twenty long years ll PART ONE
Valarr and you are childhood friends. Only friends, you thought for such a long time that it became part of your narrative. Oh, you know him so well because you’re his friend. He looks at you from across the crowded ballroom because you are his oldest friend. There could never be anything else… could it?
tags: friends to lovers; repressed feelings; requited unrequited love; established friendship;
[part ONE] [part TWO] [part THREE] [part FOUR] [part FIVE] [part SIX]
[i am his and he is mine (the wedding)]
[celestial bodies (wedding night) PART ONE]
words: 5k
You were twelve when you first saw Prince Valarr.
He was thirteen, and seven inches taller. Leaning against one of the pillars in the patio of the royal garden, he was as still as a statue. One of those intricate, lifelike marbles you saw on your way around the Red Keep. It was a summer morning, and the sun had been shining brilliantly in the open garden, spilling its light on the symmetrical rows of sunflowers and pansies. Yet, he was standing in the shadows, hunched at the ground. Slowly, you walked to him—you were playing hide and seek, you see—wondering if he were someone you should be looking for.
He stirred when you reached him, straightening his spine. It was then that you saw the single white streak in his dark hair. And then he turned. As his eyes fell on you—one ocean blue and the other deep onyx—you almost gasped. You had never seen someone so beautiful before.
“Who are you?” he asked softly.
Before you could answer, something moved out of the corner of your eyes. You stared at the ground to find a spider—quite large, foreboding and colourful—skittering on the edge of a small rose bush. You crouched down to see it more clearly, the scatter of colours on its back, the way it clicked its pinchers.
“Beautiful, is it not?” he said. He had a soft, heavy voice. Poised, slow, as if he tasted each word before he spoke.
“Yes,” you agreed.
“I saw it circling the flowers for some time. I heard that spiders see colours differently than humans. I guess I wanted to see what it saw.”
“That must be lonely,” you said softly, eyes locked into the small creature. When you realised that his eyes were still on you, you straightened up quickly, adding, “I meant the spider, Your Grace. Not… not you.”
He smiles, and his face illuminates into something angelic. “But I must be then, to find solace in such a solitary creature.”
You blinked, unsure of what he was saying, unsure of yourself, suddenly. You hadn’t meant to come to the garden; you hadn’t meant to wander out of the Red Keep. And yet, you stared at the soft, strange boy and felt that perhaps you were where you were meant to be anyway.
—--
You were there for the enjoyment of the little princesses. Princess Daella and Rhae were temperamental little girls who scared off any Septas who’d be unlucky enough to cross their paths. After their fifth Septa escaped, your mother, one of the ladies-in-waiting to the queen, suggested that you might be a helpful alternative. No one had any reason to object. You had been at the court for a few weeks and everyone liked you. You weren’t particularly the prettiest, or the brightest, or the most joyful, but there was something about you, your mother said, that made people like you. You could reel people in, make them see themselves more favourably.
Heavens know what she meant, because you never did.
Beautiful and beguiling, the little princesses looked like little dolls to you. You liked them enough at first, liked the sound of their laughter—dainty, like birds, liked how they mimicked each other like shadows, liked the sight of them running in the Red Keep, two flutters of silver-white in the sunlight. They loved when you told them stories of old Valyria, of the doom and the tragedy, of dragons. Sometimes their brother Aegon and cousin Matarys joined in, and requested something particular. Mayhaps the story of the Dance of the Dragons? Egg loved to embellish his stories, he was a natural.
Liar, his brother Aerion snickered.
Storyteller, you assured him.
Needless to say you loved all of them. In their restlessness and their raucousness. Their awful temper and their sweet vexations. Their loneliness and the pointless defiance of their fate. You see, each of them knew what they were meant to be. Daeron meant to be half-asleep throughout his entire life, stirring forever awake from some distant dream, Aerion was meant to be mad, always—afraid that someone had taken a slight to him at every corner of life. Aemon was to be sent away somewhere far, where he would not tarnish the name of his house with his quiet and feeble mind. Daella and Rhae were supposed to be married off and forgotten, fading into some obscure and distant life. Aegon was forever the odd one out, a lonely child. They all ran around the castle, unaware of the invisible dark string that bound them together.
Prince Valarr was the quietest. He used to come fetch his brother Matarys, his steps always low and even. He was always even—balanced. The heir to the heir was beautiful, respectful and poised. The perfect prince. He was the unsung conqueror of all the tortured fantasies of the girls at court. He always smiled, looked and acted older than he was—a splitting image of his father, Prince Baelor—and he was perfect, as they all said. Yet you wondered, when you saw him, if it all was true. Because he didn’t seem like a perfect prince when he hovered around the periphery of your vision. No, he was a quiet, contemplative boy, who glowered at Aerion when he was cruel to Egg or Aemon; he played hide and seek with Matarys. He was a terrible dancer and an excellent fencer. He liked to watch insects. He got flustered whenever he found you staring at him from across the dim lit rooms. It was ten long weeks before he came to you after you let the children play monsters-and-maidens.
“Would you like to…” he hesitated, and you had a sinking suspicion that he had practiced the question well before he came into the nursery.
“Yes?”
“See to that spider again?”
A small smile creeped up to your face in spite of you. “The lonely one?”
“That one exactly.”
You stared up at him. The nursery was a large room full of wide corners, it stretched as far as the children could run. The entire room was open, the wide balcony on the side of them overlooked the royal garden. In the mornings, as the wind blew through the unruly bushes of flowers and ferns, the sweet smell imbibed the room in a breathtaking haze. By all of your logic you knew that you should refuse. It was not a tactile knowledge, but a soft, slithering understanding. You should say no.
Well, you should have.
—--
It was easy, being his friend.
Too easy. It was as if there was no other way, no other path that did not bring you face to face. In the morning he trained with the kingsguards, and you walked Egg to the maesters at the schoolroom. At noon they all ate together and you couldn’t help but be at close proximity as Matarys showed everyone what he learned at the yard. When the Great Hall would be opened to the smallfolk for an audience, you were there with your father. Sometimes your eyes met with his unmatched pair, across the room, across the hoards of unsuspecting people. He would smile or roll his eyes, just a little, almost imperceptible, when some lord made a tiresome jest, or Aerion made himself a fool. At night when you’d return from the princesses chambers he’d find you along the long and winding pathway, and would offer to accompany you back to your chambers safe and sound. More often than not you would lose your way to the garden, or the astronomy tower, to look at the heavens above. He knew all the constellations, and you liked to trace them with him.
Sometimes it felt as though you were writing a story, retaining a piece of you and Valarr that did not exist—not entirely, at least—in reality. You talked of stars and desserts and rivers—water wading through paths forged by natural erosion and calamities for hundreds of years. Of poetry and politics and how it might feel living past one’s myth.
It’s all natural, all innocent. Until one afternoon…
You are fifteen, and he has just gotten back from a royal tour of the Riverlands. You heard from the other ladies that it was supposed to be a muddy, tiresome journey back. And so you brushed and cleared and re-organised his beetle collection by hand, knowing that these would be Valarr’s solace when he came back.
“Oh, princess, no one knows me as you do,” he mutters to himself as he stares down at the glass box. Then he turns, suddenly solemn, and asks, “Do you think we’ll ever be apart?”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you think it’ll always be like this? Us? The shared breakfast, the beetle collection, the stars?”
You know better than to lie. “I don’t think so. Not when we get older. I will probably… get married off and live somewhere else.”
Something unfamiliar passes by his face. In the fading light of the day, the silver streak in his head catches a stray band of rays. The silver shines. Valarr purses his lips, the expression gone as soon as it comes, replaced by his familiar solemnity.
“Then I shall hope we never get older.”
—---
“Does he call you princess?” your mother asks suddenly. “Some of the servants heard it, but I cannot be sure…”
“It is nothing,” you say, flushed, looking down at the hem of your blue gown.
“Nothing?”
“Just a… pet name. Something he calls me by.”
Your mother stares at you. It is a sharp, smoldering gaze and it makes the heat in your throat rise up to your cheeks. You are walking by the large corridor leading to the Great Hall. Your mother insists that a woman should not only know household chores but also learn how the realm works. It is early in the morning, and the sleep hasn’t completely left you. Her sudden question comes at you like a splintered arrow.
“Something he calls you by,” she repeats, and you wonder if that’s how juvenile your words sounded.
To be honest, you do not remember when he started calling you that. And you know that it would not do well to dwell on it, or to explain that to your mother. Your mother is made of custom and propriety. And you are—
“You are not a princess,” she is saying. “And calling you one is improper. But I guess…” She sighs. “I guess we have to find a middle ground somewhere. He favours you, and that is good. Proximity to a royal can grant you great advantages in life.”
A flock of court ladies pass you and your mother, and she smiles at them sweetly. Their feet make delicate sounds on the marble floor. “It is not fair, but it is life. Some people are born with significance, and some must gather it from others. But you must never confuse the source with the receiver. Do you understand?”
You had stopped walking, coming just at the mouth of the Great Hall. You can hear the sounds of footsteps and men, women talking over one another. On the other side, there are people, important people crowding to get an audience with the king. Some of them come to see The Young Prince, too. You know this because you have heard his praises on the streets. How the Prince is kind and gentle and dutiful. A young dragon, they call him sometimes. His presence brings about a fire that the smallfolk have not seen since Aegon the Dragon.
You purse your lips, nodding silently. Your mother worries needlessly. You know you’d never confuse his friendship with anything else. How could you?
—---
“What’s wrong?” Valarr asks suddenly.
You blink, surprised that he noticed. You thought you were faring rather well, considering the seed of disquiet your mother planted in your head. Everywhere you looked, you now saw people staring at you with scandalous eyes. Your corset felt tighter whenever you and Valarr crossed any group of women.
You stare at the feather-pen in your hand. You both have been at the library since the early hours of the morning. Valarr takes it upon himself to teach you whatever his maesters have taught him. Today, it is the history of the North. Winterfell, the First Men, all that frigid snow.
Your voice is small as you admit, “It seems that being around you is something of an achievement in itself. My mother is proud of me because I made myself your friend.”
“Made yourself?” He scoffs. “You have not made yourself my friend. You just are.”
“Right. But as it is, your presence is a currency of some sorts. I make myself valuable by being around you.”
He narrows his eyes. The space between them crinkles the way it does when he is distressed. “You know that isn’t true.”
“Yes, yes.” You nod, unfocused. “But it sort of is, Val. You are a prince and you are—”
“What?”
You sigh, unable to come to a better conclusion.
He does not press you. He stares down at your collection of scrolls and parchments, and traces his index over the words you wrote in cursive—he likes your penmanship better, he has told you scores of times.
“Mayhaps it can be that I am two people,” he says heavily. “Val and Prince Valarr. My father says a prince belongs to the realm before it belongs to anyone else. He must be strong and silent and just and brave. Therefore the prince must be a thing, more than a person.”
“But you are a person,” you say softly. “You are my favourite person.”
He smiles. “And I am contemplative and brooding and overtly concerned with mine inadequacy. I am doubtful and…”
“You are clever and full of heart,” you interrupt him forcefully. “You are kind.”
He leans in as if he is telling you a secret, and you are terrified of how good it makes you feel. “Therefore, to you I am Val. Always.”
—------
Things change when you have your first blood, of course.
You wake up at night terrified that something unthinkable has happened. You look down at your legs to find a striking, alarming red moisture on the sheet. You knew about it, of course. The Septas and your mother had warned you about it beforehand. But still, the sight of the blood—your blood—fills you with an unknown dread. You are a woman now. Your mother had said that things will change once you are a woman. That your world will get wider, more people will be invited to come into it, that you will become something more than what you are now. You immediately dread the moment you’ll have to tell your mother.
You gather the soiled sheets with your trembling hands and clean yourself as best as you can. The water is cold and harsh as you wipe away the blood from your skin. The endeavour takes too long and the sky is lighter when you finally get to bed again.
Lying on your cold sheets, looking at the patch of the dawn sky through your window, you try to think of anything else to numb this peculiar pain in your lower abdomen.
Strangely, you think of Valarr. It shouldn’t be new, you always think of Valarr when you are in distress. But today the thoughts are alien and new and intoxicating. Would he realise something is different about you now? You remember that he’s gone hunting with his father. That he might be under the open sky right now, staring up at the brightening sky and trying to remember all the names of the distant stars. He likes that, you know. You know him so well.
Ever since you knew about that thing that makes a woman, you wondered about what makes a man? You are almost certain that whatever changes that were to happen had happened to Valarr. That there was a silence in him, a sticky reminiscence in the way he looked at you for the last few months.
Your hands brush over your breasts and you shiver. The thought of it makes you flush despite yourself.
—------
“There’s something different,” he comments in the morning. Fresh off the royal carriage, he is still in his hunting doublet. He takes off his hat and shakes his head, making droplets of sweat fall from his wet hair. As he leans to her, a smirk pulling at his lips, the green of his doublet reflects on his lighter eye.
A strange heat rises to your cheeks.
“There is,” he says. You are alone at the garden, all the other people have gone to inspect the enormous boar the hunting party have captured. So you allow this small moment to yourself, do not budge when he sits beside you and nudges your shoulder.
“Mayhaps,” you reply evenly.
His stare is so sharp it makes you shiver. You do not acknowledge it, or elaborate your answer, letting the silence stretch into a tense, charged. It becomes thick, heavy with intent.
“Keeping secrets from me, are you?” he says finally, his voice low and syrupy.
“What if I am?” you ask. It sounds more desperate than you intended, makes it sound more a plea than a challenge. “Do you not have secrets?”
He doesn’t answer. And you do not know if it is better or worse. That this feeling, this numbing, blinding intensity has always existed—whenever he was too near, wherever you could trace the light flutter of stubbles on his jaw, the specks of light dust his eyes. That you forget your reason when he stares at you sometimes. It wasn’t the blood from the night before, not some sudden, drastic change in your body, it was Valarr. You realise that he has inhabited your mind for quite some time now.
“I have brought something for you,” he says, reaching inside the back pocket of his doublet and taking out a breathtakingly blue rose, stem and all. The sight of it makes your heart flutter.
“You remembered,” you say softly.
“Of course. You wanted it.”
You take the flower and your hands brush. Staring down at the beauty, the half-hearted promise that you made him buzz in your head. It had been innocent enough when you said it, but now it feels more intent, like admitting to a light felony.
“A kiss for your promise,” you mumble.
“Oh,” he fidgets, “oh, you don’t have to…”
“I want to,” you whisper, tilting your head up to catch his eyes. His lips part, and there is that—there is that—flush of colour in his face. Ruby red, deliciously real, covering his cheeks as he goes astonishingly still when you reach out and touch his hand. The pupils in his eyes are blown out—covering almost the entire colours. It is a fascinating sight, and you try to commit it all into your precious memory.
—--
At night, you lie awake and think about it in great detail. The sharp intake of his breath when your lips met his cheek. That smallest moment when your nose brushed against his skin and you could smell him if you dared inhale. But you did not. How could you? Your hand clasped his, sweats mixing on your palm, you weren’t quite sure if he’d stopped breathing or was it just you? Did the entire world stop? Would it ever move again?
You clutch your pillow and mesh your face into the soft cover.
You could spend hours studying him. His face, alone, is a wonder. How his eyes look different in different times of day. The light blue is crystal clear in the sunlight, the onyx is an abyss in the night. The slight ripple in his muscles when he clenches his jaws, that tight bound of skin over it. Those stubbles, dark and sparring, littered over his cheeks in no cohesive pattern—you touched it, felt the graze on your lips as you kissed his cheek. But, oh, you want to take your sweet time, build patterns on that stretch of skin. You want to dip your thumb into the crate on his cheeks when he smiles. You want to touch his throat as he laughs, feel the vibration there, feel his life in your palm. You want to run your fingers through the infamous white streak at the back of his head. You wonder if he is sensitive there. One afternoon, as you were drinking stolen Arbour wine, you brushed his hair to chase off a bug that perched on his head. He shuddered at the contact. You haven’t forgotten the feel of it since.
It scares you, you think, how much your hands want to do. How they feel both useless and menacing. If they should ever evade your restless restraint, if they should ever let go of that senseless control, where would it lead you? There’s a budding glow of warmth between your thighs that you ignore. It is ominous, ominous, unthinkable. He is Val, your Val. A friend you saw vomit by the bushes when he drank too much Myrish wine, you saw him go pale at the first beheading you both watched, you saw him cry out in anger at Aerion when his cousin got the best of him, you saw him steal lemon cakes from the kitchen and smirk when he evaded the watchful eyes of the head cook. You grew up, together together. And you are friends, he sees you as his friend—which you know is the most you can have. Most you can dream of.
The rose on your bedside table is emanating a beautiful smell. Soft and hazy—like melancholy. It imbibes your air and lulls you to a fretful sleep.
—----
“The boar was delicious,” your mother comments a few days later.
You look up from your needlework. “What?”
“The boar that Prince Baelor returned with from their hunting,” she says. “The one they served at the feast the same night?”
Her voice is nonchalant enough. But you can see that she is watching you out of the corner of her eyes. In the closed air of your mother’s chambers, you suddenly feel like a rare insect, propped up for inspection.
“Yes. Yes, it was nice.”
“Did you think so?” She smiles sweetly. “I am surprised. I thought I saw you leave before the main course.”
You swallow your treacherous breath down. “No, mama, I—”
“Just after The Young Prince left too, actually. I noticed he wasn’t present when the royal coaches arrived in the morning, as well. The ladies were all wondering where he went.”
You look down at your needlework again. Lying will not get you anywhere, you know this much. But what of the truth? You hadn’t meant to follow him out into the garden during the feast. You had specifically forbade it. But he had that smile on him, the charming, pleading smile, and that soft voice—Oh, come on, I snatched the good stuff. The Arbor wine, the wine your mother loathes. Humor me, Princess—and you knew you were doomed, so why not chase it?
Yet the charm of the night has faded, leaving you here, in front of your mother, with some unpalatable reality. You followed the prince out of the great feast in front of the cold, sore sight of everyone, foolishly thinking you would not get noticed.
“Where did he go, my love?” Your mother asks. “Where did you go?”
“I wouldn’t tell you,” your voice is small. So small that it makes you mad. “But you know already.”
“I was hoping that you’d disappoint me not.”
“I did not do anything to disappoint...”
“Did you lose your virtue?”
“No! We just drank some wine and talked. Jested. We did not… mother, we are friends.”
“Friends,” your mother scoffs. And it is the first time that you have heard such venom from her. You grip the silk in your hand, fingers spasming. “I do not know what that word means. Friends.”
“We are—”
“You are a daughter of a middling nobleman, and he is a prince of the realm. He is the heir. When you were young I let you live in the delusion that you could be permitted to be in the same room as him. But you are not a child anymore. You cannot be this foolish anymore.”
You shudder at how callous it all sounds, but you cannot back down, cannot lower your gaze from your mother’s now. You have always known this to be true, but somehow listening to it all makes you nauseous. Makes you smaller. “But that does not matter. He sees me as his friend. There is nothing more.”
“Daughter, I only say this to spare you pain.”
You nod, head heavy. “I know.”
“The king will throw a feast in the coming week, after his seventeenth nameday. His mother thinks…” Your mother sighs, and for a second you think you feel sympathy from her. “Princess Jena thinks that it is time he found a wife.”
Something heavy drops in your chest. It cannot be your heart, for you cannot feel it beat at all.
“Lords from all the great houses will attend with their eligible daughters. They will all be vying for Prince Valarr’s attention. Beautiful, wealthy noblewomen. And when they come you would not get the privilege of anonymity. They shall want to know who this girl is that the Prince flees from parties and drinks wine with. I have raised you to be an honourable young woman. I will not have you malign your name for a boy who will choose another.”
Tears pool at your eyes, but you refuse to let them fall. You realise that in her own, cruel way, your mother is protecting you. You brush your trembling palm over the half-done handkerchief you were making for Val. The stitch is still uneven, you have never quite mastered the fine arts. But the spider is still perceptible. You wonder if your mother knows the significance of it. You dare not ask.
—------
“I need your help,” Valarr says as soon as he sees you.
That is, as he corners you in the Sept. You have been consciously avoiding him for the better part of last week. You have been clever enough, you think. Deliberately learning his routine steps and tracing backwards. You’d leave any room ten minutes prior to when he’d barge in. You avoided the gardens, the library, and the training yards religiously. You retracted from feasts. Yet somehow the hiding, the persistent fleeing, has made his presence all the more stark in your mind. You enter a room and smell him, almost, as if he were here. You see the dent in a chair where he set, the dust his boots had brought, a half empty glass of water he sipped not a minute ago. All more alive than they were before.
You started frequenting the Sept since you know this might be your only respite from his prying eyes. The seven gods have not been thus helpful, but they have been silent. At the very least.
Yet five days into your hiding, Valarr has found you. You are kneeling in front of one of the colossal idol of The Crone, hands clasped together to concentrate. Around you a hundred candles flicker in the darkness, sending their scented steam rising up onto the roof of the Sept. The air is warm and thick, sandalwood and sage. And in the unfettered silence his sudden presence is like a burst of sunlight. You determinedly keep your eyes closed.
“I am serious,” he whispers. “Help.”
“For what?” you whisper back.
“Well, father is arranging a feast for my seventeenth. It is going to be massive, large and boisterous, and… everything. You see, my mother… mother is—Will you please look at me?”
You blink, surprised by the unusual timbre in his voice. You tilt your head to look at him. And the sight—Oh, you should have prepared yourself—of him up close and personal, is enough to make you shiver. His mismatched eyes have changed colours in the candlelight. The ocean-blue is almost sparkling, spilling out flickers of light. And the other one, the deep, dark of onyx is darker still, pulling you in some great and terrible longing.
“What?” You pray he doesn’t hear the break in your voice.
“I want to stall it.”
“Why?”
“They want to find a suitable match for me. They will invite all the great lords to bring their… daughters.”
Your throat burns at the thought, but you smile. “That is good news.”
“What?”
“You are—” You gulp down the stone lodged in your throat. “You are eligible. And it is time you… marry.”
“But I don’t want to—”
“As your friend, I think it is just the right time.”
Something soft flickers in his eyes. His mouth twitches. It almost looks painful. “As my friend?” he says softly.
“Yes, of course.” Your hands grip the stone in front of you. “What else?”
He stares down, as if embarrassed. “Yes. I see, yes.”
You close your eyes again, willing yourself to concentrate on your half-hearted prayers. You can feel him still, kneeling beside you—you almost wonder if he is wishing the same thing as you. To be someone else, someplace else, to get rid of the persistent ache in your heart. To not know him at all. Or perhaps he is only praying for what he always does—the Crone to guide him wisdom, to do what is best for his family and his name. You wonder, which would be worse? Around you the hum of the walls intensifies.
Neither of you move for a long, long time.
..............
PART TWO
In the next part we’re going to get more of Valarr.
more of my valarr stories
palindrome
first light
kismet
grief bodies
negative space (modern valarr X dreamer reader)
