her hand not yet. He rested a quiet presence beside her instead, a tether she could lean on if the moment swayed her. “The bondstones do not lie,” he said. “If the stone stirred for you today, it is not a sign to rush, nor to delay unnecessarily. It is a signal to prepare not just your body, but your mind. Time comes and everything will be known n Lýthara, do not tire yourself with thought when you can wait for the truth comes to you” my light
She nodded slowly, biting her lip as she considered her words. “Then we write back carefully. Not a promise. Not summons. Just the truth of our readiness… and the truth of our caution.”
Vaelron leaned over her shoulder, eyes following the quill as it hovered. “Careful words, precise,” he murmured. “You write as yourself, but you write for your people too. And for him, in some small way. Let him feel you without burdening him with your entire storm.”
She swallowed, glancing at the cliffs below. The wind tugged at the edges of her robes and hair, carrying whispers of the past of bondstones pulsing in silent approval, of elders’ voices lingering like echoes in the walls. She dipped the quill, feeling Vaelron’s gaze, steady and patient, a grounding presence.
Her hand paused, looked at him “How much should I reveal?”
“Enough for him to know you saw him,” Vaelron said, voice low, careful. “Enough to know you felt him. And that you honor the distance. The rest… will unfold in its own time.”
Her quill touched the parchment, ink spilling slowly, deliberately:
To the Prince across the sea…
I have felt your presence, though distance claims it. We write not as summons, nor as challenge, but as acknowledgment of the bond that stirs beyond our sight…
Vaelron rested a hand near hers, palm hovering just above the stone, an anchor without touching. “Pause here,” he said softly. “Let him feel your words, but not the entirety of your fear or hope. That comes later when the moment is right. Let him reach for it himself.”
She nodded. The quill dipped again, carrying measured honesty into the pale ink. She found herself thinking of the figure she had seen, standing where there was no sky, careful, weighty, aware.
Vaelron watched silently, then leaned just slightly closer, murmuring as if to himself and her both “Every letter we send into the world carries our voice, but also our caution. The cliffs have ears, the wind has memory. Trust them trust yourself.”
Saelthira’s hand moved more confidently now, words forming in rhythm with her breath, with the sway of the cliffs, with the pulse of the stones beneath them. The bondstones hummed faintly somewhere far below, a quiet approval she felt more than heard.
The wind shifted. The cliffs seemed to lean closer, listening. And somewhere far beyond, a prince lifted his head toward the waves, sensing without knowing waiting for the letter that had not yet arrived.
Vaelron finally exhaled, letting his presence relax beside her. “Good,” he said simply. “It is your voice. And that is enough for now.”
Saelthira paused, glancing at him, a faint smile brushing her lips. “Thank you, Avēr” father, She whispered. Not for instruction, but for being there, a steady weight in the silence between words.
He inclined his head slightly, saying nothing, letting the wind and the cliffs and the distance itself carry what could not yet be spoken.
The quill hovered over another sheet of parchment, heavier now with the weight of diplomacy rather than curiosity. Vaelron’s fingers flexed against the smooth stone of the table, eyes scanning the words he had begun to shape.
Saelthira lingered nearby, leaning against the railing of the inner terrace, hair spilling across her shoulder in the light. “You write differently when it is for a king,” she said softly, voice barely carrying over the quiet wind.
Vaelron didn’t look up immediately. “I write carefully. I write for clarity, for trust, and to avoid misunderstanding. You write for the heart, for truth even if it trembles.”
She smiled faintly, watching his hand steady the parchment. “You make it sound like my letter is reckless.”
“Not reckless,” he said finally, glancing at her with a corner of his mouth twitching. “Brave. Honest. That is more dangerous than any sword.”
Saelthira moved closer, lowering herself to sit on the edge of the terrace beside him, feet dangling over the carved stone. Her shadow fell across the table, brushing against the parchment. “May I?” She asked, gesturing to the sheet.
Vaelron inclined his head. “Only if your words weigh lightly.”
Her fingers hovered above the page, then she traced a small pattern in the margin, not ink but a faint scratch of curiosity. He leaned over, watching, and instead of scolding, he smiled, faint and almost hidden. “Even this,” he said, “speaks more than many carefully chosen sentences. It says you notice the small things.”
For a moment, they were not ruler and heir, not mentor and ward, but father and daughter sharing space, their hands almost brushing as the quill moved from Vaelron’s grip to hers, testing phrasing, measuring tone.
“‘To His Grace, King Daeron…’” she read aloud, voice soft, uncertain. “Should it be formal… or measured warmth? He didn't used the titles in his letter”
“Both,” Vaelron replied. “Formality shows respect they use titles for us titles mean nothing, respect is enough and he knew that. Warmth shows intention. The king must know we are capable of diplomacy, and also aware of the distance between us that words alone cannot cross.”
She watched him bend over the parchment, the line of his jaw set, yet relaxed in a way she recognized a man at ease with thought, careful but not afraid. “You are teaching me,” she said quietly, almost to herself.
“I am reminding you,” he corrected gently, “that words carry weight. And that you are not alone in sending them.”
Her gaze softened. “Even when the weight feels… too much?”
He lifted his eyes briefly, meeting hers. “Especially then.”
A quiet laugh escaped her lips, startled at the seriousness of the moment mingled with their closeness. Vaelron’s lips twitched in acknowledgment. “Yes,” he said. “Even then. Sometimes the right words are found only beside someone who knows when to be silent.”
She dipped the quill into ink and began to copy a formal line he had drafted. As the letters formed under her careful hand, Vaelron read aloud slowly, testing the cadence:
We have received your message with respect, and extend our acknowledgment of your intent to understand our realm. We reply not with demands, but with clarity, that trust may be built upon honesty…
Her eyes lifted to meet his. “We?” she asked softly, a faint smile teasing her lips.
He nodded, as if passing an invisible torch. “We, because though I write, the voice is ours. Not just mine, not just yours. It is ours together, as it will be for any who cross the seas toward us.”
The wind shifted, tugging at loose strands of hair and carrying the faint brine of the ocean. Saelthira’s fingers lingered near his, hovering, before she withdrew them, letting the quill finish the line.
“I like this,” she murmured. “Even the weight feels… shared.”
Vaelron inclined his head, almost imperceptibly. “That is the point.”
They spent hours like this, drafting and redrafting, pausing often for small questions, for clarifications, for fleeting laughter when a phrase felt too stiff or a word too sharp. In the quiet, the cliffs and the bondstones seemed to lean closer, listening, approving.
By the time the letter was ready, the sun had shifted, painting the terrace in pale gold. Saelthira rose from the edge, brushing her hair from her face. “It feels… right,” she said. “Not perfect, but honest.”
Vaelron allowed himself a rare, full smile. “That is all a king or prince can ever truly hope for.”
She looked at him, her own expression softened with relief and something like admiration. “And we did it together,” she whispered.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “Together”
Above the cliffs, the sea stretched endlessly and waited. And somewhere, far beyond the horizon, both letters one filled with cautious honesty. The other with careful courage were destined to meet the eyes of those who waited.
The messenger waited at the edge of the receiving court, hands resting over the leather case that had once carried the royal seal. The black-glass tide pillars fractured the morning light across the terraces, and below them his ship rocked gently not anchored so much as tolerated by the water.
When Vaelron and Saelthira descended the steps, the man straightened immediately.
“Your Grace, Princess” he said, bowing deeply.
They paused a few paces from him.
Vaelron inclined his head in greeting. Nothing more formal than one would give an equal met on a road. “You remained aboard your vessel.”
The messenger hesitated, then spoke carefully.
“My apologies, Your Grace. I feared it discourteous to anchor or step further inland without leave. His Grace, King Daeron, instructed that I remain with the ship until you delivered your answer. I was not to presume welcome.”
Saelthira exchanged a brief glance with Vaelron not offense but understanding. A man trained in another world’s rules.
“The sea does not take offense easily here,” she said gently. “But we understand caution.”
Vaelron’s expression softened a fraction. “You obeyed your king well. There is no insult in patience.”
Some tension left the messenger’s shoulders.
Vaelron extended the first letter. The wax caught the light, pale rather than bright.
The messenger accepted it with both hands.Then Saelthira held out the second sealed parchment. Her fingers lingered on it only a heartbeat longer than the first.
“And this?” the messenger asked.
Vaelron answered before she could.
“Your king will know for whom it is meant.”
The man nodded once not curious enough to offend, but aware this was deliberate. He placed both letters carefully into the case as though they weighed more than parchment.
“The ship is prepared to depart immediately.”
For a moment none of them moved. Wind traced along the terraces, stirring the hanging glass chimes into soft, uneven music.
Saelthira rested her hand against the warm stone railing beside her. “It feels different now,” she murmured.
Vaelron glanced at her rather than the ship. “Because now it moves in both directions.”
The messenger bowed again. “You will have kings reply as swiftly as winds allow.”
Vaelron gave a small nod. “Travel safely.”
They watched him descend toward the water. Only when he stepped onto the deck did the sails finally take the wind cleanly, as if permission had been granted at last.
Saelthira exhaled slowly.
Vaelron folded his hands behind his back, gazing steadily on the horizon. “And he will choose what to do with what he feels.”
She glanced sideways at him. “You say that as if it matters more than politics.”
“It does,” he said quietly. “Politics decides meetings. Choice decides history.”
The ship turned westward, and the sound of the sea settled again unchanged, yet no longer entirely the same.
🌿🐉 🌿🐉🌿🐉 🌿🐉🌿🐉 🌿🐉🌿🐉 🌿🐉🌿🐉 🌿🐉🌿🐉
The king’s solar was quiet, the noise of King’s Landing dulled behind thick stone walls. Late light filtered through tall, narrow windows, striping the chamber in gold and shadow.
King Daeron II Targaryen stood beside the table, He preferred to read important letters on his feet as though the weight of them required balance.
Across from him stood Prince Baelor Breakspear, arms folded loosely, composed and observant.
Prince Valarr Targaryen lingered nearer the window, outwardly calm, though his gaze kept drifting toward the sea barely visible in the distance.
The messenger had been dismissed. Only three of them remained.
Two letters lay on the table.
Daeron broke Vaelron’s seal first.
The parchment unfolded with a soft, deliberate sound. The king read in silence. Baelor watched him carefully, measuring not the words but the pauses between them.
Valarr did not move, but he listened to every shift of breath.
After a long moment, Daeron set the parchment down.
“They are disciplined,” he said at last.
Baelor tilted his head slightly. “In what sense?”
“They neither reject nor yield. They acknowledge our approach. They will not be rushed.” His fingers tapped once against the table. “They choose their timing.”
Baelor nodded slowly. “That suggests stability. Not fear.”
“Or confidence,” Daeron replied.
His eyes moved to the second letter.
The seal was different. Simpler. Personal.
Instead, he turned it in his hand once, studying the unfamiliar sigil.
“This one,” he said calmly, “is not meant for me.”
Daeron turned the letter over once in his fingers.
Then he extended it sideways without looking.
Then he looked at his grandson.
His hand did not tremble when he took it.
But Baelor saw the tightening in his jaw.
Daeron returned to the chair, settling back with controlled calm. “Read it.”
It was not a command heavy with authority more like curious and interested.
Valarr broke the seal; the sound seemed louder in the quiet chamber. Something in his posture shifted barely perceptible, but undeniable. He unfolded the parchment slowly. A faint scent of flowers rose from it, delicate and unexpected. The handwriting was unfamiliar, flowing, deliberate, not ornate, but intentional. He read the first lines silently. Something in that letter felt familiar to him.
Something changed in his face.
Baelor noticed it immediately.
“You felt it too,” valarr whispered it like his mysterious girl from dreams was with him and talking to her
Valarr did not look up. He continued to read.
i have felt your presence, though distance claims it…
His throat tightened almost imperceptibly.
Daeron observed him carefully from above. “Well?”
Valarr finally lifted his gaze.
“She does not promise to come,” he said evenly. “But she does not deny the bond.”
Baelor exhaled softly, folding his hands behind his back. “That may be more powerful than a promise.”
Valarr lowered his eyes to the parchment again, reading the lines a second time slower now, absorbing what lay between the words.
“S0, she writes like her father, carefully,” Daeron said.
“Yes,” Valarr answered. “But not coldly”
Daeron watched him carefully. “And does she promise to cross the sea?”
The answer came without frustration
“But she does not dismiss it either” Daeron walked toward the window, clasping his hands behind his back. “Vaelron writes as a king guarding his realm. She writes…” He glanced toward Valarr. “…as someone learning to carry it”
Valarr looked down at the parchment again, thumb brushing lightly over the edge where her hand must have rested. “She may write carefully,” he said. “But she does not hide”
Baelor stepped closer to the table, leaning slightly against it. “That may be more dangerous than defiance.”
Daeron turned back to face them fully.
“If they will not be hurried,” he said, “then neither will we. A rushed alliance breeds resentment. A forced bond breeds fracture.”
His gaze fixed on Valarr now “You will answer her”
Valarr inclined his head.
“And you will answer not as a boy chasing a mystery,” Daeron continued evenly, “but as a prince of the realm.”
Valarr held his grandfather’s gaze.
“I intend to answer as both”
For a moment, the faintest hint of amusement touched Baelor’s expression.
Daeron studied him long, assessing.
Then he gave a single nod.
Outside, the wind shifted against the towers of the Red Keep.
Inside, three generations of House Targaryen stood in quiet understanding politics and something older threading between them.
Valarr folded the letter carefully.
This time, when he looked toward the distant sea beyond the city, it was not with uncertainty.
Night settled gently over the Red Keep. Lanternlight flickering along stone corridors as servants’ footsteps faded into silence.
Prince Valarr Targaryen sat alone in his chambers.
The fire had burned low. He had not ordered it stoked.
Her letter lay open across his desk
He had already read it three times
Not searching for meaning anymore but tracing the shape of her thoughts, the restraint in her phrasing, the deliberate calm between her lines.
i have felt your presence…
His fingers pressed lightly over the ink, careful not to smudge it. As if touching the words might bridge something that distance had interrupted.
He leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling beams. For a moment, he closed his eyes and he could almost recall the dream again. The stillness. The sense of someone standing where there was no sky. The almost-touch.
A faint exhale escaped him.
“You vanished,” he murmured into the empty room.
He folded the letter carefully not sharply, not carelessly aligning the edges with precision. Then, instead of returning it to the desk, he slipped it inside the inner fold of his doublet, near his chest.
A quiet knock interrupted the stillness.
Valarr did not startle. “Enter.”
Prince Baelor stepped inside, closing the door softly behind him.
Baelor’s gaze took in the dim fire, the untouched wine, the single candle still burning.
“You’ve read it enough to memorize it,” Baelor said mildly.
Baelor moved further into the chamber but did not sit immediately. He studied his son not as heir to heir, but as father to child.
“She writes well?” Baelor continued.
“She does not sound afraid.”
Baelor’s brow lifted slightly. “Would you prefer she did?”
“No.” The answer was immediate. “But I expected… hesitation.”
Baelor finally sat across from him. “You hoped for it.”
Valarr met his father’s eyes.
“I wanted to know I wasn’t alone in feeling it.”
Baelor leaned forward slightly, forearms resting on his knees.
Valarr’s hand instinctively moved toward his chest where the letter rested beneath the fabric.
The admission was quiet, but solid.
Baelor’s expression softened not indulgently, not overly sentimental just understanding.
“You must be careful,” he said gently. “Not because the feeling is wrong. But because distance can magnify what we imagine.”
Valarr gave a faint, thoughtful nod. “It didn’t feel imagined.”
Baelor held his gaze. “No. It likely wasn’t.”
Silence lingered, comfortable, but weighty.
“You will write back” Baelor said after a moment.
“And you will not pour everything into the page.”
A faint ghost of a smile touched Valarr’s mouth. “Grandfather said the same.”
Baelor’s own smile answered it. “Your grandfather thinks of the crown. I think of you.”
That earned the smallest huff of quiet laughter from Valarr.
Baelor rose then, placing a firm, steady hand briefly on his son’s shoulder.
“Cherish it,” he said quietly. “But do not let it own you.”
“But I intend to keep it.”
Baelor’s hand squeezed once approval without overstatement.
He moved toward the door, pausing just before leaving.
“Whatever this becomes,” he added without turning, “meet it as yourself. Not as expectation.”
The door closed softly behind him.
Valarr remained seated for a long time.
Finally, he drew the letter back out.
He unfolded it once more, smoothing the parchment with deliberate care. A faint scent of flowers lingered from the paper, subtle and almost comforting. The candlelight warmed the ink, making it almost seem alive.
He read the final lines again.
Then he pressed the folded parchment lightly against his chest before tucking it safely away.
Outside, the wind moved over to Blackwater Bay.
Far across the Narrow Sea, cliffs held their silence.
And for the first time since the dream broke, Valarr did not feel the distance as absence.
He felt it as if something was waiting.
🌿🐉 🌿🐉🌿🐉 🌿🐉🌿🐉 🌿🐉🌿🐉 🌿🐉🌿🐉 🌿🐉🌿🐉
That night's sleep did not come easily to Prince Valarr Targaryen.
He lay awake longer than he intended, the city wind moving faintly through the shutters of his chambers in the Red Keep. The letter rested beneath his pillow, now not superstition, not entirely comfort. Simply closer.
Eventually exhaustion claimed him.
He stood upon its surface as before, the strange forest rising from it pale trunks, unmoving branches, leaves that did not stir though he felt the air around him.
He could not see her face clearly, yet he knew she was watching him the same way he watched her carefully, as if sudden movement might break something fragile forming between them.
Slowly, carefully, he lifted his hand giving the moment time to break if it wished.
The space between them tightened, reality stretching thin as thread pulled too far.
Not light, not an illusion. Presence. Living pressure against his palm.
A breath hers or his, he could not tell
Valarr woke sharply, breath caught in his throat.
Darkness. His chambers. The dying embers of the fire.
But his hand still burned.
He stared at it in the dim light, flexing his fingers once.
The sensation lingered, not pain, not heat. Memory without fading.
He pushed himself upright immediately.
Sleep would not return now. He knew it with absolute certainty. For a long moment he sat there, steadying his breathing. Then he reached beneath the pillow and drew out her letter. He did not reread it this time. Instead, he rose, lit the candle fully, and pulled parchment toward him. The quill hovered only briefly before touching the ink. If distance could be crossed in dreams, silence suddenly felt like refusal. This time he would answer.
I do not know whether this will reach you, nor whether it ought to.
There are matters I was raised to command alliances, expectations, even my own expression. I have learned restraint as one learns swordplay through repetition until instinct obeys discipline.
I have attempted to dismiss these dreams. I have gone to sleep later. I have forced myself to wake sooner. I have told myself they are born of an idle mind and an overlong winter.
Last night I reached you.
Not as one reaches toward mist, but toward something living. Your hand met mine. There was weight to it and warmth.
I woke with the distinct and unreasonable anger of a man interrupted.
That troubles me more than the dream itself.
If this is imagination, then it is one that has grown beyond my control. If it is not ..if somewhere beyond the limits of maps you stand upon that same dark water and feel the same severing when morning comes, then I must know.
Not because it is pleasant.
Because it refuses to be ignored.
Tell me truthfully, does it leave you as it leaves me unsettled, unwilling to accept distance once it has narrowed? Emptiness?
I would understand what binds this, even if I cannot yet name it.
— Valarr of house Targaryen
He sealed the letter carefully, laying it atop his desk to give to his grandfather in the morning, so that it might be sent without delay.
🌿🐉 🌿🐉🌿🐉 🌿🐉🌿🐉 🌿🐉🌿🐉 🌿🐉🌿🐉 🌿🐉🌿🐉
The dawn came gently to her chambers, as it always did pale light filtering through gauze curtains, the sea breathing somewhere beyond the stone, steady and eternal.
Saelthira woke before she opened her eyes.
For a moment, she did not move.
Her hand was still lifted slightly from the coverlet, fingers curved as though they remembered something they had once held. The sensation lingered not warmth exactly, but the memory of warmth, resting in her palm like the fading echo of a heartbeat.
She closed her hand slowly.
It felt wrong to find it empty.
Her breath left her in a small, uneven exhale. The ceiling above her was familiar carved beams darkened by years of salt air, yet she watched it as though it might shift and return to her somewhere else if she waited long enough.
Not merely seen, not merely heard as before but there, with the quiet certainty of presence. When their hands met, she had not questioned it. In the dream it had seemed to be the most natural thing in the world, as though the distance between them had always been the mistake and sleep merely corrected it.
Waking felt like being gently and cruelly put back.
She pressed her palm against her chest, grounding herself in the steady rhythm beneath her ribs.
“Too real” she murmured into the empty room.
The sea answered below, waves brushing stone.
For the first time, the dreams no longer felt like visions to be interpreted or omens to be brought to the elders.
That frightened her more than prophecy ever had.
Saelthira sat up slowly, drawing her knees beneath her as the morning wind stirred the curtains around her bed. The air carried salt and cold and waking gulls, and yet she still hesitated as though moving too quickly would erase what little remained of him.
Her gaze drifted to the small writing table near the window.
She did not decide to rise.
She simply found herself standing.
Saelthira’s fingers brushed against the edge of the table, lingering on the smooth wood as if it could anchor the memory. The quill lay there, unused, the ink dark and still.
Her lips parted slightly, and she whispered a name she had not spoken aloud, a sound caught between thought and breath.
The syllable trembled, not with fear, but with the strangeness of familiarity a familiarity that had never belonged in waking hours. She pressed her palm again to the space where their hands had met in sleep, as though she could summon the warmth back. Nothing came. Only the faint echo of a pulse that was not hers. The curtains shifted, spilling light across the floor in pale lines. She imagined him there, reaching, waiting, but the room held only the quiet rustle of fabric.
For a heartbeat, she considered leaving the chamber. Going to him. But she could not. Not yet. The dream had left her raw, her senses stretched tight. To step beyond the safety of stone walls felt like stepping into the edge of a tide that might pull her out entirely.
Instead, she moved to the writing table, sliding the ink closer. Her hand shook only slightly as she lifted the quill.
She did not write a letter immediately. She paused, letting the rhythm of her breath anchor her, letting the memory of the touch linger just long enough to make her yearn without unraveling.
To the Prince across the sea…
I do not know why the distance between us trembles so, or why the dreams carry your presence as though it were no stranger to me. Perhaps the stone itself knows. Perhaps it merely carries what we cannot yet name.
Her hand faltered, hovering above the page. She pressed her forehead against the table, eyes closed. She could feel the absence of him as sharply as the weight of her own heartbeat, as if some fragile thread had been pulled taut across oceans.
When she opened her eyes, the ink seemed to invite her not demand but wait with patience. She exhaled slowly, dipping the quill once more.
I write not in demand, nor in expectation, but in the hope that what is shared in dreams might find a foothold in the waking world.
A gust of wind tugged at the curtains, and she shivered despite herself. The room seemed too still, too small, too private for the echo of a hand that had brushed hers in sleep.
For a long moment, she simply sat there, letting the quill hover in her fingers, listening to the rhythm of the sea below.
Somewhere far away, she felt certain that he might be doing the same.
🌿🐉 🌿🐉🌿🐉 🌿🐉🌿🐉 🌿🐉🌿🐉 🌿🐉🌿🐉 🌿🐉🌿🐉
we saw and heard Valarr properly BUT AT WHAT COST 😭
