thank you for asking because I have LOTS to say and will hopefully be posting chapter 1 pretty soon! sorry it took so long, i needed to formulate my thoughts, but fact that much of my yapping has been only in dms needed to change. I need to talk about this so much more tbh. Also warning that this will heavily discuss child loss and infertility. Without further ado, here's some random yapping:
The way this whole fic idea was born was considering the possibility of Valarr being the one dealing with infertility, and him and Kiera having to get creative about possible solutions for an heir. Then my brain said wait don't forget the funky political machinations that are going on in this set up!
essentially in this fic, Valarr has survived the Great Spring Sickness (and Baelor had a TBI from Maekar bonking his head but is still mostly fine), but King Daeron 2 has perished. His small council was heavily impacted by the Sickness, and many (including Aerys sorry but actually not sorry) died of the sickness. There's a lot of political fallout and stress related to those deaths and the Blackfyre threat of another rebellion is looking promising. Also importantly, Baelor only has one direct heir left, as Matarys has still died (sorry Matarys).
Something I've been thinking a lot about is Tyrosh and how big of a role they play in that whole conflict. So as Baelor is settling in to become Baelor 2 (I'm not in the mood to do Roman numerals right now sorry), there's already a lot of pressure on Valarr to secure the line of inheritance with an heir. But Kiera, his wife of a few years now, is also under a similar pressure as Tyrosh is split between supporting the Blackfyre cause again or remaining neutral (I also have a lot of thoughts on Tyrosh and the fact that it's a slave state which I don't think is discussed in the context of the Blackfyre rebellion nearly enough).
However, Kiera and Valarr have now suffered the loss of two babes, and it's unclear to them why this has happened. There's been so much grief and they really need a baby, any baby, to be born and yet they've suffered two losses. So what are they to do if they've been unsuccessful in producing an heir? Infertility was something that medieval people were aware of, and recurrent miscarriages and male infertility also had some level of being known about. But who could fill in for Valarr that would still have a claim to the throne? Matarys is dead, Aelor is too incestuous for his sister, Aerion is Aerion, and everyone else is either too young or too old (or couldn't be discreet enough). Daeron 👀
cue lots of complicated sex (and politics) that has to be done for the Good Of The Kingdom, and Valarr and Daeron clashing over their historically complicated relationship. And I've been calling this the fuckening with @nichestars because 1. It's funny 2. The fuckening in question is a reckoning but the setting is we must have sex about it. Can't wait to unleash more of this upon the world!
