Summary: Prince Valarr Targaryen was always meant to be king. The perfect heir to the perfect father, he was content to spend decades learning from Baelor Breakspear, growing into his role with his quiet Tyrell wife beside him. But the gods had other plans. In 209 AC, his father fell at Ashford Meadow, and Valarr inherited a crown he barely wanted, a grief he couldn't name, and a pain that would never heal. This is the story of what came before and after.
Pairing: Prince Valarr Targaryen x Lady Rosalyn Tyrell (OC)
Trigger warnings: The story contains mentions and depictions of childbirth, death of characters (yes, even him), violence (physical and verbal), and an awful lot of angst and grief so idk get your therapist on the line.
Also, if you've got any questions about the story or its characters, feel free to drop them here and I'll do my best to answer them.
My little contribution to @crablorday!
Maglor Fëanorian may no longer be an elf, but he will always be a musician. Finding the lack of appropriately sized instruments restrictive to his creative impulse, Crablor takes matters in to his own hands (or pincers, rather).
Ting!
On the bench, just to the right of Maedhros there stood a very small crab: bright red and insatiably curious. In his oversized front claw, the tiny creature held a spoon.
Ting… ting… ting!
“If you beat that teacup any harder it will crack,” Maedhros warned, turning back to the salad he was chopping with great care. Beside him silence fell. When, suspicious, he turned to check that the bold crustacean had not found its way into worse mischief a pair of beady eye-stalks met his gaze challengingly.
“All I’m saying is that Ammë’s china is perhaps not the best vehicle for your compositions. Choose something less breakable.”
Maglor had his tiny tin drum, of course, and the glowing crystal chimes that Fëanor had made: the result of a spectacular burst of inspiration that had caused their father to (thankfully only temporarily) misplace Maglor amid Tirion’s bustle last winter (Maedhros had not allowed him to take Maglor on further excursions without a responsible adult present since). Both were fine instruments, wrought in exquisite miniature detail, but a great musician required more stock with which to work. Maglor took matters into his own hands (or pincers, rather).
Eye-stalks bending toward the tools with which Maedhros worked, Maglor dodged suddenly around the stump of his missing right hand and darted across the bench.
“You know you aren’t allowed knives!—oh.”
Tong!
The copper bowl (already partially filled with leafy greens) rang for quite some time after it was struck with the spoon. The little crab looked quite satisfied. Already feeling his temples begin to throb, Maedhros quietly dreaded the headache this development in instrumental design would inevitably bring.
“That is more acceptable,” Maedhros grudgingly declared, all the while thinking that it really was not.
Tong!
Dumping a handful of unevenly cut tomato wedges among the greenery (beastly things to cut one handed!), Maedhros picked out a tender rocket leaf and offered it to his brother. Maglor promptly dropped the spoon and began nibbling eagerly, all percussion related activities forgotten…for now.
Look up. Every star you see took billions of years to burn its way into being. Born of collapse and fire, carved from atoms older than memory. The very same atoms that live in your pulse, your lungs, the warmth of your hands. You are not separate from them. You are star stuff.
And like them, you shine. Stars shimmer against the cold, scattering light into endless dark. They guided lost travelers across oceans, they lit the sky with awe since the beginning, they whispered of something greater. They are proof that chaos can create beauty.
You carry that same truth. In your heart, in the way your laughter breaks silence, in the steadiness of your touch when others are afraid. You are a constellation in motion, a beacon no storm can smother. Your aura flares against despair, a promise that hope is still possible.
I know you have been through collapse. I know the nights that left you trembling, the fractures that made you wonder if you’d hold together. You have been pulled apart like a star nearing supernova, and still—you burn on. Not untouched, not unscarred, but radiant because of the chaos, not in spite of it. Out of fracture, you still shine. Out of ache, you still become light.
That is what makes you extraordinary. Not perfection, not ease, but the way you blaze through the darkness anyway. A masterpiece of nature, made of the oldest dust, carrying the newest hope. A constellation someone could trace with reverence, a flare against the void.
So when the night feels unbearable, remember this:
One of the perks of writing in a more veiled manner, where more is shown and less is explained: once in a while someone comes along and is like "I saw this subtext in your writing."
And you're like "cool, alright? I didn't intend to put that there, but that's cool. I guess it could mean that."
This is a rant.
If I ever get off of my arse and begin to write, I think the most important lesson I've learned from watching writers of popular series is the necessity of reiterating key points of the plot every. single. episode.
Either using the title sequence to recite the overarching plot each episode,
(Avatar the Last Airbender),
Or just making your show a monster/flavor-of-the-week so that we get glimpses of the same characters and motivations week after week, but using different words/situations/angles to explore them each time.
(like, I dunno Jackie Chan Adventures. I'm a geezer, whatever.)
The number of TADC fans out there calling a Caine a good boy who was just trying his best and was misunderstood... grates me. Slightly.
But it isn't the audience's fault. I know it's not their fault.
This show has been spread out over nearly 2 1/2 years.
(The pilot/episode 1 aired Oct 13, 2023)
The one... the ONE scene that clearly refutes Caine's innocence was aired exactly nine months before episode 8, towards the end of a single scene (Episode 5, Jun 20, 2025, the end of the Stargazing scene).
Nine months is a whole ass baby.
I entirely forgot that that line myself until I decided to re-watch the series from the start on a whim.
And you'd have to have been listening for it to catch it.
With your ears.
Which I don't even do.
I'm not saying the show is bad. I love the show. If I hated it, I wouldn't care enough to rant about it (rantrantrant).
I'm just... "saying"...
...that's all...
This is a rant.
I am a toddler. Severe, exaggerated visuals stick harder in my brain than talk. I was raised being left out of grown-up talks due to language barriers, so grown-up talk is the stuff that falls out of my ear first - unless I am intentionally looking for something I can understand. Otherwise, dialogue is just "ha-ha, your mouth is making funny words that are meant to enhance the funny visuals antics, ammiright? funny guy." (I'm 38. I'm stupid. You can't fix me).
I wonder if changing the visuals during key dialogue would have acted like a red flag to my brain to pay attention to words? At what point does pantomiming become too juvenile?
Maybe the drawn outed-ness is a part of the show's design. There are clues everywhere (both visual and dialogue) about the characters' headspaces though out the show - it's just a matter of how willing you are to make a risky guess until your guess is confirmed. Maybe the show was meant to be rewatched for full enjoyment.
Epiphany rant?
Whatever... it's easier to think in my head than behind a keyboard... so meh.
Rant end.
I was wondering, since Rev has Six and the other prowlers he takes care of, what would he think of a Legend S/o who takes care of Prowlers, Spiders and Flyers for the games? Like they own some and they usually go to World’s Edge, Kings Canyon and Storm Point before they are in Rotation to check on the animals and they all really really like s/o when they drop by.
Okay I sort of took the vibes of this and absolutely ran with it. This is basically a plot point skeleton for a first book in a multi-book fanfiction at this point:
You never noticed Revenant between games before, as Bloodhound was always more your pace with a commonality in caring for beasts, until one day you were running behind.
The Flyers were upset that day, as were the Spiders. You ended up having to spend way more time to feed both, and you didn't even get a chance to get close to them in order to check their condition.
By the time you reached the Prowlers, you understood why.
Nothing quite like a 6'7" tall metal maniac holding a young, injured dinosaur like a beloved puppy to get you to pay attention.
He was not pleased to see you.
He was immediately accusatory: why weren't you there sooner? Something about how bad this could have been, and how he can't stand the use of prowlers as fodder for entertainment, and that they deserve care or to be let go.
Oddly enough, you agree with the oversized villain character of the Apex Games.
You interrupt him to ask what exactly is wrong, since it needs to be addressed immediately.
"Blood scale" is no sooner uttered than you jumping over the prowler in his arms to try to find the lethal bleed.
He shoves you away, and you hear him say it.
"I took care of it, skinbag."
He... he did?
He flicks a bloody, hollow scale in your direction. Most of the blood has drained, but it clearly was a blood scale.
You spent eight years in school to become a veterinarian with a focus on neozoology and exotic animals, became a specialist in some of the most dangerous fauna on this side of the Outlands, and pushed the present understanding of medical knowledge on these species youself just for some simulacrum at work to "take care of it" himself.
He reels back a bit as you stare at him, letting the prowler leap from his arms while panting happily, letting it's tongue loll out.
After that encounter, Revenant could not escape your notice, much to his annoyance for a few months.
You would seek him out to present questions about prowlers aloud near him, much like you would with Caustic for the spiders. Like Caustic, Revenant would often sigh loudly in frustration while answering the complex question like it was elementary knowledge.
He became an invaluable resource.
Caustic never came around to liking you, but Revenant got used to you.
Finally, Revenant would start "appearing" when you would make your usual rounds to the battlefields' prowler dens.
You are surprised to find that Revenant's presence does not upset the prowlers, but rather calms them down.
He started by just watching you take care of the prowlers: taking blood labs, treating small injuries, providing meat fortified with necessary vitamins and minerals, administering basic medicines to the sick, and tagging newborns for tracking.
Then you tried checking on a prowler with a broken leg, which would usually call for careful euthanasia due to how dangerous it can be if the prowler lashes out in pain.
You thought you could help, but trying to set the leg proved too painful.
The bite would have killed you instantly, if it reached you.
Revenant took the bite with his own body, holding the snout in place around his leg to give you time to set the break, splint it, and hard cast it.
He began stepping in to help you after that, and it became an unacknowledged standard for you to give the prowlers better and more in-depth care in exchange for his invulnerablility, knowledge, and strength.
It started to become the best part of your job.
You began getting to the prowlers first, and spending a bit longer with them.
Eventually, he started following you to take care of the flyers and spiders too, although he clearly was a bit more out of his depth in those situations.
He was able to adjust to the flyers fairly easily, but the spiders and him seem to have a respectful hatred of one another.
The spider eggs are no problem for him, and even freshly hatched spiders do not affect him much; but the massive, drop-ship sized adults are a different story.
Given their venom is caustic and turns his body to a rusting, oxidizing mess: fair enough. You agree with him, but moreso because of the fangs that are almost as tall and wide as you.
Thankfully, so long as they're well-fed and it's the daytime, they don't have much interest in you.
Revenant, however...
If the spiders become aware of Revenant, they will either threat pose at him until he backs away or gently approach him to reach for him.
He's not fond of the latter behavior, likely because he's not fond of having younger, smaller males trying to attach a spawning web to him.
It's funny, to watch his smaller frame hiding in a crevasse from a massive spider who has mistaken him for a possible mate.
Revenant rapidly became the prettiest (and most docile) bachelorette at the ball, likely on account of not killing and eating the males like the females normally would.
At the same time, he plays the hardest to get, leaving you snickering back at the dropship to handle paperwork.
He hates it, obviously, but he sticks around anyway.
Finally, one time a male managed to attach a ball of spawning silk to him, and that was the first time you got to help Revenant back.
Back at the facility, after a very uncomfortable and sticky ride back from Storm Point, you were able to carefully use acetone and a paint scraper to get the webbing off of him.
Revenant was about as cooperative as the prowlers, growling and complaining with each long scrape.
Some of his paint comes off with the webbing, but he doesn't seem to care so long as his evidence of being the target of a male spider's love and affection is gone.
You promise in the privacy of his living space that you won't tell anyone about it, and thank him for always being around to help you
He immediately shoots down your thanks verbally, insisting it means nothing to him
"As long as the prowlers are taken care of, I don't give a damn"
He mumbles about wishing they weren't a part of the Apex Games, right as you scrape off the last clump of webbing
He tries to get up to leave, but you stop him to wipe him down with acetone, just to be sure the adhesive slime isn't lingering.
He's sticky beyond compare, and the acetone-soaked rag strips off paint with the adhesive.
You have to carefully hit every crevasse to clean, which rapidly reveals he's...
Ticklish?
As the paint is stripped from the metal plating, Revenant contorts, jerks, huffs, and gasps randomly as you gently rub the rims and edges of his chassis.
He's clearly embarrassed and uncomfortable, causing you to instinctively apologize while insistently cleaning him.
He reminds you of most of your patients: large, able to kill you in a single motion, and yet vulnerable in some way.
And that's when you got fully attached to sticking close to him.
He invited you to sleep on his couch for the first time, especially as long as it took to finish cleaning him.
You insisted you "couldn't" because you needed to stay up until he was fully taken care of, which included repainting the stripped areas.
Honestly, you were completely exhausted and not all there at that point, but he let you help him repaint his chassis.
Between the paint fumes, sleep deprivation, and exhaustion, you passed out in his room.
After that night, Revenant wouldn't stop sticking to your side. You caught his attention, and you weren't getting away from him.
