more thoughts of a mean!reader who play the big three (Homelander, Soldier Boy, and Bombsight ) like a damn fiddle.
+ Bombsight smut, and allusions to Soldier Boy smut
You , who were only recruited by Sage because "There needs to be a pretty face in the Seven."
You, who acts as exactly that, a pretty face and nothing more. You don't make any statements while everything happens, and eventually, it builds a lore about you. People like having someone to put their fantasies in, so you become that person.
You, who met Sage back in your uni days. Your powers were nothing worthy of being on the Seven, so why would Sage choose you? You have no idea.
You, who were chosen because Sage clearly remembers the day you slapped your boyfriend for saying something stupid (Accusing you of cheating, which you 100% were) and gaslit him so hard he came back within the hour with flowers and begging for your forgiveness.
You, who were chosen because Sage also recalls how at all times you always had three or more men on your roster because "if you have three, it assure you can never catch feelings for one"
You, who eventually get bored, just for the fun of it turn your sights to Homelander because you couldn't help just how easy he would be.
Homelander who never took any real notice of you other than the fact you were a pretty face, but Sage brought you on, so you had to have something. It made him suspicious of you.
Homelander, who began to understand your appeal when theories began to circle around you. He watched as people spun their own tales about you based off a few clips. One of you holding a baby, another of you back in your college days helping a girl, and the final one of you being surrounded by dogs from a pound.
Homelander, who began to pay more attention to you once you approached him. He was desired by many, but they didn't know him, you did. You were always there, so you knew him, if only a little.
Homelander, who started speaking more honestly with you around. You ignored everyone else in the Seven besides him and it's weak he knows, but he basks in that knowledge that you only pay attention to him.
Homelander, who thinks the best of you because you never mess up. (There's nothing to mess up) You never undermine him. You boost his public image whenever you appear beside him, so he stays beside you often. (Try as he might, he still needs validation)
Homelander, who preens at the little compliments you give him. Feels a shiver travel down his spine when you whisper a small "I'm proud of you."
Homelander, who grows confused when you start to pull away. Suddenly you're paying more attention to your phone than to him.
Homelander, who tries to act unaffected by the look you've just given him after trying to talk to you.
You, who a week back picked up what Sage put down. There were coordinates. Ever curious, you go, and you find someone delicious.
You who finds Bombsight and figure out who's better than him to add to your super roster.
Bombsight, who is adamant he's the one in control in this little tango between the two of you.
Bombsight, who says you're not getting a relationship out of him. All you say is "I'll change your mind."
Bombsight is sure you won't, until you both start doing things people would do in a relationship. You call him every night. You fall asleep on the phone with him. You call him baby, love, and all the other sweet names that come with being in a relationship.
Bombsight, who is beginning to enjoy the perks of having a relationship without ever being in one, and he is sure he's got you.
Bombsight knows he has you when you start telling him things like "I've never opened up to anyone like this before" and "I feel like I've known you forever."
You who's got Bombsight right where you want him, so you turn your attention back to Homelander. You've only gotten caught twice in your entire career of playing men. Once, it was a rookie mistake; he got hold of your phone. Second time? You didn't lay the groundwork well enough to be able to gaslight him into thinking you were never cheating.
You, who, at this point, have gotten so used to cheating, you don't even think it's taboo. It's a normal, and expected even, that you're bound to cheat. Your heart rate doesn't speed up because you know your little weirdo (Homelander) can hear it.
You who make sure none of your males ever align unless they're best friends who know how to keep their mouths shut and don't want to lose their friendship.
You who never keeps your phone out in the open for anyone to grab or take, and your cute pink iPad hidden somewhere no one would care to look.
You who makes sure all tangible proof can be misconstrued.
Homelander, who is starting to have withdrawals from your lack of affection. He's getting more snappy. Having more fantasies of lasering someone from the press in half.
Homelander, who, in his desperation and lack of you, lets his father, Soldier Boy, out of cryo, doesn't know he's just given you your third bitch on the roster.
You, who jumps for joy when you see Soldier Boy, and YOU KNOW it's free eats, because he screams that he's easy as hell.
Homelander, who would never assume you'd do anything with anyone else because you told him that if you ever caught him with someone else, you'd be quick to leave the Seven. Safe to say he dropped Firecracker pretty fast.
Homelander, who still gets worried when Soldier Boy goes sniffing around you, and you entertain it. But no! You'd never cheat on him, how could you when you said you'd leave him and everything else if you ever found out. He doesn't want you to leave.
Soldier Boy, who yearns to take you from his weird ass son when you tell him that he's forced you into this faux relationship, and your life and family are on the line.
Soldier Boy, who kisses you any time he can. Behind a door, in your room, in the room of the Seven when he knows Homelander is gone.
Soldier Boy, who relaxes because you give him everything he could ever want. You shower him in compliments that he doesn't think deep enough, because if he did, he'd realize they're all backhanded. But he's too busy coming to you for all the things Clara and Crimson Countess ever did for him.
Soldier Boy, who knows you chose him because you always tell him so. Over and over you whisper that it's him. That you think he's the one, that you've never been more sure about anyone other than him.
Soldier Boy, who think's stupid at first but then grows to crave your words.
Soldier Boy, who doesn't even realize you begin to just barely giving him anything, and yet he can't understand why he gets this rush of you giving him something he's not supposed to have. Maybe it's because his son is obsessed with you and had you first.
Soldier Boy, who says you want to leave it all and go off with him somewhere. He lets the idea warm him.
You, who can't help but smile at it all.
Bombsight, who still answers your call because he loves what you tell him. You call him, telling him you missed his voice. You text him, calling him your handsome boy.
You, who had mastered the art of ★Love Bombing★ and have made sure to integrate yourself into Bombsight's routine.
You, who makes sure you're the first person he wakes up to, and the last voice he goes to sleep hearing, and always making sure to sprinkle in a good dose of telling him "Baby, I just think you're the one." All the while in the next room, Soldier Boy is fucking his hand because you left him all hot and bothered, not even five minutes before you called Bombsight.
Bombsight, who thinks you might be perfect for him with your little phrases that delight him when you tell him, "We're so alike it's scary because I feel the exact same way!"
Bombsight, who starts thinking about giving you the V1 to keep you around forever. You're already a supe; some V1 just makes sure you stay forever.
Bombsight, who starts imagining a life with you when you start using "us" and "our" consistently so much so he would think it abnormal for it to be any other way.
Bombsight, who takes everything you give him and keeps it close to his heart. You told him, "I'd never leave you," after he told you about Golden Geisha.
Bombsight, who mourned in your arms Goldie and you let him without ever telling him anything and he knows you'll stay.
You, who has to suppress a smile every time you see any of your hoes.
You, who starts to hang around more with Soldier Boy, but you never do anything with him. Never letting it go beyond kissing and heavy petting.
Homelander, who is starting to get insecure with how much time you spend with Soldier Boy, so he starts changing anything and everything about himself for any small comment you make. You told him you liked his blonde hair, and that warm feeling tingled down his spine. You then told him that his roots are showing. He's damn near in the hair salon every day, making sure his roots are never visible.
Soldier Boy, who starts to get annoyed when he has to deal with seeing more and more public outings of you and Homelander.
Soldier Boy, who hates seeing Homelander having his hand on some part of you at all times.
Soldier Boy, who has to hold himself back whenever Homelander presses a kiss to your temple and you make those pleading eyes to Soldier Boy to save you. He just hasn't figured out a way to do so yet.
Soldier Boy, that casually mentions kids as a way to distract you from his weird-ass son. He tells you he wants three kids, you agree, and say you'd want them to be raised in the country. He couldn't agree more.
Soldier Boy, who tells you he wants all boys, but you warm him up to the idea of having a couple of girls, and from then on can't stop thinking about having little girls who look just like you.
You, who all the while keeps Homelander with the facade that you're a virgin and he thrives off of that, seeing as the damn fool thinks he's god now, and now you fit perfectly in his little story.
You, who knows it won't be long till Soldier Boy breaks, and his only 'relationship' is gone. And you, for one, can't wait to see that day happen.
Homelander, who agrees to wait, never knowing his father has only just earned the right to eat you out and nothing more.
Soldier Boy, who is training himself to get off from just eating you out, because it's all you're giving him. But he can't bring himself to care all that much because no one else is getting you this way.
Bombsight, who laughs at both of them because he knows he's the one for you. (He's not) Why? Because he's the one that gets to fuck you.
Robbie is good at hiding. He's always been good at the sort of thing. So when he starts wanting you in more ways than one, he's also pretty good at hiding that.
Robbie can't have a relationship with you, but maybe something a little more than what you both have now —A situationship is what they call it nowadays no?
Maybe it wouldn't hurt. Shit, every time he sees you, cooking for him, waking up across the room from him, in his clothes, using his products to shower, his cock twitches and thickens in his pants. He can only just barely hide his need for you. Just barely, with teasing and making small comments that if you ever needed to, you can always sleep with him.
You took his offer. He was dead asleep when he felt you hugging him. Well after that, it wasn't long till Robbie was snapping his hips up into you with ferocity trying to hide the fact that he's bee lonely for so long.
And your sweet words in such a short time are getting him to rethink everything.
Sweet woman.
He's looking up at you as he sinks his cock into your soaked cunt as your straddling him. His mouth is agape as he looking at you as you give him shaky moans and needy whimpers from your pouty, swollen lips. Swollen because he's kissed you too hard. But you never seem to mind, every time he kisses you he feels your walls twitch around his cock.
He wants better lighting, he needs better lighting to see what he's sure is an ethereal sight of you above him.
Robbie thinks this is lust. This is just pure pure lustful sex, but fuck! You're just so good for him.
He's special to you. You can trust him. You've given yourself to him. Maybe he's an awful guy for taking advantage of you like this, but after all your sweet words of making him feel like he's the only one for you. Robbie just can't help himself.
Even now, he can't help himself because you're close enough that he can make out your starry eyes looking down on him all sweet and he knows that he's not gonna be able to let you go like he should.
"Please Robbie!" It's all you can manage to say. It sounds so good to him. Sounds so good the way his name sound rolls off your tongue and Robbie has to remind himself to not grip you too hard lest you break.
You told him you don't do this and yet you're on top of his whining that you wanna cum, and Robbie is thoroughly enjoying every single bit of it. Pleasure that only he can give you. “Yeah? Go ahead. Fuck, don’t let me stop you, pretty girl.” And the sight that follows, well, he can live in the moment for eternity. Your eyes squeeze shut before you’re creaming around his cock, his hands moving up your sides before cupping your face and pulling you into a sloppy, wet, bruising kiss.
Theres a bliss that blooms in Robbie whenever he feels your heartbeat race around him. It flushes every part of him when he can feel and hear your heartbeat, desperately trying to keep up. Even more so as he's kissing you, filling you up with his load while you moan and breathe your sighs across his lips in a tone he's sure his next wet dream will be about.
Robbie his holding on to you as he comes down from his orgasm and still lost in his hormone-drunken haze when he suddenly flips you and has you under him all the while he presses soft slow kisses over your face. He bathes in the sweet sounds of your whimpers at the over stimulation. He pulls back, looking down at you, and you have this dreamy look on his face that punches him in the gut when he recalls that he told you he can't ever be with you.
You give him a sweet smile and his cock twitches awake inside of your tight walls once more.
Maybe it doesn't sound like all that bad of an idea.
Soldier Boy, who tells you about the supe killing virus.
You, who starts to panic, because no one ever said your life would really be in danger. Males, you can handle. A virus? You're not so sure.
Soldier Boy, who comforts you by saying that both of you need to find Bombsight because he has the V1 and that it's the cure.
You, who gives a smile and a small laugh before agreeing. Your dumbass man, who says he's gonna work with Homelander to find it and then give it to you.
You, who knows you're gonna get in about a week, tops.
Bombsight, who can't get a clear reading on you. One moment you text him back within ten minutes, other times you don't respond after 10. But he knows you're online because you post on your social media. Small pictures every now and then.
Bombsight, who calls you out about not responding to him, but somehow always ends up taking the blame for you. "You said you didn't want a relationship, and I thought I was coming on too strong. I was giving you space."
Bombsight, who kicks himself over the fact that it is what he said, and it was stupid to say.
Bombsight, who panics when you start alluding to breaking up. He tells you that you told him you'd never leave him. So how could you!?
You, who only said, "But we're not together in a relationship, remember?" It took a week for him to come back begging for you.
Bombsight, who comes back with the V1, says he wants to spend eternity with you. He's on one knee, opening the box and giving it to you like it's a wedding ring.
You, who only look down at him as he looks up to you with such pleading eyes, it takes everything in you to not burst out laughing at him.
Bombsight, who stays still. You've given him heaven, and now you're giving him limbo.
You, who finally accepts and Bombsight gives you the V1.
Sage, who couldn't be happier with your work because it's only a matter of time before you grow bored and leave, or let them all know about one another.
You, who acts the pious one ever, tells Bombsight to go save Goldie, all the while Soldier Boy calls you to come get the V1 he'll take from Robbie before Homelander ever gets his hands on it.
Homelander, who will still take the V1, but before he does, he'll have his best workers make another one by reverse engineering the one he'll take and then give that second dose to you.
Homelander, who proposes to you, and you say yes, and so he's secured his virgin wife.
"Look, all we're after is the V1. You hand that over, we go home happy." MM spoke and Robbie looked over to him.
He looked back over to Goldie. Robbie is fast, but not fast enough to stop the bullet. "I can't."
"Robbie." Goldie called out and Robbie sighed.
"I can't because I don't have it. Haven't had it for weeks." He looked over to Goldie. "You said you weren't gonna change your mind. It took time for me to accept that, and I did."
"What the fuck do you mean you don't have it?" Butcher pressed the gun into her head.
Robbie is long over Goldie, but it doesn't mean he doesn't care about her. He wants her to have a good life. That's all. "Stop!"
"Where is the V?" Butcher asked once more.
"I already administered it to someone else." No point in hiding it. He just needs to save Goldie and then go back to you. That's it, that's all.
"Who?" Hughie stepped forward. It's not Homelander. That's a win, right?
Sage spoke your name, and Robbie's head snapped towards her. How would she know that? "She works fast. For weeks, you said? Soldier Boy must've told her, and what? You cracked within a week when she told you?"
"What are you talking about?"
"What are you talking about?"
Both MM and Robbie spoke. Sage only shrugged. "What? Back up for the back up. If this didn't work, then she would."
Was Robbie played? No. You wouldn't. Not after everything. You wouldn't.
"And that I did." You appeared behind Sage. MM jumped back, and Sage froze as your arms wrapped around her. Your head rested atop hers. "To be fair, I had no idea about the V1 until Soldier Boy told me about y'all's virus."
You smiled over to Robbie, offering him a smile. So then he wasn't played? Things just lined up. Yeah, that's what happened. That's what he decides happens. Before he can say anything more he's charged by Ben.
"Where's the V1 Robbie?" Ben hissed in his ear, and Robbie threw him off.
"Gone." Robbie knew you had to put on an act for Soldier Boy and Homelander, but he was different. He was your boy. You hadn't even bothered to tell Ben that you already had the V1.
Ben looked over to Goldie, who only looked at you.
You looked over to MM and muttered, "This is always my favorite part."
Robbie scoffed and walked over to you, calling your name. He held out his hand. You stood still. Ben called your name, asking what fuck this was.
You stood there trying to hold in your laughter, but looking at both of them, gosh, you just couldn't. You began laughing. "I'm sorry." Was all you could manage between small little laughs. Suddenly, life was filled with sunshine and rainbows. You lived for this shit. The look of realization they've both been cheated, or even better, when they don't care, and they still want you.
Now to find out which is which. Your primary concern was Soldier Boy, seeing as he could fry the V out of you. Bombsight was a hard hitter, and Homelander, you're sure is to be due any minute.
Your plan was simple: you could keep Robbie as a side piece; you had laid the groundwork for him for over a year. He was solid. Ben wasn't. You need Ben back in that box so that one day, when you get tired of all of this, you unfreeze him and, in anger, he fries the V out of you. Simple. Homelander, well, he had to go.
So your laughing turned into crying. Tears of joy, but not that they would know that.
"Hey! Hey, hey, hey!" Robbie ran up to you, wiping your tears whilst everyone watched, and Ben stood there trying to understand what the fuck was happening. How the fuck did you know Robbie? How did Robbie know you!? And why the fuck is he wiping your tears like he knows you!?
"I'm scared." You muttered wiping your tears.
"Of what?"
"Homelander." You looked behind Robbie and to Ben, whose brows were still furrowed in utter confusion.
"Why?" Robbie's hand tilted your gaze back to him.
Ben made a face.
"He said he wanted me to ascend with him. Something about being the virgin or something. He-"
"What the fuck?" Robbie looked down. Virgin where? He's been making love to you for the past year. You weren't a virgin then. Robbie knew you had to play it for the cameras, but to know you had to go this far. His heart ached seeing you cry. His poor girl.
"What the hell are you talking about?" Ben walked over to you, and you stepped away from Robbie. Was this another act? But why? For what? You wouldn't do this to him. Not after everything you've said. You wanted kids with him. So then what the fuck was this?
"He wants some kind of marriage and kids. I don't know!" Your lips trembled as you forced more tears out. Maybe they were real tears because holy fuck when Homelander told you about that, that was the fucking scariest shit you've ever heard in your entire life!
Robbie cupped your face, and Ben had just about had enough of this. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"And why the fuck would she-" You cut Soldier Boy off before things could turn on you.
"Because I thought I could handle it! I was wrong. I'm sorry, I just-"
Robbie shushed you before kissing your forehead. "It won't come to that. I swear it."
And with that, he flew off. Your eyes looked back at Ben. "Ben-"
"What the fuck was that!?"
You walked over to him, and before he could start cussing, you kissed him. You felt him tense before relaxing. You pulled back. "Ben, listen to me." He did. "I've been in the Seven for a while. I didn't even know who you were, but I knew I needed someone, anyone, who could protect me. That's all Bombsight is to me." Your hands cradled his face. "I love you, Ben. No one else. I meant every word I said. I do want children with you. I still want to leave, but I can't do that if Homelander is after us. I want our children to grow without any fear." You pulled his hand against your chest, your heart beat was fast. You always got a thrill out of these things. "Please, Ben."
He gave a sigh, and you pushed down a smile. He looked up towards the hole made by Bombsight and shook his head. He gave you one final kiss before running out.
You watched him with a smile and then "Pfft!" You turned around with a small laugh. "How was I?"
"Oscar worthy." Sage smiled and clapped.
"Right? Fuck I almost fumbled when I laughed." You shook your head. "Y'know, I wondered what it was you wanted with me, but I'm assuming it was this?"
"I knew you wouldn't be able to help yourself."
You only smiled and shrugged.
"Oi!"
You turned and caught the flask thrown at you. You smiled, giving a small cheer before drinking. You walked back over to him, handing him the flask. "I have you to thank." You bent down, looking at Goldie. "Had you not dumped Bombsight, this would've taken a whole lot longer." You smiled, going to put a hand on her lap. "So thank you for not choosing Robbie."
She created a force field, knocking you back. You rolled your eyes, standing up, dusting yourself off.
"You don't deserve him." She hissed out and only shrugged.
"Debatable. He's just a man, you know? All men are dogs, that includes golden retrievers like him." You pursed your lips, giving her a slow nod before laughing. You turned around, motioning to go. "I secured front row seats. I'd hate to see it go to waste."
You, who in the end got everything you wanted.
Homelander, who looked up to you, was heartbroken and angry when it was revealed that Soldier Boy had access to you in a way that you always denied him, and that Bombsight had been fucking you for a year, and you looked him in the face and lied like it was second nature.
Your face was the last thing he saw before Butcher ripped him in half.
Soldier Boy, who gasped for air as Bombsight choked him out, all the while you smiled as you waved goodbye.
Your face was the last thing he saw before he was put back into that damn box.
Bombsight, who still didn't get that you couldn't give two shits about him.
In the end, your face was constantly shoved down his throat as you went back and took over the Seven, reforming it, seeing as you had no prior offenses.
Still though. You laid down the groundwork for Bombsight exceptionally well, so even after everything, he still can't help but want you. And after all, you have all of eternity with him.
Nav.
m.list
Guess who's my favorite out of the three 🤭
How I imagine the boys seeing how reader was playing SB and BS🥱
Also if the smut scene doesn’t make sense, it’s cuz I stole it from another draft and I was too lazy to write another one 🙂↔️
Okay, somewhat in correlation with my newest post: Super Miraculous but like an alt universe.
Kryptonian!reader x Mark Grayson
warnings: Dead Dov: do not eat! Death, forced abortion? loss, bodily injury, PTSD, indoctrination, daddy issues, toxic love (only one side is toxic rlly (yours)), pregnancy
tags: Slow-burn (maybe, I mean it's only one chapter that's not rlly a chapter but spans years.), no use of y/n, AFAB reader, very brief smut (abysmal really)
An idea of where Krypton is still destroyed, and you're still sent to earth as a baby, still adopted by the Kents and everything else.
But Nolan knows of your existence from the very beginning, and they were responsible for the destruction of Krypton. They destroyed it bc they had technology advanced enough to kill Viltrumites, and so they destroyed the planet the same way Viltrum was destroyed later on.
So when you arrive as a baby, he's not worried. But then you get your powers, and he's been keeping an eye on you. So now he's worried that you might seek out revenge if you ever find out. So he guess it's best to cultivate a love/devotion for Viltrum so you never attack it bc you're strong.
Your powers as a Kryptonian outmatch his.
It's good that they killed them all before they found out what the yellow sun could do for your kind.
An attack 'coincidentally' happens in Smallville, and your adoptive parents are killed. Nolan takes you into his care under the guise of raising you to be a hero. Cecil accepts, and you're taken in by him but kept separate from his family. He doesn't act as a father or anything. Raises you as someone who would be raised traditionally on Viltrum. He has you exploring your powers.
You become something of a side mission that keeps him grounded to his real mission for Viltrum. Whenever he feels himself slipping too much into Debbie's love, he returns to you to train you and remind himself of his mission, chanting over and over that his duty is to Viltrum. You begin to pick up on it.
Bc Nolan is the only parental figure you have, you become desperate to impress him. You try to become Viltrumite in nature even if you can't in blood. You don't use anything Viltrumites can't. So no laser beams, no X-ray vision, no freeze breath. Nothing but strength and flight.
But as much as you try, bc you're still on Earth and Cecil still socialized you, you can't ever truly accept the Viltrum way. But the desperation to be like them is there.
Eventually, you debut as a hero. You wear Nolan's colors. An attempt to mirror him. Nolan tries to keep you away from Mark and Debbie, but it doesn't work. Once Mark gets his powers, you're always around him, never knowing his dad is Nolan/Omni-Man.
You find out when Mark shouts, "Dad!" when he goes into the Flaxan portal. You hadn't even known he had a family. You were never even permitted to call him anything of the sort.
It broke your heart, try as you might to not have one. But the more time you spend as a hero, saving people, them giving you their love. The Viltrumite way was never going to work for you, but it doesn't stop you from wanting it.
You look over to his son. Jelousy fills you. Anger fills you. He who has everything you want and more. You want to be him. Want to be him so bad and have what he has.
You knew Nolan's mission. You'd help with it. You'd give him a true Viltrumite in blood he could raise. One he didn't have to pretend with.
Your attention turns to Mark.
Nolan knows what you're up to. Your attempt to procreate with a Viltrumite. He doesn't even want to know what that would result in. He forbade it. Keeps you away from Mark. Unfortunately for him, Mark begins to develop feelings for you, and he's also a hormonal teenager, so he finds a way to get around his father.
You do all of this whilst also helping Nolan with his mission. Instead of him killing the guardians, you do it.
You take damage, but to the extent Nolan did bc in all universes, Kryptonians are always stronger than Viltrumites. So, to shift the blame off of you and Nolan, you use your Kryptonian powers. They're underdeveloped, but you take care not to use flight or super strength in an obvious way. You laser most of them, you freeze others, and hit their frozen bodies, shattering them.
Still, though, you're found out. But that doesn't happen until your little plan succeeds. You become pregnant. You're about four months along when that whole fight between Nolan and Mark breaks out.
You want to help Mark. He calls for you. But you're torn between helping him and your loyalty to Nolan and Viltrum.
In the end, you leave both unable to choose between the two. The whole time, the two of them have no idea you're pregnant.
You end up finding Viltrum. You assume the guise of being a Viltrumite. Nolan's daughter. You throw him under the bus and say that he is a traitor.
You're taken in and bc you're pregnant, you're kept under a close eye.
You're hit with just how Viltrum actually is. Yes, Nolan was rough with you, but sometimes he'd let a smile slip out or praise. Here, it's so lonely.
You find Conquest. It's both of you. You talk sometimes. It's a somewhat shared understanding.
You keep your act. But it's hard, and sometimes you slip up. Everyone around you is quick to correct you. You come to a devastating realization that this isn't what you want for your baby.
Throughout the months, you reflect on what you've done. Do you love Mark? You don't know. He is kind, funny, sweet, and the things you two have been through, do you love him?
You don't know. If you did, did you leave the man you love to be nearly killed by his father? You don't know. You don't know!
All you know is that right now, you can't think of that. You need to find a way to leave.
But since their whole mission is to repopulate, you're not going anywhere anytime soon.
They find out Nolan is a traitor, and you're put on lockdown. Whilst on lockdown, unable to leave the main building, you find some files, and lo and behold, you find out Viltrum was responsible for the destruction of your planet. You watched the video of your people screaming. You find a video of your parents guarding you. You watch your pod being sent off. Nolan shortly thereafter killed your parents. Then Nolan, Thragg, and a couple other dive into your planet and destroy it.
The shock of it, and bc you're in your ninth month, you go into labor. It was long and hard. Painful. The hardest thing you've ever had to do. But still, you labored for a night and a day until you finally gave birth.
A girl.
Your joy doesn't last long.
You're told that bc you were raised by a traitor, you weren't raised right, so they'll raise your child.
You were strapped down to the bed, and you watched in horror as Thragg plucked your newborn baby from your hands. You're too weak from the labor to stop him. All you can do is cry and yell for him to leave her alone. You were promptly hit until you fell unconscious for such displays of weakness.
All the while, Anissa leaves to try to recruit Mark. You're reprimanded for not saying you have a brother.
You need to find a way out. With your child. She'll come back, with or without Mark knowing you're not an actual Viltrumite.
While you do that, over on Earth, Mark is still dealing with the problems from his father, and you are just leaving him. He begins to wonder if you were in on it this whole time. You'd talk about how his dad used to tell you about Vilturm. Your stories would always be different. Did you always know?
He doesn't know, and he can't even ask you. It hurts because he did love you. Not only just loved you, but admired you. You debuted as a hero when you were fourteen. He really liked you as a hero, so when he became one, he was eager to meet you. You always took care to save people.
He remembers watching you battle a monster, and even when you were battered and bruised, you always made sure to save lives around you. You helped a mother and her child out of a car after you were just thrown onto a bridge. You saved them and used your own body to shield them, and the monster punched into you.
You were a hero. One of the ones from books. His father was great, but you had compassion. He admired it, so why would you ever submit to Viltrum.
He thought you were until one day, unironically, whilst having sex for the first time, as you reached your peak, your eyes glowed red.
He was so freaked out.
You told him that you weren't Viltrumite and that you were something else. That you were from Krypton, but you didn't know anything else other than that something had happened and Krypton had exploded.
He thought it was the coolest thing, you had laser eyes and X-ray vision and everything else. It was awesome to him, so imagine his surprise when you said you don't use them and never wanted to, he pushed you to. The two of you were making real progress in getting you to accept that side of you.
Then all of this stuff happened, and you just left him. He was heartbroken.
So when Anissa told him his sister had already joined the empire and was doing right by the mission, he was so confused. Then she mentioned your name and said you were pregnant. His whole world came crashing on him.
Was it his? Probably.
But why would you claim to be Viltrumite when you know their nature? What about his child?
He ended up shouted that you weren't his sister and that you weren't Viltrumite when she kept using your name.
That stopped Anissa dead in her tracts and left. Mark wanted to follow, but he was beaten too badly to move.
Fuck. What about you? What about the kid?
You, on the other hand, figured out how to steal a ship and get out of there. Your baby, only a month old, needed to breathe.
A ship was your only option.
While Anissa was away, you began to train under the guise of becoming stronger. You trained with Conquest and, in private, practiced your heat vision and freeze breath. Your X-ray vision was on most of the time so you'd know if anyone was coming.
Using your X-ray vision, you found Nolan in prison. Unfortunately, it was around the same time you found the perfect time to get away. You stood still for what felt like days. Saving the man who raised you but killed your birth parents (and adoptive, but you don't know that yet.) and give up your chance to escape with your child, or just leave now.
You were not a Viltrumite. You had compassion. A conscience. You abandoned your plan and went to confront Nolan. You meet Alan.
You're angry. So very angry at him. He killed your parents, killed your home planet, and then indoctrinated you into loving the very world that destroyed your own.
You ask him how he could do such a thing.
A Viltrum guard comes trying to apprehend you. You end up throwing him back. Prisoners are freed. Before you fly off, Nolan asks about your daughter. You only throw him back fleeing the scene and securing your little girl.
In the midst, you sneak in to rescue your child. You killed the two on duty to keep your baby away from you. You splashed them with water, froze them both, and shattered them. You sneak her onto a ship and send her off. You'd catch up eventually. Right now, the most important thing is your baby's safety.
You were intercepted by Thragg, Kregg, Thula, and Lucan. You were able to keep them at bay. Despite everything, that propaganda by Nolan still affects you. You know there are only fifty or so left. You would rather not kill them, but you know that's not their way.
You watch the pod fly away. So long as it flies away and keeps any Viltrumites away from it, you're okay.
It's a hard fight. You rely on your strength. It's instinct. You're stronger than they are. You know this. You wonder if they knew this about Kryptonians and if that's why they killed them.
Still, it takes two on each arm to restrain you. You don't even think of using other powers. Flight and strength were always a given; it's what you trained for. Your body automatically used it. But your laser beams, cold breath, x-ray vision? All it required was for you to actually think to you use.
The way if you're not trained to keep a good posture, it requires thought to keep it.
You look in horror as you see Anissa coming back. She's about to tank the pod.
You fly forward with all four pulling you back. You're screaming and shouting for them to let go, for Anissa to stay away.
From the corner of your eye, you can see Nolan flying away with Alan. You yell at them to keep her away from the pod. They do, but in doing so they send her right back to you.
They both leave with your child in tow. You're left with now five Viltrumites holding you down while two more go after them.
Your primary focus is keeping your child safe, and that means far from Viltrum.
Your eyes close as you feel that unfamiliar heat bubble. The now five holding all make faces of confusion as they see the skin around your eyes begin to glow red.
Then they all watch as you let out your heat vision straight towards the other two. One was decapitated, and the other is now missing a leg.
You look down towards where Anissa is now punching. You charge them up once more and laser straight through her head. You keep doing so while the others try to rip your limbs off. You don't stop until she's ash.
You're thrown back into the ground as more Viltrumites go after you. You crush a couple of heads, laser though a couple more, and freeze some. You're hit more times than you count. More bones broken than ever before.
After 15 or 20 deaths, they stop, and you fly back. Your eyes are hot, ready to laser anyone. You promise that if they ever come after you again that you'll repay what they did to Krypton tenfold.
They didn't take kindly to it.
You fly off through space shouting for Nolan. You don't want her with him. Not to do with her how he raised you. You shout and shout. Your bones broken, your body mangled.
You look over to the closest yellow sun. You fly that way. You'd need to heal first. The closer you got, the more your cuts turned into bruises and then into nothing. Your broken bones mending themselves. You grunted the closer you flew, unfortunately for you, you were intercepted by Thragg, who didn't take kindly to your threat.
Your body, in the midst of healing, wasn't able to react. You cried out. He flew you farther and farther from the sun.
Punch after punch into your ribs. You coughed up blood. Then you were thrown back. A strong pull behind you. You looked and it was a black hole.
You screamed in fear as you tried to fly away. It was no use. In a second Thragg was gone and you were left fighting to get away.
Time passed and you were stuck. Eventually you got out, but you had no idea how much time had passed.
There was no way to find Nolan now. God, how old was your child by now?
You closed your eyes, racking your head for where they could be.
You came up with only one true answer.
Earth.
You flew, ignoring the internal bleeding, occasionally coughing up blood.
In an hour or so, you saw Earth. You looked towards the sun. You dashed to it, letting your body properly mend itself. From there you saw smoke and explosions.
Always something. Whatever, it wasn't your concern right now. Your first concern is your daughter and where she is.
Meanwhile, on Earth, Mark's been through so much. He's not over you. God, how could he be over you? He's not over the fact that he might or might not have a child, but now there's this thing with Eve. He's struggling, and now she's in a coma while variants of him wage war.
A part of him wants to go back out there. He knows he should, but he can't. Not with Eve in this state, and if another version of him finds her. She's as good as dead.
But still, his mind thinks about the hero he looked up to. Admired, loved. You. You said your first priority is saving lives. It's the mindset he followed.
But now look at him?
Sitting next to his girlfriend, but not really girlfriend, because things are complicated, because he told her that he might or might not have a child with you, and he still loves you, but is unsure what kind of love it is. (He knows exactly what kind, but when Eve made that face to show him he screwed up, he made the excuse that his dad raised you, and that his love might be more in a brotherly way? Which definitely isn't the way he loves you. This isn't Alabama.)
He doesn't even want to turn on his phone. He doesn't want to know whats happening, he can already hear it, but he doesn't want to see it.
It's a shame. He would've seen that you're back.
You're looking for his father.
You had tried to find Nolan without seeing Mark because you really didn't have time for that right now. You saw him in Russia, so you went instead to Chicago. You'll see him there again, and two more of him. All in different costumes.
The world around you is a mess. You went to the Guardians HQ. In there, you found Mark. He looked the same. He turned to the side. No goggles.
Immortal called your name as you floated down. Goggleless Mark turned around, his face dropping. He put his hands up as he called your name and called you to be reasonable.
Immortal yelled out that he was another Mark from an alternate dimension.
Always something.
He irked you. You grabbed his throat and pressed him against the wall. "This is me being reasonable, Mark. From what your father has taken from me, I am being more than reasonable. Now, where is the Mark from this universe? Where is his father? I'll spare your life if you show me where they are."
The Mark variant nodded.
Immortal yelled out your name, asking what was wrong with you. That he killed so many. You told him that wasn't your priority right now. He called you selfish. You snapped and yelled that your daughter is missing and in the hands of Nolan, and all you want is to have her back. In snapping, you accidentally squeezed the Mark variant's head off.
Immortal stepped back. He knew you were strong. But this strong? He hadn't known. He told you that he wouldn't be fighting because Eve was hurt. He probably wouldn't come out till all of this was resolved or Eve was better.
"Unbelievable." You hissed out. You ordered him to show you where all the Mark variants were. You looked on the screen nodded and went out.
You made quick work of them. Some recognized you, others didn't. You didn't care. One after another your tore through. The only ones you stopped for just to make sure you didn't accidentally kill the father of your child were the ones in blue and yellow. A shame you didn't know he changed his uniform.
One Mark after another torn apart by your hands, or lasered, or frozen, then punched. You stopped taking a breather. How long had it been since you breathed this air? You were covered in blood.
Your ears strained. There was one more.
You flew to Kansas. Smallville. Largely untouched. You went to the Kents' home. Your home until you were eight.
You entered. There was nothing there. You exited, and outside, there was Mark. His hand touches a pod. He turned and smiled. Goggles and a blue and yellow suit. Was this your Mark? You thought he was with Eve.
He pulled off his mask as you called his name. "You're alive!"
You had no patience for it. You asked him where his father was. He said he didn't know. But he hesitated. "Then this was a waste of time."
He told you to wait. You did. Not because he told you, but because he shouldn't know of this place. Not about the pod anyway. You didn't even know about the pod.
You turned around, your eyes red and hot. He clicked something, and the pod opened. Your eyes stopped. A hologram showed. Your parents. They spoke, and you couldn't understand them.
A compartment opened. Inside, a red and blue suit with your family crest. "This is what you wore when you were alive in my world."
You took the suit and took out the hologram to keep. You thanked him and said you'd spare his life for it. With that you went inside and showered putting on the new suit.
Something yours. From your home. No cheap knock-off of Omni-Man's suit like before. Not all white suits are like the ones you wore in Viltrum.
You left. He was the last one. There was no one else. You reappeared. You saw a woman trying to escape her car. It was under the ruble. You figured the best way to contact Cecil, if he didn't already know you're here, is to do some good deed.
You saved the woman. She cried and hugged you. Said she had missed you. She had a baby in the back seat. You picked up the child. You missed your own. You handed it to the woman, giving a smile before flying off.
All the while, Mark had been battling with himself. It's a stupid question, but he still asks himself what you would do. He knows the answer. The you he fell in love with, you would go out to help. He kissed Eve's hand and stepped out, putting his mask back on. He met Cecil only to be told the war was over.
He was tossed a phone with live footage of you putting out a fire. You are in a red and blue suit with an 'S'.
He quickly left, never hearing Cecil's warning that she was attacking any Mark variant without a blue and yellow suit. He flew, calling your name. You had a car in your hands as people ran off. You turned around as he flew to you. The people screamed at the sight of him.
You threw the car at him. He dodged through it. He called out to you. Saying it was him. You didn't listen. He tried over and over again. It wasn't until he asked about you being pregnant that you stopped.
You asked him where his father was. Mark only asked if you had been or if Anissa was lying? You just asked him where his father was. He asked if it was his. You only answered by asking where his father was. Every question he asked, you only asked where his father was.
He told you he didn't know. Told you that last, he knew he was captured by Viltrumites. You left. He chased you down. High up in space, he called out your name, asking where his child was.
He grabbed you. You pushed him off, yelling you didn't know. You're trying to find her. Yelling that his father has her, that you were trapped in a black hole by Thragg, and his father left you to deal with Viltrumites as he fled with that one-eyed alien and now you're stuck roaming the galaxy looking for them.
He asks if he has a daughter. You give a nod. Mark is angry. So angry with you. How could you leave him? How could you hide something like that!? Why didn't you help him? You answered that you were scared. If you got involved and were dealt a blow hard enough, you'd miscarry. That being raised by Nolan in the way you were confused you. You were loyal to Viltrum. What Mark said that day went against your end goal for which his father prepared you.
You told him everything. Told him the only real reason you went after him was not that you were in love with him, but because you had a desperation to prove yourself to his father. That you could help with his mission in more ways than one. Your plan from the beginning was to get pregnant.
With each word, he felt his heart, which he had only just put back together, crack all over again. Everything you both shared was just to try and prove yourself.
He asked if any of it was ever real. If you ever loved him. If everything you both went through, if it meant nothing.
You said you thought about it while on Viltrum. He asked what you thought. You said you didn't get to finish thinking because you needed to escape. In the end, he agrees to help you find his daughter, but says he wants an answer by the end of it.
You ask if he's with Eve. He only says it's not serious. He asked about your time on Viltrum as you flew back down to Earth. You told him there aren't many of them left. You killed a good fifteen. He asks why you wanted to leave. You tell him what you found on Viltrum. Cruel and mean people who have no concept of love. That you saw what they did to your planet. You saw the murder of your biological parents at the hands of his father, and the destruction of your planet by a handful of Viltrumites.
Told him that you wonder if they knew what would happen if just one of them had discovered the yellow sun. You're stronger than the average Viltrumite on Viltrum. You say that if it wasn't for the red sun your planet had, Krypton would've never been destroyed. Your people were the superior ones.
Time passes on Earth as you agree to become the new head for the Guardians due to your good PR and because he can pull a few strings to spend some money looking for Nolan.
Mark, on the other hand, refuses.
Mark doesn't ask about his daughter yet. You're still touchy about it. You both haven't told anyone. Eve is weird around you both. For good reason, but all you want is your daughter.
Eventually, Mark gathers the courage to ask for her name. You tell him her name. You say she has your last name. El. Of the stars. That's what it means. He says it's a pretty name. Says he wishes he'd have been there. You agree.
You tell him more about that day. How you took the identity of being Nolan's daughter, how you only ever wanted to be Vilturmite because it's what was hammered into you, how you thought getting rid of the laser vision, the x-ray vision, the freeze breath, and everything else would make you feel like you had a home.
But your daughter was taken from you. Because you were raised by a traitor and not raised in a true Viltrum way, your child should be. You didn't want that.
You told him you have nightmares of being sucked into the black hole and never seeing your daughter again. All you want is to hold her. The longest you've ever held her was to put her onto a ship and send her off. After that, you haven't seen her. You don't know how long you've been gone from her life. She must be a year old by now.
Mark is so conflicted. Yes, Eve is there, but you're also here. The mother of his first child. But you said you don't know if you love him, hell, if you even really like him. Only need his body. He feels gross and used. He feels stupid. So for now, he stays with Eve. It's an asshole move, he knows.
You're head of the Guardians, but you're rarely on Earth. You spend weeks at a time traveling the galaxy, calling for anyone.
You miss Conquest's arrival. You're out searching for anything. By the time you come back, Mark has completely changed. You apologize for not being there. He tells you your help would've been nice. You admit you've trained with Conquest. Only three times. You won once out of the three times. You say he wasn't one of the Vilturmites who held you back, so you have no ill will towards him.
Cecil is angry with you. Very. You could've helped, but you're out playing Marco Polo. He doesn't know you're looking for your daughter. You don't intend to tell him. You tell him you'll be there next time.
He tells you to loosen up on going to space.
You'd rather not. Being in space means you don't feel useless and hopeless without your daughter. Being in space is being away from Mark, far away from trying to understand those feelings. You don't know how you feel.
Mark is also dealing with those feelings. The fear he felt at the thought of losing Eve. The anger he felt towards you because you weren't there.
He doesn't know.
Your dilemma would be answered soon enough.
It'd be answered when you pick up a small heartbeat a couple of weeks later, whilst facing some lady who needs electricity or whatever. You really couldn't care less right now. Your eyes looked around. Why the fuck would a baby be in a power plant? Your X-ray vision is activated. You scanned the room whilst Eve and Mark handled the lady.
Mark shouted your name, asking why you weren't doing anything. If you're being honest, you could've just killed her right then and there, but you don't feel like it. You turned just as Mark was shot down. You watched Eve jump up.
Your world stopped. You saw a fetus. Your eyes darted to Mark. He was twitching on the ground.
Your heart pounded. That small heartbeat pounded.
A sudden and ugly feeling of possession and jealousy hit you. No, he was yours. You bore his child. You did not love Mark, but you two shared something. Something uniquely you and him.
You watched as Eve flew back. She hit herself on you. You only grabbed her, setting her down. Her swords melted. Anger bubbled within you.
It wasn’t supposed to turn into this. Mark had been a means to an end. Something to try and emulate. Something to give you what you so desired from Nolan. Acceptance. Love. Family. He was only supposed to be someone to match and surpass. Mark was a standard you measured yourself against and surpassed each and every time with flying colors, according to your own test.
But somewhere along the lines, it blurred, and I couldn’t tell where imitation ended and admiration began. Where wanting to be him became longing for him.
You starved off the thoughts of him on Viltrum, in space, on Earth, and now, in the middle of a fight, they come crashing down on you. The curiosity of being a real family, the need to stay close just a little longer.
You're standing and the world continues, but ever so slowly. Your eyes are on Mark. You remember the feel of him. You remember his laugh. You remember his lips. You remember his eyes. You remember everything that feels like a lifetime ago. Your eyes remembering things you used to pretend don’t matter.
Just the thought of him turning toward someone else feels wrong in a way you can’t justify, sharp and immediate, like something being taken that was never yours to claim.
That's always been there. Since you've returned. Since you've learned of Eve and him. And now seeing something that was his and yours now being shared between him and Eve.
Hatred bubbles within. Anger bubbles within you. Jeously bubbles within you. Heat bubbles beneath your eyes.
You tell yourself it isn’t love, because love would mean yielding, softening, letting him choose. (And that isn't the Viltrum way. 9 years of indoctrination never truly goes away.) But what coils inside you doesn’t want to let go.
It wants to keep, to hold, to be the only reason he keeps going. You want to be the only one.
And that’s the part you won’t name. Because once you do, you’ll have to admit that you never just want to be him—you want him.
Your body still acts with want and malice. You can see everything in slow motion.
You hide Eve behind you. A false pretense of safety. You watch as a beam of energy begins to shoot out. It's slow. Painfully slow. You have all the time in the world to turn. You still turn early. A selfless act to protect her to anyone watching, but only one pair of eyes matter to you right now.
You're looking at her. Your eyes still bright red and glowing with anger, possession, jealousy, desire, and all the nasty things love means. Her green eyes wide with fear. Not for herself, for you. You almost feel bad.
Almost.
You're looking at her. You know what you're about to do. Your blazing eyes trail down directly where something that could take away your future, curls. Safe in the womb. Unaware of what will happen.
You let the electricity hit your back. It doesn't really hurt. More like a small shock. But you act anyways. You yell, feigning pain. You shoot lasers.
You can see it happening. You see red heat from your vision aim direct at her womb, directly at the small heartbeat. You continue to yell in pain, her screams join yours. You keep at it until you hear no heartbeat. Until you don't see anything. Until her womb is all gone.
Only then do you fall and let the beam of energy hit her. An extra measure. You let it for a good three seconds before you dive over her. It hits you for another two seconds before Mark takes the hit of it.
"Eve!" He shouts. Secondly he shouts your name. Second. You came second.
You look down. Blood everywhere. You stood up. You're covered in her blood. You stand up looking at your blood stained hand. Your brows furrow as you look down to the crest of your home, stained in blood.
You feel bad that you don't feel bad. You want to, but honestly? You can't bring yourself to care about that. Just, your crest really doesn't look good covered in blood. You probably don't look the best in this light. That's your first thought.
You look up to Mark who's holding up Eve.
Your eyes begin to grow hot again. Another beam hits you. You let it hit you before you turn around blocking it. You shoot your heat vision. It fights back against the beam.
"Eve are you alright!?"
That only fuels your heat. You laser off the lady's head.
Theres a disgust within you. You looked over your shoulder. Your cape with your crest doesn't have blood. It looks better. You don't say anything. Mark looks up at you. You leave burning the blood off of you. In front of the yellow sun, you soak in the rays trying to burn this disgust.
You're not in love. (Oh but you are. Desperately. You want to cling to something. Cling to the closest thing of your daughter whom you miss. Cling to an old ideal. Is it truly love then?)
You scream into the yellow sun. Scream into space. Perhaps it will reach your daughter whom is lost to you.
You fall back. Fall back into Earth's warm embrace. It pulls you back like a mother who yearns for you.
You pick up Eve. Take her to the GDA's hospital. You're sent out to deal with some aliens.
It doesn't take long. Everyone is safe. Everyone is always bound to be safe with you. Things are always easier with you. Missions anyways.
It's proven a couple of days later. Flaxens. Again. You have half a mind to not just destroy their entire planet. You wonder if you, by yourself, could recreate what took six Viltrumites to do to Krypton.
You fly over everything, freezing the majority of them. They're tougher this time. Nothing too serious, though. You fly through the portal and destroy whatever was in front of you. The portal behind you closes. You look over the planet.
Mark is left behind. He stood still, watching where you disappeared to. You're strong. Really strong. He knows. You're stronger than him. Stronger than his dad. Stronger than fifteen Viltrumites. Stronger than the pull of a black hole.
So why did you struggle, if only a little, against that energy beam? He thought it was an accident at first. You had been ready to laser back at the electricity woman. Instead, you turned around to protect Eve and yourself. Did you lose control and accidentally laser Eve? It's what he thought. But time and time again, shows of strength. You're beyond anything.
So why did it happen? He remembers you said you still hadn't had much practice with your heat vision, but still. Something felt off.
That night you come back. He asks you about that day. He had been sitting on it for a couple of days. He asks why you did it. Asks if it was on purpose. You don't say anything. Instead, you leave. He doesn't let you. He grabs your leg. You fly up anyway. The weak rays of the sun reflected from the moon.
"I know your mind isn't right. I know you're not yourself. I know you miss her. But tell me you didn't do it on purpose. Please!" He shouts at you, and you stop. He flies to your level. Your eyes are different now, or maybe they've always been like that. He can't recall his life three years ago.
You did do it on purpose, but you don't want to face rejection of your ugly side. The fact that earlier today you bathed in blood, and before that bathed in the blood of Eve and his unborn child. Instead, you simply smiled.
"Did you know it was her birthday today?"
Mark paused.
"She turned three, Mark. Two years and eleven months I've been without my daughter." Your lips downturned, and you looked towards the stars. He pulled you in, hugging you. You hugged him back. A familiar warmth you had missed so dearly. You pulled back and looked at him. Soft brown eyes. Soft skin, somehow without scars. Black hair that took in the moon's rays. How you missed the sight. Your daughter looks exactly like you. You did not find comfort in her features. His eyes looked at your lips.
He leaned in first. You leaned in, letting yourself go in his embrace. You kissed him. He warm and you felt love. Love you had been chasing. It was freely given by him.
How could you have ever left him to fend for himself? Never again. You pulled him against you harder. You desperately tried to tell him. You wouldn't leave him anymore. You don't know if he understood.
Maybe he did. Probably. He broke up with Eve the next morning.
He also went to hell. Or so he said. You flew around the solar system. Just a habit at this point. You landed on Venus.
Venus favors the bold.
Or so they say. You whisper the name of your daughter into the hot stones. You murmur a plea of hope.
With that, you leave Venus. She favors the bold. You have always been bold.
You fly to Mark's home, but you spot something in the distance. You know that shape. Those two shapes. The two that left you behind to rot on Viltrum as they took your daughter. You charged, grabbing Nolan by his throat. Mark came in after shouting your name.
"You traitorous dog!? You left me to fend for myself, and you took my daughter! Where is she!?"
You were pulled off. Nolan told you that for the past three years, he's raised your daughter. She is safe and healthy. You asked him if he's ever hit her like he did you? He told you he's never lifted a hand to her. That what he did to you was wrong. It wasn't something he should've pushed onto you. He was struggling. He used you to keep himself tied to an idea.
He tells you that he's kept her safe, raised her as he should've raised you. As Debbie raised Mark. As Debbie helped him understand love.
You told him even if it was true, they still left you on Viltrum. He said that a part of him always knew you'd get out alive. You're strong. It's also why he'd like to join the war. To end Viltrumite's rule once and for all. A world without them.
You thought of your daughter. It seemed like an easy enough choice.
Mark, on the other hand, hadn't said anything. He'd be meeting his daughter for the first time. He felt nervous. Full of longing for someone he had never even met.
Time felt slowed as they boarded the ship. As they walked down the hallway. He heard your heart pounding, or maybe it's his own. His father walked into the room first calling her name.
He heard her giggle. Heard her run over to him. Heard his father lift her up. Heard his father ask if she wanted to meet him. She had said no. A little more convincing, and finally, she murmured an Okay.
Mark stood still. He didn't know what to expect. Would she look like him? Viltrumite DNA overpowered almost anything else. But you're Kryptonian, would it be different?
He watched as his father stepped out. His hand searched for something to hold. Your hand found his. You both gripped one another. He saw the little girl in his father's arms. She leaned against his chest, hiding away. She was so small. Finally, she turned towards them, her hand near her mouth.
Her eyes were big and round. Her lips were pursed in the way yours do, but her brows furrowed in the way he knows his does. Other than that. She looked exactly like you.
He gave a sigh, smiling.
He walked forward, and you stayed still. He turned around. Your hand is still gripping his. From the moment you came back, this has been everything you've wanted. Weeks spent in space. Nights looking towards the moon. And now you're frozen. He turns to you, rubbing your arm as he pulls you closer.
His father sets down his daughter. She stands there. The four of you simply stand. She looks over to you. "Grandpa says you're strong."
"Very strong." You mutter out smiling.
"How strong?" She takes a step closer.
You look over to Mark, who seems entranced by his daughter. "I can carry your grandpa."
"Me too." You look up towards Nolan, who nods.
"Do you want to show your father your guns?" She nodded, running to him. Nolan picked her up and told Mark to put his hands up. You watched with a smile as she shot out blue lasers. You laughed.
Such a joy filled you, a joy you've never felt before. You never had anyone else to share it with. But now you did. You laughed eagerly, telling her you could do it too. You darted to her side, letting out small, short, and weak lasers at Mark, who only let out yelps as he shielded his face.
The three of you were left alone as you both showed her you could fly. She said she can't fly yet.
As you show her your glowing red eyes, Mark sits back admiring. Since he found out, three year ago, now almost four, that you were pregnant the world moved around him. Three years ago when you came back and said his father had taken his daughter from you, the world continued to move. But nothing ever felt right. Time had seemed to pass in dull, uneven stretches, days endured, not lived, each one marked by the quiet, relentless absence of a cry or small laugh he imagines come from children.
Taking Oliver's cries and laughters when he was younger and he would imagine them it would be his daughter.
Hearing her now, he wonders how he ever bared being without her laughter. How he kept going without having you and her beside him. He began to long for her long before he had ever known she existed. How? He isn't sure, but he knows his longing for what is now in front of him never stopped.
Still hasn't stopped. His longing has become more now. He longs for for the first steps she took he didn't get to experience, longs for the first day they discovered she has heat vision just like you did, longs for those days you spent pregnant and tired so that he might have been able to ease you. Mark longs for everything that was taken from him, for everything that he can never get back, even if it stands right in front of him.
That night, his longing still aches within him. He walks to your room. He doesn't knock or ask if you're awake. All he does is take his rightful place beside you in your bed. A place that was always meant to be filled by him. You don't object. He reaches over to pull you close to him. He holds you tight against him.
Yes, he longs for it. Longs for you. Longs to see you pregnant. Longs to comfort you. Longs for his children, whom he has yet to have with you.
His body makes it clear. His hand slides lower, pushing himself against you, and as if no time has passed at all, just like when you were both seventeen again, your legs part for him.
He turns you around, kissing you as he eases himself inside of you. Normally, he'd take care to prep you, but his longing for you doesn't allow him to do it. You take him fine enough. Slow and comforting, he continues to thrust into you. He relishes in your sweet small sounds, your expressions, and his favorite thing, your eyes glowing red as you reach your peak with him.
He cums inside. Naturally. As he's meant to. As he's longed to for the past three years.
You both stay entangled in your embrace. He makes a joke of how he doesn't mind being used by you anymore. He had forgotten how good it felt with you. You only give a smile that he hasn't seen in three years. It warms him. You warm him. This is the way he longs to spend his life. Every day for the rest of eternity, or however long time will grant him. So as the two of you stay together as one, he cups your face, kissing your forehead, and asks for your hand in marriage.
You ask him if it's because you both are heading to war. He says war is the last thing on his mind; just being with you is all he wants. Being with you and his daughter, and if you want, the future children you two would have.
You accept, and if only for a night. Mark knows true happiness. You and he together, bound forever, and a creation between you and him in the next room is sleeping. He'd remember this night for the rest of his life.
But all good things come to an end. The next day, the ship is ambushed and destroyed. His first concern is his daughter. He knows you're fine, but what about his little girl? He yells for you, you appear holding your daughter close.
Thragg and what's left of the empire are here. Behind him the man who filled his thoughts with horror.
Conquest.
He locked eyes with Mark. Mark's eyes instinctively looked to you. You held your daughter close to you. It's the safest place she could be. Conquest only gave a knowing look. He yelled for him to leave you out of this. To leave his child alone. Thragg only said the child belonged to Viltrum, just as Mark does. You flew away towards a nearby planet to allow your daughter to breathe. She doesn't need to, but she's not used to it, and you'd rather her not see the horrors of war at three.
You leave Mark. A choice you'd come to regret, for the next time you'd find him, it'd be in a coma with his organs pulled out. You stayed out of the war instead, staying with Oliver and Nolan. You'd go out to help, but you don't want to leave your daughter alone.
Eventually, Mark wakes up. You're right there. All three leave. You wonder if it should've been you to go instead. A day later, you agree it should've been you. You would've purged every last one of them. Luckily, you're given another chance.
All the Viltrumites are present. You tell your daughter she doesn't need to breathe in space. She doesn't believe you. It's fine. You tell Oliver to stay behind. He objects; you give him a look. He stays behind with your daughter. You finally enter the fight.
You remind Thragg that his attempt at killing you failed, and you warned him what would happen the next time he came after you. He said it was you guys that came after him. You simply responded that they should've run then. Shortly after, you killed three Viltrumites. Thragg went after you. The battle between everyone else continued, whilst you fought against him.
It hurt. He punched and punched.
Mark threw some Viltrumite off of him, and he turned to watch your battle against Thragg. You were stronger physically, but Thragg has the better fighting technique. Mark dashed over to help, but he was backhanded away.
You were thrown against another Viltrum before being sent crashing down onto Viltrum. He held you down, choking you. Your eyes glowed, ready to shoot, but he met it with a hard punch straight to the center of your face. Over and over again. Your nose broken, your jaw cracked, your cheekbones surely misaligned.
Nolan came in, pushing him off of you. You lie down trying to subside the pain. You're sure he crushed your windpipe. It's cloudy. You need the sun.
You time of rest didn't last long. Nolan was sent straight up. However, Mark was quick to come down along with Alan.
"Stop messin around and get up!" He yelled. You lifted yourself up to look at the two as they tried to keep Thragg at bay.
"I'm not messin around, I'm doing important stuff." You muttered, falling back down. You popped your shoulder back into place before standing up. You left, taking in the sun's solar rays. As you healed, you killed a couple more Viltrumites.
Thula came, and you grabbed her braid. She tried to pull back, but you only pulled her to you before swinging her around so violently that it broke her neck.
Kregg followed. You stopped him from delivering a punch towards Thaedus. You gave him a headbutt. He gave one back. You gained the upper hand and hit him again. It shattered his head.
Off you went. You tore out the heart of one Viltrumite who was attacking Nolan. You, him and Thaedus made quick work of the rest of the Viltrumites. Mostly you, but hey, who's counting?
Once you're sure they were dead, you flew towards Nolam. You told him to destroy the planet, just like what they did to Krypton. He said Thragg would never allow it, and you said you'd hold him back.
By this time, your jaw and cheekbones had put themselves back together. You dove back onto Viltrum. Mark was about to be hit. You shot your heat vision at him. It took his hand off. You had Mark go back with his father as you threw Thragg up and out of Viltrum's atmosphere. You rushed from behind him and held him as you forced him to the destruction of his home, all the while you whispered in his ear that you'd repay what he did to your home tenfold. At the very least, your home was destroyed by invaders; his home was destroyed by his own kind.
He went still in your arms. "What you feel now, imagine what my people felt, what the people felt of the thousands of worlds you conquered. It felt just like that." Your eyes glowed, and you cut off his arms. He yelled in agony. You froze his legs and kicked them off. Now he was just a stub looking at you with pure and undiluted hatred. You reflected the look. This man took away your daughter. Now you would show him what you felt that day. Your hand slowly pushed into his chest, worming its way to his heart. You grabbed it. You felt it pumping in your hand. "You crushed my heart that day; now I repay it, with interest." You crushed it within him before ripping it out.
You let the crumpled heart go before freezing him with your cold breath. A singular flick of your finger to his head, Thragg's body shattered into a thousand microscopic pieces.
You turned around, the sun hugging you. The rest of your allies watched as small bruises on you faded into nothing, and bones just underneath your skin moved themselves into their proper places. Soon enough, you looked as if nothing had ever touched you. Not a scratch left on you.
And that was the end of that. Sure, Mark was just a little off put, but he understood it was what needed to be done. He had come to the same ideals as you after all.
You both were married within the same year. Didn't have your next child till a good five years later.
Mark got to experience all the firsts he didn't with his daughter. A total of four more times. Once with a girl, and three more times with boys.
Life continued on. Peaceful. You had created what you had so longed for.
You didn't know who'd live longer between the two of you, but you wouldn't have to think about that, not for a long time anyway.
ts took all day oml. This is terribly simplified. The angst I could've written within chapters, delicious, but I'm not doin allat. So this will have to do fr fr
Her family; complete, assembled, dressed in green so deep it bordered on black. Her sons stood tall at her back, unyielding as sentinels. Her daughter beside them, composed, smiling faintly.
Alicent stepped forward, joining her husband on the balcony overlooking the courtyard below, where the commons had gathered long before dawn for the privilege of looking up.
Her children followed.
The crowd had been parted without being told.
She took her place to Viserys’s left — the side she had claimed years ago, the side closest to his heart. One by one, her children filled the space beside her. First Aegon. Then Helaena. Then Aemond. And finally her father. All that was missing was her youngest, but she trusts that he is safely tucked away far off in Old Town.
Her left was full.
There was no room left to grow.
Then she looked to the right.
Rhaenyra stood there; not alone.
Her father at her side. Her husband beside her. Their children arranged in order of their proximity to the crown. And behind them stood Rhaenys and Corlys, unbowed, with Baela and Rhaena close — dragonblood gathered upon dragonblood.
Despite the unbalanced scale, Alicent stood tall walking forward hands on the railing as her eyes narrowed at the lone figure before the crowd.
You.
You who looks up.
You who pleaded to the King to allow you to go North.
You who have made an enemy of House Targaryen entire.
You who stands completely and utterly alone in the face of House Targaryen.
You who lowers her head and Alicent who lifts her head.
You who now turns and runs North with your tail tucked between your legs.
You who has lost.
A breath of relief leaves her as your carriage disappears within the filthy streets of King's Landing. Finally reunited at last. You, a commoner, reunited with her kind.
And Alicent at last left alone with her husband once more. Her eye moved to the side watching her husband who only looked down to your faded carriage.
Her eyes shifted forward as she took a deep breath a small smile falling upon her lips. Her shifted left. Her children standing there.
Aegon, whose recent behavior has soothed her worries.
Aemond who seemed pleased, though as to why? She'd rather not know.
Helaena who for the first time, is present.
In any case, you won't be returning from the North.
…
15th day of the 10th moon of 129 AC
Into the deep red he saw the reflection of himself. Sad eyes. Red around the edges of eyes that bore a shine. Crying eyes that should he think too much leak tears. tears that run down and splash into the deep red of the cup he holds.
Another disgusted look he had earned from his mother. Aegon supposes he should know by now. His mother had never been one to be pleased with the pregnancy of his sister-wife. He knew it was a bad idea sleeping with her. But it really wasn't his fault! She looked like the bastard Targaryen.
Aegon sneaks in whores all the time. A few too many drinks and looking at her from the back, they might as well have been twins, even if his sister now has a slightly plumper figure thanks to you. How was he to know she'd get pregnant off one night.
Now he puts up with the disgusted looks from his mother and pitiful glances of his sister. But it's not his fault.
Aegon clenches the glass, the dark liquid beginning to peeve him.
It's not his fault!
Had this not been in his hands it wouldn't have happened.
It's not his fault!
But even now, he cannot resist the pull.
It's not his fault!
He grips the chalice hard until the red liquid within begins to shake
It's not his fault!
It goes closer to his mouth as a headache begins to form, like it always does when he needs to drink.
It's not his fault!
He chugs it, feeling the red liquid drip down his face.
It's not his fault!
The room curves and the door opens. "My prince, your dinner is ready. Shall we set the table?"
"Get out." It's not his fault.
"Shall I prepare a-"
"GET OUT!" He threw his cup at the servant as he stood up yelling. She ran out the room and red dark liquid stained the room.
His headache worsened. He gripped his head grabbing the pitcher, he poured and poured. Who knows how many cups. The room spun, Aegon was warm but there was a pressure on his chest. A heavy burden to carry. One that made his breath cold.
It hurt to breathe.
"Do you think Rhaenyra's sons will be your play things forever?"
"Your very life could be forfeit. Aemond's as well."
"You are the challenge! You are the challenge, Aegon! Simply by living and breathing!"
His cheeks stung. A phantom pain.
"You are the king's first born son."
"Think of the shame upon your wife! On me! How can you keep carrying on like this especially on a day like this?"
Another phantom pain.
"You are no son of mine."
He poured, but no red wine came. He collapsed on the floor. "Guards!"
The very essence of the world pulled him to the ground.
The doors opened and a woman in white came. Aegon's vision blurred. He could not see her face. Weather it was the white cloth covering the bottom of her face or simply because his vision was not there, he couldn't tell.
Slowly she walked closer holding a pitcher of what he needed.
His vision cleared and bright green eyes looked down to him. Bright green eyes paired with dark blonde hair. The bottom of her face covered. She stood still, as if beckoning him to her.
He answered her call, slowly standing, bearing the weight of the world. Yet still he stood taking heavy steps towards the blonde haired, green eyed woman holding but he yearns for most.
The cloth occasionally pressing against her face with each breath she took. The only thing allowing him a glimpse of her. He stood taller than her, her gauze shifted up. His hand reached out, but she stepped back.
He stepped forward.
He smiled.
She hid it behind her back.
Another step back she took.
He tilted his head.
Off came her mask and his vision blurred.
A second later he saw her face. Soft features looking up to him. His hands reached faster than what he could process bring her to him.
She closer her eyes smiling.
"Will you make me forget?" The wine, was long forgotten.
"Yes."
He pressed his mouth against hers. He held her tight as the room spun once more and he collapsed onto the bed.
The only thing he saw, the only thing left, was he with his clothes on, in his bed holding a white cloth close to him as the sun warmed him through his window the next morning.
No sign of the woman in white.
No sign of his light whom closed his eyes last night.
…
1st day of the 8th moon of 129 AC
Dyana patted down your dress as you stood tall, careful to hid the purple around your neck. You leave today. You leave for Old Town and you want reports. Detailed reports that Dyana hopes she can accomplish with her newly refined skills of reading and writing thanks to you.
“I want to know everything,” you murmur, lifting the high collar of your gown and fastening it closed. Your reflection does not look back at you.
“Of Prince Aemond and King Viserys,” Dyana says quickly.
“And Aegon,” you add. “Especially Aegon. He is the eldest. The most important.”
Dyana nods, but her stomach turns.
You have kept her from him. The only prince she ever truly interacts with—if it can be called that—is Aemond. He never looks at her directly, only sideways glances that warn rather than invite. She understands those looks. They tell her where not to stand. What not to say.
She does not want to be near Aegon.
She cannot be without remembering the heat of the tea pressed into her hands. Cannot be without remembering the weight of his grip, the way her body ceased to belong to her. Cannot be without the frantic need to smooth her skirts down, to hold them in place when it felt as though they were being lifted without her consent.
No. She cannot.
No. She will not.
Not even for you.
So Dyana finds herself on the street of silk with a heavy pouch of money, money you give her as an allowance. Money from the business that booms everyday.
She steps in and finds a dark haired woman, with tan skin. She looks Dornish. She's leaned against the door calling for men. A blonde haired woman sits at her feet with a dress too low cut and too sheer.
Calling it a dress is generous.
Dyana approaches them.
She intends only one. The Dornish woman. The one who does not look like her.
An hour later, she emerges lighter of coin and heavier of consequence, two women flanking her where there should have been one. Their laughter trails behind them like a scent.
“But you’re only two,” Dyana says, brow furrowing as three hands reach expectantly for payment.
“Yes,” the blonde says brightly, fingers closing around the pouch. “But one more if you want us to keep quiet.”
She smiles. Essie, she had said her name was.
The other — Sylvenna Sand — circles Dyana slowly, the way a cat might, eyes sharp with amusement. Dyana feels suddenly exposed, as if the street itself is watching.
"Wouldn't want…say the Queen to know you have us spying on the Prince." Dyana shivers as Sylvenna whispers into her ear, arm draped around her shoulder.
"The King's first born son at that." Essie giggled and Dyana feels cornered.
She had only barely gotten them past the head maid.
If it was money they wanted, Dyana could give it. Hold them off. Just long enough until you returned. After that—she would find a way to be rid of them. Somehow.
“Fine,” she had said, and sealed it with coin.
And so it is.
Essie and Sylvenna move through the halls of the Red Keep like shadows given leave, meeting Dyana each night in corners and servants’ passages, murmuring what they have seen and heard. Their voices are always low. Always amused. Dyana listens and nods and wonders, each night, when you will come back.
Prince Aemond is rarely present. There is little to report of him.
The King, however—
The King seems diminished without you. His steps slower. His eyes duller. As though something essential has been taken from him and not yet returned. Dyana watches him linger in doorways, forget his place at council, breathe as if the effort costs him more than it should. It is almost as if he fades in your absence.
A week passes.
Then she hears it.
Two maids whispering as they scrub the floors, glancing over their shoulders as though the walls themselves might listen. They speak of Essie. Of her laughter. Of the way she has been seen too often near Prince Aegon.
Seducing him, they say.
Dyana’s hands still.
The cloth slips from her fingers.
And suddenly, the waiting feels heavier than before.
Stupid Dyana! Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!
Stupid to think she was anything like you!
Stupid to think that not even you get away unharmed with your schemes, why would she?
Stupid! She'll be executed surely!
Stupid Dyana!
She presses her hands to her face and wills herself not to cry.
She wants you to come back. Wants you to return and tell her what to do, how to stand, when to speak and when to stay silent. You always know. You always have.
Somehow, someway, you always know what to do. You always know everything!
Even if Aemond keeps you a leash so tight it leave purple marks around your neck, you never stop tugging.
How the people come to mass just to glimpse you, how the Gods themselves must favor you for the way fortune bends around your steps. How even when you are hurt, you do not retreat. You simply… adjust.
They glaze you in praise until you barely sound real.
And maybe you aren't real. You've left her. You've left to pass laws when only men are allowed to pass laws. Created a new seat on the council now which you can occupy, in which you intent to for you have told Dyana this.
You've left the King seems to fall.
You've left and Dyana is failing.
You've left and Aemond never seems to be in the Keep anymore.
You leave and Essei and Sylvenna wreak havoc on in the Keep.
You're gone and she wonders if your home has fallen apart without you as well.
You told her of it once. Of how wondrous it was compared to this wasteland. Of people who live to a hundred years and more. Of women allowed learning — allowed rule — allowed titles beyond marriage. Queens. Presidents. How you can travel the seas in just a day or two. How your people have conquered the skies, land, and to some extent the sea. How your people now aim for the stars.
"They say now that we were made to conquer the stars."
How grand your people must be.
And yet you said they are lonely. Even in their greatest cities, they are lonely. They can speak to anyone, anywhere — and still, they are lonely. They look to the stars not for conquest, but for company.
"Humanity looks for a companion."
Your people look to the stars for life because the life on your world is not enough. You say that they should not.
"We would enslave them, just as we have enslaved ourselves."
You tell her all these stories and sometimes it looks like you will cry, but you do not. Unbreakable, yet malleable to anything presented to you.
You told her you fell into the sea. Drowned in cold waters. Perhaps, Dyana thinks, you were reborn there. Water seeps into everything. There is no place it does not reach. Give it the smallest crack, and it will find its way in.
Where there is life, there is water.
Dyana does not doubt you were reborn. From what though, remains to be seen.
The Sept is happy to embrace you, and since Dyana is falling she hopes that you were reborn into water that you'll soften her fall.
(Though it is most unfortunate, she does not know there is a height from which water no longer yields, and becomes stone.)
…
20th day of 10th moon of 129 AC
Aegon finds himself less satisfied with wine and his attention drawn to the pieces of fabrics that seem to be left everywhere he steps.
All white. He picks them all up.
Beside his bed, he keeps them all in spare drawer and during late nights presses them to his face trying to draw what little memory he has from that night that will not fade from him. He cannot recall what called her to his room, but he can remember her hands tracing over him.
Though no matter how much he smells the fabric, how much he rubs himself trying to picture anything from that night, all he can see his a white fabric covering her face.
He groans tossing and turning, cock heavy against his breeches. Oh! He cannot do anything for it! Desperately the need tugs at him, but he cannot his mind cannot think of anything. He cannot think of anyone else, no one else fills him.
Not any whore.
Not his sister wife.
Not you.
Nothing and no one will do but her.
And so the only thing he can do is turn onto his front side closing his eyes and hoping his dreams of her and ruts into the bed so hard he cums to undo himself of the pain he's starting to feel.
And so he drifts to sleep.
But he cannot. Not when he feels someone pushing their weight on him. His face turns to the and he's met with dark blonde hair. Suddenly he's pulled back and he's on his knees and there's a phantom feeling that travels from his chest, trailing down over the slight softness of his belly down to wear he longs to be touched the most.
Closer and closer the hand goes. Breath heavy on his neck. His violet eyes meeting green eyes. He turned his neck burying his face into the scent. A dull sweetness. A soft touch on the side of his cheek. His hips buck up and the hand disappears, he whined turning trying to find her.
She was long gone.
He pushed his clothed cock into the mattress trying to find any relief. None was truly given. He shoved his face into the pillows.
He groaned in desperation.
…
1st day of the 11th moon 129AC
"I really did make lighting!" Aegon urged his brothers.
Jace's brows furrowed looking up from his book looking over his brothers. Viserys playing with dragon figurine pulling at Aegon's coat to continue playing with him, and Joffrey playing with Luke with wooden swords.
They were leaving soon anyways. Their mother had told them to stay in the room whilst their things were being fetched.
His eye's tracked Aegon as he pulled his coat from Visery's grip and ran to the window to watch the ship arrive on the Blackwater bay, ready to be boarded in a couple of hours.
"And she showed me how rain works and how to make it! And she also made my hair like this!" Aegon raised his hair and Jace lifted a brow looking over to Luke who's brows were furrowed.
The sound of wooden swords clashing even as Luke wasn't looking. His swordsmanship was improved tremendously. Ever since he was gifted his first real sword by Corlys, he's been practicing nonstop. Jace would join, but running a castle is more tedious than he thought he would be. He can only imagine the amount of paper work he has to get back to.
On top of his studies!
How wondrous it is to be a Crown Prince.
But still, as Aegon spoke of what you showed him, he could not stop the small smile that grew on his face. He remembers being enchanted by you once.
Jacaerys' jaw hung open. Million! Not just one but sixty-five!? Sixty-five million years they have been, well he doesn't know what extinct means. But he does know that 65 million years is a long time. "What does extinction mean?" He asked and saw you look up thinking.
"My Earth is about 4.5 billion years old. Overall there have been five great mass extinctions one of those being the extinction of dinosaurs who were here long before humans." Jacaerys ignored the fact that you said 'your earth' and instead focused on how old it was.
4.5 Billion years! Madness! He's never even heard of a billion of anything.
"I would assume yours is too. All planets in the solar system have been created at the same time, which was the beginning of time. Though it may be different, I'm not sure."
"How, do you know that? How can you know how old the world is or Earth, as you call it. Why do you call Earth and not the world?" He looked at you.
"Essentially in the beginning of time everything was created at the exact same time by a big bang. So that means all the planets were created at the exact same time and that also includes everything else such as the sun and the Stars. Now you could also date the actual Earth itself by taking a random rock but you also have to take into consideration weathering that has happened to the rock that may mess up the dating. So in order to combat that basically we took a small asteroid or a piece of a star and dated that and because everything was made at the exact same time that meant that that piece of space whether it be an asteroid or a star is exactly the same age as the Earth." As Jacaerys listened to you speak he felt his world changing around him. What in god's name was 'carbon-dating?' Also they took a star? What was an asteroid? The beginning of time!? What a big bang?
"What...are you talking about?" Jacaerys muttered.
"It's a whole thing. I take days to explain everything to you. But just know that this dating method is considered highly accurate. Along with that as of right now we are in the midst of the 6th great mass extinction caused at the hands of humans. Essentially we are our own destruction." You nodded with a smile on your face as if you weren't talking about the end of everything.
"Sorry, my world. Not yours, not yet at least." It was predetermined!? He felt like he was being overwhelmed with information.
"Well not if I can do anything about it. Trust, it'll be fine."
Despite the memory, there was a slight sting in his chest. When will be the next time the both of you can be together as you were that night and when will there ever be a next time where the previous night ever happens again?
It is wrong. His marriage is in less than two months.
It does not stop from him feeling warm on the inside.
Luke's raised brow quickly has Jace sitting up straighter erasing the thoughts from his mind.
"She's going to tell me how to tell time today using the sun. She said that one day she'll show me how to map the stars so that when I fly on Stormcloud high above the clouds, I'll never get lost." Aegon sat on the cushion swinging his feet.
Jace made a face. Why have you never offered to teach him these things? Why have you never shown him how to command lighting? Is his little brother stealing you from him? He'll ask when he sees you again.
Hopefully before he boards the ship.
Joff grunted as he was knocked down by Luke. "I was already taught to read the stars by Lord Corlys."
"Did he show you how to tell time using the sun?" Aegon slid off the chair walking over his older brother.
Jace shook his head closing the book watching his two younger brothers.
"Everyone knows how to do that." Luke spoke taking the wooden sword from Joff as he stood up wiping his hands from the fall.
Jace rolled his eyes and called for Joff who walked over to him shoving his shoulder against Luke who only pushed him. Jace gave him a look, which he shrugged off.
How big his little brother was growing. He was nearly as tall as Lucerys, but Lucerys still needs to grow. He was only 14 after all, and Joff only 12. Still, it's obvious the growing difference between the two. Luke was becoming stronger by the day. Sometimes he was too rough with Joff. So Jace took Joff's hands inspecting them for injuries.
"Do you know how?" Aegon's voice sounded and Jace looked up turning Joff around lifting his shirt before looking back down to his brother's back his hands tracing over the light faded bruises. Lately with Joffrey and Lucerys going at it more often, Luke leaves him with bruises.
"Obviously, but the sun isn't out right now so how is she going to teach you?" Luke rolled his eyes pushing Aegon back.
Aegon stumbled back.
"Luke!" Jace said firmly and Luke looked over to him. He gave a sighed going to pick up Aegon.
"How can she tell time at night?" Luke gave a smug smile as his brother squirmed in his grip.
"Put me down or I'll shock you!" Aegon tried to pushed his older brother who only laughed.
"Shock me? How?" Luke held him tighter and suddenly Aegon started rubbing his brother's chest.
Jace paused looking up from his brother's back. All three of his remaining brothers looked up watching the two fight until Aegon finally stopped.
He touched Luke's face and a fast and loud snap!
"Ow!" Luke shouted dropping Aegon has he laughed running back to the window sitting and Luke rubbed his face bewilderment on his features as he looked over to Jace who's brows were raised in shock.
"See, she really did teach me." Aegon leaned back on the window and all four brothers went to crowd him.
"Right, now show us." Joffrey urged and Aegon shook his head.
"Aegon!" Viserys whined and Aegon ran past them to the door.
"She's gonna go show me how to tell time." And with that Aegon ran off.
Jace called out his name. The four brothers stood there before Luke took off after him shouting his name, followed by Joffrey. Jace gave a sigh picking up Viserys and running after his brothers.
All five siblings ran throughout the keep.
Jace slowed down when he heard the grunts of his three siblings up ahead.
Jace turned the corner to see you with with your eyes shut, face wet, and you laying on the ground. All three brothers who were only now just standing up. They had crashed into you whilst your were holding a cup of water.
"Gods above." Jace closed his eyes putting Viserys down and helping you up.
Are you all right?" Jace asked and you nodded giving a small smile.
"Quite, thank you." You wiped your face before looking around, all five brothers looked back to you. "What's up?"
"You told me you'd show me how to tell time using the sun." Aegon spoke and the other four looked to you. Jace saw your expression. One that said you had very much forgotten. "Aegon, you haven't finished packing."
Aegon turned around with furrowed brows.
Luke raised a brow.
Joffery made a face.
Viserys wasn't paying any mind at all to what was being said.
"The maids are packing." Aegon turned from his brother and instead to you.
You only smiled to Jace before kneeling to Aegon's height. "You're right, I did. But there isn't enough of the sun out for a proper shadow."
Luke gave Aegon a look and Jace gave Luke a look telling him to hold his tongue.
"But, I can show you something else." You stood up and turned around face the maid behind you. "Dyana, bring me a glass cup with water and mirror to the courtyard please."
"As you command my lady." The maid—Dyana—gave a bow before leaving.
You turned back offering your hand out to his brother who happily took your hand. "How about I show how to carry a rainbow?"
Jace tilted his head with a small raise of a brow.
You only gave a small nod with a knowing smile.
Luke's brows raised.
Joffrey looked to you.
Viserys walked to you. "I want to hold a rainbow too."
"So you will my prince." You gave a small bow to the youngest prince.
And so all four of his brothers followed you to the gardens in the courtyard.
Soon enough your objects were brought to you, and he watched as you cuaght the weak rays of sunlight on the mirror. You dipped the mirror that held the light into the water and on trunk of a tree appeared a rainbow.
Viserys gave a sound of awe.
Aegon clapped.
Joffrey leaned over your shoulder to watched the mirror.
Luke knelt beside you watching as any small movement you made caused the rainbow to move.
Your hand went to Aegon's back as you pushed him forward. "Go stand over there."
And so Jace watched as all of his brother had their turn having a rainbow on them. He walked over to you sitting beside you. You gave him a smile.
"Don't you want to hold the rainbow?" You asked and Jace simply shook his head. There was a faint glimmer of small speckled diamonds on your face. The rainbow was there to.
What if he reached out and touched it?
"I want to hold it!" Joffrey shouted and suddenly a thought came to Jace's mind.
In less than 2 months he will be married.
He must not!
2 months.
He looked back to his brothers who all played with the rainbow.
2 months and yet his still his eyes drifted back to you. Drifted to the way your earrings glimmered. Drifted to the way the pearls around your neck sat perfectly (Who got your those pearls?) Drifted to the way your hair sat perfectly. Drifted to your scent. Drifted to everything about you.
A small bark sounded and you called for Aegon. He ran over and you handed him the mirror. You stood up looking towards Jace.
He gladly took the invitation and stood up to follow. He promptly ignored the Luke gave him.
2 months.
"Predita!" You called and Jace turned the corner to see you crouched down with a spotted pup. You picked it up turning to him. "This is Perdita. My dog. She was a gift I received while I was in Old Town."
The dog had a collar of matching pearls.
Jace resisted the urge to make a face. He would hope they did not gift your the pearls along with the dog. Especially with a collar of matching pearls. He looked around to the attending workers. They all quickly averted their eyes as you spoke sweet things to the pup who only bathed in the praise.
He swallowed thickly before trying to shield you from looking eyes. "Take the pearls off." He murmured and you looked up, a brow lifted in question.
"Why?"
"Take them off. The dog is wearing pearls-"
"Yeah, they were a matching pair!" You smiled raising the pup to your face. The thing only wagged it's tail unaware of the insult.
This time Jace couldn't resist the cringe that fell onto his face. "My lady, that gift is an insult."
You only blinked.
You hadn't grown up in his world.
Hell, he hadn't grown up in his world. The world he was to inherit one day, but this gift, it far too bold, that even an untrained eye can spot the insult. Can you not see it?
A dog, even with a collar of pearls, is still a pet, still something to be owned, still property.
And you? You wore a collar of pearls matching the dog. You were being called a pet. Property. A collar made of pearls is still a collar. They had gifted the pet a pet. Gifted a dog a dog.
"Those pearls are dog collar, like these." He whispers grabbing the collar of the dog, who licked his hand.
You let out a small sound of understanding. Your brows furrowed and you mouth opened and closed as if you were trying to find words. You came out short.
"Who gave these to you?" Who would dare insult the favorite of the King?
"Never mind that, can you?"
Jacaerys gave a small nod as you turned around. His hands found themselves closer than they have been for a very long time. They head of your neck warmed his hands. He touched you. Such warm skin.
His finger twitched. Swallowing whatever this was, he unclasped the collar from your neck, leaving your free.
You turned around, lips pursed like you were trying to hide your embarrassment.
Jacaerys Velaryon knows the feeling.
He held on the pearled collar. Finally you gave him a solemn smile reaching your hand out while the other held the dog. He dropped the pearls into your hand. The pup reached out it's neck to smell.
Then your name was called. You turned and he watched your shoulders rise slowly, then drop. You gave another smile, a smile that didn't exactly look real, but enough to pass. You walked to his siblings two of whom were fighting.
You took the mirror from Aegon's hand taking it out of the water and moved it so that the light from the sun would shine into Luke's eyes. He yelped and let go of Joffrey who laughed and ran to Jace.
Luke glared at you, and Jace watched as you looked away playing innocent. Though your attempt was unsuccessful as you were unable to keep your smile away when you met Jace's eyes.
You handed the mirror back to Aegon. Viserys came over petting your dog. Joffrey followed soon after. The pup rejoiced in the attention. You kneeled next to his siblings. Aegon still playing with your mirror, Luke playing with the water as Aegon tries to catch the light, and Viserys and Joffrey playing with your puppy. All was as it should be.
Jace sat on the bench watching his siblings and you who sat in between it all.
He smiled. At peace.
2 months.
He pushed it from his mind. Solely focused on you.
“This is a picture, think of it as a moment in time that is frozen forever.”
A picture. A picture perfect view in front of him. His eyes drifted to the gray skies above. A single light drop of water landing on his brow. A very slow rain. Gray skies changed and small rays of run broke through the clouds.
His eyes looked to the Red Keep. A place that will be his home one day. He will be standing at the top of it all, standing on the King's balcony. His balcony. He doesn't know how to feel about that just yet. Luckily, he had time, or so he prays.
But his thought were put to a stop when a familiar figure emerged to stand on the King's balcony.
Aemond Targaryen.
Jacaerys Velaryon watched his uncle looking down to the courtyard. His eyes followed his line of sight. Down to his brothers. Down to you. Down to you and his brothers, whom were together as it should be.
Jacaerys looked back up to his uncle who now looked directly to him. The memory of the dinner all those months ago, still fresh in his mind.
His eyes fell away from Aemond and instead to you, though your eyes were already on him. Only your eyes looked to him. Your eyes shifted left toy your mirror, still in Aegon's hand. Aemond was only briefly seen in the reflection. He watched you closely, the slight bite you gave to the inner of your cheek, the way your lips pursed, the deep breath you took before standing. He especially noticed the way your hands tighten around the pearled collar.
You walked over to the nearby maid, the same one from last time, but in all honesty, Jace can't recall her name. You gave her the pearls and whispered something. She gave a small nod, and he doubts anyone not paying attention would've even noticed the nod the maid gave back.
But Jacaerys was paying attention.
"I must take my leave now," You spoke and you bowed. You walked past him giving him a small murmur. "The 14th."
He gave a nod.
Aegon stood going to extend the mirror back to you. "Keep it. I'll come back for it someday." You told him and with that you walked off, leaving your puppy and mirror with them.
Jacaerys didn't see you again. Not even as he left to board his ship. Still, foolishly, he turned.
It would be a final hopeful glance he would come to regret, because if Jacaerys has planned the Keep out right in his mind, where Aemond stands—shirtless—is where your room is.
And suddenly 2 months came to his mind. 2 months till he is married, and perhaps Daemon did have a point. You played both sides.
So he turned closing his eyes trying to forget, but how can he?
He boarded the carriage to take him to the his ship.
2 months.
He was on the ship back to Dragonstone.
2 months and he would be back from a grand wedding. His wedding.
2 months.
But in those 2 months never did he ever realize he came back with someone new. Someone who was yours to play for 1 of the sides you play.
…
14th day of the 11th moon of 129 AC
Aemond has been with you for four days, never once allowing you to leave the room. You work in your room, eat in your room, sleep in your room, you do everything in your room with him not too far off in the bed once you've recovered.
And within those days, sometimes he allows himself to think of what could be.
You've come a long way since your first meeting. Since your first night spent together. Servants incline their heads if only slightly when you walk by. Lower lords begin to actually speak to you. The commons gather to watch you, if only a small crowd. His father requests you more often. Your presence is there within the council with Vaegon.
Your hand is slowly but surly clawing it's way up the high tower whilst avoid the dragons that surround it. You've been lucky. Luckier than most. The swords that protrude from the high tower miss you, just barely.
He wonders if your hands are bleeding.
They shouldn't be. Not when he is, oh so graciously, helping you climb your way up. They shouldn't be when it is the King's armor that the swords puncture, not you.
What could it be if you obtain permanent armor to shield you from both dragon fire and swords. What could it be he lent you the god's wings? Vhagar's wings.
If he takes you higher, would the swords then turn away from you and instead aid his wants? If he gives you what you want, will you deliver what he wants?
What would a marriage between he and you do?
He stands putting on his clothes. You look up from your desk. Always writing. Back to the papers he saw when you were gone. You add more. He'll ask later.
First, to truly entertain the idea of marriage. A duty he has long put off.
He walked over to you and you stood. Only a robe covering you. His hand ran over your cheek, your eyes closed. He undid the small loose knot around your waist keep the robe together. Pushing open the fabric, it slipped off your shoulders pooling at your feet.
There you stood in a light he's seen you in over a hundred times. The sight never failed to please him. His lone eye focused upon your breasts. You only looked up to him. Aemond gave a pleased hum as his hand went to cup the breast that covered your heart. His fingers traced over the soft skin. His thumb slid underneath your tit lifting it slightly. Slowly his thumb rubbed over your nipple.
You gave a small hiss has he gave a small pinch.
He smiled.
Aemond's hands slid down to your waist then to your hips. He held them firm feeling your body. It was a good body. More than ready for what it was meant for.
For what it must've been bred for. For how else could such a perfect body be meant for anything else?
Though first, he needed you to eat more. You needed more fat on you. Enough to properly grow his heir. Then it would be perfect. He needed more of you to grab onto.
His mouth salivated at the thought. His blood rushing to his cock. Once more. He'll take you once more, then he'll go.
He can imagine it. The way your belly will swell, pretty and round. The way your breasts will fill with milk to nourish his child. His heir. The way your hips will widen. His hands went to his belt dropping his pants just low enough for his cock to srping free.
You didn't want him spilling in you. You had explicitly told him not to. But how you could deny him? But he can understand. You are not his wife. He would not want his first child to be bastard.
He is not Aegon.
But how could he resist the perfect body simply meant to carry his offspring?
He wouldn't spill his seed inside you. Not until by law you were his.
He turned you around pushing you down onto your desk.
Until he could properly spill within you, he would have to do with simply drops hoping it would take. Aemond stroked himself trying to urge coax more of his pre out.
"Explain." He murmured suppressing his grunts as he tried to milk himself as much as he could without you noticing.
"Explain what?" You asked asked turning back.
He pulled your hair pulling you to him having you avoid the sight of his cock. His lips met yours. Sloppy and rushed as he tried to hide himself. He shoved his tongue into your mouth and you gave a groan.
He pulled back, a string a salvia between the two of you. You panted, lips puffy, pupils unfocused. "There." He pointed to the papers. "Explain what it is."
"An aqueduct?" You mumbled. He pushed you back onto the desk to look at the papers.
"Explain." He looked down clenching his jaw at the slick that covered your cunt. His hand feeling in between the fold.
You gave a soft sight as you grabbed a paper. "'s a water sy- ah!"
You gave a yelp as he shoved himself into you hard. Your hand crumbling the paper. Your jaw hung open as he pulled back and again giving another hard thrust into you. The table shook and ink spilled over the desk.
You whined out his name as his hands tightened around your hips, intending to leave bruises, a physical manifestation of the possessiveness that’s been simmering in him all for the past four days since his bastard nephews left.
You try to explain once more but the words are nothing more than broken sounds into ragged moans s he hits a particularly deep angle, your head pressed against desk, your hands struggling to find something to ground yourself on.
Every time he lunges forward, driving himself into you with a punishing, rhythmic force, a new object fell onto the floor from the desk.
"Words. I want to know. To learn. Tell me." He commanded, his his pace quickening, fingers digging deeper into the soft skin of your waist to keep you from running away.
"It's-'s—fuck—filtra" You didn't finish instead letting out another yelp as one of his hands found your bundle of nerves.
"Come on, explain." He grinned, his voice vibrating through your entire body as he reached forward caging you in, pinning you against the desk, papers flying. He hammered into you with renewed, desperate vigor.
Aemond hopes it'll take. Yeah, it'll take. It'll take and then when you come crying to him that you're with child you'll marry in a fast and hasty wedding. And every night he'll take you. Every single night. It makes child birth easier doesn't it?
You're a babbling mess, incoherent sounds spilling from your lips with every heavy thud of his hips against yours. He loves it.
"You're gonna choose me. Me over those bastards." He hummed into your neck, nipping at the skin. "Gonna choose me over your things. Over what's gone now. Only me, yes?" Aemond's losing his rhythm now, his thrusts becoming shorter and frantic. he’s hugging you so tightly you can feel the corded muscle of his forearms pressing against your temples, trapping you in a cage of his own making.
"H-huh?" You whine and take it, take every single snap of his hips against your ass, trying to meet him halfway.
"Mine, by law. Everything, you'll choose me over everything, yes?" he snarls shakily, his entire frame rigid as he pumps inside your dewy walls. "I'll keep you safe, I swear it and you, you'll give me everything. As a wife should."
"Aemond, I-I" He covers your mouth as your eyes shut, small tears falling onto his hand, your drool coating his hand.
"cum for me," he commands, his voice dropping to a dark tone. "show me how much you'll like being mine." That’s the final straw. your vision goes blurry as a massive wave of heat crashes through you. you let out a high, broken cry that’s muffled by his hand, shaking your sure the table will break.
He thrusts one last time, before pulling out bitting your shoulder in annoyance as he pumps himself twice before be spills onto your thighs, the closest thing to your cunt. And maybe if he was lucky, it'd drip into your precious little spamming hole drinking in his cum.
He turned you around as he pulled up his breeches. He picked you up placing you onto the bed crawling over you pressing a kiss to your lips. His head turned to the side, his lips brushing against your cheeks as his hands trailed up and down your stomach imagining the eventual curve it would have once day.
"You won't be around bastards anymore hm?" His hand went dragging his finger tips over your nipples. "I'll keep you away from my mother, from Daemon, from Otto, from everything." His hand rested on your neck feeling the fast pulse. His soft breath tickling your ear. "And in return, you'll leave everything and only look forward with the intent to give me everything. Everything I ask, everything I want, just like you do for the King."
He pulled away looking at you. You simply looked, your eyes wide looking to the side, a small sheen of sweat on your forehead. A small soft clench of his hand around your neck and your eyes snapped back to him. "Unless you've promised my nephew-"
"No." You whispered your hands cupping his face.
Aemond hummed before releasing your neck standing up leaving you on the bed. "I will speak to my father then."
You nodded and he walked to the door. He paused looking back to your desk. "You should clean." His eye turning to you. You only nodded as you stood up slowly.
As he stepped stopping the nearest maid. "Send for a bath in my room." He commanded and walked off. Back to his chambers he went wondering what he would tell his father to let him marry you. He was awfully fond of you, but Aemond has always been well behaved. He's sure his father approved of him.
He pauses by Aegon's room. The sound of objects falling. That maid he's sure. Helaena at this time is with Dreamfyre. Though he's sure Aegon wouldn't care if Helaena was only a room over. This maid had become his obsession. He's never had an obsession before. The closest thing being his love for wine, but it seems he holds this maid closer than that.
"You can the Prince of the people, if you should only show the side I see now."
Aemond's jaw tightened. Was this maid sent by his mother? No, she loves Helaena too much to ever cause her such disrespect. Otto then?
But one thing is clear to him. That maid can't be random. Not with the words she spills. They're trying to prep Aegon, a different strategy than the one they've tried for the better part of the this decade, but prepping him to be King nonetheless.
You've bought his father a few more years. A few more years to properly shape Aegon to be King. To make the title appetizing.
And what can Aemond do? Rhaenrya will not have that throne, but in exchange for his brother on the throne. It would be all the same. Two ahead of him. He looked back to where your room was. You needed to grow faster, or at the very least commit to put him on the throne. Via marriage your interests would align.
Everyone wants to live. You want to live.
Should you marry, and he tries to the take the throne and he fails, the guillotine of treason would not only fall on him, but on you. You'd do anything to avoid that. You're a bright girl. You'd find a way. He doubts you'll choose otherwise.
And if you do, then Aemond will make sure to steer you back onto the right path.
…
24th day of the 10th moon of 129 AC
"I could not even come to clean, he was in here day and night." Dyana spoke and you hummed as you held up a polaroid picture of him. She watched you roll your eyes and shove it in an pocket of a book.
You sat on the floor looking over your things. "Everyday?"
"Yes my lady!" Dyana's brows pinched as you looked through your things. You took out a golden bag.
"Here, take these things and store them away. A place so private I won't know where. These things are very important." You handed her the bag and Dyana nodded before you asked for her help getting up. You shoved the suitcase back under your bed.
"My reports?" You asked as she walked you over to your desk. You were in the midst of recovering from your feinting spells. Your face seemed devoid of any natural coloring. Your hair dry and unkept. Bags underneath your eyes.
You were very tired.
Dyana bit her lip. "They shall arrive soon enough."
Your brows pinched and you tilted your head to look up to her. "What do mean them?"
"I…I needed some help, so I went out and procured help. I only meant for one, but there is two…?" She watched you blink as if trying to understand what she was saying. "I've made sure they'll keep quiet-"
"Dyana!" You hissed and she flinched. You had never gotten angry with her. Sure you've told her to get out, but that was never because you were angry at her, but rather at someone who you couldn't do anything against. "I gave you the assignment! Not people I've never even met before! If I get caught, it's my head! Don't make this any bigger than it has to be! Who are they? Where did you get them?"
"They were whores, from the…street of…s-silk?" The more she spoke your face twisted into horror and shock.
"What?" You stood, your eyes wide, disbelief evident on your face. "What have you done Dyana!? The street of silk? Whores!?"
"I p-pay them very well! They won't speak!" Dyana took a step back as you limped to her.
Your face twisted in anger as you raised a hand. Dyana shut her eyes waiting for the sting of the slap, but it never came. She peaked open an eye, your face still very much in rage, but an attempt to control it. She watched as you slowly closed your hand and instead you stopped your foot and she flinched.
"I leave and I trust you with one task! One! And now you've gone and made a mess of things! Now I must worry over whores!" She watched the way tried to restrain the anger you felt. The way the your teeth bared, the way your nose scrunched like a dog snarling, the tense posture you held. "If you could not do it, all you needed to do was not do it! But how could you not watch one. Fucking. Prince!" Your voice strained as you spoke through clenched teeth and your hands moved erratically.
She was sure you would've hit her by now.
You pointed to the door and Dyana looked back up to you seeing tears gathering in your eyes. "Should those whores decide to betray me for a little more money offered by anyone! The King would not choose me over his children! The Queen will take this chance to have my head! I have a million enemies! All who are vying for my head!" Dyana watched as a lone tear escaped your wide eyes. "I cannot afford to make mistakes because you cannot complete a simple task of simply watching a prince! A mistake is death!"
"M-my lady, I am sor-"
"tsh!"
Dyana went silent as you turned to the side, your eyes moving back and forth before you looked back to her shaking your head as you took in deep breaths to calm yourself.
"Tell me about them."
And so she speaks. Speaks of how she only wanted the Dornish one (though she would not tell you the true reason of why she wanted only her.) She speaks of how Essie runs amuck and doesn't listen. How she entices Aegon more and more.
"Did they say why they wanted to be together?"
"No my lady. They only said they come as one and I pay them extra so they do not speak to the Queen." Dyana watched as you rolled your eyes as you walked to your desk sitting down.
“Dyana.” You rested your face in your hands, elbows on the desk. “You got played.”
Her brows furrowed. “My lady?”
“But it’s fine,” you continued smoothly. “You said only Sylvenna, right?”
She nodded.
“But Essie is taking Aegon’s attention?”
Dyana nodded again, slower this time. She watched as you pressed your tongue against the inside of your cheek, gaze distant calculating how to get out of this.
“I’ll handle it,” you said at last. “And if worse comes to worst, we can always kill them.”
Dyana’s breath caught. Her eyes widened before she could stop herself. You had never killed anyone. You had threatened yourself, yes. Spoken of blood in anger. But kill? “Just kidding,” you added lightly, flashing a smile. “I don’t know how to kill anyone. But they don’t know that.”
Dyana forced a smile in return. “Of course, my lady,” she murmured. A knock sounded at the door.
“Speak of the devil and he shall come,” you murmured, straightening slightly. You gave Dyana a nod. She crossed the room and opened the door.
First came dark blonde hair and green eyes. Then bronze skin, dark eyes, and long, thick, curving black hair.
“My lady,” Dyana announced, stepping aside, “Essie and Sylvenna.” Both women dipped into deep, practiced bows.
“Who’s who?” you asked.
Dyana opened her mouth to answer, but—
“I am Essie, my lady,” the blonde said, stepping forward and bowing again.
“And I am Sylvenna,” the bronze-skinned girl added with a soft smile, bowing beside her.
You only hummed in acknowledgment. Silence followed. The women stood still, their faces arranged into that careful expression Dyana had seen before — pleasant, pliant, empty. The face given to customers.
Dyana glanced toward you. You were staring at them.
A small smile rested on your lips — and then, slowly, it faded. Not entirely. Just enough to turn sharp. Measured. Almost cruel.
The silence stretched. Dyana bit the inside of her cheek.
“So,” you said at last, your voice light. “How have you enjoyed the Keep?”
“We have been busy, my lady,” Essie replied.
“Busy doing what?” you asked.
“Keeping an eye on the princes,” Essie said.
“Princes?” you echoed mildly. “Plural? Who watches who?”
“From what I was told,” you said, your tone cooling, “Dyana watches Aemond. Are you lying to me?”
“We wouldn’t dare, my lady!” Sylvenna blurted, bowing again.
“Then tell me,” you said, leaning back in your chair, “what do the princes do?”
“Aegon drinks himself to sleep almost every day,” Essie said without hesitation. “I keep unlucky maids away.”
“And Prince Aemond?” you asked.
“Prince Aemond spends his days either in this room or training with the knights,” Sylvenna answered.
“And?” you pressed.
The women exchanged a brief look.
“The Queen is not fond of her firstborn son,” Essie continued carefully. “They are always the easiest, my lady. The most common within whorehouses. If you can play the role of mother, Prince Aegon will be yours.”
Dyana felt the air change.
“And Aemond?” you asked.
“Prince Aemond keeps to himself,” Sylvenna said. “Not much can be said of him.”
“Is that all?” you asked softly.
There was a beat.
“The cripple is often around Prince Aegon and his maids,” Essie added. “He is everywhere. I avoid him.”
Silence fell again.
Dyana could not tell what you were thinking. Your face gave nothing now. “It seems,” you said at last, your voice smooth as silk, “only Essie works.” Dyana’s pulse quickened. “I shall keep her,” you continued. You looked directly at Sylvenna. “Sylvenna,” you said calmly, “you are fired.”
Sylvenna did not move. It was Essie who stepped forward. “Then we both leave,” Essie said calmly.
Dyana blinked.
You tilted your head slightly. “Oh?”
“We come as one,” Essie replied. “If she goes, I go.”
A pause. Then you leaned back in your chair, fingers tapping lightly against the armrest. “Very well,” you said with a small shrug. “Then I shall keep Sylvenna.”
Dyana’s heart jumped.
Sylvenna’s composure cracked first. “No.” It was not loud, but it was firm.
You raised a brow. “No?”
“One or none,” Sylvenna said, stepping closer to Essie. Not quite touching her, but close enough. “We said that before we arrived.”
Dyana’s eyes flicked between them.
You watched them both with open curiosity now. “Why?” you asked lightly. “Why would you throw away comfort? Gold? Position? For… her?”
Essie’s jaw tightened. “Because we are one.”
“You are not conjoined,” you said mildly. “You are two separate bodies. Two separate mouths. Two separate futures.”
“Not in this,” Sylvenna said quietly.
There it was. Something unspoken but heavy. You saw it. Dyana saw you see it.
Essie straightened. “If you dismiss her, I will go to the Queen.”
Dyana’s stomach dropped. The room stilled. You did not even blink. “Please, you wouldn't even reach the first floor,” you said conversationally. “I'd have your head before you even found the stairs."
Dyana’s breath hitched at the cold certainty in your voice. She knew you could not command that, but yet it seems as if you could, if only for this moment.
The women faltered for half a second, just half. “You wouldn’t dare,” Essie said.
You smiled. “Wouldn’t I? You don't know me. You know stories, but you don't know me. I care little for whores. I'm not one to get along with them.” You shrugged. "Bad experience a couple months ago."
Silence pressed in again. “This is a bargain,” Essie said carefully. “You pay for two. You get two.”
“I pay for one,” you corrected smoothly. “One shall suffice.”
“No,” Sylvenna said.
“One,” you repeated.
“No,” Essie echoed.
Back and forth. Calm words. Steady tones. Dyana could only imagine just how angry you'd be with her. Damn the whores!
“You were prostitutes,” you said finally, your tone turning cool. “You used to sell yourselves nightly. Yet this is where you draw the line?”
“We do not sell each other,” Sylvenna replied. The answer came too quickly. Honest.
Your smile returned. “Very well,” you said, folding your hands neatly on the desk. “Let us make this simple.”
You looked directly at Essie.
“I will give you a household of your own. Silks. Jewels. Enough gold to never work again.” Your voice softened. “All you must do… is the work I ask of you, only for a year give or take.”
Essie did not look at you. She looked at Sylvenna. Dyana followed her gaze. Sylvenna’s fingers had curled slightly into the fabric at her side. Not touching Essie, but close enough to want to.
You noticed. “Think carefully,” you continued gently. “Comfort. Safety. Freedom. You leave tonight with a purse heavy enough to buy a house anywhere in the seven kingdoms.”
Essie’s throat moved as she swallowed.
“And you?” you asked, turning to Sylvenna. “I can offer you the same. Twice as much. Stay. Let her go.”
Dyana felt heat crawl up her neck. The silence stretched long enough to to make Dyana sweat.
“No,” Essie said.
“No,” Sylvenna echoed immediately.
You leaned back again, studying them. “I will triple it,” you said. Still no movement. “Quadruple.”
Essie’s hand moved then, not toward you. Toward Sylvenna. She took her hand. “We said one or none,” Sylvenna said.
"Are you sure? This offer will not come again. You two are replaceable. I don't get my way, I could just kill you both here, in this very room and find someone else." Dyana watched your face. Long gone was the tired face, and now a look of absolute confidence. Why? Dyana doesn't know. "Are you really willing to die for each other?"
The women said nothing. You pulled out a letter opener. "If I throw this very sharp letter opener," You pointed it at Essie and Sylvenna tensed. "At her, will you," The knife pointed to Sylvenna now. "jump to take the hit? Even to the face?"
Again the women said nothing and you gave a shrug and pulled your arm back to throw the knife. Dyana's eyes widened in horror and both women screamed hugging one another to hide the other.
Dyana watched you cringe. "Too much?" You stood up giving a small groan. "Sorry. I've had a really bad couple of weeks. Needed an outlet. I was never going to kill you." You walked over to the two women who stood clutching one another. "Alright. Two. I value loyalty. This I can work with. Again, I am sorry."
Slowly and cautiously, Essie straightened, though her fingers never left Sylvenna’s.
“You frightened us,” Essie said.
“Yes,” you replied plainly. “That was the point.” Dyana swallowed. You turned, walking back toward your desk, setting the letter opener down with deliberate care.
“I will take both of you,” you continued, your tone calm again, almost pleasant. The women said nothing.
“But,” you added, glancing at them over your shoulder, “understand me now.” The air shifted. “If either of you so much as walks in the direction of the Queen’s chambers with the intention of telling her anything about this room, about me, about what is said here—” Your voice did not rise. It lowered. "I will hurt you in ways no one has ever hurt you before.”
Dyana felt the chill crawl up her spine.
"Because I do not take kindly to others playing me, as I'm sure you did not enjoy me playing with you." You sat back down with a calm face. “From this moment forward,” you said smoothly, “you belong to me. If I fall, you fall. Without me, there is no you. Understand?"
They nodded.
"Good, now get back to work." You had been so cruel. You had never been this way before. Was she next? Dyana watched the two women exit. "Dyana." She bit her lip in worry. "Come here."
She walked to you with her head down. "My lady,"
"Dyana relax. Nothing's gonna happen. Here's what we're gonna do." And just like that, your cruel face was gone and instead the face she had grown to take comfort in. A smile that taught her to read. Eyes that gave kindness when teaching her to read. The same woman who goes out giving food to the poor, and tells stories to the orphans and children in the street. "You're going to pretend you hate me. You're scared of me. You three will bond over shared fear and hatred of me. You'll take that, and you'll be my ear inside. I'll separate them eventually. One of them will take comfort in you. Then I can use them as I please."
Pretend to hate you?
"Though I am very much still unhappy with you. Your choice in women is not bad. You've given me yuri, and now I will doom them. Nothing like doomed yuri, don't you think?"
Dyana doesn't know what yuri is.
…
14th day of the 11th month 129 AC
The woods breathed around them — tall pines whispering overhead, sunlight breaking in fractured gold across moss and stone. A narrow stream cut through the clearing, water sliding over smooth rock in a steady, silver murmur. Vermax stood near the bank, wings half-furled, his scales catching the light like burnished emerald.
Jace smiled as Vermax nudged his ever growing snout against his chest. He's only just arrived to your agreed spot. Though it isn't long before Vermax looked over his shoulder and in the distance he can see two horses.
His brows furrow. Was that you?
Vermax growled. Jace's view was obscured as Vermax's large body stepped over him in protection.
A man on a brown horse, and cloaked figure on a spotted horse. The cloaked figure held out a hand, and the man on the brown horse stopped. The spotted horse came closer. It slowed as the figure's hand went up in surrender, before pulling off the hood.
It was you.
Nothing elaborate. Your hair was as it always was, no complex hair, not veil, just you wrapped in a dark cloak. You dismounted your horse as you stopped. "He won't eat me right?"
Jace grinned. "He might."
"I'd rather he not." You turned to tie your spotted your horse to a nearby branch before walking over to Jace.
"Who is he?" Jace murmured as he held Vermax's head as you held out your hand slowly and cautiously, ready to retract your hand at any moment should Vermax decide to bite.
"He's a friend from Old Town." You smiled as Vermax allowed you to touch him. You stepped back motioning your 'friend' forward. He looked around the same age as you, perhaps younger. His face is still young. "It's the funniest story on how we met-"
The painter had barely dismounted before he let out a mortified groan. “My lady! I beg of you!” the man called, clutching his satchel to his chest. “It is already shameful enough you have seen me in such a state!”
You grinned, wicked and unapologetic. Jace lifted a brow. You leaned toward him and whispered, “Whorehouse.”
The word was barely air between your lips. The painter’s face turned a violent shade of red. Even from a distance, it was visible beneath the forest light.
Jace looked from the man back to you. “You were in a whorehouse?” he asked flatly.
“Yes,” you replied easily, brushing stray leaves from your cloak. “With Prince Daeron, actually.” You turned toward the painter and gave a small nod. “Set up there. The light falls well from the west.”
The man hurried to obey, kneeling near the stream where the light struck cleanly across the clearing. He began unpacking charcoal, parchment, small jars of pigment.
Jace ignored him entirely.
“Daeron?” he repeated, the name tasting sour. “Gods. How long has it been since I’ve heard that name?" He rolled his eyes, gaze drifting briefly to the trees as if memory itself were an irritation.
“You’re not fond of him,” you observed lightly.
“He and I never got along,” Jace replied. “Despite the King’s efforts.”
You tilted your head. “And what efforts were those?”
Jace stepped closer to the stream, boot nudging a stone into the current. “We are milk brothers.”
You blinked. “Milk brothers?”
“We had the same wet nurse,” he explained, glancing back at you. “Raised at the same breast. The King thought it would bind us.”
You laughed softly. “Oh, how funny. Forced brotherhood.” A pause. “He is quite funny, though.”
Jace scoffed. “Is he?”
“I don’t think he likes me much,” you added.
“No fault of yours, I’m sure,” Jace replied dryly. “Daeron has always been… sensitive.”
You winced faintly. “No, I am quite certain it was my fault.”
Jace narrowed his eyes slightly. “What did you do?”
You hesitated — not out of fear, but calculation. “His mother slapped him because of me,” you said. The stream seemed louder suddenly.
Jace stilled. “Why?” he demanded. “What did you do to anger the Queen so thoroughly?”
You waved a hand vaguely. “Oh, nothing severe.”
He waited.
You sighed. “He kidnapped me.”
The word fell heavily between the trees. Jace’s head snapped toward you. “He what?” Vermax lifted his head at the sharpness in Jace’s voice, nostrils flaring.
“Yes,” you said, far too calm. “Though I cannot fully recall why. Or perhaps I simply do not care to.”
“Kidnapped?” Jace repeated, incredulous. “By Daeron? By the Seven—what in the world was happening in Oldtown?”
You gave a small shrug. “In any case, I convinced him he had taken the wrong girl.” Jace stared at you. “He confessed he was in love with me,” you continued lightly. “Or rather, in love with the stories of me.”
You turned toward the painter, who was now sketching Vermax’s profile with quick, practiced strokes. “Include the dragon,” you instructed. “Multiple angles. His wings — capture the span.”
The painter nodded quickly. “Yes, my lady.”
Jace was no longer listening to him. “In love with you?” he asked, voice lower now.
The stream kept moving, indifferent. Jace did not. The forest seemed to hold its breath as you met his eyes properly this time — no teasing, no careful court-smile.
“Well,” you began, almost thoughtfully, “actually he wasn’t in love with me.”
Jace’s jaw tightened. “Then why say it?”
“It was a farce,” you said with a small shrug. “An excuse. He couldn’t very well tell a random girl why he had truly taken her, so he made up something poetic.”
“Taken,” Jace repeated quietly.
“Yes.” You stepped closer to the water’s edge, watching the current catch light between stones. “I don’t know how he figured it out,” you continued. “But I was going to leave. I thought I had convinced him he had the wrong girl.” A faint, humorless smile touched your lips. “He took me to the makeshift dragonpit he keeps for his dragon.”
Jace felt something cold settle beneath his ribs.
“He called my name,” you said. “And I paused. Out of habit.” The wind shifted through the trees. “That,” you added dryly, “is what got me.”
Jace didn’t interrupt.
“I tried to run,” you went on, your tone steady in a way that unsettled him more than panic would have. “And then—” You made a sharp motion with your hand. “Boom! Dragonfire! It nearly took my face off.”
Vermax lifted his head, sensing the word even if not the context. The scent of smoke seemed to linger in Jace’s imagination. He stared at you, searching your features for scars.
You noticed. “I am fine,” you said lightly. “Mostly. My chest does hurt from time to time. Maybe from the stress. ”
His hands had curled into fists without him realizing. “And after?” he asked.
“We stayed gone longer than we should have,” you replied. “Long enough to cause concern. When we returned to the Hightower, his mother was not pleased.”
“That would be an understatement,” Jace muttered.
“It is also important to note,” you added, glancing at him sidelong, “that I was under the care of Ser Criston when I was taken.”
Jace’s eyes narrowed. “He let that happen?”
You ignored the question. “In any case, the Queen thoroughly hates me,” you said. “If I make a mistake, it will be my head.”
Jace studied you carefully. “Why?”
You hesitated — and for once, it did not feel calculated. “I honestly don't know,” you admitted. “Perhaps I breathe incorrectly.” You gave a small smile looking to him.
He huffed a quiet laugh despite himself.
“So,” he pressed, “how does this end with a slap?”
You clasped your hands behind your back, rocking slightly on your heels. “I told her he took me because he was in love with me.”
Jace blinked. “You what?”
“I needed a reason that made me seem powerless,” you said plainly. “A foolish girl stolen by a lovesick prince.”
“And she believed you?”
“She hated it,” you corrected. “She slapped him.”
Jace exhaled slowly through his nose.
“She hates me that much,” you continued, almost musing. “Enough that the idea of her son loving me was worse than the idea of him kidnapping me.” Silence settled between them, broken only by the scratch of charcoal as the painter worked and the steady rush of the stream.
“And after that?” Jace asked.
“He was not pleased with me,” you said. “A few weeks later, I forced his hand to help me the day before I left to find him.” You nodded toward the painter without looking at him. “And that was that.”
The painter, wisely, did not react. Jace stared at you.
“So you told the Queen her son was in love with you,” he summarized slowly. “He nearly burned your face off. She slapped him. And now you are surprised he dislikes you?”
You smiled faintly. “I did say I am not certain his ire is entirely unearned.”
The breeze shifted again, lifting your cloak slightly. Sunlight caught in your hair, unadorned, unguarded. Jace stepped closer, boots pressing into damp earth near the stream. “You could have died,” he said quietly.
You held his gaze without blinking. “He was never going to kill me. Much less hurt me.”
His jaw tightened. “You couldn’t have known that.”
“But I did.”
“How?” he pressed.
You lifted your shoulders in a careless shrug. “Woman’s intuition.”
“Don’t lie,” Jace said flatly.
You gasped softly, a hand rising to your chest. “I would never.”
His expression didn’t change. “How did you know?” he asked again.
You studied him for a moment, then exhaled through your nose. “I just did,” you said. “Besides, at the time I was still under the impression he loved me.” A faint, crooked smile touched your lips. “You wouldn’t hurt someone you love… would you?”
Jace didn’t answer. His eyes shifted away from you and towards the painter by the stream, charcoal scratching steadily across parchment.
He seized the change in subject like a lifeline. “So,” he said, voice returning to something more guarded, “why is he here?”
You followed his gaze. “Can't I have a portrait of you?”
“Why would you want a portrait of me?” Jace asked.
You tilted your head, studying him in the open daylight; dragon at his back, forest at his shoulders. “Because I like you,” you said simply.
Color rose along his neck before he could stop it. He looked away, jaw tightening as though that might steady him. “Not that much,” he muttered.
A slow smile curved your mouth. “Who’s to say I don’t?”
Jace forced himself to look back at you, ignoring the pounding of his heart. “Because,” he said stepping closer to you so that the no one else would hear his words but you. “I saw Aemond standing shirtless at your window.”
Your smile fell. The forest seemed to sharpen around the silence that followed. “What?” you asked, too evenly.
“I was in the courtyard, before I left to board the ship.” Jace said. "I looked up. He was there.”
He watched you closely now, not teasing, not flustered. Watching. “You seemed… comfortable,” he added. Vermax shifted behind him, tail brushing leaves.
You held his gaze for a long moment before speaking. “He trains,” you said finally. “He sweats. He owns no shirts half the time.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“No,” you agreed quietly. “It isn’t.”
The painter’s charcoal paused for a fraction of a second—then resumed.
Jace stepped closer again, lowering his voice so that the stream may cover his words. Words he does not want to speak and even less hear answers for. “I have always ignored Daemon's sayings, but I must ask why. From where does he get those notions?” he asked. “Another story?”
Your eyes flashed. “Will you take Daemon's words?” you asked softly.
“His words are the only thing I get.” Jace challenged. You said nothing and the stream rushed louder in the quiet. “I am not assuming anything,” Jace said. “I am asking.”
“And if I told you it was none of your concern?”
His throat worked. “Then I would still ask.”
You studied him, really studied him. And he? Well he is a prince. A dragonrider. A boy trying very hard not to look like a boy in front of you. He tries to stand tall.
“Aemond, increasingly, is a fatal mistake I can't seem to reverse.” you said at last. The words did not sound dramatic. They sounded tired. You sounded oh so very tired.
Jace stared at you. “And how,” he asked carefully, “did you go about making this mistake?” You didn’t answer. “What is it you’re doing?” he pressed. “What are you trying to build?” He couldn’t understand you anymore. Not like before.
The last time he had truly spoken to you — truly — you had been bright, almost absurdly hopeful. You had spoken of silly things and impossible dreams, of wanting to be something soft and golden and untouched by this world.
Now you stood in a forest beside a dragon, speaking of fatal mistakes.
"I don’t know,” you admitted quietly. Your gaze dropped to the sand at the stream’s edge, the toe of your shoe tracing idle patterns in the damp earth. “The truth is,” you continued, “I have no idea what I’m doing. I have never been good at planning ahead. I fare better in reaction. I can think fast, but not far.” You glanced toward the painter, who worked in careful silence beneath the trees. “This,” you said, nodding faintly toward him, “is me trying to think far.”
“For what?” Jace demanded. He cannot understand. He cannot understand what you're trying to do. Do you seek power like everyone else in that god forsaken Keep? Do you seek love? The last time, he truly spoke to you, you were filled with bright and innocent optimism. You wanted to be Barbie. Do you still wish to be Barbie? Is this who Barbie is?
“For my life, Jacaerys,” you said, finally lifting your eyes to him. “I am planning ahead for my life.”
You played both sides, that much was clear. The Greens. The Blacks. Aemond. Him. Jace was not naïve. He knew the court murmured. He knew alliances shifted. But what he could not grasp was why it mattered so desperately. His mother would take the throne. That was the natural order of things.
Why fight what was already decided?
“Then why commit a fatal mistake?” he shot back. “Why go to Aemond when—” When I am here. He swallowed the rest. He exhaled sharply instead, lowering his voice. “Why Aemond?” he asked again.
“I was stupid,” you said, the words quick now, almost defensive. “Young and stupid. I didn’t know what I was doing. I was naïve. I thought everything would simply… work out, like it always does. That even if I couldn’t go home, I would be fine.”
“You are still young,” Jace insisted. “Not even a full year has passed. You are still innocent. Are you not?” He stepped closer. “Or has the Keep rotted that out of you?” he asked. “Has it turned you green?”
Your brows furrowed, mirroring his anger. You shook your head once. Then you turned away from him and toward the stream, staring at the water as it slipped endlessly forward. “Your mother is a good mother,” you said more quietly. “She keeps you and your brothers sheltered. Safe. But one day — hopefully — you will sit the Iron Throne.” You glanced back at him. “And one of those days you will learn not to look for innocence under that roof.”
Jace opened his mouth, but you continued.
“I was not innocent in my world,” you said. “I was young, yes, but I grew up there. I understood its rules.” You gestured faintly around you. “Here, it is as if I was born only months ago, but those months feel as if it's been years. I have had to learn everything from nothing. I have had to adapt and yet I am still failing." Your voice tightened. “I have nothing to my name. No house. No lands. No army. Only my life — and the fragile favor of a dying King.”
The stream rushed louder in the silence between you. “I made one mistake,” you said. “One. And if I am not careful, it will kill me.” You dragged your hands down your face, exhaustion breaking through at last.
You had dragged your hands down your face then, pressing your palms hard against your eyes as though trying to push the future away.
“No,” you had corrected, voice thinner. “It is going to kill me.”
“Then come with me.” The words had left him before he could weigh them.
You looked up at him now, midday light catching in your eyes. “And go where?”
“To Dragonstone.” A breeze carried the scent of damp earth and pine between you.
“To do what?” you asked. “I cannot stay there forever.”
“If I will it, you can.”
Your gaze flickered, not dismissive nor mocking. A simple flicker of what could be. “The King will call for me,” you said. “I have made promises. Promises that grant me my life. If I fail, my life will be forfeit.”
“The King is dying,” Jace replied quietly. “You said it yourself. I will keep you safe.”
The sun bathed you in it's light. The bright color of your dress underneath the dark cloak. Eyes that the sun warmed, skin the sun kissed, hair the sun shinned in, the was drawn to you.
“From Daemon?”
“From Daemon.”
“From Alicent?”
“From Alicent.”
“From Otto?”
“From Otto,” he said, stepping closer so that the stream’s spray misted faintly against his boots. “From anyone. From the whole world if I have to.”
Sunlight shifted again, hiding behind the leaves from the evergreen trees, it cast a shadow upon your face. The dark circles within your eyes widening covering the color of your eyes. Worry was reflected in your eyes. A tightness at the corners of your mouth, as though you were bracing for something inevitable. A faint crease between your brows that had not been there months ago. Your jaw held just slightly too rigid, as though if you relaxed it, everything would fall apart.
But beneath it was hope. Careful and fragile, like a flame cupped against the wind.
“You want your life?” he said, softer now. “I can give that to you. Come with me. You always said you liked Dragonstone better than King’s Landing.”
“It’s cold there,” you murmured.
He almost smiled. “It is.”
“And it doesn’t smell.”
“It doesn’t,” he agreed.
The midday sun warmed his shoulders, but a tension coiled tight in his chest.
“Come with me,” he said again, quieter this time. Choose me. He didn’t speak it aloud.
But it was there, in the space between the two of you, in the way his hand twitched as though resisting the urge to reach for yours.
You didn’t answer immediately. You stilled. Your eyes moved back and forth search his face, not wildly, but carefully, as though you were walking a narrow bridge only you could see. He watched your throat move as you swallowed. Watched the way your fingers flexed slightly at your sides.
The stream rushed on. The painter kept sketching.
Jace held his breath. What was there to weigh? Safety. Freedom. (Love, if could afford it.) Him. And still you hesitated.
His hand twitched again and your eyes closed giving a sigh shaking your head. "I can't."
Jacaerys jaw clenched. "Why?"
"Because it's too late."
His hands flew to cup your face. Damn the painter and damn whomever saw. "It's not." He looked into your eyes. They were wide as his thumb stroked your cheek. He ignored the voice whispering '2 months' in his ear. "Please come with me. Leave it all behind and come with me."
Your hands fell over his as you held him. "I can't. Not now, not ever."
He pressed his forehead to yours. This was improper, terribly improper. His heart knows it, he knows it, but Jacaerys does it anyways. He relishes the way his heart beats wildly holding your face, being close enough to smell you, that same smell he's been chasing since the first time he got to smell you. He relishes feeling your soft skin against his, feeling your cheeks fill his hands. "The only for a day. Let me have one day to show you what life would be like with me. Only for day. Do not refuse me." He mumbled his lips brushing over yours.
He can imagine them. The way he imagined them all those months ago where he was forced to take care of himself when you left him hard and aching. How could you leave him like that? A cruel woman you were. The first woman he's ever had. The first woman to make him yearn.
Jace closed his eyes brushing his nose against you pleading for you to say yes. Just for the day, he'd show you everything. You won't go back. You won't want to go back. He's sure of it.
His face stayed against yours. The warm skin against his. The sun now bathing you both. He feels warm. Whether from him, you, or the sun he isn't sure. Your breath is fanning across his cheek. It's reminiscent of something sweet and just underneath a coolness. He steps closer, close enough he could finally feel the warmth radiating off you in a stark contrast of the cold winds of the final moons of the month. With every breath, his chest meeting yours ever so slightly. Your bodies just grazing one another.
2 months call him, but this call is louder. His hands fall from the sides of your face and instead go to cup your face. His eyes closed breathing you in, his mind visualizing those ugly purple marks Daemon told him about. He wonders if his hand can erase such marks. Never will your skin be discolored under his own hands.
His hands warming your cold neck. Holding it softly trying to keep you here. All it takes is a single nod, a single breathe of a agreement.
He cannot bear to wonder if someone else were to hold you in this same way. But why? He cannot love you. You cannot love him.
2 months.
2 months and his mind, body, and soul will and should belong to someone else.
He hardly knows who you are now, you hardly know him. You cannot know his thoughts, he does not know yours. Does not know what you're after. You both have only spoken, truly spoken a handful of times. Yet, you are so deeply, and intimately intertwined with him.
He knows what you are. Something he is sure no one else knows. Even if his damned uncle knows your body, Jacaerys knows Aemond does not posses the prowess to understand your mind and soul.
He only has one part of you, and Jacaerys is so close to obtaining the rest of you, so close to keeping back the you he first took to Dragonstone and was full of bright ambition, confident you could change the world.
Jacaerys knows your curiosity, your wonders, your fears, your sadness, your ambitions. Knows more than he sure anyone knows.
It's why he knows you'll say yes. It's why he knows you'll stay. It's why he knows to creep even closer until finally your bodies press against one another and you nod.
How intimate you are with him. He is your friend yes, but if there is such as intimate friends, you and he would be the first to create such a thing. As he flies you to Dragonstone leaving the painter behind.
2 months and yet being in the air with you, you seem to devour his entire being as you lean back against him. Vermax flies higher and higher until you both soar above the clouds. A view of heaven. A view only those who are closer to gods than man are to see.
Jacaerys looks down to you and you look up to him. The color of your eyes on full display as the light seems ever drawn to you, as if it too, is completely devout to your very existence.
The flight is silent save for his beating heart trying to match the rhythm of yours. His breath replicating yours. His hair flying just as wildly as yours.
A sense of familiarity washes over him. In this exact position, months ago, once more. Though only this time, he hopes not be left.
Surely you will not leave him. Now for a second time. Surely you will not leave him because he pulls you against him and you feels so perfect against him, so surely you cannot leave him.
You cannot leave him because you only look to him even as Vermax landed on one of the many ledges that so happened to lead to room where the Princes of Dragonstone are to do their duties. But you are not his duty, in fact, you are the complete opposite. Your entire being is a stark contrast against the dark walls of Dragonstone.
His own clothing blends with the walls. He is meant to be in this room, you are not. He is meant to sit at the desk that you now sit atop, you are not. You are not meant to be here, but here you are. Jacaerys is not meant to cage you against the desk where all his important work is done, but here he is.
You both are not meant to hold one another, yet here you both are. Your hands tangled into his hair, the hair you told him to grow out, and here he is, one hand relishing the warmth of sitting right below your left bosom, feeling your fast heartbeat and the other holding you to him. Your legs are not meant to spread to provide him room to stand between them, but yet there he stands, and he swears he can feel the intense heat coming from whats between your legs, and it sends a strong jolt of desire to his nether regions.
You both are not meant to be in such a position, not meant to just barely brush lips, not meant to begin to lose yourselves, but what is meant to be there is a well timed knock and the voice of the woman whom he will belong to in 2 months.
Baela Targaryen.
You push him away as you spin on the desk and land on the other side. Jace clears his throat as he sits trying to hide the dent in his pants. He calls for her to come in and so she enters.
The color she wears belong in the room. Dark blues and blacks she is dressed in. Perfectly blending in with Dragonstone, where she is meant to be.
"Oh!" Baela looks to you, and you are standing with a bowed head. "I hadn't realized you were here."
"My lady," You stood straight offering the seat.
Baela only shook her head. "I had come to ask Jacaerys if we were to still go dragon riding to Driftmark, with Luke."
Jacaerys nodded and watched as your cheeks puffed up before letting out the air.
"I will send for dragon keepers to prepare Vermax as well then." And with that Baela stepped out.
Jace gave a sigh, his head falling into his hands.
"She completely slipped my mind." Jace looked up as you turned to him.
And Jace would stand, he would, but the moment is gone, but there is still very much a pulse of desire within him and he rather you not see. He called your name and you gave a small smile.
"Shit." You murmured as if suddenly understanding where you were. You turned your back to him and though he couldn't hear you, he imagines you're swearing because he can only hear foul language from you. Though finally you turned to him. "This is awkward, but I have to go back, like right now. This isn't supposed to be an all day thing. I needed to actually measure the hill."
Jace remained seating trying to will himself down and given the circumstances, it was working, slowly! But working nonetheless. "Why would you want to go back? Why go back to my uncle who-" He stopped seeing an expression on your face, he had never seen. An angry expression.
You always gave him a look of joy or happiness, sometimes confusion or shock; but never anger. But your eyes are slightly narrowed, and a slight scrunch in your nose. And maybe if he looks closer, he can see a small look of embarrassment and shame within you. Jace closed his eyes and called your name.
You shook your head. "It's fine, I don't even know know what you're talking about."
He called your name once more, this time standing. Everything back to normal. "You needn't lie to me. I only wish to help-"
"I don't need you're help. I got myself into this mess, I can get myself out." You turned away from him again.
Jace closed his eyes trying to find his composure. Mess. The word echoed in his head. So his uncle's words did have some merit to them. “You did not get yourself into anything,” Jace said, more firmly now. “If he has harmed you—”
“He hasn’t.” The interruption was immediate and your back was still to him. He could not see your face, could not see your expression. Anything to let him at the very least try to understand you. "Do you honestly think I'd let any man lay their hands on me and get away with it?" Your head turned and he was left to try and decipher with only one side of you. "I don't care if he's the King's son."
"But Daemon and-" He began and you stopped him.
"Prince Daemon is an unreliable source. He doesn't like me. He'll say anything to make me look bad. You'd think he'd be more grateful considering I saved the damned thing." You hissed out and Jace's brows furrowed.
Would dare use such language when speaking of his baby sister? His jaw ticked. "I would remind you, you speak of a Princess."
"How many times have I saved Daemon?" You finally turned to him, the only thing visible was resentment and anger. "Rhaenrya, Vis-" Your clenched your jaw. "Visenya, and his brother, the King. Though I think he would've preferred I let him die."
Jace's eyes darted to the door then to you. He stepped forward, bewilderment on his face. "You speak of treason. Mind your tongue. Daemon is fond of his brother."
You scoffed. "Yeah, so fond of him, he fucked his daughter. Brother of the year."
Jacaerys said your name firmly. You may be a favorite of the king, be a desired of a prince (2 really but Jace ignores that.) but you are still just a woman. No one, not even a noble can speak of any member of House Targaryen in such a manner, least of all you.
You swallowed closing your eyes giving a bow. "Forgive me my prince."
Jace gave a sigh his hands going to your shoulders looking at you. Anger still present, but only to hid your shame. You were lashing out, as he does when his parentage is mentioned, when someone picks at his flaws, at things that make him flush in embarrassment and shame. His hands rubbed up and down the side of your arms feeling the fine silk. Slowly his hands went upwards as he continued to look at you. Anger and anguish, fear and shame, all such ugly things, yet they do not dull you.
His hands trail over your neck, then finally to cup your face once more. "I only want to help."
He watched your eyes, the windows to the soul. They were closing. Closing yet your eyes remained on him. Your hands grabbed his own. "My decision is final. If you want to help me, truly—you will help me get back as soon as possible." You pulled his hands away from your face. "And after that, you and I will never speak again unless it is under formal obligation." You stepped back.
Were you really choosing Aemond over him?
You walked out the door.
It seems you had.
…
31st day of the 10th to the moon of 129 AC
Dyana watched you seethe as you paced back and forth, the hem of your gown whispering sharply against the stone floor with every turn.
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner!?” you demanded, hands dragging through your hair before flinging outward in frustration. “I would’ve—” You stopped yourself, jaw clenching. A sharp breath escaped you. “I didn’t know he was a fucking—” You cut yourself off again, pressing your fingers to your temple. “God! You’re telling me I’ve been friends with him all this time?”
You turned toward Dyana fully now, palms out as though questioning not her, but the very world that had allowed it. Your disbelief was not performative. It looked almost… wounded. Dyana bit her lip, shame heavy in her eyes. She had not meant to burden you. Had not meant to see you unravel like this.
You noticed immediately.
Your expression softened, and you crossed the room in three strides. “Sorry,” you said more quietly, reaching for her hands. “No. It’s not your fault. I just…” You swallowed. “I hate not knowing things. I hate that this was happening under my nose.”
Your thumb brushed her knuckles reassuringly before you stepped back, forcing composure over your features like a veil. “Forget it,” you muttered, shaking your head as though physically discarding the anger. “How are your friendships coming along with Essie and Sylvenna?”
“Quite fine, my lady,” Dyana replied carefully.
It wasn’t entirely untrue.
The girls were almost always together, folded into one another like two halves of the same thought—or else carrying out the quiet tasks you assigned them. Yet sometimes they sought Dyana out in corners and corridors, whispering frustrations of life within the Keep. Of long hours. Of expectations.
Of you.
How hypocritical you were.
Admired by the sept, whispered about in reverence by those devout enough to claim you touched by something holy and yet you spent your evenings in laughter and wine with a prince of the realm. A man everyone has their suspicions you are bedding. Dyana had leaned into it. Just as you had told her to. Soft sympathy. Gentle suggestions.There were other ways to live. Other futures than the one laid at your feet. You had predicted Essie’s reaction before Dyana ever attempted it.
“She’ll look to Sylvenna,” you had told her. “A smile on her face, or happy eyes.”
And you were right. Dyana had watched it happen. Essie’s eyes lighting for a fleeting second before she glanced toward Sylvenna, offering her that small, knowing smile.
“It was just as you said,” Dyana admitted now. “She is around…” She bit her tongue before finishing.
You only nodded once. “Here.” You moved to your table and returned with a small vial. The glass was dark, nearly opaque, the liquid within thicker than water and faintly iridescent when it caught the light. “You’ll give this to Essie to wear when she goes to bed that drunken whore.”
Your voice was steady. Almost clinical. “Tell her it will stir appetite in him. Make him… attentive.” A faint curl of your lip. “She is to wear it where he favors most. Kissing, licking, whatever.”
Dyana stared at the vial, then back at you. For the first time since she had known you, there was a real hesitation in your gaze. It was subtle. You knew what you were about to set into motion. You knew it could not be undone.
Your hand tightened around the remaining vial on the table. Your jaw flexed once. You closed your eyes briefly, then gave a single, resolute nod—more to yourself than to her she thinks. “They’ll be heart broken to be split. You’ll comfort them. Push the idea more. If she earns Aegon’s love, she can do anything. After all, if Queen Alicent succeeds, Aegon will be King. A mistress to a King is a good position to have.”
A knock echoed against the chamber doors. You didn’t startle. You merely lifted your chin. Dyana crossed the room and opened them.
Essie and Sylvenna stepped inside together, shoulders nearly brushing. Essie’s eyes flickered nervously across the room, while Sylvenna’s remained sharper, assessing.
They bowed in unison. You let the silence stretch just long enough to make Essie swallow. Then, slowly — very slowly — you smiled. “Sylvenna,” you said, your voice smooth, almost pleasant.
She straightened and stepped forward at once. “My lady?”
“I found a position for you.” Your fingers traced idly along the edge of the table. “You’re going to Dragonstone.”
Sylvenna blinked. Essie’s head snapped toward her. “What?” Sylvenna breathed.
“I require eyes there,” you continued evenly. “Reliable ones.”
Sylvenna’s throat bobbed. “M-must I, my lady?”
You tilted your head slightly, studying her as though the question itself amused you. “For what I am paying you,” you replied calmly, “if I asked for the sun to be placed at my feet, it would be done. But I am not asking for the sun.” Your gaze hardened a fraction. “I am asking for reports.”
You stepped closer.
“All of them,” you said quietly. “The princes. The princesses. Every lord, every lady, every servant. No one on that island will so much as breathes without me knowing of it. Do you understand?”
“Yes, my lady,” she answered, though her voice wavered.
You watched her for another moment, then arched a brow. “I am not reaching for the stars, am I?”
“N-no, my lady.”
“No,” you agreed softly. “You are quite right. I am not. So you will do precisely as you are told. Yes?”
Sylvenna hesitated, only for a second, before giving a firm nod. “Yes.”
“Good.” You turned away from her as though the matter were already concluded. “Pack your belongings. The ship leaves tomorrow evening. You will be on it.”
Essie’s fingers curled tightly into the fabric of her skirts. She had gone pale. Slyvenna bowed, turning around.
“And Slyvenna?” You called out and she turned to you once more. “Remember, if you get caught, not only is it your head, but also hers.” Your eyes shifted to Essie who looked to Sylvenna. You gave a small smile and nod to go along. “That is all,” you finished, dismissing them with a small motion of your hand.
They bowed again. Essie lingered half a heartbeat longer than she should have before Sylvenna gently caught her wrist and guided her out. The doors shut behind them with a muted thud.
Only then did your gaze shift back to Dyana.
Your expression did not change.
“Now,” you said evenly, “you will do as instructed. Give Essie the vial. Be her comfort. She will be very heartbroken without her lover.” A faint pause followed before you broke out into a small laugh and a genuine smile took over your face. It never failed to surprise Dyana just how you were able to act in front of the two girls and then return to the woman she’s always known. “Gosh, I wish you had seen Devil Wears Prada. You could tell me how good my impression of Miranda is. Wish I could've found some other ways to copy her lines." You posed. "Florals for spring? Ground breaking." You raised a brow and Dyana only tilted her head. "Or! Or this one! Tales of your incompetence do not interest me. Oh but this is my favorite: by all means, move at a glacial pace, you know how that thrills me."
You laughed once more leaning back. "One day, I'll find a way to use those. One day."
…
14th day of the 11th moon of 129 AC — King's Landing
"I've already spoken to her of this." Aemond watched his father. His eye never once looking to him and only focused on his set of Old Valyria. "She has no desire to marry. In fact she says she is solely devoted to me." Only when it has to do with him and someone praising him, does his father turn to Aemond. As if mocking him. "I will not force her to marry, but when she does, I will recommend you. She will marry into House Targaryen. I will see to it."
"Would it not be best now father? She is older than most ladies when they are married. You must consider the risks of being with child at an old age." Aemond walked around standing behind his father's set. "Marry her to me. Who else is there? She is closest in age to me."
"Daeron for one. I heard they got along splendidly from your mother." Aemond resisted making a face. Was his father truly mocking him? "If she is old, then she must have a young husband. Joffery is young, and has no prospects of marriage. He will be knight. A marriage as prestigious as this would do him good." He must be. His father cannot seriously think Joffery should marry you. A bastard!? For you? Unthinkable. "As for your marriage prospects, you mother has a say. She envisions a Baratheon, to qualm their fury over Rhaenys."
A fucking Baratheon? With him? Aemond Targaryen, rider of Vhagar, Queen of dragons, the last symbol of Aegon's conquest, only as a fucking constellation gift!? "No." His mouth moved before his could understand what he was saying.
Viserys looked up to him. "You'd ought to bring such protests to your mother then. It is not I who decides your marriage, but I will decide that should you change her mind, you'll be free to marry anyone you like so long as they consent as well."
His jaw clenched before giving a bow and exiting the room. He'd have a word with his mother. What business does he have with a Baratheon? What does he care for wounded pride of a lesser house?
But before he speaks with his mother, he must have you speak ti his father. Aemond is sure you will.
You'd consent. You had told him that very morning. You will choose him over everyone else. Marriage will only make it official. He will give you what you need, and you will give him what he wants. He opened the door to his and entered through Maegor's passage way to you room.
In your room, he found you maid tending to your clothes. Some girl he couldn't be bothered with to remember the name of. "Where is she?" He muttered as he looked over the, now, neat stack of papers. The same ones he had made a mess in the early morning with you.
"She's gone out my prince." She spoke and he kept looking through your things.
"Where?" He took a seat in your chair and laid out your papers to read them and try to understand once more.
"She did not say my prince."
He only gave a hum waving her off. His eye scanning over the document he had in his hand; route planning. And so he read. Read until he could not understand what was being said. Read until the sun went down and you still were not back. Aemond opened your drawers looking until he found a map. A red circle on a hill just west of the Keep. Had you gotten lost? He rolled his eye going back to his room and ordering his horse to be prepared.
As Aemond rode out, he wondered what exactly it was that took your time. He was aware you needed to find a way through the hill as he read in one of your papers, but how exactly you were to do that. You hadn't written it down, and if you did, it was unfortunately out of his realm of understanding.
It does irk just how much more you know. You are closest in age to him than anyone else, and he has spent his life reading, yet you seem to know infinitely more than he ever will. The same span of time, and yet you have bested him and all the maesters in everyway. Even his granduncle comes to you with questions. Most of your time is now spent with him. Always in a chamber with his granduncle.
Aemond heard stories of Vaegon. Small things from the maesters who wrote history. His words about his sister Daella. What was it that the history books said he had said?
"I would never marry her. She can barely read. She should find some lord in need of stupid children, for that’s the only sort he will ever have of her."
He gave a small laugh as he rode out. Daella was quite the stupid girl. Could not even read, let alone memorize the simplest of prayers and in the end she chose a dull lord to marry and died a death as unremarkable as her and had a daughter that would follow in her footsteps. And if the gods were good, her granddaughter would follow suit assuming his uncle would do his 'duty' once more to his niece.
Why shouldn't she? She had already followed in the footsteps of of being simple minded as her mother and grandmother.
His granduncle was right. Stupid children and grandchildren were all that Daella gave.
He wouldn't know what to do with himself if he were given a stupid wife, and the Baratheons have never produced anyone of excellence, so he doubts any woman his mother suggests will be anyone remarkable.
As the horse rode forward, his eye focused on the horse he gifted you. What was it that you named it? Pongo no? The horse only stood, the grass around it already eaten. It's clear it had been left here for some time. So where were you?
He looked over to the nearby river. His eye catching claw marks. Dragon claw marks. Aemond made a face as he dismounted his horse. He bent down touching the ground. Then off in the distance he heard the familiar roar of Vermax.
Aemond clenched his fist.
Aemond Targaryen did not want a stupid wife, but it seems the gods were eager to give him one.
You.
A stupid girl who went off with his bastard nephew after warning you more times than he cares to recall.
Idiot.
…
14th day of the 11th moon of 129AC — Dragonstone
Aegon ran through the halls of Dragonstone. His lessons were finished for the day. Today, Baela and Jace agreed to have him ride to Driftmark with them. Stormcloud is now just big enough for him to ride. His mother was younger than him when she first mounted and rode her own dragon, it is time he rode his.
He rounded the corner and bumped into someone. But before he could fall, hands grabbed him. He looked up and to his suprise, he saw you.
You with sad eyes with unspilled tears, and the white of your eyes red. Aegon murmured your name. You smiled back kneeling before him. "Prince Aegon."
His brows furrowed looking at you. "Are you going to cry?" His small hand went out touching just underneath your right eye. Your skin was soft and his hand drifted to close to your eye. It closed on instinct. Your lashed tickled his finger. He pulled his hand away giving a small laugh.
"No. I am not going to cry." You stood back up offering him your hand. "Come. Show me Dragonstone."
Aegon took your hand but paused. "I cannot. My brother is taking me to Driftmark with Baela and Luke. Viserys is riding with Jace. Will you come?"
There was a long silence. Aegon does not know you. He knows you can do magic, and that you know more than his silly teacher, but it is all he knows of you. He does not know that his father has taken to speaking ill of you to Rhaenys and Corlys of your 'attempts' to seduce Jace, the future husband to Baela. He does not know that Rhaenys nor Corlys hold you in favorable regard. He does not know that nearly every Valyrian within the royal family does not like you and would rather see you dead or gone forever.
"To Driftmark? No." You finally spoke letting go of his hand.
"Why?" Aegon's eyes went down to your hand that had left his. One of your fingers was misaligned. There was a small callous on it. Barely visible. The same one his teacher had. The same one Jace now had. The same one Jace said that Luke would one day have when he was Lord of the Tides. The one from writing too much.
"I am not aquatinted with Princess Rhaenys nor Lord Corlys. It would be inappropriate for me to go. In any case I will be returning to King's Landing soon." The both of you stood still within the halls and Aegon nodded. That did make sense. But why were you here in the first place?
"Prince Aegon." A dragon keeper called him. "Lady Baela and Prince Lucerys have taken to the air. Prince Jacaerys is ready to mount when you are. Stormcloud waits for you near Aegon's Garden."
He grabbed your hand again and pulled you towards the garden. You smiled following him. Aegon was eager to show you his dragon. He wasn't very big yet, but Aegon knows his dragon will grow to be the fiercest of all. Soon enough you both left the dark halls of Dragonstone. In the gardens by the statue of the three great dragons used to conquer Westeros was Stormcloud. His long tail swishing over the wild roses that grew there.
You stopped and Aegon was pulled back, his smaller statue unable to pull you where you did not want to go. You let go of his hand and Aegon looked back to you.
The sun broke through the clouds and the gardens soaked in the sunlight. It blinded him for only a moment. He looked back to you. Shadows over took you as his eyes tried to adjust to the light. Tall you stood, but as his eyes adjusted, your mouth was parted in awe as you looked towards his dragon.
Aegon pride swelled at your reaction. His dragon was a grand one.
A shadow crossed over your face. You looked up and the wind from the dragons blew your dress.
The wild roses stirred around you, their crimson petals brushing your skirts. And for a moment Aegon thought the flowers had been planted only for you — their color mirrored in the faint redness of your eyes, the deep bloom of them soft against your skin.
You looked like you belonged among them.
Aegon ran to his dragon mounting it to have it join Baela, Luke and Jace so that you too could look up at him with such awe.
…
15th day of the 11 moon of 129 AC
Has he not been merciful with you? Has he not given you twice as many chances than any other man would ever dare to give you? Must you insist in spitting in his face every time? Do you take him a fool!?
Must you insist on disrespecting a prince of the realm!? Who are you to do such a thing? You are no one without him. Without him, you'd be long dead! So why do you do this to him? He has been kinder than anyone else in his position would be. Do you seek to anger him!?
You entered your room. It's only just become today, he's only just come back from trying to search for you. There he was like a fool looking for, whilst you frolic around with his bastard nephew.
"Aemond?" You spoke and it infuriated him. How you do it, how you manage to turn him into a sputter angry mess he does not know.
"Prince Aemond." He corrected you. You would address him properly and learn just who he was and who you were.
He watched pause before giving a small bow. "Prince Aemond." You corrected yourself. Aemond leaned back against your chair. Of course it wasn't truly yours. It was the King's. You don't actually live here. You don't have a home. You're a guest. A guest that insists on disrespecting not only him, but his great house. "What's wrong?"
"Don't you have anything to say?" He continued to look at you. Your eyes looked back and forth around the room, your brows furrowing. You shook your head. Your expression was so believable. When did you become such a good liar? How many other things have you lied to him about?
"I have nothing to say my Prince." You spoke as you took off the cloak your wore revealing a dress he's sure he nephew took great pleasure in seeing you in. Mayhaps if you had not done so, he would've believed you, but to see you in such a dress, for merely measuring a hill.
His hands flexed trying to control his anger. He called you name as he looked up at you. "What did you do? What were you doing all day yesterday."
You paused and it gave you away. If the dress had not already. If the dragon's roar had not already. Your pause and a slight smile he swears is mocking, did. "I was measuring a hill. It took longer than expected."
Your head ducked down and Aemond let out a huff as he slammed his hands on your desk then standing. He watched you flinch as you looked to the floor. His hand lifted your chin up. "Look at my face." Your face was pinched in worry and fear.
If you fear him so, why continue to do these things!? He does not prefer to treat you in this way, but it seems to be the only thing you respond to. It is the only thing you do to him. You drive him mad!
"I know you were with that bastard." He murmured and your brows furrowed. He pushed you away looking away from you desperately trying to cling to reason when you are the sole reason he cannot.
He heard your small cries and he rolled his eye at your act. "No, No I didn't do anything! I wasn't with him. I don't know who is telling you these things but they lie! They're trying to slander me!"
"Who would dare to do that!" He yelled turned around to face you once more.
"Your mother! Otto! Daemon! All of them!" You were panting as tried to make yourself small in front of him. But who are you? How dare you? Accuse his mother of such a thing? The Queen Consort of the Seven Kingdoms. His grandfather, hand to the King, even fucking Daemon, Prince of House Targaryen. From where do you gain such insolence!?
You make fools of all of them. Make a fool of his mother using his father and him. Making a fool of his grandfather using the King. Make a food of Daemon using Rhaenrya. And now you make a fool of him. His anger had him grabbing you by the throat. "Why do you insist on humiliating me!? Why!? You have made me a fool! I went to look for you, and who did I find you with!? With that fucking bastard!" He shook you and your hands found his forearm trying to pry him off as you cried. "Chance after fucking chance I give you? And what do you do? You squander it away every time without fail!? Are you daft!?"
You shook your head as best as you could. You could breath, it was a testament that even now he refrains from truly hurting you as any other man would in his position. He called your name and you opened your eyes. They were red. "You've betrayed me. You betrayed me!" You shook your head again as you let out a sob. "I will make you pay for this. I could kill you right here!" Aemond lifted his hand to strike you but pushed you away instead.
You fell to the floor. Aemond turned away from you still seething in anger.
Something pulled at his coat. He turned as you grabbed the bottom of his coat, still on the floor as you continued to shake your head. "I didn't! I would never! I swear it! On everything, I did not! I chose you! Just as you said! Just as you asked!" Your tears rolled down your face as you tried to speak. "Forgive me. I only went to tell him no! I swear!"
He ripped his coat from you as he bent down looking at you. Your flushed face, red rimmed eyes, tears still leaking from your eyes. "What did you tell him?"
"That he and I will never speak again unless it is a formal obligation." You sniffled looking up to him.
Aemond would spare you the questions of asking why that you require you to mount his dragon. Instead he only nodded, his hand cupping one of your cheeks. "Is that what you told him?" You nodded and he hummed. "You swear it?" You nodded again, your hand going to cover his as if trying to convince him, but there was only one thing that would convince him now. "On everything, you said you swear it."
You nodded. Aemond gave a sigh. His other hand went to cup your cheek, his thumb wiping away the tears that flowed as he nodded. He leaned in kissing your forehead, then inhaling your sweet scent. That sweet scent that is uniquely yours. That same scent that has ruined any other woman for him. As he inhaled you, his grip on your face tightened and you gave out a small whimper. "You chose me over everything, just as I asked you?" He muttered against your hair and you nodded. He smiled against your head and kissed your forehead once more. "Go to my room then and wait for me there."
You nodded and he let you go. You stood walking towards the hidden passageways. He called your name. You stopped and turned to him. "Not that way. Out through the door."
"But-" Aemond cut you off with a raised hand.
"You chose me over everything. You to are be my wife then. What does it matter if my wife enters my chambers?" He watched you closely, every small movement in your face. Finally you nodded and left through the door.
Aemond moved and took out everything under your bed tossing it onto your bed. Everything that was from your 'home.' He looked through your desks and only found papers and ink. He looked over your papers.
He tossed those onto your bed as well. Your 'fan' he gabbed and tossed it onto the bed, your sweet scented candles were put out and tossed onto the bed. Your soaps, and brushes were all tossed onto the bed. He called a servant ordering them to put in into a bag and then ordered them to give it to the dragon keepers to put it on Vhagar.
Him over everything you said no?
He walked to his room finding you on his bed. You were leaned against the bed frame, one knee to you chest, and the other folded under you. He walked over to you standing tall above you. You looked at him with such wide innocent eyes as if pleading to him. Despite this, he could not trust you. You have played him for a fool for the last time. However, if he cannot have you fully then at the very least, you shed your layers until you stand naked before him, so that there is nothing to hide from him.
He pulled you from the bed. You gave no fight. You stood in front of him. He looked down your dress. His hands touched the material. He wonders how much of it his bastard nephew has sullied it. A shame. This was one of your new dresses, from the Hightowers. Far too Hightower for him. The style, the way it sat on you. All of it screamed of the Hightowers attempting to claim you. You almost remind him of his mother in the dress.
He undoes a small button of the bodice. He sits on the bed. He watched you as you undid the rest of the buttons of your dress. Stripping everything until you were left naked in front of him. Nothing to hide. Nowhere to hide it. His lone eye looked over your skin searching for anything that suggests that bastard did more than touch your clothing. He found nothing. You simply stood still.
He ordered you to come to him. You stepped over the clothes that were pooled around your legs and walked to him. His hands grabbed your waist as he spun you around. His hands taking extra care as they held your hips. Hips that would soon widen he hopes.
Aemond spun you back around letting go of you. His eye looked over to the fire place. "Burn the dress." He watched you bend down, turn and walk to the fire place and toss it into the flames.
He stood and walked behind you rubbing your arms as you both watched it burn. He walked you back to the bed and laid you down. He covered you with the blankets and slid in beside you.
You turned to him still looking at him with those eyes of yours. The ones that plead your innocent. He never looked to you. His arm lay flat and you rested your head against in coming close to him. He swallowed his annoyance. Yet another attempt to plead your case.
Aemond simply looked up imagining what he would do to you later today. It'd have to be early, or perhaps late at night. Hours pass, his hand rubbing over your bare back, your chest pressing against his side with every breath you took as you fell asleep.
Eventually he slid his arm out from underneath you. He turned on his side watching you sleep. He pushed you onto your back. You did not wake, or if you did, you did not show it. Slowly his hand traced from down your throat, to your breast, then lay flat against your belly. He tried to imagine what it would feel like swollen with his child.
Up and down his hand went over your belly until the dark sky became a dark glowing blue. It began to rain. He looked back to you. You'd need to eat more. You'd need meat if his child was to be strong. He'd handle it after the wedding. Handle it after today. Get you to agree to marriage between him and you to his father.
No lady from House Baratheon would ever see his bed, much less his cloak around her.
He changed into his riding clothes and ordered maids to fetch yours as well. He woke you handing you the clothes along with water to wash your face. A brush was there along with a piece of fabric. You held it up. "I need my-"
He only gave you a look. It shut you up. You did the best you could with what was given. You got dressed and he pulled you out of the room. "Where are we going?"
He only gave you another look, and again it shut you up.
Before long you both had arrived to Vhagar. You climbed up the ropes, panting as you sat in front of him. He gave the command and Vhagar took off. You both flew around aimlessly until he landed his dragon in a clearing. You slid off of his dragon and Aemond took your things from where they were fastened.
Once you were on the ground, Aemond tossed the bag down. He's sure more than a couple of things broke from the sheer altitude he tossed them from. He came down from Vhagar and walked to you. Vhagar stood tall as she let out a huff of steam. "Open the bag." He commanded you.
You walked over to it and knelt down on the ground opening it. Aemond herd your gasp.
"My camera." You muttered as you frowned bitting your lips. It was shattered. You looked up to him, tears welling up in your eyes. You looked through your things, perfume bottles shattered, spilled over your things. The last of your modern clothing soaked in perfume, your purse, your airpods soaked, your apple watch cracked, your sun glasses broken, shampoo bottles burst open over your things, your papers that you had spent countless hours on ruined. But one thing remained. Your Polaroid pictures.
He watched you take the book and open it as you looked through the things. You were crying as you looked through the pictures. "What are you doing?"
"You're not stupid are you? I wouldn't take kindly to having a stupid wife." Aemond muttered as he walked to you. “I warned you there would be a price. And still I do not believe you. I do not believe you have forsaken all for me, nor that you would swear it.”
He watched as you face dropped in horror as you hugged the book filled with the portraits. "Please Aemond." You whispered out. He watched you try to hold yourself together.
"I told you to never go near the bastard and what did you do?" He muttered his hand creeping towards the book in your hand.
"Please I love you Aemond. Please." You begged and he ripped the book from you tossing it to the side.
"Tell what did I tell you?" He watched you bite your lip trying to calm yourself.
"Not to go near him." You whispered and he gave out a hum.
"And what did you do?" His hands grabbed your hair keeping you to him.
"Go near him." He could feel your breath on his cheek as you spoke. Could feel your tears dripping down your face.
"And what else did you do?" You humiliated him. That's what you did. You always manage to sweet talk your way out of such things, no matter what you always escape. Not this time.
"Nothing."
His grip tightened on you hair as he pulled you back laying you on the grass by your things.
No longer could you stop yourself from crying as he rested himself atop you. You turned your head to the side as you cried. Aemond called your name in a warning tone. "Tell me what you did."
"I didn't do anything!"
"Vhagar!" Aemond called and she opened her mouth her teeth bared letting enough steam to leave a sting of burns. He felt you squirm under him in pain. Targaryens run hot. Fire cannot kill a dragon. This steam does nothing to him, but what are you? In the face of a dragon, who are you? “My flesh will bear the flame better than yours. I will call her to loose her fire. Now tell me, what else have you done?”
"Please stop! Please stop it! Stop it!" You pleaded as the heat grew from Vhagar's mouth. Aemond felt nothing, but you? He knows that this heat is unbearable to those who are not blood of the dragon. Aemond gave a nod as you shook your head. "I kissed him!"
He paused and Vhagar let flame into the hair. He got off of you. That was not the answer he looked for. He had examined you all night, there were no marks. Did you hide them? No, you had known he'd look. You probably instructed his nephew to not leave marks. "Whore." Aemond hissed. He took a step back, his face twisting in disgust.
You sat up sobbing.
"I should burn you alive for this betrayal! If only to cleanse you from a bastard's touch." He could kill you—no, he should kill you. And he can. He turned to Vhagar. The dragon opened it's mouth again and you screamed scrambling away.
He watched you cry and beg for him to stop. That you'll never do it again. That you love him. There was still a light rain, but the sun was out. From behind was a faint rainbow. The faith came to his mind. More than half of Westeros worshiped the Seven. House Targaryen only feigns to, but regardless of that. With enough support, if you fully commit to the Seven you can give him what he wants.
But he doesn't want you as you are now. Aemond's lone eye looked back to you, disgust heavy in his throat. He watched as you cried and begged. You were pathetic. It was disgusting to watch. This is you, but—his eye looked to your things. Things that kept you tethered to your old life. No, this is not the you he envisions. This was you.
Either you die by fire cleansing you from the touch of another man, or you burn that past you away. Never to be seen again. Your family, your friends, that man in your pictures kissing you, everything. All gone and you become anew. Anew and no one will touch you but him, no one shall use you but him.
Just as Vhagar was about to release a sea of flame he gave the command to pause.
Aemond closed his eye walking to you. "I will forgive you." As he said the words your eyes widened.“But only if you swear to burn away what came before. No Strong shall lay claim to you. No past between us.” He motioned towards your things, The last things of your home. The last of you. "Give the order for dragon fire and I will forgive you. Become anew for me, and I will forget everything. We will start from nothing, and we'll do it right."
Aemond stepped back. "Or, I will give the order to burn you and these things. Now tell me, shall I speak the order, or will you?"
He watched you shake your head. "No. No I can't. Please it's all I have from my home. A home I will never see again! My family which I will never see again! All I have are those photos! My friends! Please you can't ask that of me!" You yelled running to your things. Vhagar gave a small flame separating you. You screamed and fell back. Your skin still hot from the steam earlier.
"Please, I cannot give up my family! I cannot give up my life! It's all I have! It's all I have to my name! Please!" You groveled on the ground begging.
Aemond shook his head before giving a sigh. Fine, have it your way.
He closed his eyes.
You looked up to him and looked up towards Vhagar who looked to you. Your eyes darted to your things.
Aemond's mouth opened and the light from Vhagar's mouth grew brighter.
You closed your eyes resigning to your fate.
"Dracarys."
…
No one really cried, in fact, no one really cared, but he did. The boy did as he held in his tears as pilled dirt onto the the plain casket.
He muttered the prayers of the Seven.
May the gods rest the soul.
Note: They say a man who yearns earns. Not Jace tho, tough luck....
WOOO ts took forever!
But finally, bruh, we're here. Lowkenuinley ditched writing a two papers due on Sunday to finish ts, but worth it!
What do we think! Also could you tell I was running out of things of what to say to about Aemond's POV 💔
Also longest chapter yet! Beat the 20.1k I had. I didn't do 25k, but yk what? 22k is close enough😭
+ funny little meme
+memes about this chapter I did bc I got lazy and couldn't finish ts in Feb
Oh and if you haven't alr check out my Side stories and Visuals!
Ik you alr did a modern reader with Dunk, but I was hoping to see more. Preferably the version of her we know now, if it's not too much to ask.
AHAHHAA YES OKAY! I can do that.
So Dunk obviously isn't the brightest, so I don't think he'd know exactly who she was since the majority of the mass-produced paintings of her are her in her 30s+.
So safe to say he is very confused.
Lets says she appeared in the middle of Ser Arlan's burial. Like mid prayer or some shit.
"I wish you didn't die Ser" Dunk tried his best to hold in his tears, but what would it matter? No one would see, but...
"Holy shit, pinche aguacero." Fucking downpour
Dunk heard a voice and he turned swiftly, shovel in hand.
"Hell nah, I'm not catchin' a cold. I'm going back." He watched a woman turn and then watched as her hands went up. "What the fuck! Where the fuck is fucking castle!? Holy shit! A-fucking-gain!? Man, how many times is this shit gonna happen to me! Where the fuck am I?"
Dunk heard you yell. Watched as your hands dragged down your face as you continued to yell. Then watched as your own hands went to your neck as you choked yourself against the tree, letting out one final loud groan. Your eyes looked over to him, and immediately your hands fell.
"Oh my god. I am so sorry, I had no idea you were there! I'm so sorry." Your hands covered your face as you walked closer to him. Though you paused looking at the shovel in his hands, then down to Ser Arlan. "Oh no! Is this a funeral? Oh my god, I'm so sorry for interrupting. My condolences for your loss. I-I'll take my leave now."
And with that, you lifted your skirts and without Dunk ever saying a word your left, rain pouring over you.
You stayed in Dunk's head as he lay in the grass. Who were you? And where did you come from? How hadn't he heard you? And good gods, you had a mouth on you. He doesn't think he's ever heard anyone, let alone a lady, speak so harshly.
He assumes you're a lady. You had a well-tailored dress, and it looked to be of fine material, and, well, you had a coat unlike one he's ever seen. It was...puffy? And the hood of the coat was lined with fur. No commoners, as far as he saw in his travels, has fur lined anything. The fur was inside.
Even on the road, he wonders where you've gone. He beats himself over it now. You're a lady; it's never safe for ladies to walk on their own. Even if he is going to the tourney at Ashford Meadow, if he escorts you home, mayhaps your family will employ him.
Well, Dunk wouldn't find you now, but it didn't stop him from daydreaming about being your sworn shield. Being employed for a big, wealthy house, he'd win tourneys and crown your queen of love and beauty, and in turn you'd grant him as much food as he could eat.
He bit into his duck, looking around the inn when the door opened. He looked up and couldn't believe his eyes. It was you!
"Fucking finally." He heard you speak and the woman who served him came out again.
"Sit where you'd like, mi'lady," The woman gestured, and Dunk only stared at you. You sat at the nearest table. "Anythin' to eat?"
"What do you have?"
Dunk heard a strange zip as you took off your coat and set it down beside you. He watched the inn woman's eyes go wide. Hell, Duncan's eyes went wide as well. Gold on top of gold necklaces covered your neck, and on your ears, he's surprised they haven't fallen off, how much gold you have on them, and your hands. He hadn't noted the number of rings you had. He imagines you have many gold bracelets as well.
"Good lamb roasted with a crust of herbs and some ducks my son shot down. Which will you have?"
He watched as you rested your head on your hands, looking up at the woman. Lo and behold, he heard the sound of bracelets. "Don't suppose you have anything not meat?"
How strange. No meat?
"Just wine mi'lady."
You nodded. "Just wine then."
The innkeeper walked off and reached for a cup on the shelf. She looked in all of them, and Dunk looked back at you. "Actually, sorry," You stood up. "I'll just take a room. Nothing more."
"Mi'lady?" The woman asked and you looked to her once more.
"Is there a river near here? Somewhere I can bathe? Or drink water? Oh! And if there is, can I buy a pot off of you?"
"No, but in the town there is a bath house, and there is a drinking fountain right behind the inn."
You paused. "Really? Like an actual drinking fountain?"
"Yes Mi'lady. There's an aqueduct that leads straight towards Ashford. The final aqueduct completed before the death of our-" The innkeeper smiled touching the pendent of the Seven.
"Really!?" Your hands landed on the table hard. "That's wonderful. Wha-? Who made it?"
"Our holy one." The innkeeper looked at you as if you were dumb.
Dunk could agree, who wouldn't know the woman who brought clean water and good health to all of Westeros?
"What's their name?"
The innkeeper paused. Dunk paused, too. The name of their holy one was rarely spoken. In fact, if Dunk remembers right, they didn't even like to be called by their name, so not many people know it. But Dunk remembers, because it's a pretty name. Should he ever have children, should he ever be blessed with a daughter, that's the name he'd give her.
He spoke your name, and you turned. Your brows furrowed before rising in recognition. "Oh, it's you! I told you my name?"
"No, mi'lady, that is the name of our holy one." Dunk raised a brow.
"Oh, that's cool. We have the same name." You turned to the innkeeper and nodded. "Anyways, just a room is fine." The innkeeper nodded and walked off. You walked towards Duncan, sitting down in front of him. "Again, I am so sorry for interrupting. I really had no idea you were there. I didn't even know where I was." You extended your hand, and he cleaned his hands with the provided rag. "I'd give you my name, but it seems you already know it. What's your name?"
He shook your hand. "Dunk."
"Dunk? Like Duncan?" Your hands were soft, as he would expect a lady's hands to be.
"Y-yes. Ser Duncan is my name." He cleared his throat and you smiled nodding.
"You're a knight then?"
He nodded, then swallowed his embarrassment. "H-hedge knight." He looked up to you, and your smile remained. You gave another nod.
"That's cool." You looked down at his plate, smelling the duck and lamb. He watched you lick your lips.
“Are ye hungry?” he asked, tearing off another piece with his fingers.
He blinked at that, then shrugged and held out his flask. “It’s water from the drinking fountain.”
You smiled and accepted it. “Thank you.”
He watched as you tipped it back. The water poured neatly into your mouth, though a few careless drops escaped, sliding down your chin, trailing slowly over your throat and disappearing beneath the collar of your dress. Dunk looked away quickly, clearing his throat as he reclaimed the flask.
“No.” You screwed the cap back on and handed it to him. “I’m not from here.”
“Essos, then?” Dunk asked around a mouthful of duck. He chewed, swallowed. You deliberately looked away from the plate.
“No. Farther.”
“Farther than Essos?” he repeated aloud, frowning. “What’s farther than Essos?”
You gave a small shrug. “My home.”
"Why are you here then?" Here in an inn, here in front of him. Just here. Why here?
"Your guess is as good as mine. I have no idea what I'm doing here, nor do I know where I am or what I'm gonna do." Your lips pursed as you leaned on your hand.
"Why not go home?" He took a bite of the lamb and once again your eyes focused on the food.
“I can’t,” you said. “It’s too far.”
“How far?”
You tilted your head. “You have guns?”
“Guns?” Dunk echoed, baffled.
“Yeah.” You sighed when he only stared. “I figured. Then time-wise, it’d take me a couple of centuries to get home. And I don’t think I can live that long.”
“Centuries?” he repeated, voice rising.
“Centuries,” you confirmed. "And even then, it's not my home, only my time. My home has never and will never exist here. My family, my friends, everything is gone."
Dunk was very confused. You didn't seem keen on explaining. Were you mad? Mayhaps. You didn't seem it, but your words did.
Dunk stared at you, utterly at sea. You didn’t seem mad. Not truly. Your voice was steady. Your eyes clear. But the words themselves…
“Would you be able to live?” you asked quietly.
He met your gaze.
Your lips trembled, fighting a frown.
“Knowing you will never look at the same stars and moon as everyone you’ve ever known?” you continued. “Knowing you will never be buried in the same soil as those you love? Never breathing the air you first breathed, and never feeling the sun of your childhood?”
Dunk found himself thinking—truly thinking. He pictured Ser Arlan. The old knight’s grave beneath unfamiliar trees. He might not be buried beside his master, no—but at least in the same lands. The same world. The same sky.
He thought he might go mad.
“Well,” you said suddenly, forcing brightness back into your voice, “that’s too depressing. Gosh.”
You straightened, waving a hand as if brushing the whole thing away.
“And you’ve already buried someone today,” you added with a crooked grin. “That was inconsiderate of me. My bad, champ. Never mind what I said.”
Dunk stared at you a moment longer.
Then, slowly, he pushed his plate a little closer to your side of the table.
“You can have some,” he muttered gruffly.
You smiled and shook your head. “Thank you, but I’m okay.”
“If you’re worried,” Dunk said, wiping his fingers on a cloth, “inns are required by law to follow Her Holiness’s teachings in serving food and cleaning food.”
Your brows lifted. “What would the teachings say?”
“All food, all hands, and all necessities used to cook must be cleaned with holy water,” he replied matter-of-factly.
“Holy water?” you echoed.
“You light a fire and pray over the water,” Dunk explained, gesturing vaguely as if shaping steam with his hands. “Steam rises and collects at the top. That’s the holy water, leaving behind the impurities. Ser Arlan would always make me bathe every day with holy water.”
You blinked.
“Distilled water? Bitch, what the—?” You straightened in your seat. “Oh, she’s goated. My girl, bro. Made drinking fountains, bathhouses, aqueducts, and has y’all cleaning with purified water? She’s ahead of her time. Wha—? I’d love to meet her. Where does she live?”
Dunk stared at you, trying to follow even half of that.
“She died,” he said slowly.
Your face fell instantly. “Oh. That’s a bummer.” You sighed. “She seems great, though.” Then you brightened again. “If that’s the case, I’ll just get my own.”
Before Dunk could ask what that meant, you were already turning.
“You,” you called to the innkeeper, who was wiping down a nearby table. “You said your son shot down ducks? How long ago?”
“Yesterday morn,” the woman replied. “But they’ve been kept in a refrigerator.”
You froze. “What!? Refrigerator!? You guys have that?” You leaned forward eagerly. “You guys have electricity? That’s great! Can I see?”
The innkeeper and Dunk exchanged a look.
“Electricity?” the woman repeated slowly. “No such thing here. I can show you the refrigerator.”
You nodded enthusiastically.
A moment later, she returned carrying a large clay pot, damp sand clinging to its sides. She set it down with a grunt and lifted the lid. Inside, nestled within another pot, lay three cleaned ducks, cool to the touch.
You leaned over it, eyes lighting up. “Oh, a zeer pot! That’s smart.”
“Keeps the germs away,” the innkeeper said, replacing the wet cloth carefully over the top.
You straightened sharply. “You guys have germ theory? How?”
“Her Holiness informed us,” the woman replied.
You stared at her in awe. “Oh, so she’s just a genius. Like all the greatest inventors, scientists—everything in one?” You ran a hand through your hair. “Gosh. And she died? How? Old age or something?”
The innkeeper’s expression darkened. “In a blasted way! Curse them! Curse the bastards!”
Your jaw clenched. “What? She did all this, and that’s what they repay her with? That’s some BS.”
“My uncle used to serve her,” the woman continued, voice thick with feeling. “She once told the lords who came to petition against her that with her death, the world would be neither reformed nor destroyed.” Her hands tightened around the pot lid. “She was wrong.”
“Hella wrong,” you muttered. “Even if the only thing she gave the world was germ theory, that alone is an amazing thing for humanity.”
You stepped back from the pot and clapped your hands once decisively.
“Anyways,” you said, your tone turning brisk again, “I’ll take the duck.”
Atp, I think she'd join him just bc what is she gonna do? I don't think she'd want to go back to King's Landing so why not just travel? I think she's very enamoured with 'her holiness' which is just her but she doesn't know that.
I think the funniest bit would be the reason why she discovers she is who she is bc of Egg. Now, previously I mentioned she is like the boogie man to House Targ, and that stays the same. I think they would have one or two portraits of her when she was young (courtesy of Jace as a present to her. A painting of a picture of her from her phone.) so I think from that Egg identifies who she is immediately.
"You really are her!" Egg scrambles back. He wasn't sure the first time when the knight left with you, but he's sure now. He had seen your painting, the only of you not wearing a crown. The painting he recalls you standing in front of green bushes with red flowers holding a white bag with two cherries painted on them and you in a red shirt and blue skirt.
It is considered a vulgar painting of you. One commission by one of your confirmed lovers, Jacaerys Targaryen. Though it is known you were instead with him before his name changed to Targaryen.
Your red shirt exposed your belly button and the blue skirt didn't even reach mid thigh. Your hair sat pretty and nice, one eye closed and you smiling freely.
Though considered vulgar, many scholars study the painting. It's something of you never seen before and in a manner of painting never painted before. It is considered to be one of the beautiful paintings of it's time. It still holds true today.
It is why Aegon knows who you are. You have the smile as you do in the painting.
"I'm who?" Egg watched as you lifted a brow.
"You! What are you doing here?" Ser Duncan walked over to the small boy.
Aegon muttered your name. Your brows raised in surprise. Dunk looked back to you and then back to the boy.
Was he your son? He took a good, long, hard look at you, then back at the bald boy....maybe he takes after his father, or maybe if Dunk squints hard enough, he can see bits of you in the boy.
"Good guess, yeah that is my name. How'd you know?"
Or maybe he's not your son. You look too young anyway, but he's seen younger girls with children.
Again, I think Egg is like super put off by you. In his eyes, you're this great figure, but you're acting like any other person, or maybe just a little weirder. Against his better judgment, he starts to actually doubt who you are.
You stay with them, and you follow them around, and no one really knows it's you bc they know you more as you're older.
But when you leave both Dunk and Egg alone, one day Egg finally tells him who you are.
“What!?” Dunk exclaimed, making a face as he turned toward the boy. He set his cup of ale down with a dull thud.
“Ser, I’ve seen the portraits of her youth,” Egg insisted, leaning forward urgently. “She is her. It’s uncanny!”
“And I’ve seen thousands of portraits of Her Holiness,” Dunk shot back. “It’s not her. For one, she’s not dead—and Her Holiness, may her soul rest in peace, is.” He waved a dismissive hand. “Quit your ramblings, boy.”
He rolled his eyes and looked back out over the lists. You had decided to skip the jousting. You had attended one last night and hadn’t been a fan—something about splintered lances and cheering crowds leaving you unimpressed.
“Do you know where she’s from?” Egg pressed.
“Yes,” Dunk answered shortly.
“Where?”
“That’s none of your business!”
Egg huffed. “Do you know where the Saint was from?”
“No.”
“She wasn’t from here,” Egg said, lowering his voice as though reciting something sacred. “She was from the heavens. They say she fell from a bridge—one leading to the gods. Slipped and fell into the Narrow Sea, and the gods led her to House Targaryen. They say she had a millennium’s worth of knowledge, and the gods whispered in her ears to give her such grand ideas. She’s lived as many lifetimes as there are commons within Westeros.” He hesitated. “What if this is another one of her lives?”
For a fleeting moment, Dunk considered it.
Then he remembered your foul mouth.
No.
“Has she told you her last name?” Dunk asked abruptly.
“No,” Egg admitted.
“Do you know the Saint’s last name?”
“Targaryen?” Egg guessed.
“No, she isn’t a Targaryen, ser,” Egg corrected quickly. “She wasn’t born here, and she isn’t the daughter of any man or woman. She has no past. No ancestors. No one of her blood.”
Dunk remembered your words—My home has never and will never exist here.
Egg quietly spoke your last name.
Dunk snorted.
“That proves nothing,” he muttered, though his voice lacked its earlier certainty.
They ran over to see you sitting at the river’s edge, your skirts pushed up just enough to keep them dry, your feet soaking in the cool current. Your head nodded gently to the rhythm of something they could not see. Your voice was faint, soft, singing along under your breath.
The music that filled the air was unlike anything either of them had ever heard. It was not harp, nor fiddle, nor drum. It carried a deep, steady thrum beneath it—like a heartbeat struck against hollow wood—and over it something bright and sharp, almost metallic, chimed and clashed in perfect rhythm. A man’s voice wove through it, smooth and quick, bending notes in ways their tongues could not quite follow.
It did not sound like something played by hands.
It sounded captured.
Otherworldly.
Dunk stopped short.
Aegon stared.
Goodness gracious.
Dunk felt his stomach drop, his legs nearly giving way. Egg’s heart pounded, fear creeping up his spine at the thought that you might suddenly remember something—might turn to them with eyes older than the world itself.
The unseen song swelled once more before fading. When it ended, the river seemed too quiet.
You stood, brushing your hands against your skirts, and neither of them noticed the way you tucked your strange little device into your sleeve.
“So you really are her?” Egg asked, half hiding behind Ser Duncan’s leg.
“Who?” you replied, brows lifting.
“The Saint!” Dunk exclaimed, eyes wide as he suddenly dropped to one knee. “It’s you, isn’t it?”
You stared at him. “Huh? No? What are you talking about? Isn’t she dead? How could I be her?”
“The gods were just singing to you!” Dunk insisted, gesturing wildly toward the trees.
“So you mean to tell me this is what they heard?” you asked slowly.
“Yes!” Egg burst out. “The sept tries to replicate what they once sang to the Saint!”
Your brows furrowed for a moment—then you let out a short laugh. “No way.”
Egg called out your last name.
Your smile faltered. “How’d you know that?”
“It was her last name,” Egg said quickly. “You’re her!”
“I’d think I’d know if I was her,” you shot back.
“You fell from a bridge!” Egg insisted.
“What? Wait—how much do you know!?” you demanded.
“You’ve lived a thousand lifetimes,” Egg pressed on, words tumbling over themselves. “You have billions of years’ worth of knowledge! As old as the earth! You said so! You told Jacaerys! You told the Septon!”
You pressed your lips together, clearly fighting laughter.
“I said that?” You pointed at yourself. “I mean… I guess. But if you read everything from a hundred years ago and you know it, can’t you say you have a hundred years’ worth of knowledge? It’s a play on words.”
Aegon paused, frowning as he considered that.
“But you made the aqueducts,” he argued. “You’ve done so many things.”
“I did that? That was me?” You tilted your head. “I mean, I guess if I tried I could do the math, but knowing theory and actually building something are two very different things. I don’t think I could really do it.”
“But you did,” Dunk said quietly, still kneeling.
You thought for a moment, then shrugged. “Nah,” you said simply. “It’s not me.”
Dunk is mortified. I think before this, you both got along really well. Just bc he's never had anyone near his age to really talk to, I think he really let loose around you. You carried convos and it made him open up. He talked to you like a casual friends bc you were, but you're like a living legend.
I think Aegon wouldn't want you back in the Red Keep just bc of what happened in the past, but unfortunately, fate leads you back into the Red Keep. During the joust of Aerion, I think before he went, he caught sight of you. Prolly plucked you from the crowd and Aegon and took you to Baelor. So there was no Aerion joust, and no killing of horses.
Put you in front of Prince Baelor, who ended the joust early and left with you and Aegon. They questioned you, you told them everything you knew/ remebered with wasn't much. They probably questioned why you did many of the things you did, and you're just standing there like 'damn that crazy I'd never do that, so idk.' I think once Maekar came back, he suggested you be killed. Pay for your crimes against Dorne. Obvi you oppose this, and so does Baelor. Aerion is all in favor of it. You make the argument that the only reason you were pushed to extremes was bc ppl were trying to kill you. So it's best to just let you live. Also you, as it stands now, haven't actually done anything.
BAELOR DOESN'T DIE BC I SAID SO! DADDY HAS SAID SO!
I think in the end you're taken to the Red Keep. Kept there to strengthen the image of House Targaryen to earn reparations of everything you did to them.
They'd marry you off to Baelor or Valarr if they could (or really any Targ but preferably those who are in line to inherit the throne), but bc you are who you are, you can say now, and there isn't much they can do bc they have to keep you happy so you can keep the people happy to them.
So high-key, no matter what path you take, you're always bound to be in the red keep. I think you stay in touch with Ser Duncan and Egg even as if they're let go.
As for your life, you'd probably study everything you did. Would you develop a relationship? Honestly, it depends on you. It could really happen with anyone atp.
“What was going through your mind when you first stepped onto that set?”
Mark looked down to Eve smiling as he played with her hair and she settled into his side, both laying on his bed in his dorm.
“I don’t know. They told me to be there, so I went. I was actually swimming in the beach when they found me.” That familiar foreign voice with the strong accent drew his eyes to the screen.
“Isn’t that the model you saved and the one you found in Milan?” Eve looked up at him. She had been less than pleased with you, and even less with Mark when the stain didn’t wash off until an entire day later. (And though the guilt is creeping up on him. He did not mind having the shape of your lips stained on his cheek.)
“Uh, is it?” Mark gave an awkward laugh. Eve had chewed him out last time. He promised it wouldn’t happen again, but for you? Who could keep a promise like that? (He will. Mark has decided so.)
“How did you know you could do it?” The interviewer asked you and Eve got up and Mark sighed.
“Eve.” He called out but to no avail, she had already stood up. She went to the tv which focused on your face.
“I just never thought I couldn’t.” Mark looked at the tv as you smiled looking directly at him. It was then promptly shut off by Eve as she looked over at him, hands on her hips. A prick of irritation surfaced.
“Don’t you think you’re…overreacting. Maybe she’s French or something? They do the kissing thing right?” Mark sat up on his bed ready for the incoming argument.
“Mark, she kissed you.” She furrowed her brows crossing her arms as he stood up.
“As a thank you.” Mark began walking over to her. “Look, you saw the man she was with, probably her boyfriend.” Ouch. “Not to mention she’s surrounded with tons of not only insanely good looking male models, but very rich men. I doubt she remembers me.” Double ouch.
He reached for her arm. Eve’s glare never let up. “I’m with you now. And I don’t even know her. As far as she knows she has only ever seen me once.” His hands went to cup her face ignoring the slight pressure that seemed to be tightening around his brain. “I won’t see her again.” Finally Mark leaned down kissing Eve.
…
Mark sat down on the rooftop holding onto his two pizzas. It was dark and he was wearing all black. Mark should feel guilty, but honestly if all he had to do was fly to Milan to get rid of his raging migraine. He’ll do it, and if so happens to catch a couple of fashion shows —completely random by the way. Nothing having to do with you.— then it’s an evening well spent.
He ripped a piece off the pizza. Man, Italian pizza from Italy is just so much better. Finally bright light illuminated the runway. It was elaborate and went in all sorts of patterns. Then as if everything went still, camera lights began flashing manically and music played. Then you stepped out.
What a coincidence. He didn’t know you’d be walking this specific show. (He spent all last night researching who you would walk for.) You wore a white dress that almost seemed silver with what seemed like diamonds scattered all over. Large diamond rings sat on your fingers and your hair had been cut and straightened, or maybe it was a wig.
Did models change their hairstyle permanently for just one show?
Mark doesn’t know but you shine. The camera lights flashing on you only serve to illuminate you. You’re almost glowing. Your skin looks like it’s reflecting light and diamonds? Well it only contributes. It’s as if you’re the moon itself. It’s mesmerizing.
You’re walking slowly and in small steps. Was the dress too tight? Probably. Or maybe it was the fact that the fabric didn’t seem flexible. It reached all the way to your ankles and there was no slit that allowed you to move.
Yet there you we’re walking as if it were nothing. Though Mark can’t see your face. Too many flashes it almost hurts to look at you. That one video he saw a couple weeks ago wasn’t kidding. The camera men really can’t take their eyes off you. Not even when other models are walking.
You’re reaching the end of the runaway as Mark finished half of his pizza. Normally he would’ve eaten the whole thing in under five minutes but he couldn’t bring himself to eat while watching.
Just before you went backstage you gave a final spin as if saying goodbye to the spectators. Though he nearly choked when you looked in his direction.
No. You didn’t know he was here. You just happened to look in his direction.
For the rest of the fashion show Mark stayed inside his head overthinking your glance. There was no way you could know it was him, even if by chance you knew someone was up here.
Though half-way through you came out again. This time in a silver plated dress. You looked like a disco ball. A hot disco ball, but a disco ball nonetheless. Through it framed you quite nicely. It’s entrancing the way you walk. Almost as if your hips dislocate every time to give that extra swing. He could watch you like that forever.
The walk of life you had.
And every night he returned to watch your walk of life. No matter what outfit you had (even if some were down right horrendous, you brought them to life.) each one danced for you as you walked.
Every time he returned home he had to face Eve. Though she never knew. Yes the guilt did pool in his gut, but there was something thrilling about seeing you. Something about you just brings him to life. Looking at you there is nothing else. Not his past sins, not expectations of his father, not even the expectations of himself.
Nothing but you. You and him even if you didn’t know he was there. That only added to the feeling. You never knew he was there. Sometimes he’d dream that he’d fuck you dumb in a dressing room and you walk the runway with his cum dripping down your leg and everyone would see.
Or maybe he’d fuck you so hard that you wouldn’t be able walk the show. They’d cancel you and replace you with another while Mark—no it would be Invincible take you to some place and continue to have his fun with you.
He knows he shouldn’t have these thoughts, but just the slight jolts of arousal are what keep his headaches at bay. The poor boy damn near walks everywhere while he’s half hard.
And recently, his hand hasn’t been cutting it. Not even when he looks at edits of you in skimpy clothing. God he always feels like a perv when he does that. But he just can’t stop!
What to do?
There’s an after party tonight. Just like how there is every night after shows have finished. It’s the second to last day of Fashion week. Who do you walk for tomorrow? Mark can’t possibly hope to keep up with all the brands.
You didn’t have to walk tomorrow right?
It hurt, but Mark stood up and floated upwards, your figure becoming smaller and smaller until he was far enough to take off properly.
He pushed his speed to the limit just to get home, needing to throw on his costume. What was he even planning to do? Mark didn’t know — or maybe he just didn’t want to admit it. Especially not when he can feel his phone buzzing in his pocket and he knows who it is.
But god his headache is getting stronger.
Finally he saw the familiar lights of his house and someone standing on the roof.
Oh fuck.
Slowly he decreased his speed before landing beside Eve who had her brow raised. “Why didn’t you answer my call?”
“You called?” Mark cleared his throat trying to ease his beating heart.
“Yeah, twice and texted.” As Eve spoke it felt as if an imaginary belt or…string was tightening around his brain.
Pushing through it Mark pulled out his phone and low and behold. Five notifications from messages. “Sorry, I didn’t feel it buzzing.” And that’s not a complete lie. He felt the phone call, not the messages. Something better than nothing right?
“What were you even doing?” Mark’s mind ran through excuses. What could he say? He had told her he wasn’t going to see you again, but he needed it.
“Nothing.” That was probably the worst answer he could give based on Eve’s reaction. Fuck he was gonna get caught.
Come on Mark! Think!
“I was just flying about. This headache won’t let up.” Bingo! Eve’s face softened slightly at his words.
“Really? It’s been a really long Mark. Maybe you should go see a doctor.” Eve spoke as her hand went to feel his forehead before going to cup his face showing that sweet smile he fell in love with. That smile that would always comfort him.
God what was he thinking? He’s not going back to Milan. Even with this raging headache. “I don’t think they’re exactly well versed in my physiology.” Mark breathed out a smile before opening the window to his room.
He took off his sweater and shit before opening a drawer and throwing back a couple of advils Definitely more than was the recommended, but Mark was desperate.
Finally he laid down and Eve curled up to him. She felt warm and normally that would’ve been great but right now he feels really hot. He gave a slight groan trying to ease the pain. Maybe if he didn’t move.
“Here.” Eve whispered as she straddled him and put her hands on the temples of his head.
Mark gave a shaky breath as the pain began to ease, if only a little. Though because Mark had his eyes closed, he didn't see the confused look on Eve’s face. “Keep your hands there. Feels good.” he murmured.
He had forgotten how good Eve made him feel. Guilt was really starting to pool his belly.
“Mark?” He flipped her over. Just as she was about to let go of him, he grabbed her hands pressing them to his head.
“Just keep ‘em there f’me.” He kissed her and even with the slight throb in his head, he let his tongue slide and her lips taste every part of her. She tasted good.
Maybe if Mark’s mind wasn’t so clouded, he’d probably realize this was his first time kissing her that actually felt good. Slowly he began to suck at her neck as his hands went to her shirt.
He groaned, but it didn’t feel good. Her power had stopped, if only for a second before it resumed.
“Mark.” Eve called out his name again, angling her neck to the side to give him better access. He took it. “Mark you have to-” His hands squeezed her breasts.
But once again it was Mark groaning. He looked up at her furrowing his brows. “Eve you have to keep it on.”
Again he went back to kissing her neck trying to get her shirt open. “Mark stop.” She pushed his head away from her.
Again his head started pounding the second her hands left his head. As if the pain from before had been held back by a wall and now it was flooding back. Mark held his head before Eve put her hands to his temples and just like that, the pain subsided. “Mark, you have to go to the hospital. Your…ventral tegmental is swollen or something. I can feel it.”
What the hell was a ventral tegmental? He gave a sigh. So much for showing his appreciation (More like drowning out his guilt, but Comme ci, comme ça.) “Did you hit your head?”
Mark shook his head going to lie on top of her. “Mark, are you going to go?” He nodded. He wanted to sleep.
“I’ll go tomorrow. Just tired right now.” He mumbled trying to blank his mind out to sleep. Though thoughts of a certain hot disco ball were floating in his mind.
“Promise?” Eve whispered, keeping her hands on him.
Mark nodded. “Promise.”
Though these days, Mark was proving to be less and less reliable with his promises.
…
“But I’m just so hungry.” Mark watched as you grabbed the camera and brought it close to you before laughing letting it go. “And tired. Nearly forgot I was from Italy, so I know I’m gonna eat well soon.”
“What are you going to eat?” The interviewer laughed then pointed the mic to you.
“What I always eat. A hot man. Italian this time.” You grinned and Mark could only watch from the shadows as you gave a tour backstage. He looked down from above. (Like a creep but he ignores that. Not like he’s looking at any of the women changing, just you.) “No, I’m just kidding. I don’t know, but we’re in MILAN, ITALY! This is Fashion week.” And then the camera cut and the interviewers thanked you.
He watched as you walked to your make-up chair and they quickly got to work on you. He simply floated in the air watching you. Two women worked on getting your hair styled while the man did your make up.
It was dramatic makeup. Even from way up in the sky he could see the dramatism. They painted your face white. Like actual white, then he painted your lips red. Your make-up almost looked like The Queen of Hearts from that one movie. He must say to anyone else it would definitely look strange, especially because you are wearing only a robe, but it suits you.
Mark supposes he should find his spot. Taking his eyes away from you he looked around. Briefly his eyes flickered to the area where guests took their spots. Right now he is Invincible. Surely they'd grant him a spot.
But knowing the media, his presence would be on the front cover on every news story. A shame he didn’t pay attention to the one today.
‘Three Male Models Missing during Fashion Week in Milan, Italy.’
It’s also a shame that he doesn’t notice you’re staring right at him. You know he’s there. You always know he’s there. Can’t stay away for long.
But he doesn’t know that you know. So when he looks down to you again, his heart nearly jumps from his chest. Not only from the fact you’re looking at him, but the dark contacts that make the white of your eyes red. Slowly he floats even higher before flying away.
His heart is beating and for a brief moment he is considering flying away. Going back home.
But god, when Eve left, he couldn’t stand the pain, no matter how many painkillers he took.
Finally he decides that he’ll sit near a building. And so he waits for the show to begin. When it does, Mark watches as all the elaborate designs hang off the bodies of the models. Though if he’s being honest, he doesn’t understand it.
If anything they look like children who tried to dress themselves. And the makeup they have, each is different. It’s silly. Marks never paid attention to fashion. The best outfit he has is a sweatshirt with a collared shirt underneath and some jeans. If this is what it means to be fashionable, he doubts he’ll ever be.
But the longer Mark looks, the better he understands the picture. They’re supposed to be children. With face paint on. Messy the way children are supposed to be. Silly the way children are supposed to be. Two girls come out dressed as a toy boat and another a toy car.
His headache is nearly gone. Mark feels good.
He looks away, though the second he does something makes his head jerk back. Trailing behind the women dressed in white is you. He knows it’s you. Your eyes are covered by a hat. It casts a shadow over them.
And god the dress you’re wearing is perfect. Your tits look perfect being pushed up against your chest like that. Everytime you move they recoil. The way your hips sway makes them push up more against you.
He doesn’t even realize his jaw is open. Finally reaching the end of the runaway, you make his heart race again.
How are you doing that? Why do you do that? Why do you always look where he’s at? Fuck, it’s like you can sense him. Can you?
Soon enough the show came to a close with you closing it.
Guess it’s time to go home, but he really doesn’t want to. Maybe if he just gets a hotel here and stays the night. It hurts to not be here.
But how is Invisible supposed to find a place to stay without being on the news? His girlfriend would chew him out. He’s not even supposed to be here. Feels too good to not be here though.
Flying just above the clouds his mind is buzzing, though it doesn’t hurt, at least not seriously.
Mark’s ears perked when he heard your name being yelled out by a man. Immediately his head jerked to the side and he flew closer to the ground. You were walking down a dark alleyway. Strange. He would’ve thought you’d be at some after party hosted by some billionaire.
“Un uomo attraente, hai detto? Sono italiano.” Mark furrowed his brow flying closer to the ground.
“Ti offri volontario per essere il mio pasto stasera?” He heard you responded to the man who was clearly drunk.
“Posso esserlo se hai fame.” He watched as the man grabbed you and it almost caused Mark to have a visceral reaction.
“Ho sempre fame” Mark could only watch in horror as you followed. “Non sei il mio solito, ma è da molto tempo che non mangio cibo spazzatura.” He watched you stop bringing the man closer as you leaned in. Mark felt like throwing up. That man was enough for you? What happened to that model he saw you with only days ago!? “Ma suppongo che per la notte andrai bene.”
While Mark was near throwing up whatever he ate that day, you were busy dragging your sharpened teeth along the man’s neck ignoring the disgust that rose within you as his hands trailed your body. Best to make this quick.
Just as you were about to dislocate your jaw to open your mouth you felt him. Your eye twitched in annoyance.
God he was just everywhere wasn’t he?
How annoying.
Though…he could prove to be a better meal. Or maybe not. The world finding a decapitated superhero with all his organs missing wouldn’t be a good look. Your hunting grounds were becoming smaller and smaller. You were eating too much.
But hunger is ever present.
Clenching your fist you pushed the man away. “Il mio appetito è sparito.”
You turned around to face the superhero. You smiled.
While the man wasn’t happy, not much he could do with a superhero around.
“Did you come for fashion week or you just like the food here?” Mark heard you speak and he felt dizzy. So dizzy he almost forgot to respond.
You looked good. Really good. His world is quiet. His mind is quiet. Everything is silent. Just you. He can hear your heart, which sounds weird. It’s slow. Too slow, but that's neither here nor there. Maybe his is just beating too fast.
“I never did get to thank you for saving me.” Mark swears he’s hallucinating as you bend down to kiss him. He has half a mind left to not turn his head and make you kiss him on the lips. “Are you going to say anything?”
“Uh…you’re welcome?” He needs the earth to open up and swallow him. Right. Now. Though it all seems right when you laugh. He’s glad his goggles are on. Then you wouldn’t be able to see how wide his eyes are. It almost hurts. You’re not real. Can’t be real.
“You’re funny.” it’s music to his ears. He can die happy. You think he—Mark Grayson— is funny. (More so Invincible, but Mark digresses.)
“Do you want to fly?” He blurts it out and his heart is pounding. Your face is the meaning of perfection no matter what expression you hold. Even as you look now. Lips slightly parted and eyes widened ever so slightly in surprise.
Then you smile. He’s seen you smile, but every time you do, it’s like the first time all over again. “Promise not to drop me this time?”
He nods. He nods too fast he’s almost scared his headache is gonna come back. (But it doesn’t and he is grateful) “I was a fool to drop you.” The words come out again without him thinking. He swears his mouth is moving faster than his brain.
You grin at him and he is being blessed. “Alright then.” Is he breathing? Mark doesn’t know because right now he is so close to having his face smooshed up against your perfect tits. “Sure you can carry me?”
He looks up at you and picks you up carrying your princess style. Burying his face into your breasts would have to wait. (Unfortunately) “You’re as light as a feather.” He wants his heartbeat to slow down. You're leaning your head against his chest for goodness sake and your arms are wrapped around him.
Slowly he flies upwards and he really can’t emphasize this enough. He is in literal heaven as you hug him tighter. “I suppose this is a bad time to tell you I’m afraid of heights.” He looks down to you and again he is blessed seeing a new expression upon your face.
You almost look embarrassed.
“Do you want to go back?” He offers but when you shake your head telling him no, he’s all the more happy.
“Where do you want to go? We can go anywhere in the world.” He offers as he flies slightly faster to feel you hold him tighter. He was so going to take advantage of your fear of heights.
“You know, I still have much to repay you for. You saved my life.” He heard you whisper and there was a flash of desire pulse within him.
No. That was wrong to think about.
“It’s my job to save people.” Mark spoke carefully looking down at you. Though he quickly wanted to backtrack when he saw the slight furrow in your brow.
“Am I just a job for you?” he almost choked.
“No! No of course not, you’re, you’re-” Mark was at a loss for words looking down at you again.
“I’m what?” It’s almost like you were playing with him.
Swallowing his nervousness he looked away from you. Sure he’d say it, but he can’t look. He doesn’t have enough courage for that just yet. “You’re beautiful.” You said nothing. “B-but I’m sure you hear that a lot.”
“You’re right. I do. Everyday, in so many different ways.” Disappointment bubbled within him, which is a little strange. But he’ll do his best to ignore it. “But I like when you say it.”
Mark looked down and you had an innocent look on your face as if you didn’t just make his whole world. And again, Mark swears he might be a little delusional, but he’s almost sure you’re leaning in right now and pulling him towards you.
Well, if he is being delusional. He’ll let his episode play out. Your lips find his and you taste devine. It’s inhuman. He hugs you tighter. He knows you probably meant it as a thank you. You’re French or something, right? Like he said, they do the kissing.
But Mark’s gonna give himself this. When will he ever have the chance to kiss you again?
Though the longer he’s kissing you, the less he thinks you’re doing this as a thank you kiss. You bite his lip and he hisses, feeling blood come from your bite wound while you lick your lips and suddenly he feels a shaky breath from you. Your hands grip his hair pulling him back to you. You’re kissing him as if your life depends on it and Mark is in the clouds, quite literally.
One of your arms is wrapped tightly around his neck while the other is gripping his hair. It feels good.
You feel good.
You feel better than anything he’s ever had. You're moving your leg and Mark loosens his grip letting you wrap both your legs around him and Mark finally gets to wrap arms around your thighs. They’re soft and smooth. He wants to squeeze them. He wants to squeeze the softness of your thighs and the fat of your ass.
But maybe this is just a heated make-out session. He doesn't want to ruin it, so he’ll take what he can get.
That is until you let go of his hair and instead force it down the both of you. Your nails tracing the outline of dick.
He almost whimpers, no scratch that. He definitely whimpered.
“Won’t you let me thank you properly?” His brain freezes hearing you speak. He’s breathing heavily.
Yes, yes a million times over. But there’s something Mark is forgetting. He knows he is. What is it?
Eve
Mark can’t seem to recall. (Or maybe he does.) You’re making it too hard. Those eyes. Those lips that are now plumped from how hard he was kissing you. Though most importantly that damned heavenly hand of your palming his cock through his suit.
Oh well. If Mark can’t remember, then it’s not important.
“I think instead I should be asking you for forgiveness for dropping you.” He whispered looking up at you. Even as he holds you, you’re still taller.
You’re a tall tree he’s trying to climb. He’s always had a good grip. He hopes you have a better one.
“Both can be arranged. Sicily. I have a villa by the sea side. A gift from an old friend.” Of course you did. Mark could only hold you tight as he flew. Though not too fast lest your skin come off. Though you’re not making it any easier on him.
Nipping at his neck. He swears you’ve made him bleed a couple of times. Though he can’t complain. Your tongue is very soothing.
He stops by the sea and you look out before pointing to a very big and very old Villa. Seriously, that thing had to be some kind of relic. “There.”
“A very good friend it would seem.” Mark murmured.
“But just a friend.” You whisper in his ear before licking it. He shuddered before taking you there, flying to the nearest window he saw.
Mark really would take more time to take in the giant room filled with golds, gems, and paintings of what looked like mermaids, but the way you're asking for his cock, he really can’t afford to look anywhere else than you. Not like he can.
“How do you take this off?” Mark simply ripped his suit off. He’d just get a new one anyway. As he laid on the bed you continued to kiss him. Should he take off his mask? Would you know it was him?
The same man who gave you your ID? Best not to risk it. He was Invincible right now anyways. His muscles flexed as you pulled him out of his briefs. Your hands were cold. That normally wouldn’t feel good, but it does.
Mark’s jaw went slack as you squeezed him. Fuck your hand felt so much better than his. His eyes were rolling to the back of his head. You’ve barely touched him but he’s about to cum.
Slowly your hand gave light touches and he bucked into your hand. Though he swears he nearly saw white when you squeezed the base of his cock. His hands grip the bed sheets hard. Your cold thumb circled the head and he felt heavy. He’s just so full of cum. Fuck he could cum at any time. He felt his cock twitch in your hand.
“More.” He grunted out trying to keep himself from forcing you to grip his cock while he fucked your hand. Finally you squeezed right under the head of cock and gave a whimper. Mark was lost. Too lost to care that he gave another whimper. He felt you collect his pre and spread it over him. His eyes were fluttering and his words were becoming slurred as his thighs shook.
The next time he opened his eyes, you were straddling him, still giving him the handjob. You were still fully clothed. It felt a little unfair. Here he was, bare as the day he was born and you never even took off your heels.
You leaned down to kiss him and he happily kissed you back. His hands reached trying to get your dress off you. He’d hate to ruin it. It was pretty.
Your hand left him and he nearly cried. Though it was quickly remedied when you sat down on him. His cock being squeezed between you and him. He slid the dress off you and Mark’s jaw fell open.
He was right. You were perfection personified. The way your tits sat so perfectly was everything. Mark had never really considered himself a man for breasts, but fuck, anything for you. You looked like
“Paradise” He murmured, bringing his hand to your face and you gave him a smile. One of those cute shy ones he’s never seen before. “If the divine ever wore a face, it would look like yours.”
“Are you a poet?” You asked trailing your nails along his chest.
“For you? I’d be anything.” He didn’t even know what he was saying. But it felt right.
He watched as you hand took his cock once more and gripped your hips arching his back up. It felt euphoric. All is right in the world when you have him under you like this.
He could feel his peak coming when you kissed him swallowing his moans and your other hand slid under you to cup his balls.
Though just before he came you stopped.
He felt betrayed as you smiled down. A cruel smile. Did you say you wanted to thank him? He watched as you slid your pretty panites off. Your cunt was glistening and your slick caught the light. It was almost magical looking at it.
Again you took his cock in your hand petting the head aggressively. It hurt, though the pleasure overruled it. Mark writhed under you bucking upwards. As he tried to hold himself together, he was blind to see you leading it straight to your entrance.
You gave him a final squeeze and it was game over for Mark. Though as if cumming wasn’t enough. You took him fully in one full swing as he came, painting your insides white. He almost went blind from the flashes of the overwhelming pleasure of being taken within you. You felt good. It’s unlike anything he’s had before.
Not like any of his past girlfriends. Something uniquely you. He doesn't think any other woman in the world possesses a pussy like yours. You’re milking him dry.
The ridges of your gummy walls hugged him in a way no hand, mouth or any other cunt in the world would ever.
His grip left your hips as you began to move. He’d break your bones if he wasn’t careful. It hurt, but it felt so fucking good.
He felt you grip his hair tugging him up and making his dreams come true.
He gladly buried his face within your tits. He took one in his mouth, muting his cries. His tongue swirled around your nipples.
He really would grope the other one, but he’s scared he might rip it off.
You’re good. You’re too good and right now Mark can’t afford to risk it.
His teeth bit down slightly on your nipple and he heard you gasp. Like a reward you rode him harder. He bit down harder and you screamed pulling his hair. Pulling him away from your perfect breasts.
You simply breathed as held his head back. Then you kissed him. He felt you shove your tongue in his mouth. His eyes rolled to the back of his head as his cock twitched inside you again. It hurt. He can’t cum this fast after only cumming a few minutes ago.
He first clenched his fist before deciding it was worth it. He moved his hand in between the both of you. Your cunt was warm and puffy. Your pearl was also puffy. He found it easily enough and applied pressure.
You let out a whine and Mark nearly came. You squeezed around him again seemingly intent on milking him for all his worth.
(And god help him, he’d let you. He’d continue to cum for you until he’s shooting blanks.)
Your head hid in his neck as you nipped and bit at him then going to suck the wound. He decided to return the favor. He pinch your clit and you dug your nails into him. He gave a groan of pain. He’s never done that before. Regardless it has your pussy spazzing and cumming all over his cock.
Mark pounded into you intent on having you ride through your high. He followed you soon after. Though as he came something nearly made him stop.
“Mark!” You yelled his name. Not Invincible, but mark. You yelled ‘Mark’. Finish the last of his high you gave a sheepish laugh.
“Sorry. Was I not supposed to know?”
Note: I feel like this moved a little too fast, but oh well. I'm here for one thing and one thing only. To write out my favorite trope in. a not fully flushed out story and to practice my smut. 😛
OH! AND IF YOU HAVE ANY REQUESTS FOR ANYTHING ELSE YOU'D LIKE TO SEE SEND ME A REQUEST! I'm happy to write anything.
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“Invincible saves an Angel.” The title is shown on his phone. A photo of you in his arms, hugging him tightly, your wings covering his face, and only the back of your head visible. Though if he zooms in enough until the picture is grainy, he can see the grip he has on you. The fat of your thighs prominent against his tight grip.
He bit the side of his cheek before throwing his phone to the side.
He just confessed to Eve for goodness sake! He CANNOT be thinking about another woman right now. (Even if all he can think about is the swell of your breasts pushing against his face.)
A slight throb goes through his brain. Mark winces, grabbing the back of his head, though the pain felt deeper. Though just as quickly as it came, it left. He gave a short sigh, grabbing his phone again and swiping out of the news page (but never closing the page) shoving his phone into the pocket of his pants. He swung his backpack over one shoulder walking out of his dorm making his way to class.
Mid-way, his hands grew clammy. He felt sticky. It was hot and humid, but he had checked the weather. It’s 70˚ right now. There is a slight pressure on his abdomen. He clears his throat. Maybe he has to go to the bathroom. (He knows better.)
Finally he takes out his phone, and automatically his thumb presses on the search engine on his phone and that news photo comes up once more. This time he can feel the rush of blood traveling to his cock.
What. The. Fuck.
He pulled his shirt down hoping it’ll magically elongate and cover his growing boner.
Just wonderful.
He looked down to the picture and suddenly a phantom feeling was felt in his arm. Your thighs tight in his arms. Then it was on the right side of his face. As if he could feel your tits against his face.
This is starting to hurt.
Mark quickly scrolled past the picture. Unfortunately for him, another picture from another angle was shown. One from right under the both of you. His hands once again felt clammy, they wanted to zoom in, but Mark knows if he does, he’s not going to class.
No, he won’t zoom in. He will not try to look to see if he can see anything from the angle that looks right under you as you’re only wearing skimpy underwear. No he won’t look for it.
He has a girlfriend. He’s with Eve now. Balling his hand into a fist he closed out the page. Ignoring the want to search up the page again. Walked up the stairs to the building where his class was being held. Opening the door he took a seat in the back of the grand lecture hall. He had ten minutes to spare. Normally he’d go on his phone, but right now that didn’t seem like the best idea.
He kept his backpack on his lap as he took out a notebook and a pencil. It was hot in this class. Uncapping his water bottle, he took a large swing from it. The water was cool. It felt nice as he went down his throat. The coolness spread through his body. He wiped his mouth before the drop of water could slide down his chin.
He grabbed the pencil hitting against the notebook, then his leg started bouncing. Mark couldn’t stop moving. Why couldn’t he stop moving?
He inhaled sharply when his phone buzzed. The buzz was close to his to his now softening dick. He pulled it out seeing a text message from Eve.
‘Hey can we talk after your class today?’ Mark’s eyes scanned the text message. He hadn’t talked to her yesterday. He…wait. Actually, he can’t remember anything after he killed the alien who threw him into the building.
What did he do yesterday? He can’t remember. He can’t remember how he got home. His brows furrowed as he texted back ‘sure. I end class at 1:50.’
Reflexively his hand went to a social media app. An edit of him popped up. A small smirk formed as he liked and opened the comments, though quickly closed them shaking his head.
He scrolled past it after liking it. Then there was another edit of him, though this one was with Eve. A ship edit. Those were common, though now he was with her. Now he doesn’t feel so guilty liking the video.
Another scroll, this time a video of a woman picking out tomatoes doing that thing most women he knew did. Feeling the fruit or vegetable seeing if it’s good or not. His mom does it a lot. He still doesn’t know how it works. The text read: “POV: Your offer is taken into consideration”
Her boyfriend offers tomatoes, she rejects them, having him make a face. Mark smiles a bit, until the final one is accepted.
Mark smiles again before scrolling. The next video was some audio and with text that read: “Only divas know what I saw.” He rolled his eyes and scrolled past it.
Mark continued to scroll, his mind being numbed by the videos allowing time to pass until his professor finally arrived. Turning off his phone the lecture began. Half-way through the lecture once he understood the concept he went ahead in the problems assigned. Once finished, he took out his phone once more, connecting his headphone and opening a social media app once more. After a few scrolls he came across a video he had never gotten before.
It was a slideshow. “Old Gen.” There were pictures of women. All pictures look to have been taken before the 2000s or at the very least before the 2010s. He swiped and once more a throb was felt in his head.
“New Gen.” There were four pictures, each of different women but his eyes looked towards yours. You were in a white dress. It was a tight one. Outlined your figure. The picture had been taken mid-walk. Hair was slicked back and your face was neutral.
His hands felt clammy again.
Quickly, he scrolled past it ignoring the slight headache coming on.
He scrolled absentmindedly trying to ignore the feeling of wanting to scroll back up and look at your photo. He felt his pants grow tighter by the minute.
He scrolled once more looking up making sure he wasn’t going to be left behind. A song was playing. It was one of those audios he usually got edited to. Though when he looked down his mouth went dry. The first clip was one of you posing on the end of a runway with a sultry smile. The next clip was of another woman posing on another runway. Side by side with each other, more clips played. One of you pointing as you walk the runway in lingerie, the next of a clip zoomed into your lower-half showing off the design work. (He could feel the strain on his paints and soon his cock developed a heartbeat of its own.)
More and more clips of you wearing exposing clothing flashed on his screen then followed by more clips of women they showed beside you.
He scrolled past it ignoring the pain that was starting to grow between his thighs.
“She refused to enter the courtroom because the outfit she was given to wear was not up to her standards. The angry judge told her: this is unacceptable and inappropriate. This is not a fashion show.” The audio sounded in his headphones as more clips played of you with the text reading ‘The model who conquered the world in under a year.’
He took in a shaky breath refreshing his feed.
A new station sharing the story of Eve’s latest save showed on his screen. There on his screen was Eve helping children before flying off.
He quickly scrolled. Mark just can’t right now. Here he is, hard in the middle of lecture over a woman he just met and not his girlfriend.
He scrolled one more time.
“Oh god.” Mark mumbled.
The text read: “When the cameraman couldn’t take his eyes off her.” A video played of you once again in lingerie, this time red. The bra highlighted the roundness of your tits nicely and when you turned the mini skirt you wore gave him a nice view of your ass and how the fat of it moved as you walked away.
Yeah. He wasn’t making it through this lecture. Quickly Mark stood up and walked out of the lecture, the audio still playing as he sped walked out the building trying to rush back to his dorm. He was damn near flying up the stairs to his dorm.
Finally inside he shut the door. It rang loudly and he flinched. He closed it too hard. Hopefully it wasn’t broken.
He sighed laying on his bed taking off his pants relieving the pressure, if only a bit. He simply lay on the bed trying to psych himself out of pleasuring himself to a woman who was definitely NOT his girlfriend.
But it hurt. And his head was starting to hurt more. His hand brushed his cock before he ripped away.
“No.” he told himself firmly before taking off his shirt. He laid on his bed with just his boxers on. He doesn’t know how long he laid on his bed simply looking at his ceiling. He brought his mind to Eve and despite the headache, the throb between his legs lessened. (Which is weird, because shouldn’t it be the other way around?....Mark doesn’t think too much into it.)
He closed his eyes, taking in deep breaths. A nap should help. Eve wouldn’t be here for another hour anyways. Yeah…a nap should help. Take his mind off of you and soothe his headache. Mark shut his eyes, starting to count ignoring the pressure on his abdomen.
Bright eyes looked at him. Eyes that drew him in. Eyes he couldn’t look away. Then he looked down and saw pretty skin that shined in such a way that cannot be human. The hue shining beautifully in the sun. Breasts being pushing creating a round shape. Long nimble fingers pulling his hair and tracing his cheek.
Then a wet tongue licked the side of his face. It was warm and it felt good. Nails trailed lightly over his torso. Then his abs were licked. God!
Mark gasped, waking himself up. He groaned before his hand went to cup his aching cock, squeezing it ever so slightly giving him a moment of pleasure. He looked over to the clock.
1:45
He can finish quickly, right?
His mind is foggy. Sliding down his boxers he squeezed his tip forcing his pre to come out. He spread it over his cock as lubricant. He gave a deep sigh before he began to stroke himself. The clip of your breasts being pushed up by the bra flashed through his mind. He squeezed his dick tighter, groaning. He squeezed it too tight. (Should serve him right. Thinking of you instead of his girlfriend who would be here within five minutes.)
He imagined what your tits would feel like against his cock. They were big, or at least they looked big. You’d have enough to squeeze his cock with, right?
Yeah, you would. He continued to stroke himself, though he imagined your hands. Hands he felt against his neck when you held onto him. Surely they’d be softer than his.
The coil within him began to tighten.
Mark shuddered, head tipping back against his pillows. His eyebrows scrunched together, eyes half-lidded and allowing the pleasure to seek through his veins.
Mark squeezed the head of his cock once more, finding that sweet spot under his tip as he imagined the way your eyes would look up to him in wonder as you smiled at him, playing with his cock, watching it come alive. Pumped and angry all because of you. Because of your eyes, because of your lips, because of your tits, because of your ass.
All because of you he was like this.
You had him like this when it should be you. After all, he saved you. Not the other way around.
Mark shut his eyes mindlessly keeping the rapid movement of stroking his length, roughly so.
Fuck it felt good.
What would it feel like to shove himself inside your mouth? Did you know how to give bowjobs? Would it graze your pearly white teeth or did you have experience?
Mark groaned again, squeezing himself too hard at the thought. Were you a virgin? Would he be the one to pop your cherry or had someone else done it already? What face would you make? A face of pain probably. He’d kiss you to make it better. In the end, it doesn’t matter, as long as he can shove himself inside of you, make you a part of him. No, it doesn’t matter.
Maybe he wouldn’t fuck you as Mark. He’d probably have a better chance a fucking you as Ivincible. Have you call him by his superhero name, never knowing it was him. Keep you separate from his normal life.
Jerking his hips into his hands, more images of you flashed. He grabbed the sheets tightly. Imagining it was instead your ass. The fatty part nearest to your cunt. His hips stuttered as his jaw fell open. White hot spurts of cum splattered over his stomach which kept flexing trying to fuck his hand for as long he could.
Mark stayed still, the fog in his brain clearing as he grimaced at his thoughts and his actions. Looking over to the clock it read 1:50.
”Shit.” Mark got up pouring some water on a towel before he started to clean himself. His legs were slightly unstable but quickly he put on his clothes before going to go sit at his desk deciding it’s safer to open a comic book than his phone, lest another edit of yours is shown.
…
“Mark, I only have an hour for lunch. Why are we here?” Eve hung onto his arm looking around at the sights of the city. “Not that I mind, but y’know it’s a little far.”
Mark only gave an awkward smile as he looked around. He doesn’t know why he chose this place. Maybe it has to do with the pain deep in his head when Eve got too close to kissing him so he suggested going out to dinner.
The guilt is eating him alive.
But something is calling him. Calling him to this city.
Milan, Italy.
“I thought it would be nice.” Just a gut feeling. Eve pulled him to a small store selling gelato. As they both ordered and of course Mark paid, they continued to walk around the city. It was crowded. Fashion week was nearing. (How does he know that? He doesn’t know. Maybe that fashion program he has running in the background all the time is getting to him.)
Finally after walking around for twenty minutes Eve spotted a restaurant that satisfied her. He hopes it’s not a tourist trap. Those are expensive. Again Mark was taken by Eve by his arm to the restaurant. It was on a busy street.
His head hurts.
A lot of people are waking up. Mark can’t really see any of them. He sees some faces only for them to be forgotten the next. He looked down to Eve who was smiling at him. He returned the smile. In a sea of people. Mark only sees Eve.
His head hurts.
However, in a sea of people he can only hear a single laugh and it’s not Eve’s. That same feeling as before. As if it’s being whispered in his ear. The laugh is soft. It’s pretty. It’s perfect.
As Eve turns back to the hostess, Mark’s head jerks away and he insteads looks through the sea of people. He can’t see anyone.
Then Eve takes him by the hand once more as they’re led to a table outside by the hostess. Mark looks once more into the crowd of people and his breath hitches.
A giant woman.
You are tall. Really tall. At least a foot taller than everyone else around you. A god walking amongst men. Everyone is looking at you. Not just him.
There’s also a man walking behind you. A man just as tall as you, well actually he’s a bit shorter. (Is he though?—Yes he is. Mark has decided so.) He’s carrying bags and you’re not. You’re walking, slowly and sensually.
(His headache has been forgotten.)
You’re looking ahead, never paying heed to people who stare in awe. Not even him and it’s bothering him just a little bit.
He doesn’t even know he’s near you. He doesn’t hear Eve’s confused call of his name. All he knows is that he’s right behind you and you just dropped something. He quickly went to pick it up. His hand twitched as he held your ID. Your name and picture on there. How is it that you even look good in your ID picture? He always looks stupid in those.
But not yours. You have sultry eyes that even in a photo like this look wondrous. You look breathtaking in this photo.
“Excuse me. You dropped this.” You turn around and god. You are ethereal. Were you always this tall? His face is literally at the height of your tits. (And they look really good. They’re shiny, as if they belong in the sun.)
Forcing himself to look up at you, he finds his heart is pounding. It almost hurts. Oh no, is he gonna have a heart attack? He hopes not. That’d be embarrassing.
You're looking down on him. Your head is tilted slightly. Not a hair out of place. Your eyes are catching the sun as if the sun itself cannot bear to be away from you. Your eyelashes are long, and you almost look like a doll.
“Did I?” And there was that accent again. Fuck it sounded good. Too good.
He feels hot again.
He wonders if you know it’s him. If you know he’s the one that saved you. By the way you’re looking at him, it almost feels like you know him better than he knows himself.
Would you know how to make him feel good too?
How would you react if you knew it was him? Maybe you’d kiss him as thank you. (A guy can only wish.)
“Uh yeah, here you go.” He hands over your ID and he feels your long nails trace his skin as you take back your ID. Wonder what they'd feel like elsewhere.
No! He has a girl… “Thank you.” Mark swears he’s dreaming. There’s no way you’re leaning in. Is he hallucinating? Yeah, just hallucinating.
Until he feels your glossed lips press against his cheek. His eyes are wide and his heartbeat is in places where it doesn’t belong. Namely, his dick, but they don’t belong in his ears either.
“Oh! Sorry,—”
“No it’s alright.” He breathes out. Maybe he should’ve let you finish. If he had, you would’ve been able to tell him you wore a lip stain and it stained his cheek. But all Mark is focused on is the way you saunter away.
Never does he hear Eve yelling his name until she’s standing right infront of him and not looking happy.
“What’s that on your cheek?”
Note: I need feedback bc the only reason this fic is in existence is bc I need to practice writing my smut. Anything I can improve on? PLS CHAT! HELP ME! Also, if you want inspiration for those edits, just look up literally any model edit and you’ll find one 🙏
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