I’m very very curious what Maekar’s take on the whole Baelor and mistress situation be. Like, this man would just sit and watch dumbfounded because how could his brother actually be so stupid like who is this???
He would be truly astounded. He will be running home immediately after this, btw, to tell Dyanna all about it.
Part 1 , part 2 , and part 3.
Maekar had known something was wrong with his brother for weeks, he simply had not yet worked out what. Baelor moved through the Red Keep as he always had, his stride even, his posture correct, but Maekar had spent a lifetime in his brother's company and knew him better than anyone. Where Baelor had once filled a chamber simply by entering it, now there was a stillness about him, a reserve, a stoic quiet that had not been there before. It was as if a fire had been banked, leaving only the faintest glow of embers. It troubled Maekar more than he cared to admit. It was a sickness of the spirit.
He was walking the long gallery toward the council chamber, Baelor at his side. They were on their way, early, to a routine meeting of the small council.
You were coming the other way.
You moved with a fluid grace, a cluster of her ladies-in-waiting trailing behind you like the tail of a magnificent peacock. Their whispers and the soft rustle of their silks and velvets preceded them. As the two groups neared, the women dipped into graceful, practiced curtsies, their heads bowed. "My princes," they murmured in near-unison, a soft chorus of deference. Maekar inclined his head in the customary acknowledgment, his mind already turning toward the day's duties.
Then he saw his brother's face.
Baelor had stopped. It was only for a half-step, but he had turned his head to watch you go. His gaze was fixed on her retreating form, a look of such unguarded intensity. Maekar knew yearning when he saw it carved that plainly into a man's features. It was naked. It was wretched. It was the look of a man watching the one thing he wanted in all the world walk away, and knowing he could not follow.
Maekar was no fool. The pieces, which had been scattered and incomprehensible for weeks, suddenly slammed together.
"You must be fucking mad," he said.
Baelor’s head snapped back around, and the look that crossed his face then, like a boy with his hand in the sweet jar, told Maekar everything. Maekar seized his brother by the arm, and steered him the last few paces toward the door of the council chamber. He shouldered the door shut behind them, the boom of the wood against the stone frame echoing the sudden, violent crash of his own understanding.
"Your son's wife," Maekar hissed. "Have you taken leave of your senses entirely?"
Baelor did not answer at first. He sank into his usual seat, his gaze fixed on the polished surface of the table.
"We belonged to one another first."
Maekar sat.
He had come into this room loaded for a different conversation entirely, prepared to needle his brother about his abstraction. By every right, this was a gift. His perfect brother, the realm's golden prince, fallen victim to the oldest folly there was, chasing the skirts of a pretty girl half his age. Maekar should have been able to savor it, to tease him mercilessly, to hold this over his head for years. But there was no joy in this. This was not a prince sating a whim; this was a man in agony, drowning in a sea of his own making. Maekar found, to his own irritation, that he could not even bring himself to call Baelor an idiot, though the word sat right there on his tongue. It was abundantly clear that Baelor had called himself far worse, many times over, and was still doing it now, every waking moment.
So Maekar said nothing, only listened, and Baelor told him all of it. The words came slowly at first, then in a torrent, a confession long suppressed. Meeting you, a polite encounter that had bloomed into something neither of you could control. Falling for you, the discovery, and Jena’s fury. The threat of your marriage to another lord, and what Baelor had done to stop it. The match he had engineered, a desperate, catastrophic idea, using his own son, Valarr, as the unwitting instrument of his own selfish desire. Valarr, who had learned the truth not long before the wedding, and who now looked at his father with hatred.
Maekar listened to the whole sorry tale in silence, his own shock cooling into pity. What a ridiculous, spectacular mess. When Baelor finally fell silent, his head in his hands, Maekar was speechless, stunned, not by the affair, which he understood, but by the sheer stupidity of the solution.
"Why did you not simply marry her yourself," he said at last, "if you loved her so?"
Baelor blinked at him, lifting his head from his hands. He stared as though the question were spoken in a tongue he did not know, as if Maekar had suggested he sprout wings and fly to the moon. "What kind of—"
"You should have set Jena aside," Maekar cut in. "The law would have protected Valarr's inheritance. Let the political upheaval be what it may. You'd have weathered it."
"I could not do that," Baelor said, his voice hollow.
"Why not?" Maekar leaned forward, his elbows on the table, his gaze intent. "You've upended your family and tarnished your honor regardless. The other path would have left you with something to show for it."
Maekar watched the words land. He saw Baelor’s jaw tighten, a muscle flexing in his cheek. He saw the flicker of something in his mismatched eyes—pain, fury, and soul-deep regret. Maekar understood at once that he had struck every nerve.
"Get out"
Maekar held up a hand, a gesture of placation. "Baelor—"
"Leave."
For once, Maekar did not argue. He rose and crossed to the door, his own footsteps feeling unnaturally loud in the suffocating quiet. And there he paused, and looked back at his brother. Baelor was still glaring at him, his face a mask of cold fury, but beneath it, Maekar could see the agony.
"Let her go," he said quietly, the words a final, desperate plea. "Before this heartache kills you."
shamefully telling you that if you want to support me, you can donate any sum here 🙏 huge thanks from me
and also if you want you can dm me, i can draw you a small little sketch as a thank you
I don't have any other job besides my comms (still getting to them, thanks for patience) and bills are kicking my ass each month. This time I left almost all my money fixing broken pc but at least it works now.
It's neat the that the first episodes Kayne is in he shows up near the beginning, but once Arthur starts being useful to him, he shows up at the end. Something something as soon as the wager actually becomes viable Kayne starts being incredibly avoidant and leaving everything to chance. I mean in the last two episodes he just keeps leaving Arthur. Can't resist having a conversation with him first, but he's really got to skedaddle over to this other room. To go paint or something.
