Rhaegar Targaryen x Twin Reader / Brandon Stark x Reader (reader married him)
Rhaegar x Twin reader request : I was supposed to write the tourney, but I got lazy so lmk if a part two would satisfy you guys because I always stray from the plot when I get into the writing lol!
Unrequited au!!!!
TW: Smut 18+ / Childbirth / Cheating / Targcest
"You're pressing the strings too hard" Rhaegar murmured, his breath warm against the back of your neck. His fingers slid over yours, adjusting their position on the Harps delicate frame. "Like this. Gentle."
Aerys paused in the shadowed archway of the music chamber, unnoticed. The flickering torchlight caught the way his son's hands lingered too long. How Rhaegar's lips brushed the crown of your head when he thought no one watched. The king's knuckles whitened around the goblet in his grasp. He'd seen the way you leaned into your brother's touch, heard the breathless laughter when his thumbs traced idle circles on your wrists under the pretense of correcting your posture.
Later, in the privacy of the royal quarters, Aerys paced before the hearth like a caged beast. "They think me blind" he hissed to Rhaella, who sat stiff backed by the window. The scent of charred parchment still clung to the air from his earlier rage. "That boy looks at her like—" His voice broke off into something jagged. The queen's silence was answer enough. She'd seen it too...the stolen glances during feasts, the way Rhaegar's fingers would linger when handing you a cup of wine.
Word came at dawn. You were summoned to the throne room, where Aerys lounged amidst the barbed spikes of the Iron Throne, his lips curled in a mockery of a smile. "Lord Rickard Stark has asked for a royal bride" he announced, watching your face with predatory delight. The cold seeped through the stones into your bones as he detailed your betrothal to Brandon Stark...a northern winter made flesh. Behind the throne, Ser Barristan shifted uncomfortably, his armor catching the light like a silent warning.
Rhaegar found you in the godswood, fingers clenched around the carved face of the weeping weirwood. "He does this to punish me" he said, voice raw. The scent of damp earth and crushed leaves rose between you as he pressed his forehead to yours. "Every time I close my eyes, I see you in furs, surrounded by wolves." His thumb brushed your lower lip, lingering until footsteps crunched on gravel.
Brandon Stark rode south with winter roses packed in snow. You'd expected rough hands and colder eyes, but he dismounted laughing...sunburned and smelling of pine resin. "You're smaller than I pictured" he grinned, plucking a stray petal from your hair after an ill-timed gust scattered his gift. His jest about southern princesses hiding from snowfall startled a real laugh from you, despite the vice around your ribs. Rhaegar watched from the parapets, harp strings snapping under his white knuckled grip.
You learned the shape of Brandon's character in stolen moments, how he insisted on teaching you to hold a dagger properly because "Even queens need to gut fish" he'd teased. The way his calloused hands gentled when adjusting your grip. At feasts, he drank deeply but never stumbled, his booming voice weaving tales of frost giants that made even Aerys pause mid snarl. Yet when you slipped away to the godswood, it was always Rhaegar who found you first...his lips tracing the shell of your ear as he whispered the lyrics he'd written about stolen kisses by the Blackwater. The dichotomy split you open. Brandon's warmth made your chest ache with its decency, while Rhaegar's touch lit your blood like wildfire.
The twins' bond was written in scars, the matching crescent marks on your left palms from clutching each other too tight during childhood fevers, the way Rhaegar could finish your sentences before your tongue shaped the words.
You watched Brandon spar in the training yard, his laughter ringing as he yielded to a squire half his size. He was sunlight through stained glass...bright, fractured, beautiful in ways that didn't quite align. When he tossed his sword aside to lift the boy onto his shoulders, your breath caught. Kindness came so easily to him. Too easily. It made Rhaegar's midnight confessions of tearing out northern throats feel like poison dripping down your spine.
That night, the feast hall throbbed with torchlight and the reek of spiced wine. Brandon dragged you into a wild northern dance, his hands firm at your waist as the musicians played too fast. "You're thinking again" he murmured against your temple, his beard scraping your skin when he spun you. His thumb brushed the scar on your palm...the twin to Rhaegar's and for a heartbeat, you wondered if he knew. But then he was laughing, twirling you until the world blurred into streaks of firelight.
Rhaegar played the harp in the shadows, his fingers plucking a melody that made your pulse stutter. You knew that song, the one he'd composed the night he'd pressed you into the silks of his bed, murmuring about dragon dreams. Across the hall, Elia Martell watched him with dark, knowing eyes. When the last note shivered into silence, Aerys rose with a goblet clutched in his clawed grip. "A toast!" he crowed. "To my daughter's fertile womb...may the wolves howl with Targaryen babes!" The silence curdled. Brandon's grip on your hand tightened, but his smile never wavered.
Later, you found Rhaegar in the crypts, his fingers tracing the stone face of a long dead queen. "He means to breed you like a mare" he said without turning. The torchlight carved shadows under his cheekbones. "Brandon will mount you in furs, rutting like—" His voice broke. You reached for him, but he caught your wrist, pressing your palm against the fevered thrum of his pulse. "Do you think of me when he touches you?"
Brandon never pressed. His kisses were chaste things, offered like gifts at the end of evening walks...just a brush of lips against your knuckles, the briefest press to your forehead. When you slipped on the serpentine steps, his hands steadied you without lingering. "Honor's a cold bedmate" he joked once, rubbing warmth back into your fingers on a cold night.
Until the evening he returned from White Harbor, drunk on sour ale and northern candor. He'd cornered you in an alcove, his breath sharp with liquor, his chest flush against yours. "You should know" he murmured, rough fingertips tracing your jaw, "I've had little snows...bastards, scattered north like dandelion fluff." The admission came with a rueful chuckle, his thumb catching your lower lip. "But you'll give me trueborn wolves." His voice dropped, possessive in a way that sent heat crawling up your spine. "Strong sons to rule Winterfell after me."
You laughed...a nervous, breathless thing as he pressed closer. "Is that an order, my lord?" The words tasted like surrender. Brandon grinned, wild and wolfish, before stooping to nip at your throat. "Aye" he growled against your skin. "One I'll enforce nightly." The promise curled in your belly like smoke. You helped him stumble to his chambers, his arm slung heavy over your shoulders, his laughter warm in your hair.
The night before your wedding, you traced the familiar path to Rhaegar’s chambers...past the guards who’d long since learned to look away, through the secret passage still smelling of childhood mischief. He was waiting by the fire, its glow painting his face in fractured gold. Without a word, you both sank to the carpet, lying opposite ways like two halves of a broken sword, your heads pressed close. "I’m afraid..." you confessed to the ceiling, fingers twisting in your skirts. "What if he notices I'm no maiden? You’re the only one who’s ever—"
Rhaegar’s breath hitched. The fire popped, scattering embers. "Elia thinks I’m pious..." he murmured, so low you barely caught it. His fingers found yours, calloused from harp strings. "I couldn’t. Every time I tried, I’d see your face." The admission hung between you, raw as a fresh wound. Outside, footsteps echoed, your parents' spies, no doubt, lurking just beyond the door. You both stilled, listening until the sound faded.
He turned his head, his nose brushing your temple. "Brandon will know" you whispered, stomach knotting. The memory of Rhaegar’s first time...the way he’d fumbled with your laces, the hissed curses when the bed ropes creaked...rose unbidden. You’d bled on his sheets and servants had whispered for weeks. Rhaegar’s thumb circled your pulse point now, slow and deliberate.
"Northerners take pride in breaking maidenheads" he said, voice thick. The firelight caught the dangerous glint in his eyes. "He’ll bed you rough just to see your blood on his cock." The crudeness shocked you...this wasn’t the poet who’d kissed your knees in the library alcoves. You twisted to face him properly, your foreheads knocking together. His hand slid to your thigh, squeezing through layers of silk. "Tell me you won’t moan for him" he demanded, fingers digging in.
You almost snorted a laugh before playing with his hands, tracing the crescent scar that mirrored yours. "I’m serious" you murmured, turning his palm up to press a kiss to the lifeline. "What if I do not bleed?" Rhaegar went still beneath you. The logs shifted in the hearth, casting shadows that made the dragon carvings on the walls seem to writhe. Somewhere, a guardsman coughed.
He exhaled sharply through his nose. "Come here" he ordered, flipping from his spot over to you with terrifying ease. The sudden movement knocked your hair loose...silver strands fanned across the carpet like spilled moonlight. Rhaegar straddled your hips, his knees pinning the heavy brocade of your skirts. "Listen carefully." His voice had dropped into that dangerous register, the one that coiled low in your belly. "When he takes you, bite your lip until it bleeds. Cry out...but not too prettily. Let him think he’s hurting you." His fingers worked at the laces of your gown with practiced cruelty, every tug deliberate.
You gasped when cold air hit your exposed collarbones. Rhaegar’s thumb swiped over the rapid flutter beneath your skin. "If he asks why you don’t bleed" he continued, leaning down so his words ghosted across your parted lips, "tell him you fell from your horse as a girl. Northerners respect that." The logic was absurd but so was the way his teeth scraped your earlobe when he added, "And when he finishes inside you—" A shudder ran through you at the vulgarity, "—you’ll think of my seed instead."
Beyond the door, a boot scuffed stone. Rhaegar froze, his fingers still tangled in your loosened laces. The fire popped, spitting embers onto the rug. You both held your breath until the footsteps faded down the corridor. His exhale was warm against your throat. "Father pesters me to bed Elia" he murmured, dragging his nose along your jaw. "I will...on the night of your wedding." The admission tasted bitter, like unripe persimmon. "When I fuck her" his voice dropped to a whisper, "I’ll be shameless. I’ll pretend her dark hair is silver." His hips pressed down instinctively, the hard line of him digging into your thigh even through layers of fabric.
You flinched, not at the crude words, but at the sudden wetness on your collarbone. Rhaegar’s tears fell silently, dripping onto your skin like molten silver. "Every thrust will be yours" he continued hoarsely. One hand fisted in your gown, twisting the silk until the seams groaned. "I’ll bite her shoulder where you used to—" His voice cracked. The confession hung between you, raw as a gut wound. Somewhere in the castle, a wolf howled...Brandon’s damned wedding gift chained in the kennels.
Your fingers trembled as you cupped his face. "I could drink moon tea" you whispered, tracing the high curve of his cheekbone. The words tasted like treason. Rhaegar’s breath hitched for you both knew what Aerys would do if a Stark heir failed to quicken. His grip tightened painfully on your wrist. "No" he hissed, pressing your hand flat against his chest where his heart hammered like a caged dragon. "Let the seed take. Give him sons with our eyes." His lips found yours in the dark, a clash of teeth and desperation, the salt of shared tears sharp on your tongue.
Morning came too soon. You woke alone, the indentation of Rhaegar’s body still pressed into the rug beside you. The castle hummed with wedding preparations...servants scurried past your door with armfuls of winter roses, their petals leaving blood red streaks on the stone floors. In your bathing chamber, steam curled off the scalding water as you sank into the copper tub. Your thigh stung where you’d pricked it with the sharpened hairpin, ruby droplets welling in the crease of your leg. You caught them in a vial normally meant for perfume, the glass warming against your palm. "For courage" you lied to your reflection, tucking it beneath the laces of your wedding shift. The water pinkened slightly where your legs parted.
The septa was heavyset and loud, her voice booming off the vaulted ceiling of the Great Sept as she droned through the ceremony. Her jowls quivered with each invocation to the mother, her sausage fingers clutching the ceremonial ribbon binding your wrist to Brandon’s. You forced a smile, the same vacant, placid curve of lips Rhaella had taught you for royal functions, but your eyes kept flicking to the front pew. Rhaegar sat stiff backed between Elia and Aerys, his silver hair tied too tightly. When the septa ordered Brandon to cloak you...replacing Targaryen red with Stark grey, his fingers lingered a heartbeat too long at your throat. Behind you, Rhaegar’s breath hitched audibly.
Brandon’s lips were chapped when they met yours, tasting of wintermint and nervous sweat. The northern delegation whooped. Lord Manderly’s girth shook with laughter, while young Lyanna Stark tossed a fistful of blue petals at your feet. You smiled wider, teeth aching with the effort. The septa beamed, mistaking your tremors for maidenly nerves. As the procession moved toward the feast hall, Rhaegar brushed past you, his sleeve catching on your beaded girdle. "Remember" he murmured, so low it could have been the wind through the cloisters, "bite hard enough to taste iron." Then he was gone, swept into the crowd by Elia’s guiding hand.
The feast was a riot of roasted swans and Dornish peppers, the air thick with cinnamon and mead. Brandon carved slivers of elk for your plate, his knife flashing dangerously close to his own fingers. "Careful" you warned, catching his wrist. He grinned, flipping the blade to offer you the hilt, a northerner’s version of a love token. Across the high table, Aerys watched with reptilian interest as Rhaegar drained his cup in one long swallow. Elia’s delicate fingers hovered near his sleeve but didn’t touch.
Brandon hauled you up for the first dance, some wild northern reel that left your slippers scuffed and your ribs sore from laughter. He swung you so fiercely your skirts slapped the shins of startled lords, his calloused palm hot through the silk at your waist. When the musicians switched to a slower tune, you pleaded exhaustion, retreating to the high table while Brandon whirled off with Lyanna, her dark braids flying. From the shadows of a pillar, Rhaegar watched them with a predator’s stillness.
The feast wore on...course after course until honeyed figs bled onto the tablecloth like tiny wounds. Aerys grew increasingly erratic, jabbing his knife into the roasted peacock’s carcass while muttering about "wolfish appetites." You pretended not to notice how Elia’s wine goblet remained untouched, her dark eyes tracking Rhaegar’s every move as he refilled his cup for the fourth time.
Brandon returned from the dancefloor, his doublet unlaced halfway down his chest. "You’re staring at your brother" he murmured, sliding into the seat beside you with deceptive casualness. His thumb swiped a drop of spilled mead from your wrist before lifting it to his own lips...a deliberate, lingering gesture. "Does he always watch you like that?" You followed his gaze to where Rhaegar stood by the hearth, the firelight catching the madness in his eyes as he stared at Brandon’s hand on your knee.
You forced a laugh, brittle as thin ice. "He is nervous of me leaving" you lied smoothly, turning your wine cup between your fingers. Beneath the table, Brandon’s grip tightened...not painfully, but enough to make your pulse jump. "We are twins" you added, softer now, eyes flicking to Rhaella’s clenched hands across the hall. "We have never been apart." The admission tasted like weakness, but Brandon only exhaled through his nose, studying you with those wolf grey eyes.
The announcement came at midnight, when the torches burned lowest. Aerys himself rose, goblet dripping wine onto the dais. "Let the wolves claim their prize!" he crowed, gesturing toward the carved doors leading to the bridal chambers. The guests erupted, northerners pounding tables with fists, Dornishmen whistling through their teeth. Brandon stood first, tugging you up with him, the Stark cloak heavy on your shoulders.
Custom demanded the family farewell. Rhaella came first, her kiss cool as morning frost against your cheekbone. "Be brave, and I am... truly sorry" she murmured in High Valyrian, fingers tightening imperceptibly on yours. Aerys leaned in next, his breath reeking of sour wine as his lips grazed your forehead...a mockery of paternal blessing. You flinched when his nails dug into your wrist, his whisper slithering into your ear "Spread your legs wide for winter, girl."
Rhaegar approached last. The crowd's roar faded to muffled thunder as his fingers brushed your jaw...too intimate for a brother's touch. His kiss landed not on your cheek, but the corner of your mouth, lingering just long enough for you to taste the stolen iron tang of blood on his lips. "Think of me" he breathed against your skin, his thumb tracing the scar on your palm one final time. Then he was stepping back, his face a mask of princely indifference as he offered Elia his arm. The Dornish princess hesitated, her dark eyes flicking between you and the empty cup Rhaegar had shattered against the hearth moments earlier.
The hallway narrowed, torchlight stretching your intertwined shadows grotesquely along the walls. Behind you, the feast's din dwindled into silence, replaced by the rhythmic click of Rhaegar's boots following at a deliberate distance...close enough that you caught Elia's murmured protest when he steered her toward the opposite wing.
Brandon's thumb circled the inside of your wrist, rough with sword calluses. "Cold?" he asked, mistaking your shiver. You shook your head, silver hair catching on the wolf pelt clasp at your shoulder. At the turn in the corridor, you glanced back, just in time to see Rhaegar shoving Elia down the hall, his hand fisted in her Martell silks. Her gasp echoed. You stumbled.
The vial burned in your palm like a stolen ember. When Brandon leaned down to press his lips to the hinge of your jaw...his beard scraping sensitive skin, you tightened your grip until the glass bit into flesh. His fingers found your laces, working them with surprising delicacy for a man built like a siege tower. "Let me" he murmured against your pulse. But your own hands were clumsy, desperate fingers brushing the vial again and again, remembering Rhaegar's insistence... Bite hard enough to taste iron.
Somewhere beyond these walls, your brother was doing the same, unraveling Elia's laces with deliberate slowness while she trembled against cold stone. You could almost hear the rustle of silk, the hitch in her breath as Rhaegar's knuckles grazed the bare skin beneath her bodice. How cruel, that you'd both learned this dance together, the way Rhaegar's hands shook when unlacing something cherished, how he'd always pause at the third knot to press his forehead against yours in wordless apology.
Brandon's fingers stilled at your waist when he felt your hesitation. "Easy" he murmured against your temple, but his voice lacked its usual warmth. His thumbs pressed too hard into your hipbones as he backed you toward the bed.
Beyond the door, the castle pulsed with muffled laughter...too many lords still drunk on wedding wine. The scent of crushed winter roses clung to the furs beneath you, their petals bruised from where Brandon had tossed them aside. His lips found the hollow of your throat, beard scraping raw as he muttered, "Let me see you"
You turned your face into the mattress, fingers twisting in the sheets. His hips snapped forward...once, twice...and the pain was sharper than anticipated, blooming bright between your thighs. Tears welled hot, soaking into the linen. Brandon groaned above you, one hand sliding beneath your hips to angle you deeper. The sting worsened, a slick heat trickling down your inner thigh.
When his mouth latched onto your shoulder, teeth scraping skin, you risked a glance downward. Crimson streaked his pale thigh where your legs met...no vial required. The sight punched a wet laugh from your throat. Brandon mistook it for pleasure, his grip tightening as he panted against your neck, "Knew you'd take me well." His thrusts grew erratic, the bed ropes creaking like gallows wood.
Somewhere in the Red Keep, Rhaegar was doing this to Elia...burying himself in foreign warmth while imagining your face. You bit your lip until copper flooded your tongue, muffling the moan that wanted to escape. Brandon shuddered above you, his teeth gritting as he spilled inside with a choked groan that sounded almost pained.
Brandon rolled off you with a contented sigh, his sweat cooling on your skin. He didn’t notice when you curled away, nor the way your fingers trembled as they brushed the smear of blood on your inner thigh...real blood, not the vial's contents.
Across the castle, Rhaegar would be murmuring your name into Elia's dark curls, his fingers tangled in the wrong shade of hair. You knew exactly how his hips would stutter...that particular hitch when he was close, because you'd felt it a dozen times in stolen moments. Elia's soft cries would mean nothing to him. He'd be picturing your thighs wrapped around him instead, your shared scars pressed hot between your bodies.
Elia arched beneath Rhaegar with unexpected vigor, her nails scoring his back. She didn't see the way his pupils dilated when she moaned...not at the sound, but at how the pitch nearly matched yours when properly pleasured. His thumbs dug into her hips hard enough to bruise as he pistoned into her, the bedframe protesting with each thrust. When she came with a cry that was almost...almost the broken gasp you made when overwhelmed, Rhaegar's control snapped.
A tear escaped before he could stop it, rolling hot down his cheekbone. Elia, lost in her own pleasure, didn't notice how his hand shot up to smudge it away with a rough swipe of his thumb. Nor did she see how his lips formed your name against her collarbone...silent, but unmistakable in the shape. He fucked her with renewed desperation now, hips slapping against her thighs as he chased the ghost of your body beneath him.
She gasped when he suddenly flipped her onto her stomach, her dark braids spilling across the pillows. Rhaegar's fingers dug into her hips as he dragged her up onto her knees…the exact way you'd once begged him to take you after too much summerwine. His vision swam with silver instead of chestnut, with imagined scars where Elia's skin was unblemished. When she moaned into the mattress, he pressed his palm over her mouth, needing to distort the sound into something closer to your breathy whimpers.
Elia arched beautifully beneath him, her spine flexing like a drawn bow, but Rhaegar didn't see the Dornish princess. He saw your teeth sinking into the pillow to muffle cries, the way your fingers always clutched at the sheets as if they could anchor you. His thrusts grew punishing, the headboard cracking against the wall in time with the wet slap of skin. Elia's choked sob of pleasure became your gasp in his ears.
She turned her face toward him, lips parted around a moan, but it was your silver hair splayed across the pillowcase, your scarred palm reaching back to clutch at his thigh. Rhaegar snarled something wordless, his fingers digging into her hips hard enough to leave crescent shaped bruises. When Elia shuddered through her peak, crying out in a voice that was almost the broken cadence of your pleasure, he felt another traitorous tear slip free. He swiped it away with the back of his wrist before it could fall onto her dark curls.
Your name left his lips like a prayer...no, a curse, breathed into the sweat damp hollow between Elia’s shoulder blades. He chanted it with each thrust, the syllables fracturing against her skin, until the consonants blurred together in a desperate litany. Elia went rigid beneath him, her breath catching. Rhaegar barely noticed, too lost in the fantasy of your thighs tightening around him instead, your shared scars pressed hot between your bodies as he spilled inside you.
When he finally stilled, spent and shaking, Elia turned her head slightly...just enough to catch the wet glint tracking down his cheekbone in the candlelight. Rhaegar recoiled, rolling away so sharply the mattress ropes groaned. The silence between them was thick as Myrish lace, broken only by the distant echo of laughter from the wedding feast still raging below. Elia exhaled slowly, gathering the ruined sheets around her waist with deliberate slowness. “You called me by her name” she murmured, fingertips brushing the fresh bruises circling her hips.
Rhaegar ignored her, the tendons in his back tensing as he reached for his discarded shirt. The linen stuck to his damp skin, still warm where Elia’s nails had raked across his shoulders. “We have consummated finally” he said tonelessly, tugging the fabric over his head with unnecessary force. “Are you not glad?” The question landed like a slap. Elia’s lips parted, then pressed into a thin line as she watched him fasten his trousers with jerky movements.
Candlelight caught the wedding band on his finger...a cruel glint of gold against his knuckles. Elia sat up slowly, the sheet pooling around her waist. “You bit me” she said, fingertips brushing the angry mark on her shoulder where his teeth had broken skin. Rhaegar’s gaze flicked to it, then away. The wound mirrored yours exactly, same angle, same depth. His stomach twisted.
"A good mark" he murmured, reaching for his boots. His voice was rough, the words tasting of ash. "Proof for the court." Elia's dark eyes tracked his movements, unreadable. When he straightened, the candlelight caught the dampness still clinging to his lashes. He turned his face toward the window before she could see.
The sheets rasped against Elia's thighs as she shifted, the linen sticking to her damp skin. She didn't wince, Dornish women were made of sterner stuff but her fingers trembled slightly as they traced the smear of blood on her inner thigh. "You were not gentle" she said at last, the words carefully measured. Rhaegar's shoulders tensed beneath his tunic, but he didn't turn. "Didn't ask if it hurt." Her thumbnail caught a loose thread in the bedding, unraveling it slowly. "Didn't even check to see I bled."
He moved then, stiff as a marionette, boots scuffing against the stone floor as he pivoted to face the bed. His gaze swept over the dark stains blooming across the sheets, not the theatrical spill from your vial, but the real, messy proof of consummation. When his eyes flicked down to his own groin, the sight of rust colored streaks drying on his skin made his throat tighten. "You're a lady" he murmured, the words tasting like chalk in his mouth. "I knew your maidenhood was intact."
Elia shifted slightly, thighs pressing together beneath the tangled sheets. Her smile was small, sharp, a dagger wrapped in silk. "I suppose I cannot call you pious anymore…" She tilted her head, the candlelight catching the sweat still gleaming at her temples. "Not after how you took me."
Rhaegar's fingers froze mid movement, gripping the laces of his boots too tight. "I was never pious, Elia." The admission came out hoarse, raw as the marks he'd left on her skin. "You assumed I was because I would not bed you." He looked up then, meeting her gaze straight-on for the first time that night. "But abstinence isn’t holiness. Just…waiting."
Elia's laughter was soft, bitter...like snowmelt poisoned with copper. She stretched, letting the sheets fall to reveal the full canvas of bruises blooming across her ribs. "And now you've stopped waiting?" Her fingertip traced a particularly vicious mark, purple black in the candlelight. "Or just found a way to have your sister while fucking me?"
Rhaegar's boot hit the floor with a thud that made the bedside carafe tremble. "Careful, princess." His voice had gone low...the dangerous register you'd heard only when Aerys pushed too far. "You're speaking of things you don't understand."
Elia sat straighter, the sheet slipping further. Blood streaked her inner thighs, stark against olive skin. "I understand perfectly" she said, picking at a loose thread in the linen. "You couldn't get hard for me until you imagined her beneath you." Her dark eyes lifted, sharp as obsidian. "Tell me, husband, did you close your eyes when you came? Pretend it was her hair you fisted?"
Rhaegar's boot hit the doorframe with a crack that sent the candle flames shuddering. "Exactly that." His voice dripped venom. "Did you not hear me calling her name?" He scoffed, jerking the door open with enough force to splinter the wood. Cold corridor air rushed in, carrying distant echoes of the wedding feast's drunken revelry. "Perhaps you'll hear it next time." The slam reverberated through the chamber, rattling the glass in the windows.
Elia exhaled slowly, fingers curling around the bloodstained sheet. The silence stretched...long enough for footsteps to fade down the hallway, for the laughter below to crest and break like waves against the Keep's stones. Only then did she press both palms flat against her trembling thighs. "So that's how it is" she murmured. The moon cast dagger sharp shadows across her bruises as she rose, walking barefoot to the washbasin.
Rhaegar had wandered aimlessly, his hair a mess and clothes ruffled. The same hands that had gripped Elia's hips now shoved through silver strands in jagged motions. He'd walked without seeing, turned corners without intent, until the sound of northern voices laughing near an alcove startled him into awareness. He found himself outside your chamber door, the wood still warm from Brandon's palm prints. His breath hitched. The muffled sounds within...shifting fabric, a soft sigh, sent him stumbling back.
He made it halfway down the corridor before the door's creak froze him. Brandon emerged, his doublet half unlaced and sleeves rolled to the elbows, his forearm glistening with sweat in the torchlight. The scent of sex and winter roses clung to him like a second skin. Rhaegar's fingers twitched at his sides, whether to strangle or seize, even he didn't know. Brandon didn't notice him, too busy raking a hand through his tousled hair as he strode toward the opposite wing, perhaps back to the dwindling feast.
The gap in the doorway pulsed like an open wound. Rhaegar's boots scuffed against stone as he pivoted...one step, then two, before his palm met the wood with silent pressure. The hinges gave without protest. Firelight painted the room in flickering gold, catching the curve of your bare shoulder as you struggled into a nightgown, the fabric catching on your elbows. You hadn't heard him enter. The scent of spent passion hung thick in the air, musk and salt and something metallic beneath.
His breath hitched when you turned. Neither of you spoke as your body shifted instinctively, hips twisting, legs parting until your bare feet dangled over the edge of the mattress. Your toes barely brushed the fur rug. Rhaegar's gaze dragged downward, catching on the slow drip of blood tracing your inner thigh before flicking back to your face. His lips parted. Closed. The silence stretched like scar tissue between you.
"Let me" he rasped, already sinking to his knees. His fingers trembled where they hovered above your skin, never touching, just tracing the air a hair's breadth away. Beneath the metallic tang of blood, he caught the musk of Brandon's sweat still clinging to you. His jaw flexed. He inhaled sharply through his nose.
Your tears carved silent paths through the dusting of kohl beneath your lashes. His frown deepened when he pressed two fingertips to your inner thigh, just below the smear of rust-red. The blood was fresh enough to bead under his touch, clinging to his skin like a confession. "You took my maidenhood" you whispered, voice cracking on the last word, "but apparently you can still bleed if rough enough."
Rhaegar's nostrils flared. His fingers flexed, smearing the evidence across your skin in a grotesque parody of consummation. Somewhere in the Keep, Elia was likely washing away the same marks. The irony tasted bitter...how easily blood could be mistaken for innocence, how neatly pain could be disguised as pleasure.
Morning light bled through the shutters when Brandon returned, smelling of stale ale and horse sweat. He didn't mention the tear tracks on your cheeks, nor how you flinched when his fingers brushed your waist to help you dress. The carriage waited in the yard, its Stark banners snapping in the wind like wolves baring their teeth.
The courtyard teemed with servants loading trunks, but your gaze locked onto Rhaegar's silhouette by the gates, rigid as a sword plunged into stone. Aerys' mocking laughter followed you down the steps, his breath reeking of last night's wine as he whispered, "Give Lord Stark a son before the year turns." Rhaella pressed a perfunctory kiss to your forehead, her lips cold as the marble statues lining the path.
You broke protocol entirely when you reached Rhaegar, fingers digging into the embroidered dragons on his doublet hard enough to snap threads. His arms encircled you instantly, one hand cradling the back of your head while the other pressed between your shoulder blades crushing you so close you could feel his heartbeat stuttering against your sternum. Neither of you cared about the gasps from the assembled courtiers. Brandon, adjusting the horses' harnesses nearby, paused with a strap half buckled in his fist.
"I left marks on her" Rhaegar whispered into your hair, his breath scalding against your temple. His thumb traced the delicate bones of your spine through your gown. "Bit her exactly where I bit you." You shuddered, remembering Elia's dark curls splayed across the pillow, not silver like yours. He pulled back just enough to press his forehead to yours, noses brushing. "She smelled wrong. Felt wrong. But when she cried out—" His voice cracked.
Brandon cleared his throat three paces away, his boots crunching deliberately on gravel. His eyes were winter cold as he reached for your elbow. "The roads won't stay clear much longer." His grip tightened when you didn't immediately move, pulling just enough to make the tendons in your wrist protest.
Rhaegar's fingers spasmed against your waist before dropping away. The morning sun caught the raw scratches Elia had left across his knuckles...parallel crimson lines stark against his pale skin. You watched his throat work as Brandon steered you toward the waiting carriage, his silence louder than Aerys' drunken japes about fertile northern soil.
The carriage door clicked shut with awful finality. Through the small window, you saw Rhaegar take one jerky step forward only for Ser Arthur Dayne's white clad arm to bar his path. The last thing you glimpsed was Rhaegar's silver hair whipping across his face as he turned violently away, his boots kicking up gravel.
Brandon settled beside you with the quiet intensity of a storm front, his thigh pressing warm against yours through the layers of wool and silk. He didn't speak as the wheels began turning, just lifted your hand...the one Rhaegar had clutched too tightly and pressed his lips to the faint bruises forming on your knuckles. His beard scratched your skin, a deliberate contrast to Rhaegar's smooth cheek. "You'll like Winterfell" he murmured against your fingers. It wasn't reassurance. It was a claim.
Rhaegar watched the carriage shrink into the horizon, his boots rooted to the spot even as the courtyard emptied around him. Only Ser Arthur remained, his white cloak stirring in the wind like a silent specter. The Kingsguard's hand hovered near the hilt of Dawn, not in threat, but in readiness as if expecting Rhaegar to suddenly bolt after the retreating dust cloud.
The prince's fingers curled into fists, the scratches Elia had left stinging anew. He could still smell you on his skin...winter roses and salt, the metallic tang of blood. The taste of your lips lingered, phantom like, beneath the dregs of last night's wine. He didn't blink until the carriage disappeared behind the hills, fearing the moment his eyelids would shutter and sever the last fragile thread between you.
Ser Arthur shifted his weight, the faint creak of his armor the only sound in the heavy silence. Rhaegar's breath fogged in the crisp morning air, his exhale uneven. The Kingsguard's gaze burned a hole into his back, but Arthur knew better than to speak. Words would only make it worse, would make this aching, gnawing thing inside Rhaegar's chest more real than it already was.
The prince didn't move until the last whisper of carriage wheels faded beyond the King's Road. Even then, it was only to turn stiffly toward the Red Keep, his boots dragging through the gravel as if weighed down by chains. The days stretched endlessly, each sunrise a mockery. Meals tasted of ash. Wine soured on his tongue. He caught himself staring northward during Small Council meetings, his quill hovering over parchment until the ink bled through in black, spidering stains.
Elia watched from across the table with those sharp Dornish eyes, her fingers tracing the fading bite mark on her shoulder, a silent accusation. Rhaegar refused to acknowledge it, just as he refused to acknowledge the way his cock stirred only when he imagined your voice begging him in the dark. He took her roughly twice more, both times with his face buried to muffle your name.
Months had blurred and Elia often sat with Rhaegar after coming to terms with the fact he would not yield to calling out a name that was not her own. "You are drunk often, husband" Elia murmured, pushing aside his third untouched plate of the evening. The candlelight caught the web of scars across her knuckles, not from battle, but from gripping the sheets too tightly. "Your father and mother notice you avoid them." She didn't mention the servants' whispers about wine soaked tunics and shattered goblets, nor how he'd started wearing his riding gloves indoors to hide tremor laced fingers.
Rhaegar lifted his head from the sprawled parchment of another unfinished letter, ink smeared where his quill had stalled mid word. Winterfell's winds… The rest devolved into splatters resembling tearstains. His voice cracked like dry kindling when he finally spoke. "They wanted her gone."
Elia studied the way his fingers trembled around the wine goblet, how his pupils dilated not from drink but from whatever phantom haunted the bottom of the cup. She reached across the table, her thumb brushing a drop of spilled Arbor gold from his wrist. "They wanted her wed" she corrected softly.
Rhaegar's laugh scraped raw against the quiet. "Wed. Bedded. Ruined…Away from me." His goblet hit the table with a dull thud, wine sloshing over the rim to pool like blood on polished oak. "Brandon Stark's seed in her womb by now, no doubt." His tongue dragged slow across his lower lip...a gesture Elia recognized from watching him taste your tears the morning you left.
The raven's arrival shattered their stalemate. Ser Barristan delivered it with gloved hands, the parchment crisp between his fingers. Rhaegar's breath hitched at the familiar wax seal, your personal sigil pressed clumsily into red wax, as though your fingers had trembled during its making. He broke it too fast, sending crimson shards skittering across the floor.
Your handwriting sprawled unevenly across the page, ink blotted in places where tears had fallen mid sentence. "The cold lingers in my bones like an unwelcome guest" you'd written, the letters slanting downward as if weighed by northern snows. Rhaegar's thumb traced a particularly shaky word...Brandon and let his fingers smudge the ink. His chest tightened reading how the Stark heir warmed your bed with his coarse northern furs, how his laughter echoed differently than Rhaegar's melodic speech. Then, near the bottom, amidst smeared ink and parchment warped from crying, the maester's suspicions. Quickening.
The letter crumpled in Rhaegar's fist, parchment splitting along the fold where you'd confessed "I pray Elia swells with your child soon so that I may not be alone in the sadness of having a child with anyone but you." His jaw clenched imagining you alone in Winterfell's godswood, whispering prayers for his wife's womb while your own belly rounded with Stark seed. The irony burned, how you begged the Seven to spare him fatherhood's lonely ache even as his nails bit half-moons into his palms.
When nightfall came your silver hair ribbon slithered between his fingers, frayed at the edges from when you'd last tugged it free. He wound it twice around his left wrist, the silk catching on the raw scratches Elia had left during their last coupling. The ends dangled like a noose. His mother's voice echoed down the corridor, sharp and questioning but he strode past without turning, boots scuffing against the stone in a rhythm that matched the throbbing behind his eyes.
Elia's chambers smelled of citrus and myrrh, the heavy Dornish perfume failing to mask the musk of their previous encounters. She didn't look up from her embroidery when he entered, the needle stabbing through the fabric with practiced precision. Rhaegar said nothing as he unbuckled his sword belt, letting it fall with a clatter that made her flinch. The ribbon around his wrist glinted in the candlelight as he reached for her.
"You reek of wine" Elia observed, her fingers tightening around the embroidery hoop. The design of a twisting viper swallowing its own tail—rippled as she adjusted the fabric. Rhaegar's shadow stretched across the bed, elongated and wavering like the specter haunting them both. When his fingers closed around her wrist, the ribbon brushed her skin, its silver threads cool against the pulse point.
He didn't speak, just guided her hand to the laces of his breeches with deliberate pressure. Elia's eyes flicked to the ribbon recognizing the frayed ends from when you'd last twisted it through your hair during supper. The scent of winter roses clung to the silk, faint but unmistakable beneath the wine and sweat. "So now you want me sober?" he murmured.
Her needle clattered to the floor as he pushed her backward onto the bed, the embroidery hoop rolling beneath the nightstand. His fingers tangled in her dark curls...too coarse, too heavy, but he closed his eyes and imagined silver instead.
"You're thinking of her" Elia whispered as his teeth scraped her collarbone. Not an accusation. A fact.
Rhaegar froze, his breath hot against her skin. The ribbon...your ribbon, cut into his wrist where he'd tightened it to near breaking. Elia's fingers traced the reddening marks on his forearm, her nails digging in just enough to brand him anew. "Do you imagine her hair when you pull mine?" Her voice was steel wrapped in silk. "Her cries when I gasp?"
His grip spasmed. The illusion shattered like thin glass beneath the weight of her words.
"You ruin it when you speak" Rhaegar hissed, his hips stuttering to a stop. Elia's breath hitched, not from pleasure, but from the sudden coldness in his violet eyes. The bedchamber felt too large suddenly, the shadows pressing in from the corners where candlelight couldn't reach. She watched his throat work as he swallowed, the tendons standing stark against his skin. The ribbon had left angry red lines where it dug into his flesh.
Elia exhaled slowly, her fingers still tangled in the sheets. "You ruin it by pretending" she countered, her voice steady despite the tremor in her hands. The taste of iron filled her mouth...she'd bitten her cheek at some point. Above her, Rhaegar's expression twisted before smoothing into that familiar, icy detachment.
Then so subtly she almost missed it, the corner of his mouth twitched. A ghost of a smile flickered across his lips before vanishing, but Elia recognized it instantly. Not for her. Not even at her. It was the same smile he'd worn when you'd once teased him in the gardens, batting his hands away with that same exasperated cadence, "You ruin it when you talk too much." Memory reshaped reality. His pupils dilated, his breathing hitched suddenly, he wasn't seeing her anymore.
Elia's lips parted, not in protest, but in perfect mimicry of your breathless cadence. "You ruin it by pretending?" The cadence was yours. Rhaegar's eyelids fluttered shut as he pressed his forehead to hers, their shared breath hot between them.
The ribbon bit deeper into his wrist as his hips jerked forward. Elia arched beneath him with a gasp that cracked into two syllables, just as yours had when he'd pinned you against the library shelves years ago. His fingers tightened in her hair, but it was your scalp he imagined stinging, your whimper vibrating against his tongue when he kissed her. The chamber blurred at the edges, candlelight melting into sunlight streaming through stained glass...the memory of your stolen afternoon so vivid he could taste the dust motes dancing between you.
Elia's next words dissolved into a moan pitched precisely to your cadence, her fingers scrabbling at his back in the same desperate rhythm you'd once used. Every hitch of her breath, every bitten off curse, every flutter of her lashes, all meticulously reconstructed from fragments of his obsession. Even the way she turned her face into the pillow to muffle her cries was yours, stolen from that night he'd crept into your chambers after your first blood.
The illusion held until dawn, fraying only when sunlight exposed the dissonance...your silver hair replaced by Elia's dark curls fanned across the pillow, your delicate skin absent from her Dornish skin. Rhaegar rolled away abruptly, the ribbon still knotted around his wrist like a shackle. Elia's breathing steadied behind him, too even for sleep. He didn't turn when she rose, didn't react to the sound of water splashing as she scrubbed away the sweat and seed and pretense.
A raven arrived at midday, its wings scattering droplets of rain across the solar floor. The maester's seal, not yours...made Rhaegar's fingers tremble as he cracked the wax. Lady Stark has begun her labors, the letter read, the ink smudged from haste. His stomach lurched. Ravens took days to fly from Winterfell. By now, you'd either be holding Brandon's squalling heir or...his throat tightened, buried in the Stark crypts beside the babe.
Elia appeared in the doorway, her belly small but starting to swell. She stilled at the sight of the parchment crumpled in his fist, her dark eyes flicking between the broken seal and Rhaegar's ashen face. The babe kicked beneath her ribs as if sensing his turmoil. "Winterfell?" she guessed, fingers splaying across the curve of her womb...a gesture that suddenly felt like mockery.
Rhaegar's breath fogged the windowpane where he'd pressed his forehead against the cold glass. Somewhere beyond the horizon, you were screaming into birthing linen, your silver hair matted with sweat as Stark midwives urged you to push. He imagined Brandon's rough hands gripping yours...the same hands that had left bruises on your hips and nearly retched.
Elia's shadow stretched across the floor as she approached, her slippered feet silent on the stone. "The maesters say first labors often last a full day" she murmured, her fingers hovering near his elbow without touching. The scent of citrus clung to her sleeves, mingling with the metallic tang of ink from the discarded letter.
Rhaegar's grip on the windowsill turned his knuckles bone white. Somewhere north, Brandon would be pacing Winterfell's halls, his boots wearing grooves into ancient stone...just as Rhaegar's nails now scored crescent moons into the oak beneath his hands. The symmetry burned.
Elia exhaled sharply behind him. "You'll bleed on the tapestries." Her fingers wrapped around his wrist, peeling his hand back to reveal splinters embedded in his palm. Blood welled sluggishly, dripping onto the Myrish carpet in perfect crimson circles. The sight of it, thick and dark...sent a jolt through him. Your blood would be spilling now too, staining northern birthing linens as Stark women murmured prayers to their tree gods.
Winterfell's birthing chamber smelled of iron and pine. You arched off the bed with a scream that tore your throat raw, fingers twisting in the furs as another contraction ripped through you. The midwife's hands pressed your knees wider...an intrusion Brandon had paid for with gold and privilege. "Nearly there, my lady" she lied, wiping your brow with a cloth soaked in mint and snowmelt. The cold stung your flushed skin. Somewhere beyond the stone walls, wolves howled. You imagined Rhaegar's fingers instead of linen, his voice instead of the midwife's, until Brandon's sudden presence in the doorway shattered the fantasy. His beard was frosted with snow, his cloak reeking of the hunt. "Hurry" he told the women, as if you weren't already splitting apart.
"I come bearing good news from your old home" Brandon announced over your sobs. His thumb rubbed circles into your palm, a mockery of comfort as your hips lifted off the bed with another wave of agony. "Your father says your brother's wife is finally expecting, ive just sent the letter you are laboring."
You wailed again...half from pain, half from the cruel irony of Elia's swollen belly matching yours. "Oh good…" you gasped between contractions, fingers scrabbling at the birthing furs. "That's…good…" The words dissolved into a scream as your body split open anew.
Brandon's laughter boomed through the chamber, his rough fingers squeezing your shoulder too tight. "Aye, good indeed...though I wager Rhaegar's child won't come so eagerly!" His breath smelled of ale and venison, the scent overpowering the metallic tang of blood. The midwives exchanged glances when he leaned down to whisper "Push harder, wife. I'd see my heir before supper."
"How loving you are" you scoffed before screaming again, a raw, guttural sound that shredded the last of your dignity. The pain crested like a wave, dragging you under until all you tasted was salt and iron. Somewhere beyond the haze, Brandon's calloused palm pressed against your sweat slicked brow...not in comfort, but to hold you still as the midwife barked orders.
When the babe finally slid free with a rush of blood and agony, you barely registered its cries. Your vision swam with black spots, limbs leaden against the soaked furs. The midwife's triumphant shouts of "A son!" echoed hollowly in your skull.
Brandon surged forward, his rough hands snatching the squalling infant before the cord could even be cut. His laughter boomed off the stone walls as he cradled the babe, eyes ravenous as they traced every inch of him...the thick black tufts of hair, the ruddy northern complexion. "Stark through and through!" he crowed, pressing a bristly kiss to the babe's forehead.
Then the child blinked.
Brandon's grin faltered. Beneath the squalling newborn's wrinkled forehead, beneath the Stark-dark hair plastered with birth fluids...eyes the precise shade of violet as yours opened, shimmering like amethysts in torchlight. The babe's wails quieted into hiccupping breaths as those unmistakable Targaryen eyes focused unerringly on Brandon's frozen face.
"Rickard" Brandon declared too loudly, his thumb swiping roughly across the babe's cheek as if to scrub away the evidence. The midwives exchanged glances when the child flinched from his calloused touch, a reflex too refined for hours old northern stock. You barely registered the name through the haze of exhaustion, your body still shuddering with aftershocks of pain. But when wetnurse scooped him from Brandon's stiff arms, those violet eyes locked onto yours with eerie, knowing focus.
Rhaegar's hands trembled around the raven scroll in the Red Keep's solar, Aerys' laughter scraping against his raw nerves like a rusty blade. "All we needed to do was separate you two" the Mad King crowed, sloshing wine across the council table as he gestured between Rhaegar and Rhaella. "Now heirs seem to be flowing...Elia, your sister, perhaps your mother soon!" His grin widened at Rhaegar's flinch, teeth gleaming yellow in the torchlight. Rhaella's fingers whitened around her goblet, her silence more damning than any protest.
The parchment crumpled in Rhaegar's grip. Brandon's smug script detailing your son's violet eyes and dark Stark hair. Not mine, he thought wildly, though his pulse stuttered imagining your sweat drenched body writhing in labor. Aerys leaned close enough for Rhaegar to smell the rot on his breath. "At least the pup got the eyes" he mused, flicking the broken seal off the table. "Shame about the hair...though I suppose even Targaryen seed can't overwrite northern filth completely."
Seven moons later, winter winds rattled the Red Keep's windows when the summons arrived...a raven bearing Rhaella's delicate hand instead of Aerys' jagged scrawl. "The Princess Elia nears her time" it read, the ink blotted where Rhaella's tears had fallen. Below, added in haste, "The King commands Lord Stark's presence, along with his children and heirs for the birth celebrations, with tourneys to honor the new prince." Rhaegar's stomach lurched. Aerys' cruelty gleamed between the lines, forcing Brandon and his father to kneel before a royal babe while your son remained heir to nothing but northern snows.
Brandon found you wrapped in wolf pelts beneath the heart tree, your fingers buried in Rickard's downy hair as he giggled at snowfall. The babe's violet eyes...so like Rhaegar's they made your throat tighten, crinkled with delight when you blew on his cheeks to melt the flakes.
A maid hovering nearby stiffened at Brandon's approach, her hands darting to cover Rickard's face too late. Your husband's breath fogged between you as he loomed over the bundled pair, his shadow swallowing the weak winter sunlight. "You'll dress him and yourself in Stark colors" Brandon growled, thrusting the letter at you. The parchment scraped your palm rough as his grip had been the night he planted his child in your womb.
The raven's ink smelled of southern spices and hidden schemes. You traced Rhaella's tear smudged words with numb fingers...Elia nears her time, while Rickard cooed at the ruby droplets dripping from the carved face above. Brandon's boot scuffed the snow when you didn't react fast enough. "We leave at dawn" he barked, snatching the letter back. His gloved fingers left damp streaks across Elia's name where southern rains had bled through the seal, and he trudged the snow to place a kiss on the crown of both of your heads.
You waited until his footsteps faded before pressing Rickard's nose to yours. His breath smelled of milk and innocence, but those violet eyes held ancient knowing. "We're going to see my Rhaegar" you whispered, watching his lashes flutter against your cheeks and your lips quirked.
Rhaegar stood rigid at the Red Keep's gates, elbow locked around Elia's thickening waist as lords filed past. His fingers twitched against her hipbone, not affection, but restless energy barely contained. When the Tullys approached, he murmured courtesies through clenched teeth, his gaze skating over their auburn hair to the horizon where Stark banners would crest. Elia felt the exact moment he spotted your party his ribs expanded sharply beneath her palm, his pulse hammering against her fingertips like a caged bird.
The ribbon slithered from his sleeve as he disentangled himself without preamble, the frayed silk whispering against Elia's wrist like a farewell. She caught it instinctively, just as she'd caught his wine stained murmurs of your name nights prior before letting it slip through her fingers. Rhaegar didn't notice. His entire body leaned forward as if pulled by invisible strings, his polished boots scuffing the cobblestones as Winterfell's sigil resolved into clarity. The wind carried the first notes of northern warhorns, deep and mournful and his tongue darted out to wet chapped lips.
Brandon emerged first from the second carriage, his fur lined cloak swinging wide to reveal the stark contrast of your silver hair against his dark doublet. His grip on your elbow was proprietary, fingers pressing into the tender hollow where Rhaegar had once traced idle patterns during stolen lessons. The announcement “Lord Brandon Stark, heir to Winterfell, with the Princess and their heir rickard named after Brandon's father” cracked across the courtyard like a whip.
Then you stepped onto the crimson carpet...flushed from travel, wrapped in northern wool instead of dragon silk, smelling of pine and snowmelt instead of Kings Landing’s perfumed oils. The transformation should have repelled him. Instead, Rhaegar’s lungs seized at the sight of your wind chapped lips, how they parted slightly at the sight of him, just as they had when he’d first kissed you beneath the weeping willow.
He catalogued every Stark detail like wounds, the direwolf brooch at your throat where rubies once glittered, the way you instinctively leaned toward Brandon when Rickard fussed in your arms. But then the babe turned, his violet eyes unmistakable even from ten paces and Rhaegar’s knees nearly buckled. The child’s hair was dark as Brandon’s, but his chin bore your delicate point, his lashes the same silver gilt fringe that had once fluttered against Rhaegar’s cheek.
Elia’s fingers brushed his elbow, a cooling touch he shook off. “Careful” she murmured, too low for courtiers to hear. “Your father counts every twitch.” But Rhaegar was already striding forward, his cloak snapping like dragon wings. He stopped precisely where protocol demanded, close enough to see the pulse fluttering at your throat.
Winter had roughened you...cheeks wind chapped, hands calloused from northern needles instead of southern silks. The Stark brooch at your collar winked mockingly, its silver direwolf jaws clamped around your delicate neck. Yet when you lifted your gaze...his gaze, violet as the dawn. Rhaegar’s breath caught. The years fell away. You weren’t Lady Stark swaddled in furs, you were his twin flushed from stealing peaches, your lips stained with summer sweetness.
He reached instinctively, fingers grazing Rickard’s dark curls...softer than Brandon’s coarse northern mane before Brandon’s arm jerked you backward. The motion snapped like a bowstring, your shoulder colliding with his chest. “Your Grace” Brandon drawled, the title dripping venom as he pulled you flush against him. His other hand clamped over Rickard’s head, blunt fingers splayed possessively across the babe’s crown covering those telltale violet eyes. “My wife forgets herself.” His breath fogged against your temple, smelling of mead and venison. “We’ve a king to greet.”
Aerys’ laugh slithered through the courtyard, sharp as Valyrian steel. “Let me see the pup” he commanded, bony fingers twitching toward Rickard.
Brandon’s grip tightened, but you stepped forward deliberately brushing past Rhaegar, your sleeve whispering against his like a secret. The winter roses embroidered there, hidden beneath layers of Stark grey, left their ghostly scent in your wake. Rhaegar’s nostrils flared.
All day, he’d chased glimpses, your dark cloak vanishing around pillars, the glint of silver beneath fur lined hoods. Too well guarded, too carefully kept, until now. The feast hall blazed with torchlight, and there, amid swathes of northern wool, you gleamed like forgotten moonlight in peach colored silk, the neckline dipping just where he’d once traced constellations with his tongue.
Childbirth hadn’t changed you at all. The realization punched through him, wine slick and vicious. The dress was one you’d left behind, seams loosened slightly at the hips, evidence of Rickard’s passage but the way it clung to your ribs was achingly familiar. You laughed at something Brandon whispered, and Rhaegar’s knuckles whitened around his goblet, the ghost of your breath still warm against his memories.
Elia’s fingers brushed his wrist, deliberate pressure, meant to ground him. He shook her off absently, his gaze locked on the way Brandon’s thumb stroked the inside of your elbow, proprietary and slow. The gesture was new. That spot had been his. You turned suddenly, catching his stare, and for a heartbeat, the hall fell away. Your lips parted just slightly and the scar on his palm throbbed where you’d bitten him years ago, playing at dragons.
Brandon stood abruptly, his chair scraping stone loud enough to draw glances. He didn’t look back as he strode toward the high table where Aerys held court, his cloak swirling like storm clouds. You exhaled a soft, relieved thing and Rhaegar was moving before thought caught up, his feet carrying him past laughing lords, past Elia’s outstretched hand, past reason itself.
The scent hit him first winter roses crushed beneath snow, the faint musk of your skin beneath Stark wool. You didn’t turn as he leaned over your chair, his lips brushing the shell of your ear. "The godswood" he murmured, voice raw with years of abstinence. "Midnight."
You startled, knocking over your wine. The goblet rolled across the table, ruby droplets splattering like blood on linen. Brandon’s laughter boomed from the high table, too drunk to notice your trembling fingers clutching the stained cloth. When you finally looked up, Rhaegar was already retreating but not before you caught the flicker of silver ribbon tied around his wrist, frayed from years of secret worship.
Later, in the hushed solitude of your chambers, you hesitated before the cedar chest fingers hovering over winter wool before plunging instead into buried silk. The nightgown slithered free, whispering against your skin like a forgotten vow. Moonlight caught the pearl buttons he’d once undone with his teeth, the lace trim he’d torn in his haste that last summer. You dressed slowly, methodically, as if donning armor.
The godswood embraced you with frost kissed fingers. He waited by the heart tree, cloaked in shadows that clung to his hollowed cheeks.
"Look at you" Rhaegar breathed.
Moonlight carved silver streaks through your hair, still unbraided, just as he liked it. The silk nightgown clung to your hips where childbirth had softened you, the pearl buttons gleaming like a trail of stars leading home. His fingers twitched at his sides, aching to follow them.
"You came" Rhaegar said, voice cracked from disuse. The ribbon around his wrist fluttered in the cold breeze, your ribbon, worn thin from seven moons of twisting between his fingers.
"I missed you" you mumbled into your hands, breath fogging between your fingers. The confession tasted like stolen peaches and childhood secrets. His scent hit you first...ink and iron, the ghost of fire clinging to his cloak. You hadn't realized how much northern snow had dulled your senses until his warmth surrounded you again.
His hands found your waist with desperate precision, fingers digging into the silk where Brandon's callouses had never learned to touch you. Rhaegar's thumbs brushed the sensitive dip of your hips...his spot, always his and you gasped into his mouth. The kiss was a collision, teeth clacking, lips bruising under the force of time apart. You tasted blood, his or yours, it didn't matter. His tongue mapped the roof of your mouth like he was relearning a forgotten dialect.
Cloth tore before either of you registered the sound. The pearl buttons he'd once worshipped with his teeth scattered across frostbitten leaves, rolling into the roots of the heart tree. Rhaegar didn't pause. His palms slid up your ribs, thinner now, hardened by winter and the shudder that wracked you had nothing to do with the cold. Your nails raked down his chest, catching on the laces of his tunic until the fabric gaped open. He arched into your touch with a groan, the heat of him searing through the thin linen.
Somewhere in the distant corridors, Brandon would be drinking himself into a stupor, unaware his wife's teeth were sinking into Rhaegar's shoulder hard enough to bruise. The pain made him shudder, his hips jerking forward instinctively. Your thigh hitched over his hip, silk riding up until he could feel the damp heat of you through the fabric. His fingers tangled in the ruined nightgown, wrenching it higher. "Gods" he choked against your throat, "you're—"
You silenced him with another bite, this time at the junction of neck and shoulder where his pulse hammered. His gasp fogged the freezing air. The cold should have been unbearable, but the feverish press of his body against yours burned away all sense, only the scrape of bark against your back, the sting of his nails dragging down your thighs, the slick friction as he ground against you through layers of fabric.
Somewhere beyond the godswood’s weirwood sentinels, a maid’s slapping footsteps echoed through the corridors. She called Rhaegar’s name in increasing desperation as she ran past the moonlit hedges, her breath coming in frantic clouds. Inside Elia’s chambers, a scream tore through the heavy tapestries, raw and guttural followed by the panicked clatter of basins. The midwives exchanged horrified glances, births shouldn’t sound like that. Blood soaked through the sheets as Elia arched off the bed, her fingers clawing at the mattress where Rhaegar’s hands should have been.
He didn’t hear. Not the distant wails, not the frantic servants, not even when the King’s Guard boots crunched snow just beyond the godswood’s iron gate. Rhaegar’s world had narrowed to the gasp you made as his knee hitched your silk higher, to the way your teeth grazed his earlobe when he nipped at your collarbone. His tongue lapped at the sweat gathering in the hollow of your throat, salty and familiar as your fingers twisted in his unbound hair. The scent of winter roses and sex clung to you both, thick enough to drown out the metallic tang of Elia’s labor bleeding through the Red Keep’s stones.
Two floors above, Elia’s nails splintered against the bedpost as another contraction ripped through her. The midwife’s hands were slick with blood, her reassurances drowned out by Elia’s guttural scream. “Fetch the prince!” someone hissed, but the maid who’d been sent to find Rhaegar was still wandering the east gardens, her lantern casting frantic shadows across the hedges where your discarded pearl buttons glimmered like false stars.
You didn’t hear the commotion. Not with Rhaegar’s mouth hot on your breast, his teeth scraping the peak in a way that made your back arch off the heart tree. The bark bit into your bare shoulders Brandon’s mark from last winter still faintly visible but you barely registered the pain. Not when Rhaegar’s fingers finally slipped beneath the torn silk, finding you wet and wanting. His groan vibrated against your skin. “Still so perfect for me” he murmured, dragging his thumb in slow circles that had your hips jerking.
The first thrust stole your breath. He didn’t ease in, couldn’t, not after moons of abstinence and the stretch burned deliciously. Your nails scored his back through the ruined tunic, but he barely flinched. His rhythm was frantic, desperate, each snap of his hips punctuated by bitten off curses against your throat. You tasted iron where his collarbone split under your teeth. The scent of sex and snow rose clung thick between your sweat slicked bodies.
Somewhere beyond the godswood, steel clattered, a dropped breastplate, perhaps, or the Kingsguard abandoning decorum to sprint toward Elia’s chambers. Rhaegar didn’t pause. His palm clamped over your mouth when your moans grew too loud, his fingers tacky with your shared arousal. “Quiet, love” he panted against your ear, his voice frayed at the edges. “Unless you want them to find us like this.” His thumb dipped between your lips, salty and insistent, as his other hand squeezed your thigh hard enough to bruise.
You bit down, not to silence yourself, but to taste him, to brand the moment into your flesh. The pain made him hiss, his hips stuttering before finding a deeper angle. The heart tree’s roots dug into your spine, but the discomfort was forgotten when his teeth found your pulse point. His grip tightened, dragging your leg higher, and the sudden shift wrenched a gasp from your throat. The sound was swallowed by the night, lost beneath the distant clamor of Elia’s labor.
Rhaegar’s breath hitched, his rhythm faltering when your fingers tangled in the silver ribbon at his wrist. The frayed silk slithered loose, coiling around your fingers like a living thing. His groan was ragged, half formed, as you tugged it taut between you. The ribbon had once bound your hair now it bound him, a tangible tether to the past. His thrusts grew uneven, desperate, his forehead pressing into the bark beside your temple. "Look at me" he demanded, voice cracking.
You obeyed, eyes meeting his dilated pupils, the violet nearly swallowed by black just as his thumb found the bundle of nerves that made your vision whiten. The orgasm tore through you silently, your scream muffled by his palm as your back arched off the weirwood. He followed instantly, his release shuddering through him with a broken gasp of your name, his teeth sinking into your shoulder to stifle the sound as he spilled deep inside.
For three ragged breaths, you clung together, sweat slick limbs trembling, his forehead pressed to yours until distant shouts shattered the moment. Rhaegar jerked back, hissing as your bodies parted, his tunic clinging to the scratches down his back. The ribbon dangled between you like a noose.
Somewhere in the castle, Elia’s newborn wailed, thin and reedy, nothing like Rickard’s robust northern cry before Brandon soothed him. The cry seemed to echo just as a maid crashed through the godswood’s iron gate. Her lantern swung wildly, illuminating Rhaegar’s half laced breeches and your torn silk attempting to cover you. The girl’s mouth opened, perhaps to scream but all that emerged was a whimper.
The list received a makeover. There is no longer a second one. All is here, in one place.
I do not give permission for my original ideas to be used in any form of derivative work, including art. I do not allow my work to be copied, reposted, or translated and uploaded elsewhere. This also applies to any use involving AI. Consider this your warning.
Requests are CLOSED FOREVER! Please stop sending them to me!
Aegon II Targaryen
Helaena Targaryen
Aemond Targaryen
Daeron Targaryen
Rhaenyra Targaryen
Jacaerys Velaryon
Daemon Targaryen
Baela Targaryen
Ormund Hightower
Otto Hightower
Gwayne Hightower
Alicent Hightower
Cregan Stark
Harwin Strong
Criston Cole
Jason Lannister
Tyland Lannister
Jason and Tyland Lannister - The Golden Court
Davos Blackwood
The List Of My ASOIAF Reader Inserts Works:
Oberyn Martell
Aerys II Targaryen
Rhaegar Targaryen
Daenerys Targaryen
Grey Worm
Arthur Dayne
Robb Stark
Sansa Stark
Arya Stark
Jon Snow
Edmure Tully
Euron Greyjoy
Theon Greyjoy
Margaery Tyrell
Tywin Lannister
Cersei Lannister
Jaime Lannister
Tyrion Lannister
Robert Baratheon
Eddard Stark
Brandon Stark (The Wild Wolf)
Lyanna Stark
Roose Bolton
Ramsay Bolton
Jojen Reed
Petyr Baelish
Jaqen H'ghar
Sandor Clegane
Khal Drogo
Ser Bronn of the Blackwater
Beric Dondarrion
Styr the Thenn
Oswell Whent
Ser Duncan the Tall - A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms
Description: What if Lyanna wasn’t the daughter of Winterfell who caught the dragon’s eye? When Aerys II commands Rickard Stark to betroth his firstborn daughter, (Y/N), to the Crown Prince, a different destiny is forged. From the tense, frost-bitten halls of the North to a lavish wedding in the capital, (Y/N) wins Rhaegar’s heart, navigating courtly vipers and fulfilling ancient prophecy. But when a bitter, deeply jealous Lyanna—furious that her older sister has inherited the dragon's crown—attempts to ruin her happiness at the Tourney of Harrenhal, she learns that some bonds are forged in dragonglass and unyielding northern resolve.
The Whispers in the Red Keep
The air in the Grand Maester’s chambers was always thick, heavy with the sharp, medicinal tang of drying weirwood leaves, crushed cloves, and rancid whale oil melting in iron braziers. It was a claustrophobic sanctuary high in the citadel of the castle, completely cut off from the restless murmurs of the courtyard below, yet tonight it held the terrifying weight of the entire realm.
King Aerys II paced the length of the room, his movements erratic and jerky, like a bird trapped in an iron cage. His long, unkempt silver-gold hair hung in matted, greasy hanks over his narrow shoulders, completely framing a face that had grown gaunt, hollow-cheeked, and pale as milkglass. His fingernails, grown out into long, jagged, yellowed claws because he refused to let any blade near his flesh, scraped nervously against the rich, dark velvet of his doublet, leaving thin white tracks in the fabric.
"The southern houses are vipers, Pycelle," Aerys hissed, his voice cracking into a high-pitched, reedy register that made the maester’s acolytes flinch in the corners. He spun on his heel, his bloodshot, wide eyes darting toward the heavy velvet tapestries hanging along the stone wall, his hand instinctively twitching toward the dagger he no longer wore. "Tywin watches me from Casterly Rock like a golden lion waiting for the old stag to stumble. The Baratheons grow bold and arrogant in the Stormlands, flexing their muscles and whispering behind closed doors. Even the Martells mutter in their desert shadows, plotting. Rhaegar must marry, but I will not hand him a knife to put in my back by giving him a southern bride with a ravenous lord for a father. I see their faces in the fire, Pycelle. They want my head."
Grand Maester Pycelle stood by a massive, parchment-cluttered oak table, his multi-linked chain of office clinking softly against his heavy wool robes as he bowed his head with practiced, deeply unctuous humility. He kept his voice low, steady, and soothing, carefully adjusting his tone to placate the volatile, deeply paranoid monarch.
"Your Grace speaks with the unmatched, historical wisdom of Aegon the Conqueror himself," Pycelle countered smoothly, stepping closer and lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper that barely carried across the room. "A southern alliance carries the heavy stench of raw ambition and potential treason. They are too close to the capital, too enmeshed in the games of court. But we must look to the furthest, most isolated borders of the realm. The North remains vast, fiercely loyal to old traditions, and completely unbothered by the courtly squabbles of King's Landing. Lord Rickard Stark has children of marriageable age. They have no southern ambitions, no desires to meddle in the affairs of the Red Keep."
Aerys narrowed his eyes, stopping his frantic pacing entirely. He leaned forward so sharply that his heavy, gemstone-encrusted gold crown slipped slightly on his prominent brow. "The wolf girl? The wild one the squires and smallfolk whisper about in the yards? The one they call Lyanna?"
"No, Your Grace," Pycelle said, lifting a finger to emphasize his point, a subtle, calculating gleam in his old eyes. "The wild one is headstrong, willful, and completely untamable. She rides like a northern raider, wields wooden swords in secret, and lacks the basic discipline or modesty of the court. She would bring chaos, noise, and constant scandal to your halls. She would defy you at every turn. But Lord Stark has an eldest daughter. The firstborn girl, Lady (Y/Y). The maesters at Winterfell write to me of her quiet grace, her unwavering obedience, and her calm, steady demeanor. She is a true lady of the North, tempered by winter's long patience. She would be a stabilizing, soothing presence for Prince Rhaegar, and she would bind the North securely to the Iron Throne without bringing the volatile, unpredictable fires of her younger sister into the Red Keep. She knows how to submit to authority."
Aerys stared into the guttering candle flame on the table, a slow, twisted smile creeping onto his gaunt face, revealing yellowed teeth. He stroked his scraggly, unwashed silver beard, his mind latching onto the idea with a sudden, paranoid fervor.
"The eldest daughter. Yes. A quiet wolf to sit beside the dragon. One who knows her place, respects authority, and will not whisper treason in my son's ear. Write the raven at once, Maester. Inform Rickard Stark that his King commands it. His firstborn daughter will wed the Crown Prince. Let them see that the dragon rules the wolves, and let the southern vipers choke on their own ambition."
The Great Hall of Winterfell
The Great Hall of Winterfell was swallowed by a heavy, suffocating silence that felt far thicker than the stone walls enclosing it. Outside, the brutal northern winds howled against the ancient granite fortresses, throwing sheets of thick, blinding snow against the narrow slit windows, making the iron torches gutter and spit. Inside, the massive hearths roared with blazing logs of pine and oak, yet the atmosphere around the high table felt utterly frozen, heavy with a looming sense of dread.
Lord Rickard Stark sat heavily in his high-backed, carved oak seat, his face as unyielding and weathered as the hills beneath him. An unsealed parchment, bearing the brilliant crimson wax seal of House Targaryen, rested flat beneath his calloused, ringed palm. Beside him stood Maester Walys, whose soft, urgent whispers had occupied the Lord of Winterfell’s ear for the past hour. The maester had long advocated for southern ambitions, but this was no longer a matter of courtly plotting—this was an absolute, terrifying mandate from the Iron Throne.
"I cannot say no to the King, children," Rickard said, his voice deep, gravelly, and solemn, echoing off the massive stone pillars and the frost-rimed rafters.
Gathered before him were his five children. Brandon stood with his arms tightly crossed over his broad chest, his handsome face marred by a dark, dangerous scowl, his fingers twitching toward his hunting knife. Ned stood beside him, quiet, solid, and observant, his grey eyes darting to you with a deep, unspoken concern that hummed with protective energy. Benjen leaned against a pillar near the back, watching the tension unfold with a troubled, anxious expression, while you sat rigidly on a carved wooden bench. Your fingers twisted the thick, rough wool of your dark grey skirts, your mind racing as the sudden weight of the entire realm settled squarely onto your shoulders.
And then there was Lyanna, your younger sister.
"You are to marry the Crown Prince, (Y/N)," Rickard continued, his gaze locking onto yours, addressing you with the gravity demanded of his eldest daughter. "The King has commanded it explicitly. There is no room for negotiation, no time for debate or counter-offers. Brandon, Eddard, and I will escort you to King’s Landing immediately. The wedding is to take place three days after our arrival to ensure we do not court the King's infamous, violent displeasure."
"No! This is fundamentally wrong! It makes no sense!"
The screech cut through the hall like a sharpened steel blade. Lyanna stepped forward from the deep shadows of the hearth, her face flushed a deep, ugly crimson with a mixture of rage, jealousy, and utter disbelief. She had never respected you. To Lyanna, you were just the older sister who happened to be born first—someone she viewed as too quiet, too dutiful, and far too willing to fade into the background while she rode horses wild, vied with the boys, and demanded the attention of every room she walked into. She had never looked at you as a true sister, only a boring, rigid obstacle in her periphery.
"This is madness, Father!" Lyanna shouted, stamping her heavy leather boot against the stone floor, her voice vibrating wildly off the timber ceiling. "She is nothing compared to the Targaryens! She is dull, she is quiet! She will wither and die in the sticky, rotten heat of the south! If a Stark must marry the dragon, it should be someone with the true, wild blood of the winter kings! Someone with fire! Someone who can ride and hunt beside him! Send me instead! Let me go to King's Landing!"
"Silence, Lyanna!" Rickard’s voice thundered, slamming his massive fist down onto the heavy oak table. The sudden, violent noise made the iron goblets rattle and caused you to flinch, but Ned immediately stepped closer, placing a comforting, steadying hand on your shoulder, his grip grounding you against the storm.
"I am the Lord of Winterfell, and you will not question my commands or the commands of your King," Rickard growled, his slate-grey eyes narrowing dangerously at his youngest daughter. "Lyanna, you and Benjen are to stay here under the watchful eye of the castellan. You are not going to the capital. You will not be part of this court."
"Why should she get the prince?!" Lyanna cried, tears of sheer, unadulterated fury spilling over her lashes as she pointed a trembling, accusatory finger at you. "She doesn't deserve it! She doesn't even want it! Just because she was born a few winters before me?! It isn't fair! He is a dragon, he needs a wolf with fire, not a meek little mouse who will cower in the corners!"
Rickard stood up, drawing himself to his full, imposing height, his heavy fur cloak billowing behind him like a dark cloud. "Your sister is going to King's Landing as the royal bride, Lyanna, because she has the maturity, the grace, and the dignity required to represent our House before the throne. And you will stay here because you desperately need to grow up. You must accept that with (Y/N) gone, you are now the highest-ranking lady of House Stark in this castle. It is past time you started acting like one, instead of a petulant, spoiled child."
Lyanna gasped, looking wildly at Brandon and Ned for support, hoping her favorite brothers would take her side. But Brandon merely shook his head in deep disapproval, disgusted by her blatant selfishness, and Ned kept his protective gaze fixed entirely on you. With a choked sob of pure, bitter hatred, Lyanna turned on her heel and fled the Great Hall, her heavy skirts twisting as she slammed the heavy oak doors behind her, the echo ringing through the silent room like a death knell.
The Journey and the Dragon's Vows
The journey south was a long, grueling blur of muddy roads, shifting climates, and a growing knot of raw anxiety that twisted tightly in your stomach. The biting, clean cold of the North slowly melted into the damp, sticky warmth of the Riverlands, and finally into the oppressive, heavy heat of the Crownlands. Brandon and Ned rode on either side of your wheelhouse every single day, frequently checking on you through the wooden window, offering quiet words of reassurance over the rumbling of the wheels.
"If any of those silver-haired princes look at you sideways, sister, you tell me," Brandon had stated firmly, patting the heavy pommel of his sword, his eyes fierce. "You are a wolf of Winterfell. Never forget it." Ned, more pragmatic, spoke softly of the courtly customs, trying to ease the fear he knew you hid behind your calm exterior.
But nothing could truly prepare you for the suffocating heat, the sheer, roaring noise, and the pungent, overwhelming stench of King’s Landing.
True to the paranoid King’s strict decree, there was no time for a lengthy courtship, no romantic walks in the gardens, or proper introductions. Three days after your horses passed through the towering Mud Gate, you found yourself draped in heavy Northern silks of pale white and silver. A maiden’s cloak of thick grey and white wool, beautifully embroidered with the Stark direwolf, was pinned securely to your shoulders by your father's heavy, trembling hands.
The Great Sept of Baelor was a dizzying, overwhelming kaleidoscope of stained glass, burning incense, and hundreds of staring, whispering southern eyes. The lords and ladies of the court peered at you, muttering about the "Northern sacrifice" brought to appease the mad king. But as you walked down the long, echoing marble aisle, your father’s strong arm supporting your weight, your gaze locked onto the man waiting at the grand altar.
Prince Rhaegar Targaryen.
He was breathtakingly beautiful, almost ethereally so, with long, silver-gold hair that caught the glow of a thousand candles and sad, deep indigo eyes that seemed to look right through your flesh and into your very soul. Yet, as you reached him and your father placed your hand in his, those sad eyes softened remarkably. His grip was surprisingly warm, steady, and incredibly gentle, sending a strange wave of calm through your racing heart.
The ceremony passed in a surreal trance of high-valyrian vows, choral singing, and heavy rituals. Then came the pivotal moment for the exchanging of the cloaks. Rhaegar’s long, elegant fingers gently unpinned your heavy Stark cloak. With a level of reverence and care that took you completely by surprise, he lifted the heavy black-and-scarlet Targaryen silk, weighted with gold thread, and draped it securely over your shoulders.
He leaned down, his face inches from yours. "With this kiss, I pledge my love and my protection," Rhaegar murmured, his voice a low, melodic baritone that vibrated right through your chest. He pressed his lips to yours. It was a gentle, reassuring, and deeply lingering press—a silent promise of safety rather than a mere public display of royal passion.
The feast that followed in the Great Hall of the Red Keep was a grand, raucous, and chaotic affair. It was utterly dominated by the erratic, piercing laughter of King Aerys, who sat high upon the Iron Throne, his long hair matted, looking disheveled but overly pleased with his political maneuver. But at the high table, Rhaegar focused entirely on you. He poured your sweet wine himself, offered you the finest cuts of roasted meat from his own platter, and began to ask you questions. He did not ask about your father’s political alignments or the military strength of the North; instead, he asked about you.
"Tell me of the pools beneath the heart tree," Rhaegar whispered, leaning close so only you could hear over the roar of the music and the clinking of tankards. "I have read that they are black and deep. Do they truly feel as old as the world?"
"They do, My Prince," you replied softly, your voice steady despite the court watching your every move. "They hold the memory of winter. They do not change, no matter how hot the summer becomes."
Rhaegar smiled, a genuine, beautiful expression that transformed his melancholic face. "Then I shall have to see them with you one day."
When the time for the traditional bedding ceremony arrived, a rowdy group of southern lords and drunken knights advanced toward the high table, laughing loudly and shouting crude jokes, intending to strip you of your bridal gown. Rhaegar immediately stood up, holding up a sharp, commanding hand. His indigo eyes flashed with a sudden, dangerous fire that caused the advancing crowd to halt in their tracks.
"My bride will be escorted to our chambers with dignity and respect," Rhaegar commanded, his voice leaving absolutely no room for argument. "Anyone who steps forward will answer to my blade."
The hall fell silent, and with a grateful look from your brothers, Rhaegar offered you his arm, guiding you away from the feast himself.
The Wedding Night
In the quiet, cavernous sanctuary of the royal bedchamber, the chaotic sounds of the feast and the distant roaring of the city faded into complete nothingness. The room was bathed in the warm, amber glow of a massive hearth, the scent of crushed dried roses and expensive oils lingering in the air. You stood by the tall arched window, looking out over the dark waters of the Blackwater Rush, trembling slightly in your thin, silk shift. The northern wolf felt entirely out of her element in the den of the dragon.
The heavy oak doors opened and closed softly. Rhaegar entered, having already shed his heavy ceremonial doublet and his golden chain of office. He wore only a loose black silk tunic, his silver hair falling freely around his shoulders. He didn't rush you; instead, he approached you slowly, his footsteps silent on the thick Myrish rugs, as if he were trying not to frighten a wild creature.
"You are trembling, my lady," he said softly, stopping just a foot away from you. He reached out, his long, elegant fingers lifting gently to cup your cheek. His skin was warm, a stark contrast to the cool night air coming through the window.
"The south is... very different, Rhaegar," you whispered, using his name for the first time, your voice shaking slightly. You didn't pull away from his touch; instead, you instinctively leaned your cheek into his warm palm, seeking comfort.
"It can be cruel," Rhaegar admitted softly, his thumb gently tracing your cheekbone. His indigo eyes searched your face, taking in every detail of your features. As he spoke with you, spending hours just sitting on the edge of the massive, silk-canopied bed, he found himself utterly captivated. He had expected a rigid, frightened girl, but instead, he discovered a woman of quiet strength, a quick and sharp mind, and a fierce, unspoken loyalty that hummed beneath your gentle demeanor. He realized you were not a meek pawn; you were the eldest daughter of winter, tempered by patience and grace.
"I want to know you, (Y/N)," he murmured, his voice dropping into a husky, intimate register. "I want to be a husband who earns your heart, not just your vows."
The tenderness in his words shattered the last of your defenses. You reached up, your fingers wrapping around his wrist. "You have it, Rhaegar. I am yours."
He leaned down, his lips finding yours once more, but this time, the restraint of the sept was entirely gone. The kiss was deep, slow, and utterly consuming. His tongue slipped past your lips, tasting you, sending a jolt of liquid fire straight down your spine. A soft sigh escaped your throat, and Rhaegar groaned against your mouth, his hands moving down to grip your waist, pulling your body flush against his warm frame.
With a fluid, reverent movement, his hands slid to the hem of your silk shift, lifting it up and over your head, leaving you completely bare before him in the firelight. Rhaegar stepped back for a brief fraction of a second, his gaze sweeping over your body with an expression of pure, unadulterated worship. "You are beautiful," he whispered, his voice thick with a growing, heavy passion. "Like a winter rose preserved in ice."
He quickly shed his own tunic, his broad, muscled chest and silver-scarred skin exposed to you. He led you back onto the soft silk sheets of the bed, crawling over you with a predatory grace that made your breath catch.
His lips left yours, trailing a path of burning kisses down your jawline, to the sensitive skin of your throat, making you arch your back as a gasp escaped you. His hands were worshipful, mapping every curve of your body, his palms sliding over your hips, his thumbs brushing the sensitive skin of your inner thighs. The warmth radiating from him was intoxicating. Every touch felt deliberate, designed to stoke the embers of desire within you until you were writhing beneath him, your fingers tangled tightly in his long, silver-gold hair.
"Rhaegar," you gasped out, your hips instinctively tilting upward, seeking a closer contact with the heat of him. "Please..."
He looked down at you, his chest heaving, his indigo eyes dark with a fierce, possessive hunger. "Look at me, (Y/N)," he commanded softly, his voice thick. You opened your eyes, locking your grey gaze with his indigo one as he slowly, smoothly guided himself into you.
The fullness of him filled you completely, a sudden, sharp gasp tearing from your throat as your senses overloaded. Rhaegar froze, his muscles straining as he held himself perfectly still, giving your body time to adjust to his size. He leaned down, pressing his forehead against yours, whispering sweet praises against your lips. "Shh, I have you, my love. Breathe for me. Just breathe."
As the initial tightness melted into a deep, throbbing ache of pure pleasure, you wrapped your legs tightly around his waist, pulling him deeper. Rhaegar let out a low, rough growl and began to move.
The pace was a heated, breathless dance of fire and ice. He set a slow, deep rhythm that drove you to the brink of madness, his body moving against yours with a relentless, passionate strength. The friction was electric, sending waves of intense, rolling pleasure crashing through your core. You clung to his broad shoulders, your nails digging into his back as the heat built to an unbearable crescendo. Rhaegar’s movements grew faster, harder, his breath hitching as he drove himself into you over and over, completely lost in the sensation of your body tightly gripping his.
"Rhaegar!" you cried out, your head tossing back against the pillows as the climax shattered through you, a wild, beautiful release that made your entire body tremble violently.
Hearing your cry, Rhaegar let out a deep, guttural roar, driving deep into you one final time as his own release overtook him. He spilled his seed deep inside you, his entire body stiffening as he held you impossibly close, trembling in the afterglow of a beautiful, breathless joining of two souls.
In the quiet hours that followed, as the fire crackled down to embers, you lay with your head resting securely on his broad, sweating chest, his heartbeat steady beneath your ear. Rhaegar ran his fingers gently through your hair, tangling the dark strands with his own silver ones. He thought of the ancient prophecies he had studied for years—the prophecy of the Prince That Was Promised. Looking down at you, the firstborn daughter of the North, he felt a profound, unshakeable wave of certainty. The dragon must have three heads, he thought, and it is through this Stark wolf that the prophecy of fire and ice will finally be fulfilled. She is my queen.
The Fruits of Prophecy
Four years passed in a blissful haven of love, peace, and family within the walls of the Red Keep and the quiet, wind-swept retreats of Dragonstone. Rhaegar's devotion to you only deepened with each passing moon, and the realm watched in awe as the Crown Prince bloomed under the steady, loving presence of his Northern princess. He no longer spent his days locked away in dusty libraries; instead, he walked the battlements with you, his hand always finding yours.
Soon, the grand maesters confirmed what Rhaegar had long sensed in his heart on their wedding night. Your first pregnancy was a time of great joy, and you gave birth to a beautiful, healthy boy, whom you named Daeron. He was a perfect blend of your ancient lineages, inheriting his father's striking silver-gold hair but bearing the fierce, dark slate-grey eyes of House Stark. Rhaegar held the boy with tears shimmering in his eyes, whispering of ancient bloodlines and future peace.
Two winters later, you gave birth to a daughter, Lyra. She was a true northern beauty from the moment she cried out, possessing the dark, thick curls of the Starks and a quiet, watchful grace that perfectly mirrored your own. Rhaegar completely adored his children, spending his evenings playing the silver harp for them while you rested by the roaring hearth, watching your family with a full heart. He would often look across the room at you, hold your hand tightly, and whisper, "The dragon has its heads, my love. The ice and the fire are one. Our children will protect the realm."
Arrival at Harrenhal
Then came the official royal announcement of the Tourney at Harrenhal, the grandest, most expensive tournament the realm had seen in a generation, hosted by Lord Whent. The journey to the massive, melted black fortress of Harrenhal was filled with excitement, but a dark, heavy shadow fell over the festivities when King Aerys unexpectedly announced his attendance. Leaving the Red Keep for the first time since the Defiance of Duskendale, the paranoid, ragged King brought a cloud of thick tension and political intrigue that hung heavily over the five massive black towers.
But for you, a different, far more personal kind of tension arose when the Stark delegation finally arrived on the third day. Your father had stayed behind to govern Winterfell, but Brandon, Ned, and Lyanna rode proudly into the sprawling encampment at the head of the Northern lords.
You hurried to greet them outside the royal pavilion, holding young Daeron's small hand while a nursemaid carried baby Lyra close behind you. Brandon let out a booming, joyous laugh that echoed across the grounds, stepping forward and lifting you completely off your feet into a tight, rib-crushing hug.
"Look at you!" Brandon laughed, setting you down and ruffling Daeron's silver hair. "A true southern princess now, eh?"
Ned smiled warmly, stepping up next to kiss your cheek gently before kneeling down to look at his nephew. "He has the Stark look in his eyes, sister. It is good to see you well."
But when you turned your gaze to Lyanna, your smile completely faltered.
Lyanna had grown into a striking, beautiful young woman, but her eyes were cold, harboring a bitter, toxic resentment that had festered and rotted over the last four years of her isolation in Winterfell. She barely even glanced at your beautiful children, completely ignoring her nephew and niece. Instead, her dark eyes scanned the royal pavilion with a predatory focus until they landed on Rhaegar, who was walking out from the silk tents to meet them, his silver hair catching the midday sun, his regal posture commanding the respect of every lord present.
The Games of Lyanna Stark
In the days leading up to the grand jousts, Lyanna made her desperate, scandalous intentions glaringly obvious to everyone in the camp. She completely disregarded the rules of modesty and respect. Wherever Rhaegar went, Lyanna magically appeared. When he walked by the shores of the Gods Eye to contemplate the waters, she happened to be riding by on a magnificent black stallion, putting on an aggressive, dangerous display of her superb horsemanship, pushing the horse to its limits and throwing pointed, smoldering glances his way. When he sat in the common pavilion to discuss the rules of the lists with the tournament masters, she would purposefully sit nearby, speaking loudly to other knights, laughing excessively to draw his eye, and casting suggestive glances his way.
She actively, relentlessly tried to wedge herself between you and your husband, utterly furious that her older sister possessed the royal crown and the beautiful husband she believed should be hers by right of her wild spirit. During a mid-day gathering in the tented gardens, she walked straight up to Rhaegar, completely ignoring your presence as you sat gracefully right beside him.
"Your Grace," Lyanna purred, flashing a bright, bold smile as she stood directly in his line of sight, blocking your view of the garden. "I heard from the squires that you are an absolute master of the silver harp. Will you be playing tonight in the lower hall for the guests? I find myself terribly fond of melancholic music, and I am told no one plays it with more passion than a dragon."
Rhaegar politely but visibly stiffened, his jaw tightening as his arm came around your waist, pulling you firmly against his side in a public display of solidarity. "I play my music exclusively for my wife, Lady Lyanna. Her ears are the only ones I care to please in this realm."
Lyanna’s bold smile twitched, a dangerous flash of raw irritation and jealousy flitting through her dark eyes, but she refused to back down or show respect. "Surely a crown prince can share his magnificent gifts with the rest of the realm? Or does the North hold you too tightly, sister?" She aimed the last word directly at you like a sharpened dagger, her tone dripping with mock sweetness.
Over the next two days, as Rhaegar continued to ignore her, Lyanna grew increasingly desperate and reckless. She began trailing Rhaegar to the quiet edges of the encampment, constantly trying to corner him when he walked between the tents after dark, begging him to listen to her.
"You don't belong with her," Lyanna whispered urgently to him during one late-night encounter by the horse pens, stepping into his personal space and trying to slip her hand into his. "She is quiet, she is dull, Rhaegar. She belongs in a sept, not a palace. Run away with me. Take me to your bed tonight, dishonor the vows that bound you to her, and we can flee this entire miserable court together. I can be your true wolf queen. I don't want to marry Robert or anyone else. I deserve to be your queen, Rhaegar! Not her! I was meant for greatness, not her!"
Rhaegar violently pulled his hand away from her grip as if he had been stung by a pit viper, his face twisting in absolute disgust. "You speak foul treason against your own blood and your own sister, Lady Lyanna," he said, his voice dropping into a terrifyingly cold, sharp whisper. "Return to your tents at once before I have my Kingsguard drag you there."
Later that evening, Brandon and Ned, having noticed their sister's constant, suspicious absences and her increasingly reckless, public behavior, cornered Lyanna behind the Stark tents away from the lords.
"What in the Seven Hells do you think you are doing, Lyanna?!" Brandon hissed, his face dark red with an explosive anger, his fists clenched tightly at his sides. "He is the Crown Prince of the realm! More importantly, he is your older sister’s husband! Have you absolutely no shame? You are acting like a common harlot!"
"Leave me alone, Brandon!" Lyanna snapped back, tossing her dark hair defensively, her eyes flashing with a stubborn, manic energy. "He doesn't belong with her! Look at her, she’s so plain, so utterly boring. She sits there like a painted doll while he is a magnificent dragon! He needs someone with the true, wild wolf blood to match his fire. He needs me! He wants me, I know he does!"
Ned stepped forward, his voice low, shaking with a dangerous, quiet anger that was far more terrifying than Brandon's shouting. "Lyanna, listen to me very carefully. You will cease this madness immediately. You are dishonoring yourself, you are dishonoring our father, and you are trying to destroy the sister who has done nothing but love and protect you since you were a child."
"I don't care about honor!" Lyanna cried out, her voice laced with a bitter, hateful venom. "She stole my life! Just because she's older, that should have been me in the Red Keep! It should be my children holding the royal titles! I'm going to make him see the truth. I'll give him what she can't. He will take me to bed, and he will run away with me, and then everyone in this wretched realm will see who the true queen should be!"
The Warning
Horrified by their younger sister’s utter delusion and terrified of the massive political scandal and immense heartbreak she was actively trying to inflict upon you, Brandon and Ned didn't waste a single moment. They turned on their heels and marched straight through the dark camp to the royal pavilion, demanding an urgent, completely private audience with the Crown Prince.
Rhaegar received them alone inside his candle-lit strategy tent, a single wave of his hand dismissing his personal Kingsguard protectors to the perimeter.
Brandon, unable to contain the fury burning in his chest, laid the entire truth bare. "Your Grace, we come to you with heavy hearts and deep shame. We apologize for our sister's abhorrent behavior. We have just discovered her true intentions from her own mouth, and we are utterly sickened by them. Lyanna is... she is completely unhinged, obsessed with the crown. She intends to seduce you, to have you dishonor your sacred vows to our sister, and she fully believes she can convince you to run away with her so she can escape her duties and completely usurp (Y/N)’s rightful place as your wife and future queen."
Ned looked at Rhaegar with pleading, sorrowful eyes, his voice tight with emotion. "Please, Your Grace. Know that House Stark does not support this madness. (Y/N) is our eldest sister, and we love her fiercely. We will not stand by and see her humiliated by a petulant, jealous child. If we must bind Lyanna and send her back to Winterfell in chains tonight, we will do it."
Rhaegar’s jaw clenched so tightly the muscles jumped, his indigo eyes turning into chips of absolute ice. A cold, draconic fury washed over his features, his hand tightening against the hilt of his ceremonial dagger until his knuckles turned white.
"Thank you for warning me, my lords," Rhaegar said, his voice terrifyingly calm, carrying the immense weight of a future king. "Your sister (Y/N) is my heart, the mother of my children, and my only lady. Rest assured, I will handle this tomorrow in a way that leaves absolutely no doubt in the eyes of the realm where my loyalty and my love lie."
The Crown of Winter Roses
The final day of the jousting tournament arrived under a clear, bright sky. The massive stands of Harrenhal were packed with thousands of lords, ladies, knights, and common folk, their collective voices rising in a deafening, continuous roar that shook the earth. You sat proudly in the center of the royal box, dressed in a stunning gown of Targaryen black silk and silver embroidery, your daughter Lyra asleep peacefully in your lap while your son Daeron sat proudly on Ned's knee nearby, pointing at the horses. King Aerys sat a few feet away on a raised velvet chair, chewing his dirty fingernails and muttering dark conspiracies to his hand, Lord Chelsted.
Down in the lists, Rhaegar was completely unstoppable. He rode with a fierce, unmatched intensity, his lance striking with absolute precision, throwing opponent after opponent from their saddles until only he remained victorious on the field. The crowd erupted into a total frenzy of cheers, banging their shields against the wooden railings and shouting his name into the sky.
Rhaegar guided his magnificent, sweating black warhorse slowly away from the lists, turning the beast toward the grandstands. A beautiful, heavily scented wreath of blue winter roses rested securely on the very tip of his jousting lance.
In the stands just below the royal box, Lyanna sat among the northern retinue. A smug, completely triumphant smirk was plastered across her pretty face. She leaned forward far over the wooden railing, practically preening like a peacock, adjusting her hair. She was entirely convinced that her days of relentless flirting and her bold offers to run away had finally broken his resolve. She genuinely believed Rhaegar was about to lift his lance and drop the crown into her lap, proving to the entire world—and especially to her older sister—that she was the one the dragon truly desired.
Rhaegar’s horse came to a sudden halt directly in front of the Stark section. He did not cast even a single glance in Lyanna’s direction; his face remained cold as stone as his eyes bypassed her completely. Instead, his gaze locked onto yours with a deep, burning intensity that made your breath catch in your throat.
With a smooth, deliberate, and powerful motion, Rhaegar raised his lance high, lifting the wreath of blue winter roses up past the lower stands, bypassing Lyanna entirely, and placing it gently directly into your hands over the velvet royal railing.
"To my beautiful wife," Rhaegar’s voice carried clearly over the immediate area, amplified by the sudden hush of the crowd. "The only Queen of Love and Beauty I will ever recognize, today and for all days."
The crowd cheered loudly at the display of royal devotion, but in the stands directly below, Lyanna’s face completely drained of all color. Her smug expression shattered into a million pieces, replaced by a horrifying mask of pure, unadulterated, and deeply humiliated rage. She stared up at you, her hands shaking violently as you gracefully placed the crown of blue roses on your head, smiling down with absolute love at your husband.
The Feast of Accusations
The grand victory feast in the Great Hall of Harrenhal was supposed to be a joyous, alcohol-fueled occasion, but the air was thick with an uncomfortable, suffocating tension. Lyanna sat at the far end of the Stark table, furiously downing cups of strong arbor gold wine, her eyes burning holes of pure hatred into you as you sat elegantly beside Rhaegar at the high table, talking softly and laughing with Brandon and Ned who sat nearby.
Suddenly, Lyanna slammed her heavy silver goblet down onto the table with a deafening crash and stood up, stumbling slightly as she pushed past the startled northern lords. She marched directly into the very center of the grand hall, pointing a trembling, accusing finger up at the high royal dais.
"He is a liar, a coward, and a hypocrite!" Lyanna screamed at the top of her lungs, her voice echoing wildly off the high stone ceilings, instantly silencing the music, the laughter, and the clinking of plates.
The entire hall went completely dead silent. Hundreds of faces turned to look at her in utter shock and horror.
"Lyanna, shut your mouth and sit down!" Brandon roared, his face turning purple with rage as he stood up and reached for her arm, trying to salvage their house's honor, but she violently yanked herself away from his grip, her eyes wild, bloodshot, and frantic.
"You all look at them and see a perfect royal marriage!" Lyanna shouted, bitter tears streaming down her face as she addressed the entire court. "But Prince Rhaegar is a dishonorable, predatory beast! He took my maidenhead! He cornered me by the shores of the lake three nights ago, took my virtue by force of his status, and promised me he would leave his boring, pathetic, worthless wife for me! And now he shames me in front of the whole realm by crowning her! He must marry me, King Aerys! He must marry me at once, or House Stark is ruined by his hands!"
A massive, collective gasp rippled through the entire hall. Murmurs broke out like a wildfire in dry grass. Southern lords whispered furiously behind their hands, and Brandon and Ned looked as if they wanted a hole to open in the stone floor and swallow them whole, their faces pale with absolute horror and disgust at their sister's desperate, treasonous lie. You felt a cold dread wash over you, but Rhaegar merely squeezed your hand tightly under the table, his face remaining an emotionless mask of cold, draconic steel.
Before the uproar could boil over into a physical riot, a young camp kitchen maid, dressed in stained, humble linen, stepped out from the shadows near the servant's entrance. Trembling with fear but driven by absolute justice, she threw herself onto her knees in front of the high table, crying out over the noise.
"Silence! Speak, girl!" King Aerys commanded, his long, yellow fingernails tapping anxiously on his armrest as he leaned forward over the dais with a twisted, manic curiosity.
"Forgive me, Your Grace," the maid whimpered, her voice clear, piercing, and sharp in the silent hall. "But the Lady Lyanna is telling a foul lie. I... I have been tasked by the master of horse with cleaning the Prince's pavilion and delivering his meals these past days. Every single time the Lady Lyanna approached the Prince, he refused to see her alone. He demanded a Kingsguard guard or myself remain inside the tent. Three nights ago, I was there by the lake pens. I saw her try to throw herself into his arms, Your Grace. I saw her beg him to take her to bed and run away with her, and I heard the Prince explicitly tell her that he loved his wife with all his soul and would never touch another woman. Prince Rhaegar has never been alone with her. Not once. She is entirely untouched by him! She lies to steal her sister's crown!"
A deafening, absolute silence fell over the room. Brandon and Ned looked down at Lyanna, their expressions filled with absolute, unmitigated disgust and profound disappointment.
You stood up from your royal seat, your movements graceful, slow, and perfectly calm, entirely fitting of a future queen. You walked down the steps of the dais until you stood just a few paces away from your trembling younger sister.
"Have you always hated me this much, Lyanna?" you asked, your voice steady, clear, and resonant, though a deep, painful sadness echoed in your words. "Or is it just because I married Rhaegar, and you didn't?"
Lyanna completely snapped. The fake facade of the tragic, ruined maiden vanished in an instant, replaced by an ugly, raw, and monstrous malice. "Yes! I hate you! I have always despised you!" she shrieked, stepping forward aggressively as if to strike you, only for Ned and Brandon to instantly step between you, their hands slamming onto the hilts of their swords to protect you from her violence.
"I have always hated you!" Lyanna confessed, her voice dripping with pure venom, loud enough for every lord from Dorne to the Wall to hear clearly. "You are weak! You are boring! You deserve absolutely nothing that you have! It should have been me! I am the true spirit of winter! I should have been the one draped in royal silk and gold! I should have been the one with the handsome prince! Just because you were born a few winters first doesn't mean everything you have shouldn't have been mine! You stole my destiny!"
Before she could even draw another breath to scream, a rasping, cruel, and booming chuckle echoed from the high table. King Aerys stood up, leaning far over the carved balustrade, looking down at Lyanna as if she were a fascinating, repulsive bug he wanted to crush under his boot.
"You foolish, arrogant, delusional little girl," the Mad King sneered, a cruel, mocking smile stretching across his gaunt, scarred face. "Do you truly think a prince of the blood marries simply because a pretty face flutters her eyelashes in the yard? It was I who commanded Lord Stark to marry his eldest daughter, (Y/N), to my son. My maesters and my spies told me all about you long ago, Lyanna. They told me of your wild, uncontrollable, and animalistic temper. A wild animal belongs in a cage in the woods, or out in the snow, not in my royal court. I chose her knowing exactly what a disaster you were, and I would never, under any circumstances, have allowed a broken creature like you near my throne."
Rhaegar stood up then, walking down the steps of the dais to stand right beside you, wrapping a heavy, protective arm around your waist, pulling you against his side. He looked down at Lyanna with cold, absolute, and unshakeable disdain.
"Even if my father had not chosen her," Rhaegar said, his voice carrying a powerful finality that echoed off the massive stone walls like thunder, "I would have searched the four corners of the kingdoms until I found her myself. You could have offered me the entire world, Lyanna, and despite your desperate, pathetic attempts these past days to tempt me, I still would have chosen your sister over you a thousand times over. She is the winter to my fire, she is the mother of my children, and she is the only woman I will ever love. You are nothing to me."
Lyanna looked around the massive hall, realizing with a horrifying finality that she was entirely, utterly alone. Her brothers turned their backs to her in complete shame and disgust, refusing to look at her. The lords and ladies of the realm stared at her with open mockery, laughter, and pity, and the King's maddened laughter followed her like a whip. With a broken, choked cry of utter, permanent humiliation, she turned and fled the great hall, leaving Harrenhal that very night under a heavy guard of Stark men, sent back to the North to live out the rest of her days in quiet, bitter, and forced isolation.
Epilogue: The Three Heads of the Dragon
Many years passed, and the painful wound left by that fateful night at Harrenhal healed into nothing more than a distant, forgotten memory.
When King Aerys eventually passed away peacefully in his sleep, Rhaegar ascended the Iron Throne with you sitting proudly by his side as his crowned Queen. His reign was a true golden age for the Seven Kingdoms, built upon wisdom, art, and long-lasting prosperity—a peaceful era that completely reshaped the history of Westeros.
But the ultimate completion of Rhaegar's heart—and the absolute, undeniable fulfillment of the ancient texts he had studied for decades—came when you fell pregnant for the third time. The grand maesters of the Red Keep watched over you with bated breath, but it was a smooth, blessed term, and before the turn of winter, you gave birth to another healthy son.
You named him Aegon.
Unlike his older siblings, Aegon was a perfect mirror of his father, possessing the pure, striking silver-gold hair and the deep, soulful indigo eyes of Old Valyria, yet he held the unyielding, fierce temperament of the North within his spirit. When Rhaegar first held his second son, tears of overwhelming emotion slipped down his cheeks. He looked from the newborn boy up to you, his eyes shining with a profound, cosmic certainty.
"The dragon has three heads," Rhaegar whispered reverently, his voice thick with awe as he leaned down to press his lips firmly against your forehead. "The prophecy is complete, my love. The ice and the fire are perfectly woven, and our children will ensure the safety of the realm forever."
On a quiet afternoon shortly after, you sat together on a carved stone bench in the center of the Red Keep's beautiful, private godswood. The gentle rustle of the red leaves provided a peaceful, serene backdrop to the afternoon. Across the soft green grass, your three children played happily under the watchful eyes of the Kingsguard. Daeron and Lyra laughed loudly as they chased each other through the ancient trees, their massive direwolves bounding behind them, while young Aegon sat safely on a thick fur blanket, clutching a toy dragon carved from dark dragonglass, his indigo eyes bright with wonder.
Rhaegar looked away from the children, a soft, deeply contented smile warming his handsome face, the ancient melancholy completely gone from his eyes. He reached out, taking your hand in his warm palm and lifting it to press a tender kiss against your knuckles.
"What are you thinking about so deeply, my love?" he asked softly, his voice pulling you back from your thoughts.
You look at your three beautiful children—the three heads of the dragon born of northern blood—then up at the serene, red canopy above, feeling the perfect, harmonious balance of the cool northern breeze and the warm southern sun on your skin.
"I was just thinking," you reply smoothly, leaning your head against his broad shoulder, closing your eyes in complete safety, "that the winters aren't so cold when I'm with you."
Rhaegar pulled you closer against his chest, kissing the top of your head gently, holding the woman who brought true harmony, peace, and the ultimate fulfillment of prophecy to the dragon's realm.
summary: they fuck in a forest, what more do you want
word count: 1,509
tags: smut. fluff
read on ao3 | masterlist
The brook’s tattering breaks your mid-afternoon daze, with the sunlight chiding your vision as you sit quietly under the impossibly huge tree.
Rhaegar is picking flowers nearby, his harp resting against the bark of another tree. Beautiful thing, it is, to watch him strum those strings, how nimble his fingers look as they dance across the harp, how it plucks and pulls, and-
Gods. Your ears flush red.
What a sinful thought.
You bring your knees together, resting your head over the heavy robes.
For another day.
You hear Rhaegar’s boots become louder and louder, padding gently across the grass before he sits next to you.
Wildflowers. He bought wildflowers.
“Quite a collection,” you remarked.
He hummed, holding some of them in his hands. White, yellow, green, all beautiful and dainty small things.
“Do you know, you can make tea from them.” he starts, “read it in a maester’s scrolls.”
“You can make tea from almost any flower or leaf if you dry and roast them enough.”
He gazes at you, unimpressed.
“Smartass.”
You chuckled, “logic.”
The prince watches you pick the pennyroyals up.
“Intriguing, you found these here.” You remark.
“Figured you’d appreciate the selection, for you keep collecting flowers.” Referring to your apothecary.
“Oh, so it is not for making flower crowns?”
“I do not know how to make them.”
“Why not?”
Confusion colors him, “What do you mean why not?”
“You’re bookish to a fault, thought you’d know how to make flower crowns to charm ladies.”
“I do not read such books.”
“Explain me tales of the wench and the sailor on your shelf then?”
He sputters, looking away.
“That was a gift.”
“Certain. Boys and their collection of literary erotica they swear to the seven they have never read, but forget to take out the glaring red bookmark.”
He calls out your name, indigant.
“This is unladylike.”
“I thought we dropped court formalities when we entered these forests.”
“This conversation has turned indecent.” Rhaegar quickly picks up the harp, playing it, you notice the heat on his cheeks and smirk.
He pretends to not notice you crawl slightly towards him, playing his harp.
“What crown prince would ever be caught reading naughty tales of a wench covered in flowers,”
Rhaegar’s hand shakes, and the harp’s tune wavers. You reach his shoulder and slightly move the long hair behind his ear as you whisper.
“as she gets deflowered by a dashing Essosi sailor-“
His breath hitches.
“How unbecoming of a noble to read such a debauched work.”
“Y-you.”
His indigo eyes are so beautiful as they lace in fear and arousal.
“Tell me, which one did you imagine yourself as? The sailor?” You hook your finger on the collar of his tunic.
Rhaegar shakes quietly, his harp sounding like a cacophony of nerves. You admire the small braids in his hair. He’s inlaid them with ruby pins.
“Or perhaps, the wench?” You whisper, putting his harp away.
He starts, your name, leaving his lips as he sighs.
You crawl on top of him, straddling his lap, smiling sweetly.
“Hmm?”
You don’t wait for him to reply, tilting your head to meet your lips against his plush ones.
Rhaegar is on fire. you are certain, His blood heats up at your touch as you sense him descend further and further into the kiss. He’s so open, desperate, and wanting. His red and black robes bristle and rustle against the grass as he moans out and squirms. You press down further as his hands find your waist.
He’s a sight, red flushed against his pale skin, indigo eyes staring at you, mesmerized, and glossy-lipped. The forest behind him. From this angle, he looks every bit of a wench from the novels you have seen him read in his chambers in privacy.
You rock your hips, and he groans. The fabric creates a barrier that somehow intensifies the pleasure rather than inhibiting it.
“You even moan like one.” You open button down his tunic and toss out his robes. The sunlight kissing his pale skin, you watch the flush travel to his lithe chest.
Hands travel down his naked body, your digits toying with his nipples. They look so supple, hard, and slightly puffed. A wicked idea takes over you.
“How does it feel?” gently squeezing his nipple.
Rhaegar throws his head back. “Tickles.”
“Ah,t.” He groans as you rub circles gently with both of your hands on each nipple.
He bucks his hips up.
“Ah…”
“Sensitive?’
He moans.
“Want me to continue?”
He stutters out a barely coherent, please.
You take him in your mouth. The foreign feel of his soft, round nipples gives you pleasure as you suckle them, quietly flicking.
Rhaegar has stilled, only gasps of his breath reverberate in the forest.
You stay attacking his chest, languid as your tongue latches on him, messy and mean in its sucking. Payback for what he does to you.
His hand reaches your back, digging into your hips as he mewls loudly, unable to stop as you rock your hips against his while playing with his chest.
“Please, please.” His repeats your name like a prayer. Bucking his hips up like an animal in heat.
“If you had a cunt and a womb, I promise you, you would’ve never walked a day without it being swollen.” Rhaegar nods, fervent.
“N-never, I would-“
“Do you wish it?” Your movements become quicker, the squelching noises sending pleasure down your spine.
“I do, gods, I would carry, I would-“
“How many?”
“As many- until I”
“Until your feet hurt and you stay debauched, swollen, and needy for me, every night?”
You see tears prick rhaegar’s eyes, he’s close.
“I’d never let you touch the moon tea. Ever.”
“N-never.” He groans as you halt your movement.
“Off.” You command, referencing his breeches.
He complies quickly, sitting up to kiss you as his cock springs out.
You smirk at the length, the rosy color making it look almost endearing.
“Might wear robes of this color tomorrow.”
Despite his arousal, rhaegar manages to smile.
“I’d be most pleased to see it.”
Touching his chin, “filthy.” You remark.
“Let me touch you.”
“Not today.”
Rhaegar frowns.
“Why?”
“Today I wish to ride.”
He gasps as you toss him down to the grass. His naked body, covered his bruises, shivering slightly at the contact.
“Then so be it.” He whispers to no one.
You quickly rid yourself of your small clothes, making sure you remain nude as well, and straddle him, sinking down and groaning, both of you turning blank at the pleasure that overtakes.
“Fucking hell.”
“Move....” Rhaegar has his hand over his eyes, his other hand between his lips, he’s red like a cherry, and the sun makes the sweat on his body shimmer like gold as he shakes and quivers with every move you make on top of him.
You grab both of his hands and place it next to his head, lacing your fingers together as you tilt towards him, your breasts swollen and stopping just by his lips.
“Suck.” You instruct, and descend your breast into his mouth. Eyes rolling back at the heat that engulfs your nipple, your movements turning animalistic.
Heaven was so hot it felt like the flames of hell. As if the fourteen flames have bloomed within you. The heat of the sun, his mouth, his cock, your cunt. The sweet music of your moans intermixing, it was too much, too fucking much.
Your knees buckled after a few moments and Rhaegar sat up immediately, holding you and kissing you mercilessly as you rode him in his lap, almost growling and tearing into his hair, ruffling it up and scratching his back with your other hand at the feeling of his hands all over you, pressing down at your belly.
With a loud moan and a whimper, the two of you collided and met your high, stilling amidst your kiss as you felt each other release in each other, quietly mumbling each other’s names.
You felt him drip down your legs. Soaking in the pleasure, you open your eyes to see him and gasp at the beauty that is Rhaegar Targaryen. His eyes were blown wide open, pretty white lashes and red face, messy hair, and his pouty lips, begging to kiss you more and more.
The two of you just looked at each other, and then, a chuckle left you at the same time.
“We are animals.” He starts as he lies down, with you climbing on his chest.
“Indeed. Two pretty animals mating in the wild.” You begin putting flowers in his hair. daffodils, forget-me-nots, heliotropes, and tulips.
He hums.
“No one else I’d rather mate with.”
“Not even your harp?”
He laughs.
“The poor thing’s probably traumatized by now, the things we do, the filth we speak.” He glances at the harp resting quietly below the tree, long forgotten.
“Rhae?”
“Hmm?”
“Pick up some tansy when we leave, I need to brew the tea.”
He blushes furiously, nodding as the breeze picks up.
ʚɞ synopsis: a tale between the last two dragons of House Targaryen, and the end of the world.
II of VII
. . . RHAEGAR HAD WORN A black tunic and black breeches, his boots leather, a cape of red draping across one shoulder. He was mounted atop his black stallion, side by side with Ser Arthur Dayne. It wouldn't be reasonable to be grand. They were hundreds of leagues from Lannisport. Mud will dirty them and break their carts first before they could even grasp the throat of the west.
They have been marching for a week. Now, the party was camped at the edges of the River Road, spread across its feilds and rivers. They were near the Golden Tooth, but his father refused to be taken in the halls of the Leffords, muttering something about Lannister rats squeeking about as I sleep.
Rhaegar ran a hand across his hair, bound up in a leather cord at the back of his head. His calves were aching from days of colliding against the muscular flank of his stallion. He ought to be grateful for this slight reprieve. But how could he?
Their course depended on the fickle moods of Aerys Targaryen. There were days he commanded that the party must ride until the moment he decides to halt, and days where he'd stay in his tent without being seen for two sunrises. It was . . . tiring. He could only clench his jaw.
Rhaegar let out a breathy exhale. It was night. Across the encampment, smoke from cookfires twirled heavenwards to the skies, surrounded by men merrily sloshing Sour Reds in wineskins, telling stories and jests, while wenches hung on their arms.
The court had battled eachother for a place in the inn nearby. Those who lost were forced to set up tents beneath the clouds. It was the better choice, really. The inn's featherbeds were hard as bedrock. Just this morning, a lady had woken up screaming, red from bedfleas. His father didn't care. The old king had a colony of his own in that beard of his.
Rhaegar silently made his way into the inn. The feast was finished, and attendants were clearing away the meats and goblets scattered like birdshit on the tresle tables. He climbed the creaking wooden steps to the rooms above.
Two ladies were lingering by the stone window, pausing from their gossip at his arrival. They smiled at him, batting their eyes demurely. Prince Rhaegar, good evening.
He smiled at them, nodding his head. My ladies. He was quick to make his escape until they seize him in conversation. The thought frightened him, to be stalled by the halls and indulge in idle chatter. There was something about it that he couldn't bear.
The room he entered quietly was plain and common, with only chair and a table, and a featherbed tucked beneath a wood-panelled window. He sighed, relieved.
"I hate this, Nyra. I feel like I'm useless."
"Against what?" Rhaenyra asked as a handmaid untied the laces of her red gown. "Against papa?"
"Against everything," he muttered, taking a seat on the bed. He could feel it now as he had not before - the slow setting of his fatigue weighing down upon his shoulders, the growing ache of calves ringing upwards to his thighs. Seven Hells.
Rhaenyra raised a brow, not bothering to answer him.
His sister could care less of what's happening beyond her wheelhouse. He knew she had her own war to fight in that chamber she's forced to share with their father. He would see her stumble out the doors covered in bile, hers or their father's? It was hard to tell. Sometimes, she was even half-drunk.
Rhaegar watched her step out of the gown pooled around her ankles in nothing but a shift, her flesh bleeding in the scarce candlelight. She plucked her ivory comb, bidding the handmaid leave.
Her silver hair dripped down her spine, gleaming at each sift of the sawtooth. He was tempted to ask her if she started to itch from - who knows? - fleas, but he was too weary, though it was soon replaced by a sudden anger.
It bothered him so much, the way she moved so slowly, so unhurriedly, as if she wore the numbers of time as pretty rings on her perfumed knuckles. Can't she see it? All this?
"Stop that," he muttered.
She raised a brow. "What?"
"Stop it, Rhaenyra. I can't take it when you do that."
She was confused and irked. "Do what, Rhaegar?"
His eyes followed the leisure drag of the comb through her curls. It seemed to rake against his own skin, breaking the delicate veins beneath. Gods, damn it all. He stood up abruptly, roughly swiping his palm's heel across his forehead. He doesn't like this.
"I need to leave," he grit his teeth. "We need to leave."
She laughed at that. "Try your fortune with father. His mood seems to be quite jolly today."
"Is it?" Rhaegar mumbled, not the least bit hopeful. He knew his lord father well enough to know that one thing is often the other.
"Oh yes, I heard him tell the fireplace."
A long, deep breath left Rhaegar's nose. Closing his eyes, he laid stiffly on the hard featherbed in defeat, finding no comfort in it at all. He was still dressed in his riding tunic. Lonmouth had changed it two days ago. He was covered in dust and sweat, smelling of horses.
He cursed, throwing an arm across his tired eyes. They have been hampered in this inn for three nights too long. The men didn't seem to mind, the court didn't. Rhaenyra especially. But Rhaegar? He shook his head.
"You're tired," Rhaenyra said almost spitefully.
"So what if I am?" He purposely asked spitefully.
She rolled her eyes and settled down at his side, her body warm and soft. "There's no cause in fretting over the inevitable. Let papa do as he likes, he can't keep us here away forever."
"Who knows with father?" He hissed. "He's fine rotting in his rooms all day, who's to say he doesn't wish the same for us?"
"You're being ridiculous. Even he has his limits."
"Really? Did you hear him confide that to the fireplace too?"
When no response came, he lifted his arm slightly to see Rhaenyra glaring at him through her lashes, her rosebud mouth set in a scowl. If he was in better spirits, he would've remedied it with a jest. He wasn't though. She could frown all she likes.
Silence came like a swarm of locusts after that. They laid together in the flickering candlelight, the faint bustle and rowdy jeers of the encampment beyond the inn filling his ears. He had half a mind of inviting Richard or Arthur for a spar in the deep woods but the dull soreness in his joints stopped him, and he found his sister's warmth to be quite remedying.
Rhaenyra shifted slightly. Her hand was on his belly, feeling its steady rise and fall, before she started to caress it. He closed his eyes. Her fingers drifted lower and lower, slipping past his trousers. He felt her brush the course white hairs there, drawing the heat of his loins.
She grasped his soft member, stroking languidly against the plush flesh of her palm. He could not think of anything softer. His breathing became shallow. None of them spoke. Rhaegar untied his trousers deftly with one hand, the other rubbing her round-shaped rear. She sat up, gathering her curls on one shoulder.
The silence of the chamber was brushed with the soft clicking of her lips delving up and down on his hard cock, saliva dripping on his thigh. The muscles of his jaw flickered, his teeth gritting. Her mouth was a sweet, wet thing that roused him more than the act itself. It eased his tension.
Rhaenyra, he breathed, holding the back of her graceful neck.
Her pink little tongue jutted forward to give him licks, like a small kitten drinking milk. He groaned. Rhaenyra.
Rhaegar stiffened, his lips pulling back in a sneer as his seed rushed out of him, spilling into her teeth. She pulled back, wiping it off of her cheek. They stared at each other without speaking.
"I'll speak to papa," she said.
He nodded. "Thank you."
"Rest, Rhae."
The rest of Rhaegar's restlessness had been taken away by her lips and by her voice, by the way her eyes fluttered and the way she was there, holding him. In this light, with their skins touching, they were almost one.
Rhaenyra settled herself on the pillows, pulling his head into the curve of her shoulder and neck. It was soft as cream. She hummed to him, brushing his hair with her delicate fingers. The world seemed to fade away. The night seemed to deepen. He closed his eyes and slept.
Rhaenyra waited until her brother was deep in his sleep before she carefully slipped her arms from him to stand, fastening a red velvet robe around her waist. Though it was summer, chill nibbled at the tips of her ears. Her flesh was in want for his warmth. His fire.
In the faint candlelight, she glanced at him one last time - his face, just countless moments ago so taught with agitation, was loose and gentle. He was beautiful like this, her twin brother.
She turns towards the door, closing it shut. The hall of the inn was short, quiet.
"Ser," she greeted.
Ser Barristan Selmy stood guard outside her father's rooms in his white cloak and white armor, his snowy white beard almost making him appear Targaryen. He was tall, regal. Wizened. A thought crossed her head.
Was this what her father ought look like? A king not only in name, but in face?
The kingsgaurd bowed his head in regard. "Princess."
"Is the king awake?" She asked quietly. There was something so criminal in breaking the silence of these simple halls.
"I could not say, my princess," Ser Barristan admitted gravely. "His Grace's squire had not left his rooms, but to fetch the food taster and a cup of poppy milk."
Rhaenyra nodded, thanking him. She would see her father. She would speak to him as she promised Rhaegar; but if he's asleep, she would still see him. A day hasn't gone by where she hasn't gone to him since they left the Gate of the Gods. It felt right.
The kingsguard parted the wooden door for her. The stench of piss and woodsmoke burned her nose. She found her lord father sitting in a wicker chair by the stone hearth, the cackling flames glowing on his pale, guant face. His squire stood not close by, attending to the beddings of the King's own bed rolled in from the wheelhouse.
Her father's thin lips moved in muttering beneath his soiled beard, his claws digging back and forth against the chair's armrest. He was naked underneath a heavy robe sewn with the sigil of their house. Rhaenyra could see the scabs that riddles his chest, the welts he had scratched.
She padded towards him, the untouched goblet of poppy milk on a lone table not lost to her. She was vigilant. One must learn a pattern of walk if they wished him not to flinch. She had mastered such arts at nine.
Rhaenyra folded down beside his spindly legs, leaning at his thigh.
The flames within the hearth was bright, fed all throughout the eve by fresh logs. Even in his chambers in the Red Keep, braziers and hearths must be kept on night and day. A line of servants had been specifically tasked for it. Her father claimed that a Targaryen should always be near fire, and fire should always be near to a Targaryen.
There was a quality of wisdom to it that made her nod. Her father had been wise once, and sometimes he offered her glimpses of it. Sometimes. Times rarer as the years fly by. She could only watch.
Is there anything more tragic than the fading of a promised greatness? Rhaenyra knew her father prime had been a long time ago. Everyone said so. As a boy, he charmed and was charmed. He loved music. He sought to build a city of marble by the banks of the Blackwater Rush. He dreamt of bringing back fertility to the sand mountains of Dorne.
The mind. Could it be taken away just as swiftly as it was given? If so, who are the theives to blame? She'd say the gods if she only believed in them. Rhaegar did. Perhaps she could ask him. Her brother is the closest thing there is to divinity.
She was suddenly frightened. Rhaegar. She thought about his greatness, his wonderful dreamer of a mind. Will it be stolen from him too?
It will be the worst of crimes. If it were the gods to do that, Rhaenyra will believe in them so she could take up swords and slay them all. Rhaegar is Azor Ahai. No god could change that.
Rhaenyra looked up at her father. He hasn't noticed she was there yet. Mostly likely he wouldn't. His eyes were feverish, clouded by something she couldn't name. She took his pox-scarred hand and pressed it to her cheek. Her papa. King Aerys Targaryen is her father first before anything, and anything lesser than that didn't matter.
Rhaenyra rose to her feet. "On the bed, papa."
For the first time for what she would say hours, he looked away from the hearth and glanced up at her. He scowled, a deep gash that stretched further the lines of his rough face, but he said nothing when she took his arm.
Her father was heavy despite the fragility of his frame. All skin and rigid bones. He barely ate. "Help me," she commanded the squire. Together, they lumbered the old king to the bed. "Fetch the poppy and leave us."
Like hard reed being bent, the king dumped himself heavily on the sheets, grunting. Rhaenyra propped pillows behind him, rubbing his back.
"Have you eaten, papa?" She placed her hand on his face, the jutting cheekbones cutting her.
He grounds his yellow teeth. "I have no trust in what they feed us here . . . that food taster, mayhaps he had been trained in the dark arts in immunity. What is safe for him would be the death of me, their king."
"Should we put that to the test?" She offered, taking the poppy milk from the squire. "Rip the food taster's belly open and see if he has the marks of the Shadow Lands beyond Asshai?"
A gruff chortle left her father's throat. "That would be most pleasing to see," he grinned. "But we have no need of delays. Wildfire is our answer. It will burn all the treacheries from his blood."
The silver hairs on her flesh rippled. Wildfire. Had her family, the dragonlords of Old Valyria, become so powerless so as to look to lesser flames for control? She pursed her lips.
"I have a more efficient method, papa," she said, taking a small sip of the poppy. Moments pass. She didn't convulse violently on the floor. If anything, she felt her eyes droop heavy. "It's untouched. Drink."
The king was furious. He glared at his daughter, displeased with her carelessness. "Men would rejoice at the death of dragoneggs as they would dragons."
"But I'm not dead, see?" Rhaenyra pressed the cup to her father's mouth. "Drink."
King Aerys reluctantly drank, the slight, permanent shake on his hands and head rattling the goblet. When he had enough, he whisked it away. "Pah!"
"Lie down," Rhaenyra said, tucking the blankets around him. He was grumbling to himself.
"Tywin Lannister cannot be trusted," he muttered. "I know him. I do. I can smell his ploys, daughter. What does he hope to achieve in this tourney? To celebrate your brother's birth? No, more likely his death. Or something else entirely, something worse."
"Unlikely, papa."
His blistered hand shot to grasp her wrist. "We should turn back and return to King's Landing," he whispered, spit at the corners of his mouth. "We would be surrounded by lickspittles and rats, but they're ours. Ours. Who knows what blades await for us in Casterly Rock? They fear dragons no more, they shall -"
"- Do nothing," Rhaenyra tugged his grasp away then pressed him to the bed, kissing his sweating forehead. "Sleep, papa. Tomorrow, we move west."
"Rhae, why did you stop?"
He blinked, returning his gaze to his sister. He hadn't realized his fingers had stilled on his harp.
On the middle of a clearing among rotting leaves and bits of toadstools, Rhaenyra had her hands on her hips, giving an accusing glare. She was practicing a dance she would perform in the feast in Lannisport. She told no one but Rhaegar along with a few of her women who'd dance with her.
Now, she wore a simple red dress without sleeves to fend away the summer heat, her arms like pale vines, while her curls were bound in a velvet net. The bottom lining of her skirts were smudged in mud.
"Sorry," he muttered. "Should we go again, sister? I was distracted."
She huffed. "By what?"
He shrugged. "The gods, maybe. They're here."
He doesn't hide his thoughts from her, not when she could see it plainly in his face. He had tried several times but she'd pry and pry until he would relent. There was little she didn't know about him, and it was the same for her. He knew everything in her head. Every abomination, every impulse, every whim.
Rhaenyra raised her brow. "How do you know that?"
"Look around us, Nyra. Don't you feel them? Hiding behind barks, watching us this very moment?"
She looked around. "The children of the forest."
He smiled, leaning against the boulder at his back. He was surrounded by mugworts brushing at his sides, dotted by small red-back lady bugs. "I don't really believe they've dissapeared when the Andals came. They were born in these lands, and would die in it."
"You don't know that," she padded to sit by his legs, placing her chin over his knee. "You speak as if you know those creatures personally, that you can vouch for their character."
"I don't," he admitted. "But if men could be resolute, how harder is the will of the divine? They're everything we're not, Nyra."
"And we're everything they're not," she countered. "You've always been cynical about what man could do. You're hopeless for your own race. That's treachery."
He chuckled. "Well, would you blame me? What capabilites we have, we waste on doing the worse."
"That is . . . ?"
"War," he began. "Pillaging. Thievery. Bloodshed. Rape. We've never evolved from the iron age of barbarity. Brothers kill brothers, friends turn on friends, fathers become madmen."
She stared at him for a long while, allowing the silence to fester between them. "They don't know it, but your poetry had always been political."
"I write and sing of what I see," he smiled sadly.
A league from where he and his sister sat in the woods, the party had dismounted for a small feast. Tywin Lannister himself had met Rhaegar as they approached Deep Den, to welcome the king to the west.
The Lord of Casterly Rock had laid out tresle tables filled with smoked ham and mutton, platters of barley bread, iced pitchers of wine. It was bountiful enough to feed the entire royal host. His lord father only grumbled though, wary of his Hand's benevolence. He refused to leave the wheelhouse.
Rhaegar, after indulging Lord Tywin in pleasantries for a moment, had whisked Rhaenyra away on horseback. They haven't seen much of another since the inn.
"There you are again," she said softly, reaching to swipe a finger across his lips. "The cynic. I like my brother better than him. Give Rhae back to me."
"At what cost?" He humoured her.
"A kiss."
"A kiss?"
She nodded. A kiss. From his sister, his Rhaenyra. He could think of little things that could compare to that. Dragonback? Dragons had long been dead. But he had kissed Rhaenyra a thousand times, and each time his soul ascended.
"A kiss it is," he smiled. "And you shall have your Rhae back."
Rhaenyra bent forward. He closes his eyes, but parted them again in shock at her palm pushing his face away. Her laughter echoed in the solemn air.
"You can keep him," she grinned, rising to her feet. Rhaegar glared at her. "However, would you join me for a bath, cynic? The river had been calling to me for quite a while."
"Don't bare your neck in front of cynics or they'll show you how cynical they could get," he grumbled, rubbing his jaw. She rolled her eyes at that.
Rhaenyra ran to the sloping banks of the icy black river, unbinding the restraints of her hair. Curls flew behind her like silver wings. She glanced back at him, grinning.
Rhaegar settled his harp on the boulder, standing to follow at her trails. He began to slide his leather jerkin off as she unribboned the laces of her dress, the ground littered by bits of their cloths.
The canopy of the trees were so dense and so thick, sunlight failed to pass through. It was cooler here, darker. They were both hidden from the sun of summer. Their nakedness were seen by no one but themselves.
Rhaenyra snatched Rhaegar's wrist. She dipped her toes into the rushing, coal-like water, hissing at its coldness. She retreated. "Actually, I don't want to -"
Rhaegar seized her in his arms and carried her down, ignoring her shrieking. The river was cold. He'd grown so used to heat that it caught him unaware, sharp as daggers. But it's alright. Her back, pressed to his chest, was all the warmth he needed.
"You like that?" He whispered at the cusp of her ear, waist-deep in the river. The pebbles beneath his feet were cool and smooth.
Rhaenyra pushed him off. "This is freezing. Dragons don't like the cold."
"I thought the river had been calling to you?" He chuckled, watching her shiver slightly.
"A call I shouldn't have answered," she wrinkled her nose. She held herself tightly, half of her curls damp on her back.
Rhaegar sat quietly over the dark soil of the banks, looking at her. It was as if she was a nymph of these woods, made of moonlight and stardust. She glowed brightly above the waters.
He smiled to himself, understanding why Durran Godsgrief refused to give back Elenei to her godly parents. He had built Storm's End to keep her by his side.
Rhaenyra grew used to the water's temperature, wading across to gaze upon strange-shaped rocks and colorful mushroom growing on fallen, rotting trees. What would I build to be with her? He asked himself. Valyria.
"Rhae, have you ever been to the North?"
Blinking from his daze, he raises his brow. "Not yet, but I want to someday. A king must see all of his kingdoms."
"By then, Brandon Stark is the Lord of Winterfell," she said, brushing her silver hair. "I heard the North is beautiful . . . the wildest and the freest of all the seven realms. I want to see it too, Rhae."
"What else?" He asked, leaning forward. Her cheeks were red from the water's chill.
She grinned. "Their weirwood tree, maybe. They say it has a ghastly, terrifying face. That it is the face of the old kings of winter, who wails that it was their blood who first bent their knee to Aegon."
He laughed. "Is that all?"
"I want to see Lyanna Stark," she added, wading towards him, her hips round and gleaming beneath the currents. "We'll be friends, her and I. Fire and Ice together."
He nods. His sister had a smile that made the world fall back.
"Will you take me, Rhae?"
Rhaegar reached forward and pulled her into his arms, her breasts pushed upon him. "Where I am, you will be," he said. "From the godless lands of Vaes Dothrak to the thousand miles beyond the Wall."
"Rhaegar and Rhaenyra," she nuzzled their noses together. "To Valyria."
