And now I immediately have to go into d&d prep for tomorrow instead of working on 20 😭😭😭😭
Hopefully I don't crash too hard after the session and I can start on the next chapters.
If there is a delay, it's because I think I may need to work on chapters 20 and 21 at the same time. Both chapters include scenes I'd written the bones of all the way back near the beginning of this fic, so I'll probably jump on those first.
This contains spoilers for the character development up to Chapter 18 of If Dream's Die, but the subject of Valarr and Aerion's relationship came up repeatedly in the comments, so I wanted to address it.
From Valarr's side, I wrote the relationship as entirely familial. Aerion was his cousin, his best friend, and very much a younger brother in need of far more attention and reassurance than he knew how to ask for. They got on so well partly because they resembled their fathers in ways that temperamentally complimented each other. Valarr had been raised as Baelor's heir and as a boy very near to being next in line for the throne, so he was forced into greater emotional and personal maturity fairly young. Aerion gave him somewhere he could be less responsible and enjoy a little freedom from those expectations, similar to what I imagined Maekar was to Baelor.
I left Aerion's side intentionally less defined because I didn't think Aerion himself would have been capable of making that distinction at the age when the attachment became so important to him. Valarr was simply … his person. When you are young and immature, that kind of attachment can become intensely possessive without fitting into categories like friendship, brotherly love, or romance. A child can become jealous of sharing a parent, or overly dependent upon an older sibling, without ever truly understanding what those emotions mean. The intensity supersedes the ability to classify it.
And THAT is what matters. Aerion was already someone who felt everything too strongly, was inclined toward possessiveness and entitlement, and depended upon external validation that could never actually satisfy the need beneath it. He repeatedly mistook being chosen first as being "better loved", and he mistook loyalty for a guarantee that his place in another's life meant that "place" should look the same through all stages of life.
So, when Valarr married Kiera, and his priorities naturally reorganized around his wife and the building of a household, Aerion experienced that as being displaced. HOW he defined the relationship or those feelings doesn't matter. The injury felt by one lonely boy remains the same either way.
Everyone is free to read the relationship in whatever way makes the character most interesting to them. It won't at all contradict what I intended, which is to demonstrate the toxic side of Aerion's understanding of loyalty. His belief that having someone's loyalty should mean possessing an unquestioned place in that person's life is exactly why Dunk has become such a powerful motivator for change in him. The Aerion before was not emotionally equipped to understand that a person could love him and still have other duties, other people, other griefs, and other responsibilities that came first. Lys could never teach him that. Only the road to Whitewalls, alongside one particular hedge knight, and one particular squire.
Valarr's marriage, Baelor's choice, Maekar's "banishment"--these things confirmed Aerion's zero-sum understanding of attachment. Dunk and Harys gradually teach him that the opposite can be true.
All throughout the road, Dunk was constantly dragging them into other people's problems--spending his labor, his time, his care, their resources on people Aerion considered irrelevant. From Aerion's perspective, we saw him observe Dunk as someone forever placing someone else's immediate need ahead of the group's comfort. Dunk repeatedly argued/debated with Aerion, resisted his philosophy, and prioritized strangers over the group. And yet--none of that ever made him less attentive or loyal to Aerion. If anything, Dunk's care for Aerion only grew more deliberate with time. He demonstrated a compassion that was expansive, not competitive. Dunk's care doesn't have to be taken from one person to be given to another.
With Harys, someone within Aerion's own "household", we see him begin extending real loyalty and concern toward Dunk (enough that some of you began to think it sus, exposing your own inner Aerion lol). But Harys began to show care for Dunk, sometimes even gently resisting Aerion, or considering Dunk's feelings first. But he never becomes less Aerion's squire. He never stops being attuned to his prince. Never stops anticipating what he wants, or understanding what he cannot bring himself to say, always meeting needs Aerion would otherwise have to swallow his pride to admit or recognizing requests Aerion cannot bring himself to make. Even injured, Harys is offended when he sees them try to ease his burden, because Harys himself does not interpret care as permission to be displaced from his role (Harys, my boi, you've got your own issues). He wants to remain useful and included, and near the end of the road, his relationship with Aerion is secure enough he can object without fearing it'll cost him his place (in contrast to his terror after being caught by Aemon in Chapter 6).
The road gave Aerion something he would have probably never experienced elsewhere, because it's shared by relationships where affection did not have to be exclusive in order to be secure. Dunk could care about strangers and still choose Aerion. Harys could care about Dunk and still remain Aerion's.
That is the foundation beneath nearly every sign of growth in Chapter 18. Aerion is able to let Harys answer Maekar honestly because he has already learned that resistance is not betrayal. He can accept that Dunk might be still angry because Dunk has repeatedly shown that disapproval won't stop him caring about Aerion. He can choose to use his rank and take advantage of his power in a protective way, because Dunk has spent months making other people's troubles impossible to ignore, and demonstrated how easily such protection can be extended. His first thoughts when asked to give judgment on lords is to think about the lands, tenants, and people that would be impacted, because the road has forced him to see and hear the human life impacted beneath every lordly decision.
He can weep before his sworn sword because the journey to Whitewalls has given him enough evidence that vulnerability will not cost him his place.
I hope this does not disappoint anyone who wants a more concrete answer to how Aerion perceived his relationship with Valarr. I prefer it nebulous because that feels truer to how Aerion would have experienced it. Valarr himself is never a POV, and apart from flashbacks, we won't be seeing him return. He is just another injury Aerion must carry and grow from.
Dear author you have produced the best fanfic I have read in eight years. Jesus Christ. Wishing you so much rest and recovery with all your favorite bevvys and snacks!!!!!
The only thing I can say to this is ... thank you?????? 😭😭😭😭😭
Working on Chapters 15-17 of If Dreams Die and my boy Harys may not be getting a lot of page time, but he is going through it.
Thank you random citizen for urging me to give our beloved squire a face.
If anyone is following the fic here, we probably won't get a chapter this week. I should normally be almost done by now, but I've instead spent the week working on all three chapters concurrently, since they cover the entirety of the Whitewalls arc. There are a lot of individual threads I needed to make sure I'd introduced or resolved. I don't think I've ever written such thorough, beat-for-beat outlines of chapters in my life.
