lays me down, with my mind she runs
summary: In 208 AC, Prince Valarr Targaryen married Lady Lannister of Casterly Rock, after a betrothal that lasted for over a decade. Despite the fact that their marriage was arranged for them by their families, it is known that the each of them was smitten for the other ever since the courting started, and the promise they made before the Seven only strengthened their bond.
pairings: valarr targaryen x lannister!reader (no use of y/n)
word count: 5.7k
warnings: first time writing smut kinda nervous, so nudity (both sexual and not), pregnancy, it's been a while since i read the books so this might be a little inaccurate, no spoilers for the series, no aerion, childbirth, they love each other so much, he's a boob guy, and a munch, minors dni, i might come back to proofread this again later
author’s note: I'M BACK IN THE FUCKING BUILDING AGAIN 💔 this is inspired by what I had planned for the princess and cregan but we'll see how hotd season three goes... also, divider from @saradika-graphics
It starts the morning after your wedding.
Up until then, Valarr had been polite and well-mannered — as expected of a prince of his standing, and a betrothal that was arranged years before you were even in age to be married off. His touches had been appropriate and polite — lingering at best — and the most affection he had shown in your regards before the kiss at the altar were courtesy kisses over your rings as greetings.
The courtship lasted a few months, just for your families to understand if the two of you went along well enough. Normally such a thing wouldn’t matter, as you’re still a highborne lady and you would have had to marry someone of higher standing nonetheless, but your brothers have always held your well-being close to their hearts. The prince was charming and as nice as one could be, and soon, the two of you got along pretty well, enough so as not to make you resent the agreement between the Lannisters and the Targaryens. You don’t know how he went from that to this.
You’re laid on your side, still completely bare under the covers, a pillow held tight in your arms as your newly-appointed husband snores lightly in your ears. His embrace is unforgiving — his cheek is pressed against your nape, his chest is glued to your back and he holds you almost as tight as you’re holding onto your beloved pillow. Even one of his legs is thrown over your side, and as you blankly inspect his position, you wonder how it is possible that this is the same prince that dutifully courted you for months.
“My prince,” you whisper to him, nudging his arm, “my prince. I am in an uncomfortable position. Let me move.”
He sighs dreamily, his nose pressing on your shoulder, “Wife,” he murmurs, happily, “why would you ever disrupt me from my sleep? I was having the best dream of my life. The babe suited your arms so well.”
You laugh quietly, trying to detach his arms from your midriff. “I fear you are getting too far ahead for your own good, my prince — we just laid together yesterday; even in the best case, a babe wouldn’t be due for, say, nine or ten moons.”
He utters something, still incoherent with sleep, before begrudgingly loosening his hold on you, opting to just rest his hands over your hips, under the covers. “Husband,” he whines.
You perk up. “Pardon me?”
“Husband.” He nuzzles in the space between your shoulder and neck, leaving warm kisses there, breathing in the remaining perfume — intoxicating, if you were to ask him — on your hair, mostly from the oils your handmaidens had massaged there before the wedding. “I am your husband, am I not? So call me that, if not Valarr.”
You resist the urge to roll your eyes at him — it’s not that the gesture isn’t appreciated, it’s just that the manners your Septa had taught you early on still stand; Lannister discipline rarely falters, unless it’s something neither you nor your brothers really care about. “Fair. Can I move now, husband?”
He giggles — like he’s a young maiden madly in love and not the son of the Crown Prince. “You may, wife.”
You rise to a sitting position, still a bit bleary from sleep, uncaring to hide your naked body to his sight — what for? He’s already seen everything, anyways — then fluff a couple of pillows and lie over them on your back, half-propped up against the headboard. You stretch your back a little, yawning, and it cracks a little under the movement. “Gods, what a night.”
All your efforts to get your husband off your form prove to be useless, as he doesn’t even ask for your permission before lying atop your body, face nestled between your breasts. “I take it you liked our endeavors at least half as much as I did?”
You hum non-committedly, raising your hand to lazily scratch his nape and bare back, covered in constellations of moles. “I can only say I’m sure you’ll improve, husband.”
He gasps indignantly. “What would that mean, now?”
The chuckle that escapes your lips is music to his ears — Seven, he’s so smitten. “That you were good, but I'm sure you'll become great.”
Valarr lays a teasing slap over your thigh as he presses kisses in the valley between your breasts. “Already mocking me, wife? We just got married.”
The kisses trail down to your breasts, and you moan a little when he pecks one of your nipples. “I swear, it’s like the Mother made you for me,” he groans, hardening all over again — seems like last night wasn’t enough for him. He nips and sucks on your nipple as you mewl at his ministrations, gently tugging on his already mussed hair.
You can feel his shaft pressing against your inner thigh, and you pull his head up from his hair just what is needed to kiss the wet corner of his mouth. “Maybe she did, husband — and the babe from your dream isn’t something too far off from the future.” he chases again for your kisses when you part from him, unashamedly licking your lower lip before ravishing your mouth. It’s really hard to believe that the man who greeted you with the utmost honour and respect when you first got here is the same as the one looking so disheveled on top of you right now.
He reaches a hand down for your mound, already aching and so wet for him, and lets out a pleased chuckle. “It seems I am not the only one eager for a babe, am I?”
You’re still a little sore from when he first breached you last night, but that does not dampen your want for him the slightest bit. Valarr rubs your swollen clit in circular motions and you moan as he inserts two fingers in your hole, “Just give it to me, husband,” you whine, hips rocking back and forth against his digits as he spreads you open.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he hums — you really landed the jackpot, didn’t you? All the other women in the Realm must be grieving the loss of Prince Valarr Targaryen in the husbands’ market, because all the other brutes who pretend to be men but only care about getting their dicks wet can’t even compare. “Let me prepare you, please–”
“Don’t care,” you snap, getting impatient, “just get in, husband– please?” you tug at his arm, trying to bribe him with countless kisses over the apples of his cheek, feeling feverish all over. And he must, too, because while you’re sure that in a normal situation he’d insist, this time he just groans and presses his reddened tip on your hole. “Just tell me if you feel any kind of pain, okay?”
The stretch has your eyes rolling back in your head, and your hips instinctively stutter to meet his length halfway. Valarr moans loudly and presses a firm palm against your stomach, holding you in place, “No, no– do you want me to burst this instant, my love? Stay still, please,”
He sinks up to the hilt slowly, and when his hips finally press flat against yours, you wrap your legs around his waist, pulling him impossibly closer. His hand comes up to brush your hair — glued to your face thanks to the sweat — away from your forehead and cheek, carding his digits through the strands over your back in the process. He presses a dozen kisses to your lips, impossibly tender, before finally starting to move — grinding his pelvis against yours, up and down, wiggling in your hold. “Ngh– you’re not making this any easier, wife,” he grunts, breath fanning over your cheek.
You grin, eyes glazed over, then promptly proceed to bite his jaw, pulling away just to admire your work — that being, the blazing red mark your teeth have left on his pale skin. “Never making it easier for you, husband,” you tease, yelping when his hand lands on your thigh again — a fine response to your relentless teasing, you must say. “Then you must know that I will make sure to get used to it,”
Later, when his spending is dripping all over your thighs and he’s wetting a rag in the basin on the other side of the room, you ask, still breathless, “How was he?”
Valarr perks up, eyebrows raising to his hairline as he rounds the bed again, gently wiping away his release from your body as you’re still too blissed out to even move. “Who, my love?”
“The babe,” you whisper when one of his hands comes up to your face, knuckles grazing over your cheek, “what did he look like?”
Your husband hums a little, amused, and pats your hip reassuringly when you grimace at the rag coming up to your most sensitive spot. “I didn’t say the babe was a he,” he noses your brow, careful not to press his body against yours too much lest another endeavour might happen, “I dreamt of a little girl with your hair and smile — suckling at your breasts and holding tight onto my finger.” his lips press against your temple, so soft and warm that you feel like bursting, “Don’t you want a boy, my prince?” you manage to ask, voice still a little weak from your previous intercourse.
“I’d be over the moon with anything you’d give me,” he takes your hand in yours, brushing your fingers with tenderness before leaving a kiss to your knuckles — you wriggle your digits a little and can’t help but think that this is the first time his mouth presses against your hand without any rings in between. “I don’t care if it’s a girl, or a boy– whatever the Mother chooses to give us, I’ll be happy with.”
His prayers must’ve been heard, because not even three months later, you notice the missing presence of your moonblood. That alone wouldn’t alarm you normally, as your courses have always been quite inconsistent, but the constant nausea over things that usually would have your mouth watering is a clear warning sign.
Valarr is worried, because his wife — who always loved venison meat glazed with honey and roasted potatoes with it — suddenly can’t even stand the smell. Even worse, you turn green when he comes back from a hunt on horseback, turning your face the other way when he tries to kiss you, and he has to bathe thoroughly before he can even get anywhere close to you. And Seven forbid he forgets to wash his hair — because you can and will smell it, and proceed to give him the silent treatment for the rest of the evening, even after he goes and washes it.
You’re even more difficult than usual — you cry in the mornings while putting on your jewelry because it feels like you never have enough, you yell at the poor servants when the bath water is just a tad bit colder than you wanted it and you even refuse your husband in bed. Not that he’s angry about that, but it is strange coming from you, considering that until a few weeks ago you were the one jumping on him at every given occasion.
The news reach him one day after his return from a hunt with his father and brother, when he finds Maester Kaeth waiting for him at the Red Keep’s entrance. He raises an eyebrow and dismounts his horse, looking expectantly at the Maester as a stable boy comes to retrieve the horse — you may not be able to stand the smell, but you’re always there, in the balcony, waving at him when he finally comes back. “Well, at what do I owe the pleasure?” he asks the old man, removing his gloves.
“‘Tis your wife, my prince,” Keath replies, bowing curtly. Baelor, still atop his horse, perks up slightly.
Valarr leans his head to the side, not understanding the fuss. “Well, what about her?” if it was something serious, surely they would’ve had a messenger come all the way to the woods to retrieve him, so he knows you’re doing fairly well. The only question is what’s the matter with the Maester.
The latter hesitates. “Well, you see, my prince… she, uh,”
“Just spit it out,” Baelor comes up from behind the younger prince, shoulders squared, “all this stuttering won’t soften whatever news you have for my son.”
“Well, my concern isn’t softening the blow,” the Maester promptly replies, feathers ruffled by the Crown Prince’s assumptions. “The matter is, you see, that the princess is with child — two to three moons along, I’d fare.”
Your husband blinks a bit, stunned, only for the brightest of grins to erupt on his face. “But that is wonderful news!” Kaeth barely manages to stop him as he tries to fling off to your shared chambers, and Valarr protests loudly. “What are you doing? I must congratulate my wife! This is the best news I’ve had ever since our marriage was announced!”
“Yes, yes, that is what I told her,” the old man concedes, “but the princess– she doesn’t seem to have taken the news well.”
Valarr pauses. He blinks, sharing a confused look with his father, then glances back at the Maester, dabbing the sweat away from his forehead with a handkerchief. “What do you mean, she hasn’t taken the news well?” The two of you haven’t been married for long, but you often talked about children as you laid bare under the covers of your bed. You have never shown any aversion to the thought up until now — otherwise, he would’ve made sure you drank Moon Tea to avoid any pregnancy until you were ready for it.
“Yes, yes, I had imagined you’d react this way,” the Maester mumbles, mostly talking to himself. “‘Tis why I waited here– you see, she has barricaded herself in her chambers and refuses to come out. Up until now she has allowed only a few servants with hot water baskets to enter — she’s having a bath, they told me. I just wished to warn you beforehand.”
A hand comes up to rub at the lines on his forehead before he can stop it. Baelor pats his shoulder and nods to the Maester, “Thank you for your consideration — we’ll handle this.” The latter bows one last time before departing hastily, and Valarr is left with his father and very confused brother.
“Sometimes women operate in ways that we, as men, can’t really comprehend,” his father starts, as calm as ever — he always is. Valarr wonders briefly if his own mother ever had any outbursts with him, and if that is why he seems so casual around the subject. “Be careful with your words when you try to approach her, and never forget that she is with child, therefore prone to be… particularly sensitive.”
Matarys, finally dismounted from his horse, grimaces. “Father, you’re speaking of her as if she were a rabid animal.”
Baelor looks at him, dead serious. “Never underestimate a woman, son — especially a pregnant one. Sometimes I still have nightmares of when your own mother was round with you.” At the thought, the great Baelor Breakspear — heir to the Iron Throne, Hand of the King and renowned knight — fucking shivers, before patting again Valarr on the shoulder (even though this time, it feels less than reassuring). “Be brave, son. Your marriage is at stake.” Dramatic much? Probably not, knowing your own prowess for dramatics.
Valarr goes towards your chambers basically dragging his feet — he still stinks of horse, he’s sweaty all over and he fears he’s still got some mud over his cheek from when Matarys made him fall from his mount. He should probably wait and wash before he goes to see you, but his worry is too great to wait even another minute.
He reaches the door to your chambers, only to find what feels like a whole troop of servants waiting outside. They meet him with their usual bows and greetings, hands fidgeting, eyebrows creased in panic. “The princess refuses to get out,” one of your handmaidens briefs him, “she said, um, she said she doesn’t want to see you anymore, Your Grace. Please, knock some sense into her– we’ve all been so worried these past few weeks– all of this is just absurd!”
“I’ll try,” he mutters grimly, sending them away. When the last servant disappears behind the hallway turn, he hesitates at the door before knocking. “My love?” he tries, “Maester Keath told me the news — wondrous, is it not?” he grimaces at the crack in his voice — gods, he’s really not good at these things.
“Go away!” comes your scream from the chambers, “I don’t want to see you anymore! I’ll have my brothers come to take me back to Casterly Rock!”
His hand hovers over the wooden door, and he’s too stunned to have it rest back to his side. “I– Casterly Rock? I thought everything was going well– I thought you would be happy with such news!” he knocks again on the entrance, “Please, my love, let me in– I’m sure that I can fix whatever’s plaguing your mind, but I need you to tell me what’s wrong.”
The sniffle that comes from inside nearly breaks his resolve. “Come.” Your voice is unusually small, and he doesn’t know why he’s surprised to find the door unlocked — the servants had to come in and out, after all.
His boots squeak a little on the floor. You’re in the bathtub, hair tied on top of your head but still damp from the steam, knees drawn up to your chin. Your eyes are bloodshot red, and his heart clenches at the sight of you looking so miserable. “Hi,” he says, trying to break the tension in the air, “care to explain this… outburst, to your poor, confused husband?” he continues, trying to be as nice as possible.
You sniffle again. “I am with child.”
“I am aware.” he smiles a little, perhaps trying to ease your mood. “You… you’re not too happy about it, I take it?”
You hide under the bubbly, steaming water to your best abilities. “I am happy.”
Valarr feels his heart lighten up — this is salvageable. He can get through this — he just has to understand what has gotten you so worked up now. “If I am happy, and you’re happy, then what is the matter?”
You twist a strand of hair, curled from the moist, a prominent pout on your face. “…I will get fat.”
He blinks. “That’s it?” he asks, before his better judgement can stop gim.
You flush red — and it’s not from embarrassment, or shyness, but from anger. “That’s it?” you repeat, voice shrill. “That’s it? I will need a whole new wardrobe! My clothes won’t fit anymore! My favourite belts will become necklaces — at best!”
Valarr tries to be better, and this time manages to hold his laugh in. “Please, my love — I’m sure we’ll manage. I feared it was something serious — complications with the gestation or worse. I’ll have all the clothes you want fitted for you.”
“Something serious, he says,” you spit, “won’t it be serious when I’ll be six, seven, eight and nine moons along and you won’t even manage to look at me from how big I’ve gotten and all you’ll feel for me will be disgust?” your own mother has had the same experience — a loving and careful husband, until she got with child. Then it was two years of barely any touch nor glance, until she got back in shape, and he felt it in himself to bed her again. You’d known that a pregnancy was to be inevitable, and as much as you long for a child, you had hoped you would’ve had at least a few more years with Valarr lovingly by your side until he turned his back on you.
His eyes soften. “That’s what all of this is about?” he murmurs, “My love, you could never disgust me. You’ll nurture our child — your belly growing bigger every day is the least of my worries, if not a worry at all. I’m sure you’ll look beautiful even with our babe rounding your figure.”
“That’s a lie,” you whimper, “you won’t even get close to me now that you know of the babe — and I am barely showing yet!”
This time, he can’t help the laugh escaping his lips. “Wife, I have just come back from a hunt! I know how you get when you get a whiff of the smell of a horse — I was thinking that you’d prefer me to keep my distance, but I can come there, if you’d like.”
Your eyes widen in pure distaste at the mention of horse smell. Your pupils rake over his body with want nonetheless — ah, there it is. It did look weird to him how you went for more than a week without any kind of touch from him, and he had figured that either you were depriving or relieving yourself on your own. It’s clear now that the first option is the more plausible one. “You can come here,” you decide in the end, “but no stinky clothes.”
He laughs loudly and removes his armour, soon enough moving to untying his booths. “As Her Grace demands,” he’s bare under your gaze in less than a minute, and he enters the bathtub with a regained pep in his steps. You hold your nose closed with two fingers and toss him a rag without too many compliments, “Clean yourself before I retch all of my breakfast again,”
Valarr does as you request, barely containing his laughter, washing his face and hair in the soapy water around him — he’ll get out of the chamber and smell like roses and Mother knows what other flowers, but at least he’ll also smell like you. “Am I adequate now?” he asks, prompting you to let go of your nose and take a sniff in his general direction.
You seem to think about it for a moment, then relent. “I guess you don’t smell so much like horse shit as before, yes,”
“My,” he gasps, hands cradling your head on his chest, “my wife insulting me? Never heard of such a thing in my life.” His lips press against your cheeks, still wet and red from all the tears you’ve shed, and he tastes the saltiness of them on his tongue. “Care to tell me what sprung this on, wife?”
You shake your head, “Not really.” you don't want him to see your parents in a different light — you and your brothers have ensured enough for yourselves and your children already.
He hums, the vibrations a nice feeling on your skin. “That is okay, but you’ll have to promise me that such a thing will never happen again. You have a problem, we talk about it. You don’t shut me out — never. Got it?”
This time you nod, your body completely abandoned to his hold. He grins and presses a kiss to your collarbone, one of his hands coming to brush gently against the soft, if not still inexistent swell of your stomach. “Now that we’ve cleared all doubts — do you have any names in mind?”
Valarr wasn’t kidding when he said that he could never be disgusted in you, because as your pregnancy progresses, his attentions only seem to tenfold. He talks to the babe every morning, sometimes even waking up earlier just to get a few minutes more with them, and is already overseeing a few sellers in the farmers market for children’s clothes. He’s convinced that the babe is a girl and never fails to remind you so, often bringing back to the Red Keep countless dresses and dolls for his firstborn.
You, however, are adamant it's a boy — mother's intuition and all that. You spend your days embroidering little outfits for the child, intertwining the Targaryen’s three-headed dragon with your house's lion, and eating lemon cakes in the gardens with your ladies-in-waiting, gossiping about the latest news coming to King’s Landing. Despite your constant, half-hearted squabbles on the gender of the babe, your husband takes any chance he has to smother you with gifts and tokens — new jewelry, new clothes that fit your belly, the works.
Around the time you reach the sixth moon mark and are more round than tall, a small feast is thrown in celebration of the new expected heir. Your brothers ride from Casterly Rock to the capital for the occasion, bringing a whole carriage of gifts and gold with them to spoil their sister and their new nephew or niece, so much so that all the presents from the other houses combined feel pale in comparison.
Tybold presses a hand over the swell of your belly and jests that only Lannister’s sons ever get this big at this point in the pregnancy, while Gerold nods and hums excitedly, taking a good look at you. Cerelle — Tybold’s daughter — jumps around you and chants your name, holding up a scribbly drawing that seems to be you made on one of her father’s land reports. “Auntie, look! I maked this for you!”
“Made, sweetheart,” your brother corrects her gently. “Made!” she repeats, her excitement not wavering the slightest bit. You laugh and take the drawing, caressing your belly with your free hand, and think that after all, being pregnant isn’t so bad.
The feast is everything you dreamed of when you were little and first found out they betrothed you to a prince — a buffet that looks endless, countless lords and ladies coming from all around the Realm to congratulate you and a charming husband that worships the ground you walk on. The gifts continue to pile up in the servant’s arms — cradles, clothes, jewelry, everything. It’s not like you didn’t have this at your wedding — it’s just that it’s refreshing to see a pregnancy celebrated with such fervor.
You eat to your heart’s content and dance with Valarr until your feet hurt, your corset feeling a little too tight after hours of being up and about. Your husband just laughs, fanning you back to livelihood, “You alright, my love?”
Your laugh comes out a little breathy, “Never been better, husband.”
That night, as you lay in bed with your husband resting his head over your belly after massaging soothing oils over your skin, he tells you, “I hope the babe looks like you.”
You laugh a bit, brushing his hair away from his face, “You always say that,”
“And I mean it with all my heart,” one of his hands caresses your hip from under your nightgown and starts pulling it up as his kisses trail from your stomach to lower ends, “she’ll have your eyes, and your laugh, and your smile…”
“He’ll have your nose,” you gasp as he lays a tentative lick at your entrance. You tug on his hair, “And if he really needs to take something from me, then it better be the demeanor.”
He hums over your core, sending vibrations up to your spine. “Hopefully not,” he mumbles, “the last thing we need is another needy and spoiled little thing like you.” your hand pushes him deeper into your mound, nearly smothering him in the process, “Don’t act like you don’t like it, husband.”
You’ve been insatiable as soon as you found out you were pregnant, and that has yet to change — and why would it? Your husband tends to every one of your needs, from massaging your sore limbs to getting one to three releases out of you when you really need it. Soon after, he finds himself with his mouth over your breasts, sucking at your leaking and throbbing nipples, hoping to at least soothe the ache he had a say in causing.
These days, it’s a miracle if he ever manages to get out of bed, as you mostly keep him tied to you. You’ve started to prefer your chambers to the rest of the Keep, staying in sultry satin robes that make him want to make you round with his child all over again, or stark naked in the bathtub, resting your tired limbs and stretched skin in the warm water. He really doesn’t understand how you could ever think he’d find you disgusting — if he has to be honest, you’ve never looked more enthralling than you do as of now, breasts swollen and belly round because of him.
For him, your every request is an order, so it’s not unusual to see him go back and forth to the kitchens for lemon cakes or ask the servants to bring more hot water for your herb baths, and whispers start to circulate the Red Keep about Lady Lannister bewitching the prince. None of it is true, of course, because if Valarr didn’t want to do anything you said, he simply wouldn’t.
Your stomach pains start a month before the babe is supposed to be born. The Maester assures that it’s normal for mothers to feel sudden aches and contractions even if far from the labours, and says something about the body starting to prepare itself for the birth. Your husband is there for every second of it, holding your hand through the brief and irregular contractions, whispering sweet nothings in your ears as you groan from the pain.
The labour, however, does start early. Valarr wakes one night to find the bed wet and you hunched over the side of it, already on your feet and moaning in pain, holding your swollen belly. “My waters have broken,” you breathe out, sweat clinging to your forehead, “go– ngh– call the Maester, please.”
It’s a grueling affair, and he’s not sure how he feels knowing that women’s bodies are able to do this — to push out a whole other human being while resisting unbearable pain. It lasts days, at the end of which you’re exhausted from all your efforts, he’s exhausted from seeing you in so much pain and the Maester and the nursemaids barely have any resolve left in them. You weep and sob as everyone seems to yell at you to push, at least grateful for your husband’s presence — even if it is not usual for a man to be in the birthing chamber — when finally, one of the nurses’ shrill screams reaches your ears. “The head, m’lady! I see the head!”
“After three days, that’s the bare minimum,” you utter, barely coherent. The only thing keeping you afloat is Valarr’s hold, assuring you don’t fall back on the bed and keeping you up despite your body screaming at you to just lie down and accept your fate. Your husband seems to have regained some hope at the news, and he caresses your bicep reassuringly, “You heard that, my love? It’s almost over, it’s almost over–”
Not too long after, a shrill cry rips through the air. “A son!” the Maester hollers, “A healthy son, my prince!”
You pant, tears streaming down your face, your limbs going limp. As Valarr gently lets you rest over the cushions on the bed, you manage to raise your arms towards the babe, still crying loudly, “Gimme– gimme the babe,” you stutter out, body trembling from exhaustion.
Your husband carefully takes your son from the Maester’s arms, shushing his cries while softly rocking him, then smiles down at you. The babe’s cries cease as soon as his cheek touches your chest, and his mouth opens and closes over your skin — looking for milk, no doubt.
As the Maester and nursemaids worry about the afterbirth, you look down at your son, then up at your husband — and despite all the pain, the struggle and the sleep you’ve lost, you manage to beam up at him. “He looks just like you.”
Valarr looks at the boy — all Lannister golden hair and with your same exact nose — and can’t help but think that the only thing he’s taken from him are his still milky, mismatched eyes. You, however, just gave birth. And if you were to say that pigs fly, he would just nod along and agree. So, he does exactly that. “His nose does look a bit like yours, though, doesn’t it?”
It’s like you didn’t even hear him. “My little Baelor,” you coo as he suckles hungrily, soft noises coming out of his mouth, “you don’t even know how long I’ve dreamed about you, do you?” You'd talked about names beforehand, and ultimately agreed on Baelor if it was a son, and Ceryse if it was a girl. Valarr will love Baelor as much as he would've loved Ceryse, but he will continue dreaming about a daughter nonetheless.
It feels like a lifetime’s passed, so when the nursemaids and the Maester finally leave the room, you fight against your eyes to keep them open. Valarr presses a gentle hand against your cheek and mutters, “Sleep,”
“I don’t want to,” you whisper, rubbing your cheek against Baelor’s head, “I– I want to smother him in kisses, hold him for the rest of my life, to– to–” a loud yawn betrays you, the babe stirring slightly in your chest. Your husband can’t help but smile.
“Wife. You deserve a good night’s rest. Please, sleep — little Baelor will still be here when you wake up, as will I.” your son lets out the smallest snore ever, as if to agree with his father, and Valarr — disgustingly tired himself — sends you a pleading look.
“Will you be here when I wake up?” you ask again for clarification.
The man nods, a soft smile gracing his lips. “I will,” he presses a kiss to your forehead as your eyes close, “now, and for the rest of my life — I swear it.”
