My Light, My Life
Description: What began as an insult quickly turned into a marriage of deep devotion and comfort. AKA you’re the only thing keeping Daeron together.
It is an insult; you know it, this marriage, arranged as most are, few ever marry for love, but you thought perhaps you might be lucky. The Gods held no care for luck, though, and they clearly held no care for you.
Your father tried to sweeten the stock you were forced to swallow. You will be a princess, sweet girl; is that not better than love? You wished it were; you wished it were better or even enough, but it was not. Not as you sat next to the man you must now call husband and watched as he tried to simultaneously sink into his chair and lose himself in the crowd. It was a feat to watch for sure; he looked as if he wished to split in two, both halves having the singular desire of hiding, of fleeing and leaving you behind.
“My Prince,” you said, drawing his attention away from the crowd and to you. His violet eyes would have been beautiful if not for the shadows beneath them.
“Yes, Lady y/n?” Daeron asked, his hand twitching towards the goblet that sat between you both.
“I believe you are allowed to call me princess now,” you said without thinking, panic filling you as you hurried to remedy your blunder. “But as my lord husband, you may of course call me whatever you wish.”
“What if I wish to call you by another’s name or simply my property, as some men may long to do?”
You buried your hands in your skirt beneath the table. “I ask only that I am not called something crude or cruel, or by the name of your mistress.”
He snorted. “Mistress? Who would want to spend their time entertaining a sullen drunkard such as myself? Surely only an absolute fool with no prospects.”
You glanced down at your lap. It was an insult, this marriage; you knew that, but it still stung to hear it confirmed from the prince’s own mouth.
Daeron sucked an apologetic breath in through his teeth. “Forgive me, that was cruel; my mother would be disappointed. She tried to instruct upon us all never to be cruel to a woman, especially not one’s own lady wife.”
You did not raise your head. “All is forgiven; I am not unaware of my lack.”
You could feel his eyes on you now. “Lack?”
You nodded. “There are many other women of the realm that possess beauty beyond my own and are from nobler houses, with skills and talents that many envy.”
A hand rested upon yours, and you startled. He had not once touched you without the urging of others since the day you arrived in King’s Landing a few short moons ago.
“Princess, it is not you who the whole of the realm considers to be lacking in this arrangement. In fact, I have no doubt they all feel tremendous pity for the circumstances that have been thrust upon you.”
You looked up at him, taking note of the way his long lashes cast shadows on his cheeks. “I do not feel pity for myself.”
There was something in his tone, a faint flickering of light behind his eyes for a moment. “No?”
You shook your head. “No, for you have been kind to me, and I know that does not come so easily in a husband.”
He cracked a wry smile. “We have only been married a few hours; I could turn into a horrid monster by the night’s end.”
You turned your hand so your palm met his. Perhaps the gods had not abandoned you entirely. “I do not fear you, husband.” Then you intertwined your fingers with his. “Not yet, at least.”
He brought your hand to his lips. “I shall endeavor to keep from frightening you.”
“So as not to disappoint your late mother?” You asked, feeling the brush of butterfly wings in your chest at the feel of his lips on your skin.
“So as not to disappoint my wife,” he corrected softly. “Why is he acting in such a way?” You asked Daeron quietly, leaning on his arm as you observed Aerion rant and rage as he paced about Maekar’s receiving room. It had been a year since your wedding, and you found yourself less and less insulted by the arrangement.
“He thinks himself a dragon in human form, or so Egg theorizes,” Daeron replied, eying his brother over the rim of his cup.
You took the cup from him and sipped slowly. “Pity he is not a Fossoway then; we would all be quite safer if he thought himself an apple.”
Daeron snorted and took his cup back. “You have had far too much of this, dear wife. It has loosened your tongue dangerously.”
You raised a brow, a teasing smile tugging at your lips, as you leaned closer. Daeron’s eyes flitted for a moment down to your décolletage that was highlighted by a ruby pendant crafted in the shape of a three headed dragon. “Oh? I thought you liked it when my tongue was loosened? You found it quite pleasurable the other night.”
“Enough, no one wishes to hear about your debased acts; keep such filth to your chambers,” Aerion snapped.
“Such filth?” You echoed, sharing a conspiratory glance with Daeron. “My love, your brother considers what we do as lawful husband and wife to be filth. Must we go now to the Sept and repent?”
“Quiet your woman, Brother,” Aerion ordered.
Daeron gave you a small smile. “Fret not, dear one; he thinks this only because he has yet to experience pleasure he has not had to pay for.”
Aerion growled and turned on his heel, his eyes narrowed at the pair of you. “Say that again.”
Daeron held his hands up in surrender. “I was only educating my lady wife, Brother.”
Aerion stormed out of the room, leaving you and Daeron to collapse into laughter before sobering up when Maekar entered the room, asking why Aerion had seemed so angry.
You awoke to an empty bed, the covers pulled up to your chin, the pillow beneath your head soft and perfectly fluffed. He should have returned by now. You could not sleep through the night without him by your side. You grumbled and raked a hand through your hair, cursing Daeron for his tardiness when you heard it. The strangled cries and shuddered breaths that came only after one of his horrid dreams. Two years of this, and still it sent cold fear straight through you.
You slipped from the bed and pulled on your robe, tying it tightly around your form as you crept into your shared solar. You did not want to frighten him; he was far more sensitive in this post dream state.
At first you thought them drunken ramblings. But after watching him attempt to save a scullery maid from falling into the kitchen fire and burning herself horribly to no avail, you realized they were more than concoctions of a drunken mind. They were something different, born of a strange power that still ran in his blood despite his kin having fled Valyria long ago.
“Daeron? My love, are you alright?” You called, spotting him seated in front of the fire, hunched over, his head in his hands, muttered words slipping past his lips in ragged tones.
“Gold and dragons and false kings; he will fail and be sent away, his seat lost,” he said, the words starting to take a more intelligible form as you drew closer.
You knelt beside him, quietly tidying away the empty bottles of wine. “My dearest dragon, tell me what haunts you.”
He shook his head, looking up at you with deep shadows beneath his eyes. “I-I cannot make sense of it; it is jumbled and bloodied, the faces I recognize, but I cannot put name to them.”
You took his hands from his head and pressed them to your lips. “Come, if you remember it still in the morn, I will write it down, then we will try to make sense of it together.”
He let you help him to his feet, his body trembling, his skin slick with sweat. “I should bathe; I would rather not bring this to our bed,” he said, pulling away from you.
“I will call the servants, and you will bathe; then we will sleep,” you reassured him, leading him to the chamber off your shared bedroom before going to the door and calling for hot water to be brought.
Daeron returned to you when he was clean, falling into your embrace as you sat together on the edge of the bed.
You brushed a kiss to the high points of his cheeks. “Better?”
“As better as I can be,” he said, one hand coming to grasp your hip, grounding himself.
You hummed sympathetically in response. “My poor love, if only the gods would allow me to share in your plight, your pain, I would do so in a heartbeat.”
He sighed heavily, his free hand smoothing down your hair. “You are too good for me, y/n. Too good and too beautiful, you should have been given to another, a man worthy of you.”
You cupped his cheek. “I was given to you, and I would not ask for another. You are my husband and my love until the Stranger comes for me.”
He flopped back onto your shared bed. A rarity among royals, but he found his dreams easier to contend with if he could reach for you the moment he woke. “Your ability to lie convincingly has improved in our time together.”
You laid down on the bed next to him. “It is not a lie. Tell me, do you not know that I love you? That I cherish and adore you? That I crave you more than you crave drink?”
His head lolled to the side so he could look at you. “That is impossible; I drink to drown out the terrors; it is self-medication, an undeniable urge, a way to keep my sanity.”
You smiled softly at him. “I would go mad without you by my side, Daeron; only you keep the wolves from the door.”
He stroked your cheek. “The gods are both cruel and merciful. Cruel to you and merciful to me.”
You leaned into his touch, kissing his palm. “They could have given me a brute or a philanderer; instead, they gifted me you.”
“A drunk who is terrified of sleep?”
“A prince who cares deeply, who is burdened with knowledge, who, despite the horrors he sees, still finds it in himself to be kind and caring to his lady wife.”
He withdrew his hand for a moment, trembling fingers tracing the curve of your face, his violet eyes searching your face until he seemed satisfied, and he cupped the back of your head, burying his fingers in your hair. “I love you more than anything; I need you to understand that. You must understand that you…you are everything, my love, my light, my anchor, my life; it is you; everything good in this world is you.”
You melted, your heart fluttering in your chest. “I love you too, more than anything.”
He smiled, the tension in his brow slowly fading. “Do not leave me this night, y/n; you keep the wolves from the door.”
You moved closer, pressing yourself to him, legs tangling together until you were not more than a hairsbreadth apart. “I will not leave you, even if you try to push me away. I am yours, Daeron, and you are mine; the gods have willed it as such.”
He smiled, softly, sadly. “I do not deserve you.”
You kissed him gently. “You do not get to decide that; now sleep, my love, or I shall be cross with you.”
His eyelids began to slowly drift closed, and he buried his face in your neck, but you could feel his smile against your skin. “We would not want that.”
Your arms wrapped around him as you settled onto the pillows alongside him. “No, we would not.”
He pressed a final kiss to your throat, whispering something you could not hear before sleep finally took you both.
