Team black rhaenyra stans clinging to blood purity as a cope of win is the funniest shiz when yk their fave kot7k targaryens have dornish Martell, dayne, andal arryn, dondarrion, penrose?, first men Blackwood blood from their not so valyrian mothers
Oh #they must be secretly fuming and hating those martell, dondarion, dayne, arryn, blackwood genes in their trew kweens bloodline ...poor neonazis... on top of that the only way of their faves house continuing is through halfbreed jon snow🫣
Grrm writes irony really well i gotta say!
Example of their racial purity:
“But Alicent isn’t a Targaryen, she doesn’t have the right!” has always been a weird argument to me because… the “right” she’s defending is not her own personal dragonlord claim. She’s fighting for her children’s inheritance. Her children are literally Viserys’s legitimate Targaryen children.
And by that logic, where does this stop? Alyssa Velaryon wasn’t a Targaryen either. She was half-Andal Velaryon fighting for the interests and inheritance of her children, who were only half-Targaryen themselves. Are we saying queens, wives, and royal mothers have no political standing to advocate for their children unless they possess enough Targaryen DNA points?
The blood-purity obsession. Also… this is Westeros. Noble mothers constantly fight for their children’s rights, claims, marriages, lands, positions, and survival. That is not uniquely scandalous Alicent invention. Catelyn, Cersei, Alyssa Velaryon, literally half the political mothers in this universe work through kinship advocacy.
It feels odd when her entire political position is inseparable from being the queen consort and mother of the king’s acknowledged children. You can disagree with her claim or support Rhaenyra’s inheritance without sliding into arguments that basically sound like Nazi/eugenics logic and sliding into “non-Targ women must sit down and accept whatever happens because blood...”
Mind you, a lot them genuinely treat the AKOTSK Targaryens as if they’re directly descended from Rhaenyra in a clean, immediate line, rather than understanding there’s a full century of intervening history, branches & intermarriage. I saw someone saying they like Aerion more than Aemond because he’s “Rhaenyra’s blood”… as if Aemond isn’t also Rhaenyra’s blood through the same line.
How would it be dating the main 4 + Butters in the tfbw universe and they were superheroes/villains with a partner? Would they be overprotective or even have reader as their sidekick? (Stan is Toolshed, Kyle as human kite, Kenny is Mysterion, Cartman as The raCOON and Butters as Professor chaos)
𝔗𝔬𝔬𝔩𝔰𝔥𝔢𝔡 doesn’t really want you involved in his hero work
Part of it is because he doesn’t want you to get hurt
It can be dangerous out there
Like, what if some alcoholic on the streets threw a beer bottle at you
Toolshed wouldn’t stand for that
On the other hand, he wouldn’t want you involved because it’s a special part of his childhood with the boys
He’d prefer to keep the hero act exclusive to Raccoon's basement
He can be more sentimental than he lets on
However, if you do get involved in some way, he will prioritize protecting you from danger
With his mental command over tools, he can be quite strong
One time, someone was messing with you (not really, the guy was just talking to you) but Toolshed became overprotective anyway and power-drilled his kneecap
Not completely before the guy pulled away, bleeding and screaming
He got a scolding after that, but something took over him
Other than that incident, dating a superhero has its perks
Tooldshed sometimes invites you to the Freedom Pals base, but reminds you not to touch anything that looks important since this is Tupperware’s house, and he’s rich
He manages to make time for dates or important events with you
There are a lot of superheroes in South Park, so it’s not like they can’t handle the crime, despite something insane happening like every couple weeks
Freshens up before your dates since he comes home smelling like garage
Still always looks disoriented in some way, whether it be an untucked shirt or wet hair from the shower
He’d be down to just show up to the date in his hero costume, though; it’s not like your relationship is a secret
Overall, he’s still Stan under there, so he behaves and thinks the absolute same (wasn’t creative enough to come up with an entirely different persona separate from himself, but then again, everyone who did fell back into their actual personalities anyway, so it didn’t really matter)
He loves you
ℌ𝔲𝔪𝔞𝔫 𝔎𝔦𝔱𝔢 vows to protect you with his life
He does not play about you
Always been protective of the people he cherishes most (borderline obsessive sometimes)
He prides himself on his heroic work and thinks he does a fairly good job at protecting the town
Definitely feeds his hero and superiority complex
He’d love it if you became a superhero, too, like him
If you wanted to be his sidekick, though, he’d have to decline
Human Kite values originality and doesn’t want to seem like he’s forcing you to be a sidekick (someone with less authority) because he thinks you’re super cool in your own way
Even if you insist, he will refuse, but instead think of a whole love backstory about how you both got together
He loves doing hero work with you
Especially if you team up to beat someone or do a mission together
If you’re not into the idea of being a hero, that’s fine with him; at least you’ll be safer that way
Acts pretty much like Kyle usually does, but with an added layer of confidence
He can get pretty serious about his work, sometimes to the point of verbally lashing out at people
Will be careful not to do this to you, since you’re special to him
Quick to anger, which makes him better at fighting, especially in tough battles
If you ever get in trouble, he is a fast thinker
That, combined with his protective nature, will get you rescued in no time
Makes sure to give you lots of kisses in private after if you do ever get in trouble
Still, he advises you to stay at home if the team needs to go and fight something dangerous
Or if South Park is being destroyed, since it’s happened before
𝔐𝔶𝔰𝔱𝔢𝔯𝔦𝔬𝔫 always keeps you in his sights
He never lets you stray far
Always watching you
Looks after you, wherever you go, he’s there patrolling, making sure you get to your destination safely
He’s one of the only superheroes in his group who actually has a separate persona from himself entirely
Sure, Kenny is protective and caring, but it’s only amplified when he’s Mysterion
His persona gives him confidence, makes him feel stronger, and gives him a sense of control, where he lacks it as Kenny.
He would be hesitant to tell you who Mysterion is; he doesn’t want you to make fun of him
He can be insecure, but doesn’t let it show
Thinks you deserve better, but is happy you’re with him
Although if you do know he’s Mysterion, he might only think you are with him because of his vigilante title or nature
Might need some reassurance there
He protects you fiercely
If anything does happen to you or if anyone tries to hurt you, he will snap
Will jump off whatever roof he’s camping on to watch you in a heartbeat and beat the shit out of whoever's messing with you
Once you’re safe, he’ll find it hard to pull away from the hug he’s trapped you in
He loves you so much, you are literally the sun to his moon, his everything, and he doesn’t think he’d be able to forgive himself if anything bad happened to you, or if he lost in a fight to protect you
He would prefer if you weren’t a hero as well because you’d be putting yourself in danger
Not that you couldn’t handle it, but again, if anything happened to you, he’d find it hard not to blame himself, whether it was his fault or not
If you are a hero, though, he’s proud of you for kicking ass and always cheer you on in a delightfully Kenny way
Honestly, like the perfect boyfriend, besides obsessing over whether he’ll be able to protect you when/if the time comes when you need it
𝔗𝔥𝔢 ℜ𝔞𝔠𝔠𝔬𝔬𝔫 needs you as his sidekick
He will not stop until you are
Unlike regular Cartman, The Raccoon is a little bolder, more violent
He has no problem punching Mosquito or anyone else, really
He reminds you of that often, even though he wouldn’t use physical violence against you, he’d be pretty manipulative
Like Cartman but worse
Cartman actually treats you like his lover, but when he’s in superhero mode, it’s like he’s a villian
A corrupt hero sitting at the top, in control of everyone
Or so he tells himself
Even that time when the rest of his team abandoned him, he still managed to gain control in another way
Very creative and obscure with his ideas and plans, pretty much a supervillian, and everyone agrees
He deeply cares for you and calls you his weakness, but don’t be fooled, he will still manipulate you if he must
Treats you like arm candy sometimes
Doesn’t want you to be your own hero; he wants you as his sidekick with a matching costume and all
If you don’t want to be a hero at all, that’s fine, he doesn’t think you’re cool enough to join his team anyway (he’s butthurt)
It was supposed to be a game for just him and his friends to begin with
Calls you a civilian as if it’s a curse word
Cartman feels the need to make Raccoon more sinister and evil than he himself is in real life; it’s like he’s reliving his childhood rebellion in a way
Except he wasn’t a rebellious child, more like psychopathic
Anyway, he won’t actually do anything to you aside from a little manipulation and guilt-tripping, might also place the blame on you if he screws up in some way to deflect
Very protective of what’s his
If someone messes with you, he will fuck them up with his claws
Brags about having a partner to the rest of the team
If you ever try to go your own way and be any kind of hero other than his sidekick, he’ll pull an “excuse me?” and act disgusted at even the suggestion of you doing something other than his intent
He says you’re either his sidekick or out of his team
It’s okay, you can join Freedom Pals and get revenge
𝔓𝔯𝔬𝔣𝔢𝔰𝔰𝔬𝔯 ℭ𝔥𝔞𝔬𝔰 is excited to have you on his team
It gets pretty lonely when it’s only him and General Disarray
The love of his life on his supervillian team?
Perfect
He swears to do his best to protect you against the superheroes or anyone else who tries to harm you
If you aren’t a supervillian yourself, no one messes with you much, but you already get picked on by some of the other guys for dating Butters
Still better than getting beaten up, though
You’re his biggest supporter, and he’s so incredibly grateful for that
He’s never had much encouragement or support in his life until you
Loves you more than anything
If you are interested in becoming a supervillain, he will suggest a partnership
He already has a sidekick and thinks you’re way too precious to be just his sidekick anyway
Treats you as his equal and will make a matching tinfoil helmet for you if you want to be partners
The two (sometimes three) of you go out and cause chaos around South Park
The professor's ideas are pretty mild
He’s too naïve to actually hurt anyone physically
He is protective of you but knows that if you both ever got in real trouble, you’d be cooked
Not the strongest out there, but his heart is pure and full of love for you
You say you’ll protect him, too, if he were to be in danger, which he finds himself in rather often
Your dynamic is mostly him getting into trouble he doesn’t deserve, and you rescuing him with General Disarray
Aside from that, he’s the sweetest boyfriend
Sometimes his evil plans get interrupted by thoughts of you, causing him to lose focus
You both end up calling it a day to go feed the chaos hamsters and cuddle in the evil lair
no use of yn // minor warnings // masturbation. smut with discussion of a breeding kink & possessiveness. (he’s still a targ at heart). kind of perv!valarr if you squint. no major disclaimers.
had this series in mind but could easily be read as a one-shot.
I was thinking a little too much about girldad!valarr (and by extension, grandpa!baelor) so I present the following scenarios:
> girldad!valarr being entirely blind to how women look at him (+bonus husband!valarr being a certified freakkkk for the mother of his kids)
> girldad!valarr playing mental chess with a toddler over cough medicine
> girldad!valarr terrifying advisors by letting his daughter pet the hunting hounds
> girldad!valarr finally having a son he has no clue what to do with
[illustrations from jb casacop for assorted grrm illustrated projects]
> the first child
valarr is a private man, foremost, but he often finds himself modestly boasting that his little girl is breathtaking and his wife a force of nature. no man is a more devout champion than the prince since his marriage to you. fresh perspective, he will laughingly say when interrogated by lords and soldiers alike.
he's so proud of you, of himself, of his darling little girl. there's no way for this young man to contain his obvious joy as it persistently emenates from him.
the terror and the pain begin to seem worth it when valarr sees you asleep in the piled blankets; the delightful vision of the babe squirming around, causing you to wake. a soft smile and tired yawn cross your face as you gently pat her back - it’s enough to make valarr’s chest seize.
she will be the death of me. valarr thinks to himself, head tilting to watch his wife sink deeper into the blankets.
valarr watches you both sleep from the doorway for a while, not denying the tears on his face or the long minutes it takes for him to calm his heart. he stands on wobbly knees, shoulder pressing into the doorframe as a trembling wave of fear washes over him.
gentle girl, what am I to do with you? he thinks, feet shuffling towards the bed. valarr manages to extricate alayne with careful hands, carrying her to the balcony bathed in sunset. waves crash into the cliffs below, gnawing at the foundations of dragonstone. all the while valarr stands and breathes deep, soothing himself by stroking his daughter’s back in time with the swell and retreat of the ocean.
the first time your daughter sets foot in the red keep, she is deep asleep. though to be specific, alayne’s feet never actually touch the ground in the keep until she’s already a few years old. the first years of her life are lived on dragonstone at the insistence of both parents, if for slightly different reasons. valarr insists his children receive the same treatment he did - five years without burden before they’re expected to be dragged around court.
your insistence had been sharper, more bitter: I hate that damned keep and the stinking city it watches. you are prince of dragonstone, not prince of the bloody east wing.
reluctantly, when his daughter is half a year old, valarr brings you both from the off-shore outcropping to arrive in the night. it’s long past time he presented his child to court and so with great care and a deal of nerves, alayne makes her first sea journey. there’s minimal fuss about the keep upon arrival - the three of you are seen in the courtyard very briefly in the darkness, not received and instead headed straight to bed.
valarr is the one to present alayne in the great hall the next morning, already having fielded off two handmaidens who tried dressing the little princess. many eyebrows raise as the procession enters, expecting it a lady mother’s duty to carry the babe about, but valarr is rather reticent to let go of his first born.
alayne is still a very small thing, drained rather easily by all the overwhelm of court. strangers fussing at her, bustling noises, different smells, the bright chandeliers and stained glass. it's a lot more activity than she's used to back home and so she sleeps soundly as her father carries her around. he's still not broken the habit, mostly because there are no wet nurses on dragonstone and valarr dislikes handing his girl off to members of staff. if it's not your hands or the careful watch of baelor, he will never leave his little girl unattended - even if that means carrying her up the twisting stairs in a little basket and taking her into his offices.
valarr's a keen eyed father and never one for leaving sharp things unattended. further still, his letter opener and paperweights are moved well out of reach. not that alayne makes many reaches. she's a quiet little watcher, like her sire. making her judgements; staring with one striking blue eye and thinking with the brown one. such a precocious little babe that you know will hone a sharp mind.
in the darkened cosy nook behind his desk, valarr's sweet girl will sleep in fits and bursts before suddenly crying out for some kind of attention. and it's good for him, he admits so. it reminds him to step away from his desk every so often to take her for a walk, to come find you for a quiet few minutes, take some food and sunlight and fresh air.
lords and advisors grow used to the sight of the basket on the floor beside the prince's chair. the few who scoff at it in the privacy of their holdfasts are always swiftly chided by besotted wives.
oh, he's such a good father. it warms the heart to see a devoted prince.
and even if it's said with a smile, there's always a tang of bitterness when some poor lady concludes: the princess is very fortunate.
you're certain the prince has no idea the effect little alayne has on his image. valarr seems blind to the fawning looks the ladies in the red keep persistently give him. even married women look on with some kind of hopeful affectation as he pats alayne's back and gives out one of his disarming, dimpling smiles.
the allure is deepened with the rarity of valarr’s appearance in king’s landing. he takes months at a time to scarper back to his island and only occasionally returns to prove the family is all alive and well, but most importantly, present and accounted for.
the young women in king’s landing flock to the handsome prince, drawn in by the five-day shadow under his jaw and the confident way he guards his little girl. many noble ladies ask to hold her, to touch her and kiss the fat of her flushed cheeks, but valarr has a smile and a firm refusal for each one.
you’re certain he doesn’t see it, the way women will stand so they’re almost leaning into him to get a look at alayne. he walks around, entirely oblivious to the commentary and the batted eyelashes. all he has eyes for is his little girl.
at first, you’d found it endearing - the attention lavished on a sweet child who definitely deserved it - but after a while their giggling laughter and fanning hands were too much for you. it drags on the nerves and makes you irritable watching these vultures use your innocent little girl as means to seduce your husband.
even if it doesn’t work, it still irks you.
valarr, bless his soul, sees it in a good light.
“they wish to see the babe,” valarr grins, watching how delightful you look, fresh from the bath and draped only with a towel. “the last child in court was maekar’s, and that was so long ago.”
“they wish to undress you with their eyes,” you frown sourly, towelling your hair. “I watch them bare their cleavage and laugh at your most unamusing jokes.”
valarr’s footsteps are soft and his body relaxed when he stands before you, hands coming up to find your cheeks.
“you find me unamusing?” valarr softly sighs in pretend hurt, thumbs rubbing the crest of your cheekbones and dipping down towards your jaw.
you scoff, still feeling bitter, and dodge his gaze. “you are not taking this matter seriously.”
“no,” valarr smiles, glancing briefly at your lips. “I am not.”
“because you enjoy the attentions.” you begin to argue, starting to feel slightly tearful.
“I enjoy the company of my sweet lady wife more than I do the delicacies of court.” valarr corrects, smiling. he seems so at ease, standing there and weighing up if it is a good idea to kiss his wife while she is touched with rage. “I do not take it seriously because it is not a matter I wish to give my energy to. to entertain it is to feed it.”
“but they’re so …” you sigh, letting your head rest a little heavier in valarr’s hands. “… young and sweet and desirable.”
“not to me,” valarr mumbles swiftly, eyes still flicking down to your mouth every so often. “they are like the tapestries on the walls. beautiful the first time one glances over, but the novelty drains swiftly and they’re not very adept with conversation.”
you laugh in spite of the insecure little beast inside, finding it in yourself to smile up at him. he’s not a man that says thing just to say them - underneath his lighthearted amusement is a bedrock of firm sincerity.
in those early years, especially following the struggle of losses to stillbirth, valarr was certain he never wanted more than one child… but his dear lady wife is rather beautiful and very, very convincing. his lady wife is also rather delighted at the way valarr looks when he’s cradling a babe in the candlelight, speaking soft valyrian words that roll off the tongue.
you lay in bed, watching valarr pace up and down aimlessly. he doesn’t use his thinking stride, the one that always matches toe of boot to the end of the flagstone. when he paces so, you know something has gripped him. but now he aimlessly drifts across the carpet, occasionally stepping side to side. alayne rests her head under his chin, squeezing his thumb with all her might. she laughs at words she doesn’t understand in a language several hundred years removed from her.
“give her a year,” you mumble, drawing valarr’s reverent attention. his eyes widen slightly at the sight of you in your nightdress, laid on your side and drinking up the candlelight.
“before?” he asks calmly, giving alayne a gentle bounce while his eyes roam deliciously down the myrish lace and silk that stops at your mid-thigh.
“before I give you another,” you promise huskily.
valarr isn’t a difficult man, or a particularly complex one either. not when his wife makes his jaw tighten and his throat feel nervous. advisors and lords and errant knights had all told him the same: the desire dries up when given an infant. men at court will say the scars and changing body sour the experience. it’s just not the same as the untouched, unbesmirched wife one gets to enjoy on the wedding night.
valarr, admittedly, begins to believe there is something rather wrong with him. his body seems determined to disprove every claim the shallow men in the capital had given. he’s never wanted his wife more. she’s got him under some sure kind of witchcraft; dark magic in the form of a low-cut nightgown and half-lidded eyes.
it’s near torture for valarr, it truly is, waiting a handful of months until you’re back to good health and he’s certain that a night of enthusiastic worship won’t harm you. it tears him apart when he has to put himself on a leash, guiltily taking fifteen minutes before coming to bed. valarr indulges himself in the bath, where hot water and slippery hands are enough to prompt the imagination. when he is alone in his office, struggling to concentrate and all but foaming at the mouth, he kicks the door firmly shut and unlaces his breeches with a well-practiced right hand.
in the dead of night when you’re sound asleep, he cannot help himself. he’d tried, truly he had. a night had come where he simply could not sleep. he’d banished himself to the cold balcony for twenty minutes, to no avail. he’d surely paced the length of westeros up and down the bookshelves, taking calming breaths… but the bedroom smelled of your your perfume and warm skin and it was killing him.
guilty hands had pulled the adjoining nursery door shut, shamed feet had carried valarr to the armchair by the fireplace.
backlit by the dying charcoals, valarr had a delightful silhouette of you sleeping. long minutes he’d stared at the gentle rise and sink of your bare shoulders as you laid facing away. he’d studied you as if he did not already have precise knowledge of your flesh - the points where blankets catch and fingers naturally want to settle. like he did not know every crease and the way your spine would twitch for him if he simply reached forward.
valarr let it happen. he gave into the only thing that would put him to sleep. with shaking, traitorous fingers, he plucked your discarded stocking from the stones and leaned back in the chair. the silk of it felt heavenly wrapped around him, especially when warmed by his desperate hand. shame and satisfaction played a nasty game of tug-o-war in his mind but he could not stop himself.
he’d been near his shameful peak when you rolled over, letting out a tired little sigh that sounded so close to a gentle moan. valarr’s hands stopped for only a moment, heart agonising over this gentle betrayal as he checked you remained asleep.
teeth sunk into the meat of his palm, valarr finds himself frantic from nothing more than a stocking and the sight of your bare chest breaching the blankets. absolute, all-consuming euphoria washes him free for a few trembling moments. even without a glance he knows he’s ruined your delicate undergarments, the silk stained, sticky and wrinkled where he’d bunched it in his fist.
it’s fine, he concludes, making moves to clean himself off. I will find an excuse to buy more. a final weak, wet twitch of his hips has valarr mentally flagellating himself for being such a debased man, for not being able to hold himself together. there’s surely not a shred of honour left in him. he feels juvenile, like it’s his first time fantasising about women and he needs to quickly run and confess to a septon of his depravity. he already knows he won’t be able to look you in the eye at breakfast.
as if to lift some guilt, valarr pushes the nursery door ajar to check alayne still rests soundly before putting himself to bed.
valarr waits longer than necessary before giving in to some of his more vigorous plans for you, holding off until you come to him on your own terms. until his guilt is about to eat him whole and he’s no better than an enthusiastic dog; drooling, begging, willing to stuff a pillow between his thighs because he’s grown utterly weak.
until a dinner of political bellyaching is almost ruined by the filthy image in his mind’s eye.
a tyroshi envoy calls port first at dragonstone before heading into the backwater rush to visit daeron and his enchanting wife, lady kiera of tyrosh. valarr nods along at all the right moments, smiles when expected, willing his mind to focus on the words as they come pouring from beneath a richly dyed blue moustache … but he cannot. all he can do is glance helplessly at you as you entertain a contingent of tyroshi women. when your eyes scrunch closed and mouth falls open in a peal of laughter, the intrusive flash crosses valarr’s mind.
the image of his wife laid across the table, gown unlaced to navel as she holds her skirts out of his way. eyes scrunched closed and mouth falling open.
it’s but a lingering thought that hangs so heavy valarr barely finishes his meal. as dessert is served and you’re licking cream from the crust of an apple tart, valarr excuses himself early with a weary jest about sleepless nights and needing to check on his daughter.
valarr takes himself for a walk over the cliffside walls, battered by the cold night winds to shake some restraint back into himself.
because he is never a liar, valarr does head to baelor’s apartments to check on his girl, but only after a long mental scolding and some cold water to the face. valarr will sit with his sire while you finish entertaining and dispersing guests, instead taking his time to appreciate the incredible steps baelor has made in the year and a half since ashford.
he walks as well with a cane as most men do on two legs, though his ability to run is rather poor. it’s taken time - and will take much more - but he has re-learned how to use his left hand for most basic tasks, struggling frequently with the numbness in his fingers. confusion still fogs his mind and on occasion he asks when jena will be joining you for dinner, but for a man who could not walk six months ago, it is rather miraculous.
baelor is also a very good grandfather. one that sits on the rug and helps the little girl develop a scrambling crawl; one that has an inexhaustible supply of bedtime stories and knows each trick to getting young children to clear a plate of vegetables. he is such a good guardian that valarr finds no stress in leaving alayne under such reliable watch.
gods is it freeing to return to his chambers without a babe, unto the darkness of his bedsheets where he can bite down on the collar of his shirt and whine like a fox in heat. he can kick off his boots with desperate haste and bury his face in your pillow, muttering and whimpering and making quick work of his trousers.
valarr feels like divine salvation has come when the door cracks open slightly and he smells his wife’s perfume.
gold light spills in a line from the hall followed by a single flickering, bobbing candle. your hand cups around the delicate flame as the door slams shut, just one solitary glow in the abyss.
you can hear him, of course you can. the whine, the rustling, the relieved intake of breath as he gasps for you to come here, please. it’s been so long. I beg you come over darling, I can take it no longer.
“such a sight,” you mumble, setting the candle by his bedside and gazing down.
he looks a mess, truly. completely wrecked with trousers catching on his thighs and shirt collar soaked with saliva, a hand fisted in your pillow while his head tilts back in agonised desperation.
“if you had such dire need,” you murmur huskily, fingers indulging a dinner table fantasy. each lace loosens until your fingers hit your navel, gown slipping onto the stonework. “… you ought to ask.”
“you’ll kill me,” valarr whines, drawing his hand from his breeches to throw off his remaining clothes. he reaches desperately for your bared flesh like it’s water to a man on fire. his jaw slackens simply thinking of at all the places he wants to put his lips, everywhere he knows will make you howl and claw at his hair.
where to begin with such a buffet?
“use me as you need, I’ll serve.” valarr gasps, unmade and vulnerable as you climb atop him. “I’ll do anything you want, just please let me touch you.”
it’s been almost a year but he’s never forgotten what it was like to be so entwined with his wife that the boundaries of a body begin to blur.
valarr lays against the pillows, one hand on your hip and the other braced behind his head. you take your leisure, starting on a desperate move that has your husband gasping and breaking off a prayer halfway on a groan. then you slow down, entirely for your own benefit.
you’ll leave his hips wet and he revels in the sticky, cooling desire in the dark hair on his thighs. he’ll say: ‘thank you, darling. let me give you another,’ and kiss the velvety divot where your throat and collarbones converge.
in a passionate flurry, valarr lurches up to push his chest against yours. with a focused determination, he reaches up for your necklace. the gentle weight of the small pendant at the end of the chain bounces each time you rise, whining and gasping, onto your knees. valarr catches the swinging chain easily and works his fingers delicately under, holding even though he may not move his hand beyond the length of your necklace.
it matters not. valarr's fingers settle up the side of your throat, gentle but present.
"back down here," he mumbles, dragging your mouth towards his. as he kisses you, he takes great pleasure in the way you’ll stutter each time his hips force your mouth to drop open and gasp.
valarr breaks off and rolls you both over without pause, just a winded collapse over the top of you as he braces his knees.
it's all a bit desperate. with sweating, firm hands he’s pushing your hips as open as they'll go, face buried in the side of your hair. you're absolutely enthralled by it, being given such long-awaited relief with his hand by your neck. valarr works a hand underneath to lift the small of your back ever so slightly in fevered worship.
and then, as you're scraping your nails through his hair and trying to kiss his sweat-covered forehead, he's retreating. swiftly, desperately backing out.
"no," you almost yell with overly sensitive despair, hand tightening in valarr's hair. you take a true fistful of it, white and brown all in your harsh, pleasure-deprived grip. "please come back."
"my love, I am being careful with you," valarr protests. already he has a hand on your thigh, fingers gently promising to finish the job. even as absorbed as he’d been in his own depraved fantasy, the rational bit of the prince lives inside at all times.
"I won't be satisfied," you mutter, hips bucking upwards to try feel even just the dull pressure of him against you. "not until l've had all of you."
your hand pulls on his hair again and he drops his head near your breast and whines.
"we already have a daughter ... I don't wish to do that to you again."
"I wish for you to do it to me. please, my love. it's been too long." your free hand searches desperately to line him up with you, but his hips cant backwards out of your reach. "I want you properly. none of this careful treading."
"sweetheart," valarr protests, mouth open and moaning as your fingers find that perfect spot in his scalp and tug insistently. "we should really discuss the matter on calmer grounds."
you're so impressed that valarr can be so verbose even as his body is shaking and he's leaning his head into your collarbone. he's a formidable example of composure but you have one final card to play.
one arm wraps tightly around valarr's shoulder, the other releases his hair and slips between you both.
“there’s no need to pretend, my love,” you murmur into his ear, hand stroking torturously slowly. “I saw how you looked at me when I was carrying. couldn’t behave yourself. it’s alright to want it.”
valarr says nothing, jaw grinding harshly as he tries to find some firmer pleasure against the soft of your stomach. his eyes screw closed, nose rubbing behind your ear like an affectionate cat.
your hand releases him completely and valarr all but sobs into your hair with frustration.
“chain it as you like, it will always be dragon.” you mutter. your teeth scrape the edge of valarr’s earlobe and your ankles once again lock behind his back. “lay claim. let me give you a son, my prince. you’re duty bound to fuck me, a gods-given right.”
valarr snaps his head up in pure shock, eyes widening to check if he’s just heard correctly. his hand comes up to squeeze your jaw in a firm grip as he frowns. his sweet wife promising such delicious things… impossible depravity from the mother of his child.
“… seven hells you have a filthy mouth,” he mumbles, fingers digging gently into your cheeks, forcing your lips to part slightly. “where did this come from?”
“it’s been so long, darling.” you mutter, leaning forward to try kiss him. “I want you.”
there’s a long moment where valarr stares down at your wanton face, the way you try press your skin against him at every opportunity.
“you do?” valarr asks sweetly. there’s a hint of condescension as his eyebrows pinch and he turns your head to the side, denying that sweet kiss so he can bite your collarbone. he lets go of your jaw to instead pin you softly by the side of your head, ever so slightly pushing down into the pillows.
careful lips rest against your temple as valarr lets out a long breath. in the dark you catch the glint of the dress mirror standing by the wardrobe. a tall pool of moonlight and black shapes; the single taper candle flickers and wisps with each rustle of the bed drapes.
with your head tilted you see it all - the naked tangle, the heaving ribs. how beautiful it looks when valarr’s thumb hooks behind your knee and pushes it into your chest.
“do not turn your eyes away,” valarr warns firmly. it comes a shade more serious than anything else he’d said that evening, a reminder that his quiet nature does not mean timid. “look upon my gods-given right.”
> the middle child, the court’s dismay.
valarr’s second child is demanding from the very moment you sense you’re about to labour. such a sudden and impatient child.
after the experience of your first, valarr had dreadfully braced for more of the same - another long day, twenty hours of pacing and swearing and crying. so it is with great shock that it’s a matter of minutes from your waters breaking on a peaceful walk before suddenly the child wants out.
not for the first time in your life do you find yourself laid out on the grass with your husband beside you, but for the first time do you have a silent witness. your brave kingsguard not tempered by this kind of blood and suffering, standing hand on pommel as he protects his prince and kin in the most vulnerable of moments.
he’s the only kingsguard in history to swear an oath of protection over a girl still streaked with her mother’s blood.
a girl so impatient that she was born in the midst of the conqueror’s gardens, swaddled in ser donnel’s white cloak where she took her first breath of cliffside air. smokey, salty sea wind the first thing to touch her fragile lungs.
stubborn aemma comes much swifter and much easier than shy alayne, and with the experience valarr starts to feel a seasoned father. he quietly revels in the drama of the tale - joking to everyone who will listen that his daughter was so fond of the dragonstone gardens she did not want to go back to the keep for supper.
his second girl is - in the beginning - met with the same novelty delight about court. soured lords wishing for a secure succession are still, for a time, assuaged by wives with fond spirits.
with time his second, seemingly unimportant girl becomes a bit of an inconvenience to the court. a political thorn in the side. people begin to mutter about the princess getting no younger - you’re barely thirty - and still there are no princes to be seen. valarr does not ever seem to care. he’s got his family and he’s rather proud, actually. so devastatingly proud. alayne dotes on little aemma in the way young children always tend to - with curiosity and confusion.
aemma seemed born to be forging her own path. her locks of soft chestnut hair lack any tuft of white, and her two gentle blue eyes make you think she looks fairly like matarys, though that is where the resemblance firmly ends.
where matarys was, by all accounts, a quiet child more inclined to reading than riding, his niece is a devilish force of adventure. a princess who prefers playing in the mud of dragonstone and learning to run on the black sand shorelines.
when she makes journeys to the red keep with her sire, she’s nearly impossible to contain. without fear she follows her father around - and when she cannot walk fast enough he scoops her up. into the yard, the stables, the kennels. she is everywhere there is adventure to be had.
it’s not particularly befitting of a four year old to be sitting on war horses while they doze in the stable and petting hunting hounds like they’re family beasts. she laughs with delight when those hellish black dogs sniff her hand and try lick it, always looking back at her father for security.
and valarr gives it. he’s always there, gently encouraging her to brave this strange world. he finds the most docile of the destriers and the softest, dopiest hounds. he carries her up the difficult steps and holds her steady so she cannot run along the high walkways.
valarr takes aemma for leisure rides within the keep’s boundary as more of a novelty horseback walk than anything serious. you cannot help the worry seeing your delighted little girl balanced in the saddle in front of her father. you know his arm is strong and seat steady but you’re too nervous at the thought of something going wrong.
to the chagrin of the lordly houses, valarr does not wish to treat his daughters like accessories. seven year old alayne is admittedly the more palatable child - possessed of such a quiet, sweet nature and a striking patch of white that lends credibility to her heritage - while four year old aemma is the wild thing not so easily tamed. valarr had joked, once and very briefly, that aemma would make a fine new jonquil darke were she only trained martially.
no gathered lord found it quite so amusing, and while valarr never put a sword in his daughter’s hand, he’d certainly considered the option. on more than one occasion you’d confided to your husband that if only aemma had been born aemond, the council and advisors would be smitten. valarr agreed each and every time, sighing under the weight of his birthright.
you come to find your wild girl is also a budding mastermind.
aemma rests quietly through a chill, hands clutching your thigh as you stroke her hair. she’s rather robust and usually fights sickness with a day or two - every maester declares it dragon blood that boils out the malady. you’re willing to believe it of your girls. they have always felt hot to the touch, as if coals rest beneath the skin. just like valarr, and you presume, the rest of the family. the heat of a sunbaked stone bleached white in the peak of summer.
aemma is usually rather brave about it when you wake her to drink the maester’s tea. tonight though, she simply will not have it. not even when you kiss her forehead and give promises it will make things better.
it is a great thing your husband is a sharp tactician.
“no, it’s quite alright.” valarr announces, smiling disarmingly as he approaches the bedside. “you do not have to.”
aemma seems satisfied as her father squeezes her cheek gently and takes the wooden cup away. she settles back against you with a petulant whine when valarr takes the pitcher and leaves the bedroom.
in the adjoining apartments - a small network of bedrooms and solars joined by one singular dead-bolted door - you can hear your husband scheming. some rattling, some shuffling. there’s five minute pause where you hear alaynes door open and then a moment later a peal of soft, girlish laughter as your husband does his nightly bedtime rounds.
then, the schemer returns.
aemma, satisfied in getting her way, has settled back to rest. she’s half dozing, still occasionally wiggling slightly.
valarr passes into the bedroom, softly closing the door with his foot. in his hands are a bottle of wine and three goblets, which strikes you as very peculiar. he smiles at you in a conspiratorial manner and sits on the chaise at the end of the bed making use of a little cabinet nearby as a table.
“is aemma asleep?” valarr asks casually, in the same tone he’d used every night the last four years, fingers on his lips as you both watch her.
“… yes, love.” you play along, not stilling your hands on her hair. it takes a lot to contain your giggling as you watch aemma play pretend at sleeping.
“good, she ought to rest,” he sighs, decanting something that’s clearly not wine from a wine bottle. “nightcap?”
valarr hands you one of the fancy goblets - a wedding gift used rather infrequently - topped up with something that smells suspiciously like aemma’s fever tea.
it’s a theatrical ploy that works devillishly well.
aemma rises from her slumber mighty swiftly, looking up at what the two of you are doing.
“did we wake you?” valarr asks, holding a hand out to his sweet child. “I am sorry darling.”
on quiet hands she crawls over and stands at the foot of the bed, peering nosily right into valarr’s cup. she says nothing but continues staring even as your incredibly brave spouse takes a sip of that foul medicine without flinching. he lets it hang in the mouth a moment like it’s a deep vintage needing time to appreciate.
such a performance isn’t lost on you. the detail in the charade is perfect.
"what's that?" aemma asks, standing right in the middle of the bear trap.
valarr smiles, glancing down at it as if it's not very interesting and pats her on the head. "oh, I don't think you'd like it, darling."
aemma goes silent, frowning in her stubborn way. she's beginning to form her own plot but she's nowhere as good as her father. he sits back and takes another sip, crossing ankle onto knee and moving on.
"did you see lord tarly's hair this eve?" valarr asks - he's not even pretending anymore, it's something you'd both meant to talk about. a smiling glance in the great hall held for no longer than a second because you'd surely start laughing.
"gods," you laugh against your cup, finally joining the masquerade and suffering a sip. it's rather like aniseed and while not the worst drink you've ever had, you can see how it would disgust aemma so. "he clings to those final strands."
“it is a ghastly look,” valarr laughs, casually tapping his rings against the goblet.
aemma, all the while, moves her chess pieces. she slumps when her father ignores her and heads over to your cup, peering inside silently and almost gawping.
“what’s that?” aemma asks again.
“it’s wine, dear. you wouldn’t like it,” you shake your head, offering her to sit on your lap.
she refuses, squinting still at the goblet as valarr takes another casual sip.
“can I try?” aemma asks, turning to her father.
valarr makes a spectacular performance, frowning softly at first as if he’s considering it. he sighs and looks into the goblet and then up at you.
“might she? a cup surely would not hurt,” valarr argues, tilting his head reasonably. there’s a look in his eyes, though, that signals to you to push back. make her believe it. make it feel like her victory.
“a sip at most,” you say firmly, letting the pause deepen.
“a sip, then,” valarr nods decisively, offering over his goblet. “come here, aemma.”
she’s a quick mover for a girl incapacitated with a fever, hands steady as she grins and reaches for the metal cup. one deep sip and she lowers it - though you can see the little cogs turning. she’s thinking of another sip before her father can take it from her.
“I like it,” she announces, making a complete heel-turn on her previous statements of: ‘I don’t want to!’ and ‘it tastes bad.’ such a swiftly acquired taste, in fact, that she seems like a cat with a bowl of cream when given her own cup. too satisfied to question why her father had brought three goblets out.
it’s such an impressive bit of tactical moving from your husband. it doesn’t matter he’s never stood on a battlefield, no army could be harder to out-manoeuvre than a toddler filled with dragon’s blood.
> an abundance of princes
valarr’s final child, born a handful years after aemma, is a complete surprise - unplanned and entirely accidental. loved thoroughly, but never truly intended.
the two of you had returned to the capital alone for a whole week. at nine and six, alayne and aemma could be left with their uncle and grandfather on dragonstone. admittedly, matarys mostly watched peaceful alayne. the two of them read fables and played simplified rounds of tiles. aemma put baelor and ser donnel through their paces, but she was never a terror. energetic and bold but never spoiled. the worst thing that could be said of her is the fact she refused to wear dresses outside of dinner.
with your daughters long out of the infant stage and your trust firmly set in their guardians, you’d finally had a chance to get your husband greedily to yourself. even if it was a celebration for his cousin’s firstborn - daeron and kiera had, after several years, welcomed a little girl - valarr absorbed every moment of the time he could with you.
unaccompanied by children, you cannot help but think on your honeymoon. back to a time when tragedy had not hung low over the family. a time when you were both young and juvenile enough to think testing the strength of particular pieces of furniture constituted royal duty.
the two of you terrorise the ship hands with amorous displays in the locked cabin; you’re late to depart at the blackwater docks and only just manage to leave the carriage unsoiled on your journey into the keep.
not for want of trying.
valarr had made it a game to pull the silk curtains back and see if he was practiced enough and swift enough to have you coming apart underneath bunched skirts. nobody else will ever know the truth inside that rocking wagon, but you’ll never forget the sight of valarr licking his fingers clean before opening his door with a frightening composure.
nobody finds it odd when a lady dismounts a carriage and starts fixing her skirts. valarr glances at you but once and only to hold out his elbow. there are formalities to be had, greetings to be given.
valarr is schooled when you move through the keep, making composed greetings and shaking hands with the fingers that had been pleasuring you only minutes ago. he melts into the easy prince; laughing with guards and advisors, kissing the back of lady kiera’s knuckles and spilling profound congratulations. gifted by his own perspective, valarr is one of the few gathered royalty that shows genuine elation for their daughter. no matter the lingering disappointment in others, valarr has more than enough to make up for it. if he’s adept at anything, it’s dealing with infant girls.
in the private apartments before dinner, kiera first passes little vaella to you. she’s delightful, truly. her honey-blonde hair blends so nicely against her rich skin. you cradle her for no more than a few moments before valarr is giving you a pleading gaze. the same look aemma gives when she wants lemon cakes for breakfast.
“hello, princess,” valarr mumbles when handed the child. the grin that splits his face is enough to melt your heart. he quietly rocks vaella while kiera talks your ear off about finding time to sleep, about nervousness and fears leaving the babe with wetnurses. all the while valarr paces up and down the room, mumbling soft things in valyrian to the little girl. a guttural, tongue rolling language to welcome the babe into the household. valarr fixes you a desperate look over kiera’s shoulder, a pleading gaze that reads as: we should reconsider.
kiera’s questions fade away from you as you focus on valarr’s soft stare. he seems so smitten, clearly reminiscing sweetly on his own girls and you begin to feel the same pull. the allure settles inside because perhaps he is right … perhaps it has been too long.
the two of you manage to behave through dinner and indulge in a spot of dancing. without children to worry over, you let yourself enjoy more fine wine than usual and stay later. for once, you’re not the ones retiring from the gathering early, yawning and working through the routine of putting children into bed.
you’re still so young and blessedly free, walking hand in elbow, unleashed within the gardens. dancing beneath the chandelier uncaring of the opinions of onlookers.
valarr charms the lords at dinner with his worldly knowledge. smart word games are played. debate begins eagerly and flows for hours. he’ll make sharp commentaries on what constitutes morality within law; proposes fairly radical overturn of archaic rule; disseminates the current economic tide. topics which usually set hackles raising and deaden the conversation. but valarr delivers them all with such a charm that disarms all men, be they swift or stubborn or mean.
later, when he’s built that ego and tested the sharpness of his wit, when the children and the reputable guests have long vanished, valarr sips spiced ale and lets you feed him wine-soaked apricots. partly reclined in the seat and unabashed by some drunken onlookers. collar askew but hair still laying so beautifully, this noble man lets you take his jaw in hand in front of peers and subjects. in the training yard tomorrow he will have to make a good showing of his swordwork to sharpen the dragon’s claws you’ve publicly softened.
perhaps to prove a minor point, emboldened by the knowledge his chambers are empty of children and the guards outside are unknown to him, valarr is hard to contain. his worship begins with good faith and a summoned basin of hot water. drinking deep from a fresh bottle of wine, valarr sits on the bed and watches you undress like he’s judging from the throne.
valarr’s deep brown eye flashes amber, at times, in the candlelight. it’s so enticing to stand before him while you unlace each delicate strap. layers slip down and you wash your face, all the while valarr taps his rings to the wine bottle without even bothering to kick off his boots.
“men oft pay for the privilege of sitting in such a seat,” valarr groans, head tilting to appraise the naked curve of your shoulders and back.
“your coffers would be empty within a week.” you reply, looking at him over your shoulder. it’s an invite and challenge, all in one.
“frugal spending and I may last the month.” valarr jokes, boldly staring at your nakedness.
standing just out of his reach, hands cupping at your chest to pretend some shred of faked modesty, it’s enough to drive your husband up the wall. all you can imagine is the sight from earlier, the pleading look from valarr and the swiftness in which he’d wanted to hold little vaella.
it’s that which has you sitting atop him, making gentle moves to undress him. a hand down his collar to feel rushed heartbeats and soft hair on his chest.
“I want a golden dragon for my service,” you huskily threaten, fingers pulling at his doublet. the clasp on his sword belt is the next target.
“surely you are worth at least three,” valarr frowns, sitting back with the wine in one hand and your thigh occupying his other.
“steady, ser.” you warn, taking a perverted delight in the act of naked pleasure when your husband is still fully clothed. “you could not afford to indulge your appetites. three dragons a turn and the kingdom would be beggared.”
“just a copper then, my good lady.” valarr moans, urging you to get out of his lap. steady fingers hold you in front of him, standing between his spread knees.
“I’ll make a gift of a different dragon,” he vows, kissing below your bellybutton.
for all his filthy talk, when valarr laid you down after that dinner party he’d been intending to do as he always did, finish elsewhere to spare you such discomfort and terror. to spare having to put your very life in the hands of a godly whim. no matter the depraved muttering of possessive desire, valarr pulls out, always, to paint the small of your back or the valley of your chest white. he’ll cover your lower stomach with himself and then take you into the bath afterwards.
but a knock on the door had startled the two of you so badly. focus interrupted, he’d been slower than he would have liked in his retreat.
valarr thought he’d succeeded rather deftly until he glanced down and realised that while most was, indeed, dribbling from his slender fingers to land obscenely on your stomach, there was more than a generous helping of himself slowly dripping from you. there had been a slight drop of panic in his over-sensitive aftermath - only for a moment - before appreciating that delicious sight and thinking … is it really such a terrible thing?
naturally, he’d thought two girls were more than enough. but at that point, what is one more?
in any matter, he’d rationalised, having had to deliver a firm reminder for staff not to bother unless urgent, it may not take. it may never happen. his girls had needed years to take root. perhaps this would be nothing but a pleasurable accident and no more.
a pleasurable accident that by year’s end gifts him, at last, his final child. on a grey afternoon as torrential summer rain batters the parapets and flows from balconies, a boy is born.
your husband had been well prepared with names for more girls, somehow convinced you would add a third into the mix, so he finds himself on the back foot when the midwife laughs and passes over ‘a little prince, my lord.’
for days and nights he agonises over it, leaving the babe to simply be called ‘our boy.’ he knows he ought to send a raven back to the capital, at the very least mentioning his wife had safely delivered again, but terror grips him worse than ever in his life.
it’s something he’s been told to want for as long as he could remember and yet fear lives in him. it nestles in alongside his love and his guilt - preemptive worry that he’s going to fail this kid worst of all.
choosing a name is the hardest part. titles like aegon and daeron and jaehaerys give a child arrogance and burden. it breeds entitlement and inferiority in tandem. a blighted standard. as much as he adores his wife, valarr refuses suggestions like martyn and jon and petyr. a valyrian prince cannot take a westerosi name, no matter where his mother comes from.
valarr spends hours silently deliberating, watching you cradle the boy when he’s far too afraid to hold him. he circles through as much of his ancestry as he can pull to mind, recounting aenys, aelyx, gaemon, daemion … not a single one seems to fit when valarr lets his son grab at his fingertips.
as the first week passes and no inspiration strikes, valarr starts taking his wife’s other suggestions. you’ll sit in his office in the reverent spot by the window he’d set out; afforded the place of honour by the sunny window, blankets piled in the deepest, softest leather armchair valarr could locate on the whole island. the boy rests in your elbow, fed and happy and making grabbing hands for your necklace.
valarr claims to be working, but truly he’s flipping through scrolls and books to find answers. to find something to name his boy.
“my love, what is the valyrian for bird?” you ask, head tilted to watch the calming swell and rush of the ocean.
“hunte,” valarr replies, not looking up from his book.
you frown, having hoped for something better, something with more substance. “how about … rain?”
“daomio.” valarr purrs quickly, flicking a page and not breaking his gaze.
you turn it over in your mind, finding it not the worst outcome. but still, you have questions.
“what is pride?” you say, looking down to play a soft back-and-forth game of finger squeezing with your boy. he’s a grabber, to be certain. already you’re making mental notes to keep the dangerous things on high shelves.
“it depends,” valarr sighs, abandoning his reading and sinking back in his chair. “to be proud, or to inspire pride?”
you frown a moment, too tired for his games of verbiage. “either.” a pause. “both.”
valarr laughs and stretches his hands above his head, cracking his upper back with a groan. he comes over with a tired yawn and stands near the window, weighing up your question.
“hōzigon is pride itself. jōzigon is to be proud of.” he answers, settling a hand on the top of your head.
“why must you ask?” valarr queries. “I remember teaching you valyrian. it cannot have been long after our wedding.”
you chuckle from deep in your chest, a hand coming to reach for valarr’s wrist. “you made love to me on the library desk. minimal tutelage was involved as far as I recall.”
“nonsense,” valarr tuts with offence, lacing his hand with yours. he crouches down beside the chair, resting by the window and glancing out. pink mid-morning sun catches on the spilling sea foam, but he finds his gaze always drawn back to you and the boy. “I strongly recall giving lessons. you were proficient at reading, at least.”
“yes, dear, I can read it, but I do not understand it.” you laugh, stopping the boy from pulling too harshly on the ends of your hair. “I certainly remember you saying many things… but I believe by that point I was beyond teaching.”
“test your memory.” valarr grins as if he’s digging his teeth into a fun challenge. “it has been a few years, can you speak it?”
“aōhon iksan se ñuhon iksa was our vow … and I believe that is the entirety of my knowledge.” you think, distracted by the comfortable seat and tranquil setting. “when you come home after a long trip, you say jaehio ilīritas.”
“I do,” valarr smiles. he rests his head forward and lets go of your hand, head against your knee as he sits down properly.
your free hand settles atop his head, absently making gentle movements. “why?”
“it means …” with a fond sigh valarr leans back into your hand. his cheek rests against your thigh and the edge of the boy’s calf like a supplicant at an altar. “a goddess smiles upon me. a term of endearment. what else stirs in your memory?”
“I recall dijāves ilībio, too.” you say, pulling more untranslated phrases from the fog of years.
valarr’s face reddens as you recount your meagre lessons. “yes, well.” he clears his throat and composes himself. “never repeat that with an audience.”
“what does it mean?” you laugh, poking softly at his temple.
“it’s…” valarr blushes and digs his face into your thigh, caught on a surprised laugh. “a particularly … eager woman of … ah, nefarious employment.”
you gasp and can’t help but burst into deep, scandalised chuckling that has the boy rocking slightly in your grip. “you called me a lusty whore?”
“words to that effect,” valarr laughs in return, not even hiding his deep amusement. it’s so enchanting to hear him enjoy an unguarded bit of joy. he almost never laughs in the red keep, but on dragonstone he laughs with such honesty that his newborn son thrashes about as if calling out to his happiness. instinctively wishing to join.
valarr sighs and sinks into the easy joy of family life, something he’d struggled to feel without fear since his boy arrived. my cousins can keep summerhall, valarr thinks, staring up at you with reverence. all I want is the island.
he’s not sure how long he sits on the cold stone floor before you ask him to move. “excuse me, love. I need to put the boy to bed.”
“he tires?” valarr yawns, hands on his knees as he pushes off the floor.
“you tire,” you laugh, standing stiffly and somewhat aching. “… might we name him soon? I cannot keep calling him boy.”
“… I am still thinking.” valarr mumbles guiltily.
“he will be a man grown by the time you decide.” you warn, rocking gently.
“love,” valarr pleads, taking himself to stand wearily near his desk. he barely looks up when you bring the boy over to see if valarr wishes to hold him a moment. “I will not raise an aegon. you are holding a king … gods, I cannot think.”
“I am holding a babe,” you argue softly, leaving valarr with a stern glare. “name your bloody son, or I will forever fear you do not love him.”
valarr stands helplessly for a long string of minutes. long enough that the scent of your perfume has faded from the room and he’s certain you’re not returning. you’re probably playing with alayne or trying to chase down wild aemma. the desk digs into the back of his thighs and the sun rises to reach the midday peak over the ocean.
valarr never returns to his writing, instead confronting intense dread. my boy, my poor little burden. how can I force him into a life I never wanted? he paces, toe of boot lined so precisely with each edge in the flagstone. for hours he paces, strides, worries. until his legs ache and he starts to feel sick with hunger. that boy holds all my fear and all of my hope.
it comes so sensibly to valarr that he wishes to curse himself for being so blind. he wants to strike himself and swear in frustration because how did it never occur to him?
one’s own hope. jaelarys.
a pure valyrian name, one not already claimed and soiled. his hopeful boy, untouched by the harshness of the world. the boy that will be better.
hands shaking with pride, not fear, valarr unscrews the cap from a jar of ink. he searches for a quill under the mess of his desk, pushing a few unimportant parchments off to the side. frantic, he flattens out a small strip of paper and dips the quill.
‘grandfather. it is my joy to inform you my wife safely delivered of a son. jaelarys, first of his name. prince of dragonstone.’
valarr strides around the corridors, seeking his father and his wife to spread the good news. and for the first time, he’s charging to the nursery on desperate feet to hold his son and apologise. he needs to cradle this child at long last - to comfort and protect it in spite of whatever he may fear.
no matter the frantic insistence that returns on raven scroll, valarr fends off the threat of the red keep. two months, three, four. time for his fear to make a softer home inside. time for him to feel shaky and nervous when he sees his son’s hair grow in a fearfully pale blonde. much lighter than aemma’s, but not so white as his own streak. not a strand of brown to be seen.
the gods truly have a unique humour.
like alayne, jaelarys is not brought forward for half a year. it takes a lot to convince valarr that all will be well, that it is only a spot of court gossip to endure. and so, as bells ring out from baelor's sept, the newest prince enters the red keep at long last.
almost immediately are the excited celebrations heard around court. it takes not even a few hours before valarr is urged to have more. another. as if that’s something within his control. with his little boy in arms and a blushingly proud grin on his face, valarr receives the well-wishers.
in your life, you will never forget the day lord tyrell blundered so awfully before the prince.
“congratulations at long last, your grace,” lord tyrell bows and grins, bowing a second time under the guise of honouring you.
“were my other children not worthy of your congratulating, my lord?” valarr asks sweetly, smiling as he rocks his boy. it’s a disarming look that has lord tyrell tittering nervously.
gods. you want to eat him alive.
“perhaps a brother would be good company?” lord mooton asks. “to remind your grace of his boyhood.”
“perhaps not,” valarr supplies firmly. “I wish to enjoy these first years of my son.”
“but… your grace, a spare heir is strong insurance.” lord hightower intercedes. “your sire understood this well enough.”
“this is not an issue of poor comprehension,” valarr says flatly. “what I struggle to understand is the nature of marriages in the reach. here, good ser, my wife’s comfort is not supplanted by your strategic insistences.”
“of course, your grace. I would not hope to imply otherwise-”
“and yet you did.” valarr muses, brushing the apology aside. “my boy is not even a year old and you are not satisfied with him.”
among those paying respects to the new prince are a few guests of honour. having made the several week journey on horseback, the prince of dorne manages to appear well-kempt and incredibly regal so far from his typical climate.
maron martell and his eldest son come forward near the end of your stay in the capital. as great-uncle to valarr and brother of the good queen myriah, you know they would have been brought before you much sooner had the journey only been swifter, though no journey is too long to pay respects to a future king.
draped in apricot silks and rich, orange cotton, prince maron approaches the throne and pays his obeisance to his sister and brother-by-law. his hands jangle with layered gold rings and bangles as he rises from his honourable bow. with the crown appeased, the dornish prince turns to valarr.
unlike the other lords, prince maron first greets valarr with a bow at a distance, then more intimately when closer. you suspect had it been you holding jaelarys, maron would have clasped valarr’s hand and made a familiar greeting. you can see the shreds of his ancestry stronger than ever when valarr stands in front of maron. the cut jaw, strong nose and dark hair.
prince maron gives due respect to you and your girls when he stands before you - a proud element of dornish court that you desperately wish would be brought north.
when marons eyes sweep valarr’s family - his rather becoming young wife and their two girls - it is with nodding approval. in particular, the prince sizes up your eldest.
“now that,” maron grins with satisfaction, wagging a proud finger down at alayne. “is a dornish dragon. the brown eye is my sister's handiwork.”
such an abrasive sentence would, no doubt, have sent smaller men into an insecure anger. valarr instead takes it with a proud nod, thinking of his grandmother, of his father and how myriah’s gift remains strong. it’s enough to bolster valarr’s self esteem for many years, finally helping him drop that last juvenile insecurity about his appearance. no longer do aerion’s taunts of mongrel prove a thorn in his side.
maron seems at least vaguely interested in the little prince, at least insomuch as a grown man can be interested in a baby that is not his. it’s a good showing for the family and as king daeron grows older by the year, security and unity are the greatest remaining worries to succession.
valarr enforces his personal tradition and raises his son away from prying eyes. jaelarys, like his sisters, lives hidden away on dragonstone for five terribly short years. valarr takes extended visits to the capital, naturally, for no more than a month at any one time.
at eleven and nine, his daughters may choose to join at their leisure. there’s no explicit expectation they follow their father along, but alayne is rather fond of sea travel and always comes back with a new hairstyle to trial. aemma doesn’t always seem inclined to leave you - not since she discovered there are catacombs beneath dragonstone. you’re certain she’s a test from the gods to see how much worry a mother can endure each time she appears in the family chambers covered in soot and dust.
there’s always a spot of murmuring when the prince arrives at the keep without his heir, but valarr’s advisors eventually concede that the babe’s first years are not of great import. there is nothing useful to be done with a boy of three.
you know his teen years will be terrible, but jaelarys’ precious boyhood remains untouched.
each time valarr extricates himself from the capital, he is shocked to see how swiftly his son has grown in a matter of weeks. it is as if your husband forgets his own long-limbed appearance and that of his sire, too. each time he leaves you brace yourself for the longing. the ache in your chest each bedtime when jaelarys asks for ‘papa’ never seems to lessen.
you know the distance and the duty eat away at your husband, but solace is taken knowing he’s only up the blackwater rush. the seven would have to spare your heart if he was ever summoned off to war. you simply could not bear it.
carrying your son, you’ll wait on the docks, staring out for any sign of black sails on the horizon. aemma often struggles to stay in one place for an extended period, with the only exception being waiting for her father’s ship. that, you all have infinite patience for.
so each time the giant black vessel moors and you look up into the sun towards the deck, it truly is a little gift from the seven. you’ll shield your eyes from the bright daylight and stare up at his silhouette cut against pale sky. you’ll endure those painfully long minutes while the sailors and ship hands secure the anchor, for the simple reward of boots on the dock.
steady steps come down even though you know valarr would run to you if he could. you’re all there waiting and as much as valarr absolutely adores his children, and as much as you’ve been devastated missing alayne on her trip, your husband is the first person you wish to see.
alayne seems more grown than you’d like, a reminder of the years. you’re certain that she’s the darling of the women’s court and it pains you somewhat to wonder what you’re missing out on - tortured in the same gentle way valarr is at the absence of his boy.
despite all of the longing and the distance and the missed weeks of childhood, the first person valarr wishes to greet is you. he bypasses his sire and his heir because the first person he needs to embrace is his wife.
the woman whom, without her, none of this existence would be possible.
chewing through the bars of my cage to get to oscar morgan. I saw that picture of him. you know the one. he’s so fine.
no use of yn. no descriptors for skin tone/height/weight etc. mentions of connington-typical red hair but nothing else. an angst-heavy love story that follows two young people fighting off the pressures of maintaining a dynasty. heavily informed by book lore because I’m a huge nerd.
part one - [3.6k]
the dragons seek betrothals for the men of age. each poor woman in the kingdoms is dragged to the capital, ready to be bargained for // no warnings
part two - [4.5k]
life in the red keep sees lady connington suffering the disappearances of loved ones and strange ultimatums // no warnings
part three - [10.5k]
a wedding and a bedding at last // smut & foul language
part four - [11.4k]
a honeymoon followed by love and loss in westeros. // smut, mentions of stillbirth & animal harm
part five - [14.2k]
the prince finds comfort in his station, recovering from loss and hardships. you finally begin to feel like one of the family // smut
part six - [11.8k]
good heavens, it's ashford! secrecy and the dangers of living as royalty // traumatic injury & gore. animal harm. smut
part seven - [12.4k]
life in the wake of the tourney presents both opportunity and strife // childbirth. depictions of traumatic head injury. happy (unofficial) ending!
how people hate alicent but worship visenya is beyond me
I talked about this HERE
You know the “white/European” feminism with Valyrian/dragonblood feminism… In this selective feminism, only certain women are allowed to be loved the ones who fit the fantasy mold: Targ women, magical women, silver hair, dragon blood, dragons, whatever. Women like Alicent, who risked their lives, gave birth, and fought for their children’s survival, aren’t important. Their labor, their suffering, their agency doesn’t count, because they don’t fit the story of the “saintly victim.” This is white feminism’s essentialist trap: it decides who can be a “real woman” or a “real victim,” and the rest are just cartoonish villains.
Also, who deserves support from feminism and who doesn't. This is why every time Alicent is punished by the showrunners (e.g. Larys SA, not being chosen as the regent, getting a fish thrown in her face), people cheer because she “supports patriarchy”, that she's “women for Trump” while Rhaenyra is Hilary or Kamala. For white feminists and their dickriders, only Rhaenyra, Rhaenys, Daenerys, and Visenya matter because they're BAMF girlboss. If you're feminine, you deserve misogyny.
It’s such a shallow fucking understanding of both feminism and female characters. Apparently women are only worthy of empathy if they wield swords, dragons, and one-liners while acting emotionally detached 24/7. But if a woman survives through diplomacy, motherhood, emotional intelligence, court maneuvering, or social performance aka the actual historical reality for most women in patriarchal societies people treat her like she’s personally betraying womankind.
And the irony is that these fandoms will scream about misogyny while repeating the same old sexist bullshit in a different font: feminine women are weak, emotional women are irrational, mothers are manipulative, wives are complicit, women who want security for their children are “jealous,” and “evil” women who conform to society are inferior.
Description: Back in Summerhall, you spend time with your goodsisters as Daeron waits to see what Aerion's punishment will be.
Your chambers were quiet, only the scratching of your quill across parchment, the soft sounds of the birds outside, and the wind rustling through the trees, floating in through the open doors of the balcony to stir the silence.
The doors to your chambers creaked open, then two pairs of small quick footsteps followed, splitting in opposite directions.
“Y/N, can I sit with you?” Rhae asked, although she was already dragging a chair next to yours and trying to see what you were writing.
“I cannot believe that Egg is gone but not Aerion. How is that fair?” Daella complained, flopping down onto a nearby overstuffed settee with a huff.
You looked up from the letter you were writing to Aemon at the Citadel, giving Rhae a smile before turning your attention to Daella. “I do not think the gods assure us of a life of fairness.”
Daella huffed again and rolled over onto her side to look at you, wisps of her warm brown hair escaping her braid. “You sound like my septa.”
“Well, that may be because I learned that bit of wisdom from my septa.”
“Of course,” she sighed, clearly fed up with the platitudes everyone had been giving her when she complained about Aerion still living.
You blew gently on the letter to help the ink dry and then set it aside, taking care that Rhae could not read the contents. “Where are your septas? Should you both not be in lessons right now?”
Rhae pouted. “They are boring; everyone is so busy with Aerion that they will not even let us go play in the gardens.”
You leaned back in your chair. Maekar had been particularly tense since all but Aegon had returned home from the tourney. The younger children were not allowed out of an adult’s sight, and you even heard rumors that he was considering recalling Aemon from the Citadel. Aerion had made most of the journey back in an open air wheelhouse, and now that he was under the care of Summerhall’s maesters, he was milking their attention for all it was worth.
“He deserves his injuries; he should never have demanded a Trial by Seven,” Daella said.
You bit the inside of your cheek. Of course, you agreed, but you could not say so.
“Where is Daeron?” Rhae asked, looking around as if he were hiding behind a curtain or bookshelf.
“Probably drinking or passed out in a ditch,” Daella snorted, turning onto her back and staring up at the vaulted ceiling.
“Daella,” you said sharply, giving her a warning look.
“Oooo, you are in trouble,” Rhae snickered.
You gave her a look too, and she fell silent, ducking her head.
Daella was seven and Rhae three when you came to court to marry Daeron, their mother having passed three years prior. As such, you became something of a maternal figure for the girls, more so Rhae than Daella, but you knew it was within your bounds to speak up when they stepped out of line.
Your voice was firm but not cruel. “It is not kind of you to discuss Daeron’s drinking so negatively when you know he is trying to be better. Especially since the maesters and I are attempting to aid him in any way we can. Besides, he is your brother, and he has sacrificed much for you, so I do not want to hear such words again. Do you understand me?”
Daella sat up and folded her arms over her chest, the expression on her face so very like Maekar’s you wished you could show it to him. “But that is what Aerion always says.”
You sighed and rolled out your shoulders. She was still young and bored, pushing boundaries as only a child can. She did not mean it; you knew that. “You want Aerion dead; why would you listen to him?”
Daella tilted her head side to side, thinking on her reasoning before speaking. “Sometimes he says smart things.”
You looked at her flabbergasted. “When?”
“Well, he once told me that love makes you a fool, and then a few minutes later I saw Daeron walk right into a wall because he was too busy staring at a portrait of you. Which is a pretty foolish thing to do, so he was right then.”
You bit back a laugh. “That is not enough to take his word as law.”
“I never listen to Aerion; I like Daeron more,” Rhae chimed in sweetly, hating when your attention was on another for too long. She was so like Daeron in that way.
"Liar," Daella said.
Rhae’s eyes widened. “I am not lying!”
Daella wrinkled her nose at her. “Yes, you are; you are a big lying babe.”
“Y/N!” Rhae cried, clinging to you, tears welling in her eyes.
“See, you are a liar and a crybaby,” Daella teased.
You pulled Rhae into your arms, letting her hide her face in your shoulder. “Daella, I understand you are bored, but being cruel to your siblings is not the right way to expend your energy. Why not go to your father and see if he will let you play outside if you annoy him enough?”
She perked up. “Do you think he would?”
Gods you wished Daeron was here, but alas, he was discussing plans to retrieve Aegon with Maekar.
“It does not hurt to try,” you said, rubbing Rhae’s back soothingly.
As if on cue, and you thanked the gods for it, Daeron strode in, causing Daella to scramble off the settee and fling herself into his arms. “Brother!”
He caught her, though he stumbled back a step in surprise. “Daella, have you been torturing both our sister and my wife, or only our sister?”
“I have not tortured anyone, ever. Now can we go play in the garden?” Daella asked, looking up at Daeron with a look akin to a pup begging for table scraps.
He chuckled and smoothed down her hair. “Mayhaps later, I have something important I must tell you three. It is a message from Father; he saw fit for me to deliver.”
You met his eye over Daella’s head. Aerion, his fate must have been decided.
Rhae lifted her head, her bottom lip still trembling. “Is it about Egg? Did you find him?”
Daeron’s face fell. You both knew Aegon was with Ser Duncan, but you knew not where exactly. “No, but we are still searching.”
Rhae buried her face in your shoulder again.
“Tell us the news, Husband, then we can take the girls out to the gardens,” you said.
Daeron nodded, steadying himself. “Father has decided that it is best if Aerion be sent away to Lys for a while. He shall be leaving as soon as a ship can be outfitted properly and arrangements are made.”
You thought perhaps Aerion would be sent to Dorne, seeing as the Daynes were kin, but Lys…you were not expecting that.
“Lys, home of beautiful women and expensive wines?”
Daeron nodded, a slight grimace on his face. “Mayhaps Father is hoping he will find a wife that settles him.”
“Good riddance, I say,” Daella said, already skipping towards the door. “Now let us go play; we can say goodbye to Aerion when his ship leaves.”
You shared a glance with Daeron, the both of you trying not to burst into laughter.
“Well, that is not how I expected this conversation to go, but—he stepped closer and took Rhae from you—do you wish to go play as well, little one?”
Rhae smiled. “Yes, can we go now?”
“Of course, as long as you promise to act sad when Aerion leaves.”
“I promise,” Rhae said with all the seriousness a child her age could.
It seemed good enough for Daeron; he held a hand out to you, and to the gardens you went.
End Note: this is for my long time supporter @generalkenobitrash who has stuck by me from the very beginning, and through all my random phases🥺 ILYSM and I hope you enjoyed this little fic!!!💗💗💗
i dont get why tb fans lie that hotd alicent is being favoured by writers? like my tb bros and sissies if anything, she is done worse. atp she is HATED even by the majority of the greens fans, in addition to the black ones! and truly, her character is not even alicent anymore, its just someone else masqing as alicent. if anything, by removing her motivation around motherhood, her reasoning for claiming the throne, and yes her ambition and agency, have all negatively impacted her character and its popularity. book alicent was a complex character who was not quite wrong, atleast in her own eyes. she was a combo of catelyn, margaery, cersei, olenna (more olenna than cersei because she was actually smart) and had legit reasons to think and do what she did. she did what MOST women in her position would have done! and 7/10 times was right in her reasonings.
meanwhile show alicent is just powerless, agency less, crying mess who has doomed her kids because of some misunderstanding. this does not absolve her as tb fans seem to think, or make her better, this makes her worse.
i also dont understand what team black are so upset about? compared to greens, they are WAY better off. rhaenyra got the best deal out of any. book rhaenyra was mostly dragon cersei and not at all blameless in her own downfall whereas show rhaenya is a mary sue through and through. every other person around her is a villain, not her. even her having bastards in the line of succession is glossed over as something that happened because of the faults of other people, instead of her own desire.
s3 will make her even more of a mary sue, if anything, victim of false prophecy and *chosen by gods* agenda. any or every horrible thing she does at this point (which she did with full agency and knowledge in the book) will be because of prophecy and because *gods will it!* then ADD *targs are mad* idiom to this equation but the majority of that madness will be imbibed by either aemond or aegon or daeron, anyone but rhaenyra who will just be misunderstood because *of prophecy* its such a condal way to make her perfect blameless victim while moving the plot forward and make her even more of a mary sue than she is rn.
because now its gonna be:- oh the gods chose me, so its necessary guys! i dont want the throne for myself, but its necessary!!! i have no hunger for power or ambition, but i have to kill people BECAUSE GODS SAID SO! REMEMBER THE PROPHECY!!! like the writers literally removed nettles and toddler maelor from the show to show rhaenyra in as good a light as possible! and her stans think it is making her character darker or villainous lol! tb bros and sissies would be crying maester propaganda in every breath the minute they showed book accurate rhaenyra and her actual deeds onscreen SO stop crying crocodile tears tb fans and enjoy flop rhaenyra show!🐊
AGREED.
Team black stans got mad at everything they don’t understand that bk!Rhaenyra was a cheap copy of Cersei. I talked about this HERE It turns her into a cleaner, more sympathetic icon, while stripping out the parts that made her complicated and very flawed. Alicent is written in a VERY sexist way, while Rhaenyra isn’t treated the same way. Alicent gets boxed into the “repressed, suffering woman” archetype, shaped by duty and punishment. Rhaenyra is given “chosen by the gods” idealised, which makes her feel more destined and righteous.
The show wants a sympathetic protagonist a corrective fantasy after the Daenerys backlash a dragonriding woman audiences can cheer for without discomfort a new “queen of dragons chosen by gods” and “this time it’s different” feeling.
In the show Rhaenyra is meant to be a “false messiah” figure…It’s frustrating seeing how HOTD shifts Alicent’s storyline and characterization to fit a more streamlined narrative, where she reduced into a role that mainly exists to orbit Rhaenyra’s arc rather than fully exist for her own children and her own political logic. She loses a lot of what makes her interesting in the books: not a “supporting obstacle” in someone else’s hero story, but a woman working inside a brutal succession crisis where she is actively trying to secure her children survival/line in a system that gives her very limited space to do so.
There’s no Green “faction”
Keep in mind that there’s no Team Green in the show to begin with. The so-called Green faction barely exists as a functional team. Think about what “team” actually means: a group of people working together to defend themselves and their family. That’s the core definition. In the show, Alicent abandoned her children for Rhaenyra that’s basically her turning into Team Black. Aemond literally burns his own brother, so he’s just Team Himself. And Aegon II saying that he will kill his brother or die in the attempt. Even Helaena, telling her brother he will die and giving Daemon advice about killing him? That’s Team Black too. So yeah… what’s left? That’s not a team. There’s no Team Green in the show. The writers just destroyed the faction, made them betray each other, and positioned the Blacks as the beloved family who actually stick together and fight for one another.
I feel all these Alicent/Rhaenyra leaks are because the show realised Alicent is incredibly hated and this is their attempt at excitement for S3 being interlinked to Alicent in a weird Pavlov experiment.
They're trying to build hype for the show by giving us these leaks, still failing to understand that the butchering (let's call it what it is) of Alicent and Rhaenyra, by pushing unrealistic fondness between them at the start of the war is what is tanking the show. Not necessarily the lack of action scenes, or the lack of a finale that 'sticks the landing'.
Their family members died in s2 and the writing did NOT permit the women to stew in rage and grief, and further sever their bond. Instead, they went about meeting each other, acting like war can be stopped, and not once bringing up Luke or Jaehaerys to each other.
"A Son for a Son" Give me a break! Jaehaerys' blood was already shed. So was Luke's.
The writers are so desperate for their sapphic fanfic that they refuse to let these women have a pulse i.e act like actual human beings. Instead, they've turned them into sociopaths and psychopaths.
And I can't forgive that or forget it. Even if they try to course correct, it's too late.
How many people have had to die before Rhaenyra can finally snap now? With Jace's death and Viserys ii's disappearance, she'll have lost FIVE family members. Did she have to wait THAT long to break lmaooo?
Same with Alicent, the fool. Will it take Helaena hurling herself down the spikes, or Daeron burning in his tent, for her senses to kick back in?
I'm not even saying that I want Rhaenyra and Alicent to be mad at each other forever. No. There's a good formula to all this. Season 2 should've been their rage and tribal era, when it comes to family and loss. S3 forces them to contend with each other's demons under the same roof. By s4, all the death and destruction should leave them drained and questioning whether all that was worth it as they start to reflect on their past innocence, the state of the realm and the future. And just when they find that spark again and the desire to make amends, it's too late. The consequences of their actions come crashing down on them in full weight in the form of Aegon.
See? There's a method! But Ryan Condal and Sara Hess want these women to fawn over each other and their relationship in every season, to the extent of demeaning their children and allies. And I'm just not here for that kind of inorganic story telling. It doesn't make human sense.
But they will lie to you and say the reason the show is flopping is because of crazy book purists and GoT fans' addiction to action sequences like explosive battles, lmaooo.
No, Ryan. It is the writing that is lacking. And once people cannot suspend their disbelief, they leave. 🤷🏾♀️
It's not even that they want Rhaenyra and Alicent to fawn over each other. It's just that they're incapable of portraying women as villainous or flawed. All the way back in s1, Rhaenyra and Alicent got neutered and stripped of their book flaws. Alicent was turned into a doe-eyed childbride who has 0 agency of her own (even as a grown ass 30+ yo woman), and is entirely at the mercy of Otto's machinations. Most of her iconic lines and political moves from the book were given to him to create a dichotomy between evil dad and innocent daughter pushed into this horrible situation.
Likewise, while young Rhaenyra had a bite to her (she is able to maneuver Viserys to fire Otto even when he is technically right about what she did), her adult self is completely whitewashed. She relies entirely on Viserys to protect her and flees at the first sight of conflict. When Vizzy starts cognitively declining too much, and Daemon comes into the mix, she immediately runs to hide behind him. He's made responsible for Vaemon's death. He's the one willing to fight a war and do what's necessary, while she waffles about peace when her crown was usurped (wtf was that line about Daemon going to plot 'his war' in the s1 finale? Rhaenyra gave him shit for trying to undermine her, while in the same breath washing her hands of the war. As a Monarch, its HER responsibility to protect her right to the crown, and answer treason with swift action. Otherwise, she'll be seen as weak and incompetent)
Both women continue whining about peace and protecting the smallfolk, even though they grew up in an extremely stratified society where they were at the top. In the Medieval period, Feudal Lords didn't give a shit about the peasants. Yes, they tallied the cost of war, but in the end, they determined that their God-given right to power was more important than the lives of insignificant serfs. And you mean to tell me that a royal Princess, raised at the apex of Targ power where the realm hasn't seen a war in 70 years, is somehow aware of the Geneva conventions and understands that war is bad? No. People in our world are exposed to wars all the time through media and they have no problem starting more of them if it benefits their agenda.
This should apply to Alicent and Rhaenyra even more especially since they were raised as daughters of the most powerful houses in the realm, at the height of peace times. That kind of environment is bound to create entitlement, and yet the writers act like that's impossible for then to be ambitious and prioritize their own selfish desires simply because they're women. They're not allowed to grieve, be angry, or seek violence because those acts are fundamentally evil, and they as women cannot be outright seen as evil.
And this is true across the board, for all the female characters. Rhaenys, who in s1ep3 understands that sexism will prevent Rhaenyra from ascending because the Lords will always view her as the weaker option compared to a son, suddenly starts advocating for Rhaenyra to do nothing, and prove that yes, she is in fact weak, and won't do anything to answer the usurpation. She doesn't mention Baela and Rhaena being Daemon's girls, and thus intrinsicly involved in the war, as a reason for supporting Rhaenyra, but instead says she does it cause Rhaenyra is pursuing peace. This, coming from the same woman who unironically believed, two eps ago, that Rhaenyra had her son killed. She's not allowed to be suspicious, to be reluctant in her support, just how Rhaenyra is not allowed to leverage Baela and Rhaena to push her into supporting her. Instead, she becomes enlightened, and decides to put all that 'silly grief over the death of her son' aside because supporting the peaceful monarch is the ultimately good thing to do.
Helaena, who dismisses the death of Jaehaerys as 'kids die all the time, let me focus on how evil my brother is for asking me to fight, while also helping my son's murderer for some reason'. She's reduced to a walking spoiler, with no emotions or logic behind her, other than to be a female Bran without wheels.
Baela who exists as little more than a prop to either smooth Jace's feelings for him, or cheer Rhaenyra on. Because god forbid she actually is Daemon's daughter, a girl who has any sort of ambition, fire and a temper. Because god forbid she have complex feelings about the Driftmark inheritance, or Rhaenyra and Daemon marrying before Laena's corpse was even cold.
Even Alys I-explode-people's-heads Rivers and Mysaria I-have-no-problem-orchastrating-the-death-of-a-child were made the champions of the smallfolk. Because god forbid we write a dark witch who is pursuing her own power, no matter the cost, or an unscrupulous Female Varys who is playing the game for her own benefit. Instead, it's the men who are all evil, and need to be managed like babies, while we're the enlightened gods who can do no wrong.
This is not progressive. This is not feminist. It's the same old, biological determinism that has plagued media since the beginning of time. It's the same old Angel in the House stereotype that strips women of their agency, robs them of their flaws and burdens them with the responsibility of being the world's moral compass.
And if that compass should falter, well....
As Foz Meadows put it in their essay "Gender, Orphan Black & the Meta of Meta."
We think of men as antiheroes, as capable of occupying an intense and fascinating moral grey area; of being able to fall, and rise, and fall again, but still be worthy of love on some fundamental level, because if it was the world and its failings that broke them, then we surely must owe them some sympathy. But women aren’t allowed to be broken by the world; or if we are, it’s the breaking that makes us villains. Wronged women turn into avenging furies, inhuman and monstrous: once we cross to the dark side, we become adversaries to be defeated, not lost souls in need of mending. Which is what happens, when you let benevolent sexism invest you in the idea that women are humanity’s moral guardians and men its native renegades: because if female goodness is only ever an inherent quality – something we’re born both with and to be – then once lost, it must necessarily be lost forever, a severed limb we can’t regrow.
Rhaenyra vs. Laenor (had they not married) would've been a more accurate parallel to The Anarchy than Rhaenyra vs. Aegon II ended up being.
Henry I (unlike his ASOIAF counterpart Viserys I) would not have kept Matilda as heir had his second wife given him a son.
What Viserys did to Alicent was pure hypocrisy and disrespect. Henry I would have never done that to Adeliza of Louvain and actually wanted a son with her to name heir.
However, like Viserys, Henry I did have an older female relative in his generation, who would've been Queen if absolute primogeniture was practiced.
Stephen of Blois's mother was Adela of Normandy - Henry I's older sister (and the eldest living child of William the Conqueror to have issue of their own)
Laenor's mother is Rhaenys the Queen Who Never Was - Viserys I's older female cousin
Of course there's the minor difference that Rhaenys (and therefore Laenor) had a better claim to the throne than Rhaenyra by ALL forms of primogeniture while Adela (and therefore Stephen) only had better claims to the English throne than Empress Matilda by absolute primogeniture (while Matilda had a better claim by male primogeniture).
no use of yn. we're going to ashford so expect: lots of smut and gore. mentions of severe injury and animal death. I’m british so the word cunt is used occasionally. one throwaway line about valarr being such a devoted munch he ruins the sheets. bless him.
[illustrations from tomasz jedruszek from grrm assorted projects]
ashford meadow - even occupied as far as the eye can see - is a delightful haven. golden, knee high grasses scatter out into lush green meadows. cornflowers grow in purples and blues at the woodlands and roadsides. in every patch of unclaimed grass sprout yellows, oranges, reds. smatterings of white blossoms push through where the grass grows longest.
each little girl and barefoot woman that runs alongside the horses wears loops and chains of these woven flowers. you ride slowly, grinning at the girls as they hop from rock to rock and sprint in little bursts. your horse for the day is well bred and trained to ignore worse - tall and domineering, one of the black household destriers to match the retinue.
fistfuls of flowers get thrown towards the horses and each member of the family seems to take it differently. the hammer and anvil ride far ahead, running powerfully beside the paired banners towards ashford.
behind, the movement is a bit slower - even worse in the wagons further back - so you pass by at a walk, hemmed in by red and black helmsmen. your horse keeps walking despite the cascading flowers and you cannot help but laugh at the sight of it.
valarr moves along at your side, giving warm smiles and the occasional calm wave. he wears the same relaxed and pleased expression as when he walks the city with the kingsguard. an amiable look but without the outright giddiness that you seem to hold.
aerion, on the other hand, rides as if he wishes to speed up and take off after his father, entirely passive to the spectacle. he doesn’t need these children and feckless peasants to cheer for him. flowers are pointless little frivolities for the small minded to cover themselves in.
but to you, it’s beautiful.
you squeeze gently on the reins, steadying pace ever so slightly to ride in step with the runners. one of the guards in front moves to ride as a barrier for you, blocking the way.
“ride on, my good ser,” you call out sweetly. “you are blocking my path.”
“I am keeping guard, princess.” the man replies.
“you are blocking my path, ser,” you repeat firmly. “ride on.”
there’s some soft laughter that sounds suspiciously like your husband’s but you don’t turn to look at it. you’re still trying to enjoy this journey without something fouling it. maekar has already near ruined the procession with his foul mood. it’s justified, for once, but you still wish he hadn’t soured your morning so.
daeron and aegon had never emerged from their pavilion that morning - everyone had at first grumbled and rolled eyes at daeron’s inability to wake before midday - and it did not take long for panic to bubble up. baelor, rightly, had urged everyone to continue onwards. search parties were sent out, scouts and riders and men to shake each hedgerow from here to ashford town. for the rest of you, duty stands. it would not do to keep your lordly host waiting any longer.
smiling and turning steady, you look back down at the flowery runners and ride a pace or two closer. they skip tantalisingly close, almost like you’d be welcome to join.
one of the children tosses up a braided crown but it bursts open into a long chain as you catch it to your chest. the loose petals drift down and collect on your lap. with a disappointed smile you drape the busted chain behind your horse’s ears and move slowly onwards.
they keep running and sprinting along in bursts and you wish to reach out, to somehow have a slight taste of that barefooted liberty.
thinking only of being fair, you untie the ribbon holding your hair with one fiddling hand and lean down slightly. the colourful wisp snaps and trails in the breeze as you slow your horse further to drop it into a woman’s outstretched hand.
without even a word, she makes a swift hop forward to grab it and throw another wreath up. this one stays intact so you might finally sit up straight to set it on your head. laughing and emboldened, you rejoin the column and continue onwards to ashford.
blushing, you look over to the side to seek out valarr and find you cannot hold back your proud smile. they are accepting of me, I have made effort to meet them in the middle.
it’s exactly what you’d been asked to do. baelor’s brief was succinct and firm: we are to be seen as generous, good spirited but firm where necessary. for you and valarr the lecture had only lasted a few minutes of instruction of which you were already aware. rumour from your husband said that same lecture had taken an hour each for aerion and daeron.
“crowned before the gathered masses,” valarr speaks quietly, riding closer. he pulls alongside you so his boot bumps against your knees, tilting his head in acknowledgement of your flowered regalia. “… we shall anoint you later.”
his scandalous mutterings have you laughing, but you’re on good behaviour. this isn’t dragonstone and you cannot implore valarr to take you into the long grass and make good on his words now.
all the way into ashford you keep that behaved exterior. valarr tries his hardest, but you can see the excitement in him grow as the crowds pull thicker and the tourney ground comes into sight. he’s been scarcely containing it each night, bubbling and giddy as he talks incessantly of this joust. five men a piece, dear. I shall be defending. a melee will come later and I shall finally field this quarter turn parry that ser roland-
and if you lay beside him dread the lack of blood on your nightgown or riding trousers, you say it is only worry at the thought of him coming to harm.
a truth, but not a whole truth. bending those holy marriage vows but not breaking.
the procession remains uninterrupted as it powers along towards the castle grounds. ashford is a fairly modest town and keep; of a size with griffin’s roost, looking like the gods had plucked your castle from the ocean clifftops and dropped it in the lopsided meadow. it’s actually quite exhilarating. you’ve never been this far into the marches and definitely never so close to the heart of the reach.
orange sunburst banners fly from every walkway and parapet, the courtyard looks swept and empty of loitering household. up ahead, it’s with mild fanfare that prince baelor breakspear, hand of the king and heir to the throne is received alongside simply: ‘his brother, maekar.’
you’ve been married long enough that the prince’s public faces are so expressive to you. everyone else sees him stoic and fairly refined, nothing beyond a twitch in eyebrow or quirk of mouth. to you each little movement may as well be a hundred words. you’ve mastered the subtle difference in an angered ‘we shall speak of this later,’ and an amused ‘did you overhear as I did? we shall speak of this later,’ simply by the calm set of his eyes. you know the insincere smile he uses when he wishes to be gone from a painful conversation.
so as you sit in lord ashford’s courtyard and look down at your husband, you can read him quite easily. valarr’s hands remain steady as he helps you dismount but there’s a concerned tilt to his mouth that says: ‘uncle will not suffer that. now we are all in for one of his foul moods.’
you glance around to find aerion closing up the horseback procession and swiftly turn back around with distaste. perhaps later, when the wagons arrive and no doubt your husband sprints off to speak tourneys and knights, you’ll be able to seek out kiera for some saner company. on quiet evenings by the campfires, she’s been teaching you how to weave those complex little bracelets she threads delicate bells onto. it’s done some good to see her open up and it’s freeing for you to have someone with who you can let the princess act drop.
as you stand before lord ashford and his proud family, baelor shakes hands and makes amiable introductions. when it comes to your turn, valarr gives a dutiful introduction to his ‘good lady wife,’ but then he’s gleefully off with ashford’s lanky sons; talking amiably with the men he’s about to go into the tourney alongside.
as the token good lady wife, you have to take seniority in greeting lord ashford’s gaggle of women. lord ashford’s wife seems pleased to size you up and eagerly brings her young daughter forward.
you praise gwin’s delicate, freckled beauty without a trace of dishonesty. with formalities aside, you’re promised a room to rest in and you gratefully deflate a little at the idea.
in good spirits you let gwin and some of her young companions excitedly walk you through the dance hall and up to your rooms. they swish along in summer gowns looking as if they were picked just for this tourney. peaches and lilacs and soft baby blues, a delicate wisp of green. flowers embroidered on all of these noble girls of the reach.
along the way, delicate gwin stops at the bottom of a staircase and looks up at you.
“which prince will ride for me, your grace?” she asks with hands clasped behind her back.
you cannot help but smile as you look down at her. “my lord husband will, sweet girl. I am sure with him as your defender you shall be our tourney queen.”
one of the companions giggles and gwin barely manages to keep a lid on her blushing face. with a gentle hand you try urge her to continue up to the room. you’re absolutely desperate to see this hot bath you were promised.
“your brothers will ride fiercely, too, I am sure.” you add, politely nudging the group along.
gratefully you’re served food with the hot bath and left alone that evening. baelor had insisted on arriving in enough time for servants and household to set up tents and get themselves situated, so there are no welcome feasts. not until the tourney begins and hopefully your cousins are found.
in the peaceful solitude, you take a bath but can’t manage to fully relax - even with the balcony view of the dornish mountains. all you can think of is egg curled up on the roadside somewhere, cold. terrible thoughts of someone untoward finding him first. not just because he is a prince but because this world is horrible to little boys.
valarr joins you later in the evening, shutting the door heavily and humming a soft tune under his breath. he finds you pacing in a breezy nightgown, anxiously staring out of the large, round window.
“seven above…” he mutters, taking in the moonlit edge to everything. the way harsh light pours hot and white over your hair and the way soft firelight chews at the edges of your nightgown. he sucks his teeth and walks closer. “what a view.”
you turn to look at valarr, too despairing for any noble, romantic words this evening. his hair sits damp and his shirt clings tightly in places where he’s freshly bathed. by the look of it, he’s regained his sea legs. the bottle he holds is tall and blue, nothing like the heavy green glasses of dornish red kept back home.
“ser androw made a gift of this, it tastes very much like spiced apple.” valarr smiles, walking closer and holding it out.
you don’t react to the bottle and instead shakily turn back to the dark meadow beyond the campgrounds.
“are you quite alright?” he asks softly, abandoning the bottle on a nearby bookshelf.
“… daeron can make his own foolish choices,” you mutter, pacing a nervous length. “but egg is just a little boy.”
from the window you can see the imposing white of kingsguard ride off into the treeline with maekar. a handful of light spots and torches on the darkness. many and more awful thoughts of their search turning up fruitless cross your mind.
“we should be out looking,” you mumble, fingers pressed fearfully against your lips.
“some missing princes is scandal enough, the future queen wandering off into the woods would be worse.” valarr soothes. his voice is gentle and his hands light as he walks slowly across the room to embrace you. “it is hard to stand and watch but sometimes it is the better path to walk.”
“darling, hear me,” you implore, tearfully grabbing his elbow. “if that were …”
“do not.” valarr warns lowly, fingers tightening on your shoulder.
“if that were our boy,” you double down, shaking his sleeve twice.
“enough,” valarr orders, pulling you harshly into his chest. you strike him with a dull fist twice before falling still. “many things I can entertain, but do not threaten me with that.”
weeping, you lean your head into his doublet and nearly shout out in frustration. it takes a quiet moment to compose yourself against the unmoving firmness of his chest. valarr stays holding you, feet planted and back almost uncomfortably straight.
“where has such a thing come from?” valarr asks with worry. gently, his lips find your temple. he smooths his palms down the wisp-thin fabric of your gown calmingly.
“I am sorry,” you quietly weep, hands finally relaxing their grip on his shirt.
“what has gotten into you?” valarr adds lightheartedly, thumbs on your cheeks.
your child, you think traitorously. not a word spills from your lips because now is not the time. you don’t want him to find out here, in someone else’s keep.
“I just cannot help but fear …” you manage to get out. “he could be anywhere, he’s only a little boy.”
“they will be found safe, I am certain.” valarr counters, comfortingly holding your hand. “my uncle would tear the woodland apart if he thought it was concealing his kin.”
•
a day of general dread passes, despite your best efforts to be hopeful. maekar’s nighttime search brings no sign of little egg and you find you cannot take your mind from it. as dusk approaches your husband becomes more excited and you truly do not want to ruin his mood, it would be terribly unfair.
valarr had taken a morning walk of the tourney grounds, spent hours in the stable and been at some light sparring with ser donnel before appearing to soothe your frayed nerves.
in the late afternoon he ate a light meal with you reverently, giving a quiet hour to sit and be calm beside you as the sun began to set.
in the dusk, after dressing himself, valarr so sweetly asked if you would indulge in the calming ritual of running oil through his hair and tying a short braid for luck. only later do you realise it was more for your benefit than his.
it ends up a lopsided and stubby braid tied through as much of his white as possible. a task made easier by the fact he hasn’t had his hair cut for many months. valarr’s dutiful contribution is to sit steady while you work and pick a set of earrings for you to wear.
“brave prince,” you say, setting hands on his broad shoulders. gently you kiss the back of his head and exhale steadily. “I wish you luck and a strong arm.”
valarr rises slowly from the wooden stool and stands before you in his entirety. his under armour linens are stained a deep black, as are the lightweight leathers about his legs and torso. under his jaw and down his neck sits the brownish-black reminder of an overdue shave. it’s near impossible for you to see him as such, but in the firelight surely he would look rather imposing to any disloyal lord. if you’d known breakspear as a young man you’d say he looks the spit of his sire twenty years younger.
“my sweet wife, would you honour this knight with favour?”
valarr tilts forward and smiles, bowing his head to the floor as he recites polite words. you glance about for something to give him. on the dresser a small bag of hair ribbons overflows but they are one and the same to you. none are particularly special. your hand lifts up to brush your necklace in thought.
suddenly it strikes you, the little braided chain. it’s not as neat as kiera’s attempt and it’s missing the bells, but it is a heartfelt favour.
one final time, you kiss him at the doorway like you are sending him off to war.
“valarr,” you mutter sharply before he steps out. “if you fall from that bloody horse my heart will stop.”
he smiles and holds up the braided charm, all but skipping off. “I shall not fall.”
not even an hour later you’re sat through the murky nighttime at the top of the viewing box, to the left and slightly behind baelor. on baelor’s right follows lord ashford with his daughter in the middle, then maekar with aerion sitting on the far side, also set slightly behind his sire.
despite such proximity, aerion does not even look in your direction. after the revelation of your betrothal, you’ve thought of him persistently in a different light. still always skeptical and mistrusting, always with your husbands words at the back of your mind. but for once aerion is not the source of your worries. he sits quietly, coldly observing the crowd.
behind you sits the full clustered rows of other family and lord ashford’s targeted shoulder-rubbing.
the rib-shaking blow of horns draws the roaring crowd to a rustling hush beneath the high sconces. even in such darkness the tiltyard is well lit. the huge empty track of rails sits silent and raked flat, dirt glowing yellow around each raised brasier.
baelor waves to the herald and a second round of world-ending fanfare blows. suddenly both heavy gates from the north entrance burst open to pour out ten riders.
horses whirl around in the tiltyard, excitedly chewing at the bit.
you spot the ostentatiously antlered helm of your distant liege lord of the stormlands. beside, leo tyrell in his green enamelled plate. lords androw and robert ashford stand out with their orange and white herald. circling through the back, in unmistakable armour dark as the night, rides the prince.
you cannot take long to admire the deadly looking stranger in your husband’s armour because all attention is drawn to lord medgar.
fish held aloft, he throws out a vow to the old gods before severing the salmon’s head with his teeth. the standing crowd roars up, swelling like a wave near the barrier.
it’s rather intense but you try to wonder how much is bluster. perhaps this man is a loudmouth and a shit rider, you hope, eyeing up the channels, the nervous horses and running squires. valarr seems to be lined up nearest the viewing box to begin with, adjusting shield and lance as things begin to fall silent.
in spite of your fear, you look proudly down on your husband and his folded black cape flashing red underneath when the wind hits it.
hooves stamp. breaths are held and feet tap nervously.
you can feel your heartbeat on your tongue when a voice in the crowd yells: lord ashford fucks his sheep!
maekar’s lip twitches in irritation and baelor twirls his rings as he watches on. you find yourself falling into the habit, obsessively your thumb turns the griffin and dragon around your finger. one of your favourite gifts but not soothing enough to temper your nerves.
horns blow and you mutter up your life in offering to any of the seven that will hear.
ten horses spring forward together, lances lifting and overlapping. in the excitement androw ashford’s horse runs astray near the far side. lord lannister has a strong strike to lord tyrell but does not unseat him. lord tully, for all his bluster, is knocked from his horse rather shallow into the tilt; the beast runs most of the charge wild with an empty saddle. lord baratheon and ser hardyng set off fiercely.
closest to the box, valarr rides down like a storm in an inkpot. a flashing blur of horseshoes and red cape. you have to pinch your thumb to stop your worrying.
it does nothing. the crowd continues screaming and calling out. lord hightower charges in, a green beacon so easily snuffed out.
the collision is fierce and unseats lord hightower with such force he lands in lord tully’s channel.
the faceless knight only just rolls out of the way of lord tyrell as he rides down the empty space. down at the end of the tilt, valarr turns for a new lance.
he truly does appear a stranger at such a time. it hadn’t ever occurred to you that others see him in this light. of course you get his softness, but clearly even in the yard he was treading light around you, never trying to appear too harmful. on this stage, valarr is as deadly as the next man and not treading gently.
seeing valarr sits steady in his seat, you let a breath go and begin to enjoy the rush of the joust.
lord hightower regains medgar tully’s horse in a very impressive vault and performs an incredible horseback sweep for a stray shield on the ground.
six seated riders remain, rounding the ends. at the north, the storm lord, lord lannister and this stranger called your husband turn and hold steady, looking at their choice of opponents. down at the south, tyrell and hardyng sit beside a recovering lord hightower.
there’s a bit of shouting between valarr and lord baratheon that piques your interest. especially when they swap lanes to the sound of booming baratheon laughter behind the helm.
the riders do not wait for a second horn, they simply regather fresh lances and begin to charge. as the second pass approaches, you see why valarr moved over a lane.
he’s going for seconds.
the tully horse - unused to lord hightower’s seat - spins into lord tyrell’s rear as they both make a straight for the north end.
this other version of your prince rides firm and steady, determined to put hightower on the ground for good. it’s a harsh collision that has you wincing slightly, taking in a shaky breath when you see valarr ride off unscathed as finally, lord hightower kneels in the dirt and removes his helm in defeat.
later, valarr is rightfully smug about such a showing.
duty keeps him in the feast hall as a guest of honour should, but soon he can take no more and must break away. amidst the tiresome circus of conversation and drinking, a window of escape presents. you slip away together to find sweet rest, finally feeling a little at ease. the entire walk through the corridors he grins and quietly proclaims it was the favour that kept him steady against his foes, that is why no other lord was quite so victorious.
you wish more than anything it were true, but you know that each time he rides he puts his life in the hands of something else. there’s absolutely nothing you can do to steer the will of gods.
up in the cool stone room you both quietly undress, moving around each other like dancers. just before he steps into bed, valarr fetches the abandoned bottle from the shelf. when he sits atop the sheets beside you, your gaze searches for the state of his braid. it’s almost entirely fallen out, rough and quite shaggy from the helm. in the morning, you will fix it again. for luck.
it’s a nice, breezy night and you find yourself sinking so gently into the bedding. running hot, as always, valarr sits by the headboard. shirtless and one leg braced, he takes slow sips from the blue bottle.
“have you tried this?” he asks, looking down at you softly. you cannot believe this is the same deadly man in the black armour. the man who nearly killed lord hightower with a blow so fierce.
“no, love,” you mumble, rolling over and tucking into your side. you look over at him tiredly before adding: “I do not fancy wine.”
“actually, this is cider,” valarr replies, sinking down a little to put his arm around your shoulder.
“well, nor do I fancy cider.” you reply, reaching out to rest your hand on his thigh. “… or ale.”
valarr laughs and takes another mouthful, resting his head back. “try a sip,” he prompts. “it tastes like those tarts you buy.”
“no thank you,” you screw your face up at the thought of it.
“what has got into you lately?” valarr asks, setting the bottle on the bedside table. “since we left summerhall you have been so distant.”
staring at his unwinding braid and honest eyes, you want to ride the wave of elation and tell him you’ve been given another chance. you want to see the joy in him when you say: ‘I have your babe in my belly.’
but before it can even be spoken, dread hangs.
what if he is not pleased? what if this occupies his thoughts so deeply he is too distracted to ride?
“I just … I am consumed with worry.” you admit, deflated.
this, at least, is a truth.
“what occupies you?” valarr asks, shuffling further so he may lay down and look at your face. “is it aegon?”
“partly,” you confirm. “but I also fear for you.”
“I am an honoured man to have your concern and your love, but sweetheart, do not spend your days gripped by worry.”
“if you perish on a tourney field…” you trail off, picturing how close the young lord hightower was to being trampled.
“if I perish on a tourney field I have saved the throne an embarrassment,” valarr softly jokes, cutting you off.
“I do not find this amusing.” you stare firmly, making your feelings clear. “my love, all I ask is that you remain safe.”
“darling, these opponents do not mean to cause me harm. have you seen? this is pageantry. it is not war, it is some soft sport for a child’s nameday. no real harm may come to a combatant. that is why we fight with tourney weapons.” as valarr talks, his fingers brush lovingly from your temple, down your neck and arm. it’s ticklish and enticing but you do not give in straight away.
“one does not need to intend harm to cause it.” you counter, not quite falling under your husband’s many charms. “you did not intend harm to lord hightower, but still he will nurse fresh bruises tonight.”
“I see you fear for me, I truly do.” valarr says with conviction, lips finding the top of your shoulder. “but my love I swear, this is all just a week of innocent sport.”
valarr is quiet as he offers to put his arm under your head. you lean up and tuck into his shoulder as he gets settled.
“but in the spirit of honesty…” he mumbles.
you nearly jolt at his words, a sharp little branding of guilt. your mouth goes dry and you feel a cold sweat forming. honesty…
“… I did intend to harm lord hightower. gods, he is an insufferable conversationalist.” he sighs guiltily and you feel it in his shoulder. “he asked where I’d left our son and I could not take that.”
•
the morning is brought to you by a gentle shaking. a nudge to your shoulder, a hand dropping steady up your ribs.
“… past time to wake,” valarr mumbles, thumb rubbing that delicate spot underneath your breast. he strokes twice up and down to your hip and then goes to shake your shoulder slowly.
“… like raising the dead,” valarr mutters as you open your eyes to his smile. “ah! there she is.”
“it cannot be …” you grumble, pushing on an elbow to look out the window. “gods it feels not a moment since I closed my eyes.”
sunny morning sees the markets bustle and smoke; winding bodies and shouting voices made small from above. a band of puppeteers are setting up their stage for the night. it seems drinking and merriment persist all hours of the day near the dondarrion camp.
“we retired late,” valarr admits, kissing the back of your arm. “very late, actually.”
you tiredly turn back to him, glancing in surprise when you find him sat on the bed in his black cottons and boots.
“I am heading to the pavilion, but not without my luck.” valarr smiles and turns to the side. “if my lady would be so kind.”
you laugh and sit up, letting the blankets sit at your crossed knees. “of course, honourable knight.”
it takes a gentle urging to turn a better angle but you soon have a little braid forming. it weaves the white through two silver-shot brown strands.
it’s very becoming and you’ll be rather devastated if valarr returns to his usual cut when you travel home.
“you have your luck,” you smile, taking his face in hand and kissing him deeply. not a drop of insincerity in it. with great delight you rub your finger over a three day missed shave crawling down his jaw.
“there are some earrings on the desk, if you would like.” valarr mumbles on your lips.
it’s a very sweet habit, setting earrings out so you may find an outfit to match. it’s a fun game played within your marriage at court, to fill the days you only catch fleeting passes in the corridors. your husband will be gone leaving some earrings and all day you will hope he sees the cut and colour of your carefully selected gown as you move in different circles.
“I will look for you in the crowd.” valarr vows, standing up and retreating from the bed. you’re still groggy when he leaves, but excitement pulls you to go inspect the soft yellow teardrops. something rare and not his usual choice of small rubies or delicate saphires.
valarr is so beautifully true to his words, seeking out your smiling face first and foremost when he notices baelor joining the viewing box. maekar’s seat sits notoriously empty and for once you cannot begrudge him. a day and a night without his boys must be wearing him thin.
it is, you just admit, a pleasant day. as challengers ride down the chute and stand before an opponent, things seem to feel lighter. you begrudgingly have to accept that your husband was right, this is a week of good sport and nothing more. perhaps you were too quick to pass a harsh judgement after the first night of excited revelry.
unfortunately, lord ashford’s sons are not particularly great at the tilts. ser humfrey hardyng makes a very fine showing and is a pleasant rider to watch. his red and white is a comfort to you, even if it’s not for your house. his shots are hard but fair and strike most down in a blow. on two occasions he settles a tilt in a deft ground melee.
valarr rides up to the spectators box before his run, halting steady and slow. wordlessly, he sets the end of his lance against the wooden railing and removes his helmet. it should not make your heart stutter and breath pause the way it does - you’ve seen every side of this man in the last two years but somehow he manages to keep you as entranced as the first day you met.
there’s something delightful in the way the white in his little braid stands out. it makes you want to grab it and kiss him, rest your cheek against the apple of his throat and feel stubble on your skin.
“radiant lady ashford,” valarr shouts out, looking up at the box. it’s very quiet for a moment. “would you honour this knight with favour?”
you find you cannot fault her giddy skip as she bounces forward to bow her head and knot an elaborate gold and orange ribbon onto valarr’s lance. it slides down to the end where he catches it in one hand. blushing, she stutters through a polite “my luck goes with you, brave prince,” before scuttling back to gasp and squeal with one of her companions. the two girls sit hand-in-hand, blushing and laughing and whispering as valarr rides off to the end of the tiltyard, adjusting the ribbon around his shield arm.
you smile a shade knowingly because you’re absolutely just as bad. if your husband had asked for your favour, you’d have been skipping around the box like young lady ashford. he rides a good three tilts in her favour, securing the day alongside hardyng’s valiant efforts, with each one you feel a shade less worried.
as the afternoon turns spring blue, the heralds call another round of challengers. you’re too occupied gathering pieces from baelor as each rider turns up. he tells you what to look for in a good rider, how they hold the lance and where they balance. your sire is a kind man, eyes glassy with longing for his own days in the tiltyard. soon, under his muted tutelage, you’re a deft eye at spotting.
so deft at the details, in fact, you miss the bigger picture.
“son of prince maekar targaryen. grandson to king daeron the good. prince aerion brightflame!”
nobody had been paying the brash prince any mind at all. he’d been quiet on the journey and unobtrusive at the court. for too long have people swept eyes over aerion. now, it seems, he wants his due.
he rides through the yard in his monstrous armour, a harsh vision in black and red. when the herald leaves, aerion rides first for the viewing box. he bypasses maekar’s empty chair, blustering lord ashford, excited little gwin and finally stops near baelor.
“princess,” aerion shouts flatly, resting his lance at the railing. “I would take your favour for this ride.”
not ask, not honour him with, but take.
aerion plays his games publicly, forcing you to maintain appearances. with a lying smile, you walk forward in the box and shakily untie a ribbon from your hair. a ribbon you’d gladly picked to match your dress slips down the lance tip. final, a devastating and unstoppable thing.
baelor makes a quiet nod of approval as you take a shaky seat again. there’s no words need exchanging, but it makes you feel better. it helps wash away the guilt of not handing it to valarr. though, what else were you to do? aerion set you in such a compromising position before the onlookers and your husband had already made his polite concession.
your heart, so calm since dawn, now raises in a terrible rhythm. it hits faster and faster with each step aerion rides towards the defenders. he’s lazy and leaned back, resting his lance on his shoulder as he makes a show of tightening your ribbon around his lance hand. when he draws to halt in front of valarr, you cannot look anywhere else. you’re too afraid to turn and seek a supportive glance from baelor because if you turn away, anything might happen.
there are surely words exchanged between the two but you cannot hear it from so far off. it takes an incredible amount of effort to stay sat down without protesting.
valarr stands from before his pavillion, hands closed calmly over his helmet. your heart, your poor fucking heart, it will not stop racing! something terrible is about to happen and you have to watch.
a moment hangs and suddenly aerion urges his horse to walk on. valarr is released to sit back at his table but it does not feel like a good thing.
“come, little knight!” aerion bellows, leisurely strolling before ser hardyng’s red and white pavilion. “it is time you faced the dragon.”
as the two set up their tilt, you shoot a glance up to baelor. if ever there was a time you wished to read his face, it is now. but he is guarded and distant, not supplying you any solace.
shaking fingers turn your ring over and over, feet tapping lightly beneath the puddled layers of your gown.
some sick hope rises as you think about humfrey hardyng and his good showing. you should not sit and hope against your kin, against the man wearing your favours … but you do. you hope ser hardyng lays aerion out in the sand and puts this awful, disgusting business to bed.
the charge starts well but you’ve been cursed with baelor’s vast knowledge and so you can see disaster as it threatens to happen. aerion’s lance starts to dip lower and lower as if weight drags it down … but the steady hold of it is intentional.
hardyng’s lance explodes into little fragments against aerion’s dragon shield.
aerion’s lance pierces cleanly into the neck of hardyng’s horse.
little lady ashford gasps and covers her eyes. shocked exclamations raise in the box and hissing confusion spreads about the standing small folk.
screaming, kicking, roaring, that poor horse staggers a few steps in agony before collapsing heavily. ser hardyng in his armour cannot dismount fast enough and ends up crushed beneath the armoured mount.
hardyng screams, wailing for the leg and knee crushed entirely. the horse thrashes back and forth in the sand, blood pouring from the grotesque neck wound. stilled into tearful shock, you cannot move. you want to hold baelor’s elbow as your heart races and the screaming of the dying horse pierces the afternoon.
make it stop, you think, staring fearfully as aerion rides to a self-satisfied halt. all you can pay attention to is the blood droplets soaking into your hair ribbon, even when the crowd threatens to rise up.
there is no satisfaction for you when a rock flies from the crowd to bounce off the side of aerion’s helm. the fear is too consuming as you watch people rush forward only to be driven back by ashford’s men and the kingsguard.
your stomach turns and more than one group of women and children take themselves from the viewing box. lady gwin retreats tearfully on her own birthday, feet shuffling as it is made clear no more jousts will be run for the day.
feeling nailed to your seat, you weep quietly and without effort, holding onto your roiling stomach. when the crowd is thinned and your spectators long retreated back to the castle, you stand on shaky feet and try to leave.
“come, princess,” baelor sighs quietly, a hand at your shoulder as he guides you down the steps.
at the touch of grass beneath your feet you start feeling sick. with great effort you hold down on it before doubling forward, only just managing to gather your skirt out of the way before you ruin it. in spite of your state, you begrudgingly have to give yourself credit for waiting until there was no witnesses to your weakness.
“that was a horrible thing to see, my dear,” baelor soothes, taking a moment to search his pockets for a handkerchief. with careful hands, he passes a purple square of cotton and silk. “I do not wish to diminish such distasteful conduct … but you should be proud at your composure.”
“I feel terrible,” you mumble. “there is nothing to take pride in, this day.”
“do you wish to speak with a maester?” baelor asks softly. “it would set your mind at ease.”
you look up at your sire and see the genuine concern, the grey peppered through in his beard and the matching stare your husband owns. it’s both promise and warning to look up at baelor and wonder how valarr may look in twenty years.
“no,” you say firmly, wiping away the tears onto a soft handkerchief. “I have no need of a maester.”
“it is shock,” baelor nods, taking a deep, steadying breath and looking out at the dispersed guests, lord ashford ashamed. “it will pass with time.”
“it is another child.” you whisper fearfully, blurting it out in a hissing breath.
“oh!” baelor softly exclaims, his hand hovering slightly near your shoulder. “well that is pleasant news.”
your silence sits for a moment as you clean your tear-streaked face.
“is it not?” baelor adds with concern.
“I have yet to speak of this,” you admit in a whisper, meeting gaze. you feel so small at this moment, truly a girl seeking advice from her sire. gods, it’s been so many years. you thought you’d outgrown the need for parental advice when you last saw your mother. “I am not certain enough to bring it forward.”
“a babe is not something one might hide,” baelor reminds.
“this is only suspicion…” you try compose yourself over another threatened retching. “but our last was so difficult. I do not think valarr will be pleased to hear it, he seems to have plans that do not involve children.”
baelor laughs very gently at your words, rubbing up and down the back of your shoulder as you regain steady breath. “my son will be pleased, dear girl. even if he fears such a thing, there was a reason he set himself on you. gods, my stubborn boy would not budge.”
you shake your head carefully, as not to trigger another sweating bout of dizziness. “… and there was a time he said he did not want sons.”
“… was there?” baelor supplies thoughtfully. “or did he fear a son? many men have been in his stead. speak with him. ask.”
you find valarr in his tent, mostly disarmed and moving quietly. it’s a heavy and thoughtful silence disturbed only by the tent flap falling shut.
you don’t know how to announce yourself, but it matters not. when valarr turns and sees the edges of your eyes are red from crying, he brings you in gently. it is hard to embrace a man half-undressed of his armour, but valarr is oh so gentle.
“that was not an honourable sight to behold. I am sorry, my love.” he talks quietly, pulling back.
“your cousin shamed me.” you mutter. “to strike a man down like that, wearing my colours. I thought a favour would appease him… that it would be enough.”
“nothing is enough for a man like that. he would have revelled in the shame of your refusal just as he revelled in the shame of hardyng’s fall.” valarr sighs, sinking to sit down.
as you stand tearfully in the tent, you watch valarr struggle to unlace his right side with his left hand. he makes no request of you, but gently you move to help. it takes the struggle from him as you unravel lady ashford’s favour from around valarr’s forearm. reverently you set it aside before moving to free his elbow and shoulder.
“forgive me, sweet wife, for not taking your favour. it felt wrong to deprive the girl of such a thing on her name day.” valarr vows, the braid in his hair looking bedraggled and sweat-soaked.
you smile to yourself, working at the buckle and lacing on his right shoulder.
“forgive me, brave husband, for giving mine freely.”
valarr sits still for you, looking up with sweet devotion. “you could not have refused. nor would I have wished you to. aerion may hold a ribbon, here you are helping me from my armour.”
you entirely loosen his shoulder plating, holding it steady enough for him to free himself.
“I am glad you are not a fragile man.” you reply, watching him take care setting his chestplate onto the ground. “how many wars have started with a misplaced tourney favour?”
“I believe it fair I do not give rise to it,” valarr slides both vambraces off swiftly. “knowing you must bear the spectacle when I name lady ashford queen of love and beauty.”
you exhale a laugh, sucking lightly on your teeth as you watch him discard the last few pieces. “oh, indeed. such a fearful prospect. each night I tremble like a maiden at the thought of my husband falling bewitched by a child of thirteen.”
valarr laughs in his chest, hand reaching up for your chin. his thumb settles over your lip, just so.
“it has been so long since you were a maiden,” he mutters, smiling all the while. “I did not think you remembered what that was like.”
“is it the jousting or the drink that has your tongue so loose?” you frown with faux-disapproval. “only a foolish knight would question a princess’ virtue. my husband would not be so jovial at your words.”
“would he not?” valarr asks with mock fear. he slides forward from his chair and sinks to the ground before you, hands reverently at your hips. at your soft laughter, he smiles ever so briefly before schooling his face back into his act.
“sweet lady, my queen of love and beauty… oh, I beg. do not tell your husband. I am at your desperate mercy.”
it takes great convincing to get valarr to abandon the idea of despoiling his pavilion. it seems, actually, that your protest that ‘anybody could walk in,’ is not a deterrent for your husband. it actually seems to intrigue him.
blushing, you tuck your hand into his elbow and force him to behave on the walk into the keep. he takes the swiftest bath possible in an eager need to share some form of closeness with you again. even if you’re falling half asleep, tangled together.
valarr is heavy and warm atop you, a soothing and still weight as he also sinks into rest. you doze blissfully and hazily, only waking to a very familiar sensation behind your belly button and hot kisses travelling down between your breasts.
it must have been while you were sleeping that valarr made himself truly at home with your dozing body.
“my love, this is a guest bed,” you tiredly argue, eyes opening slowly. it’s a weak protest made by a moaning, gasping voice that arches into a rough, eager tongue.
“I love that sharp mind of yours. it truly is your greatest asset.” valarr jokes dryly, lips tantalisingly close to your breast. you give him a soft smack to the back of his head but he only laughs and digs his fingers a little deeper into your spread thigh.
“are your father’s chambers not across the hall?” you whisper, hand pulling at his braid and the other running down the wide plane of his back.
“no.” valarr hums, lips tracing the myrish lace of your nightgown. “I believe aerion is across the hall. father sleeps next door.”
“is this not someone else’s bed?” you gasp, laughing even as you know it’s probably the better idea to push him off.
“it is. all the more reason, my love, to make ourselves at home.” valarr argues, hips pushing into your lower belly. he gives a slow, thoughtful grind between layered clothing but the heavy, firm intent is felt on each slide against your pliant stomach.
your thoughts somehow remain strong in spite of such enthusiastic work. valarr’s head dips to kiss your collarbone and as you lay under him you briefly are taken aback by a glance at unfamiliar roof. the strange pattern in the stones so different from your chambers back at the keep. the hot mouth at your neck helps you begin to take your husband’s point of view. as a prince, there’s surely something rather prideful and territorial about it. how heady to know he was welcomed as a guest and then pleasured his wife in the chambers of some other lord’s holdfast.
it’s somewhat dominant - a muted display of the joust all over again, only this time valarr has the control. the moment you nod and whine and say ‘yes, yes sweetheart I want you,’ your husband is using those hours in the yard to manhandle you around with ease.
you’re up off your back and suddenly standing at the edge, bare feet against cold stone.
“come now,” valarr urges, pushing you upwards by the hip. his hands encourage you to lift one knee up onto the bed. with good balance you keep a foot on the flagstones and let him set you where he plans to take you.
valarr’s heavy, wide hand smoothes down the curve of your back all the way up your spine, gently pushing you to arch delightfully and remove your nightgown. you lean forward with your face against the silken sheets, fingers pinched in anticipation as valarr’s hands make gentle, soothing circles on your thigh.
“how many men can say they’ve bedded the queen of the realm?” valarr mumbles, mouth trailing up the middle of your shoulders. well-practiced fingers spread the dripping wetness down your thigh and a thumb threatens to please you.
you’re kept bent forward in blind anticipation, revelling in the filthy excitement you gain hearing valarr’s hands work at his breeches. you can only twitch in eager waiting when you hear clothes land on the stones. both hands set on your hips, a shaky promise that finally, finally you’re going to be loved and used and pleasured. it’s going to take your mind from the terrors of the day and put you calmly to bed.
so your surprise is a dripping thing when instead you’re treated to a devoted kiss in a place you were not expecting it. though really, you should expect it. you should expect it of a man who has, on more than one occasion, painted the mattress from only the satisfaction of his mouth on your sweet cunt. it’s not something that seems to shame him, and it is certainly never a hindrance. to valarr, there’s no problem in the marriage bed that cannot be solved with a twenty minute breather and half a pitcher of wine to share.
“we’re guests, darling, keep your voice down.” valarr talks with a deep, smiling satisfaction as he finally decides he needs to slip inside you. a smugness lines his words that seems to only come out when he’s pulling you apart. “how crude of you.”
“you sound exquisite, my love. but if you’re to scream so loud, bite down on the sheets.” valarr’s warning comes low and breathy behind your ear, steady even while he drags you onto him by the back of your neck.
valarr’s hand slides down to cover your stuffed mouth as you cry out, muffled and dulled by the wrinkled fabric soaking quickly with your spit.
from your time at court you’ve come to learn, actually, that you are rather blessed. scandalous tales from handmaidens and wives of lords are whispered over sugared plums and sweetmeats. hushed and blushing laughter from the stokeworths, manderlys and brackens about the reality of their less than enchanting men. husbands that lay spent and snoring afterwards. men that are done just as fast as they begin and never manage to provide much satisfaction, despite their boisterous talk.
but you - you’ve been kindly spared. perhaps the seven above knew the suffering you would have to endure and so gave you a strong lover to bear it with; a man that takes an almost perverse sense of pleasure in working you with his hands.
so much so, that even when he’s spent, valarr will lay you down together in pursuit of one final, lazy bite of satisfaction. he’ll work you down slowly, your back against his chest and his lips at your throat before declaring anything finished.
you always know that nothing is over until you’re laid dripping with seed, watching your husband lick his fingers clean. it’s just one of his enticing rituals, like the way he always falls desperate and loses all composure right before he finishes, spewing babbling filth about his lovely wife and how he needs to, please. let me fill you. I live for this sweet cunt. I can’t stop, my love, please.
it should be considered more obscene than erotic when valarr spreads those slender fingers and cleans your mark from his wedding ring and back of hand. but worst of all he knows what the sight does to you, particularly when he licks gravy from his fingertips while making polite dinner conversation with some lord. valarr knows those long fingers have you well trained. fidgeting through court when he taps idly at the tabletop and strokes a thumb across each ripple in the metalwork of goblets - often a shade too sensual for you to handle.
you lay on your side, hand stroking up and down his leg as breath starts to calm. valarr draws his fingers - now clean - from his mouth and sits up with a groan.
candles are blown as he paces about and you are afforded a true view of him. thin lines of scars run up his back, long faded from growing faster than his young body was prepared for. you find a soft laugh at imagining the absurdity of the dark hair on his legs and arms being a pale silver instead. a gasp interrupts your laugh as thick, slippery evidence of carnal marking runs onto your thigh. it makes you tense slightly and roll fully over to your stomach, still staring over at valarr.
“it there something amusing?” valarr smiles, drinking water straight from the pitcher and forgoing a cup.
boldness takes you. ask, baelor had said.
“I hope this takes,” you smile, laying out the fishhook. tucking your head onto his pillow like a spoilt cat, you beckon him over.
he stands in a pause, pitcher hanging only a moment while he appraises the sight. “you do?”
“I do,” you nod - it is no lie. you do hope it works. the fear is of the outcome, not the thought of family. worry at coming so close only to lose something so dear. “sometimes I see how much you look like your sire and I cannot help picture our children. I wonder what you will look like when you are greying.”
valarr exhales a soft laugh and fully approaches, holding the pitcher steady for you to drink well. when there’s only one candle left burning, he leaves the water by the bedside and climbs under. he’s stayed too quiet for too long and it makes you nervous.
“… do you not?” you ask, sinking a little.
“I do.” valarr says it swift but not so convincingly. “but I am so persistently hounded by advisors on this same nature that I do not need you echoing it. in time. perhaps given a year or two.”
“if you did not want children perhaps you should be more careful .” you protest in hurt shock.
“why?” valarr scoffs slightly, thumb rubbing the bedsheets.
“why?” you hiss. “because if you do not want them, do not come into my bed asking-”
“if it were to happen it would have already come to pass.” valarr says firmly. “and it has not. I am sick of insipid advisors muttering the strength of dragonseed when we have tried. it is a failing I cannot act upon.”
“but I am asking if you would want it to, if you at least still hold a drop of hope for it.”
“darling, I have given up for hoping.” valarr sighs, kissing you and putting the conversation to bed. “I would rather no child at all over another pyre.”
you get a shaky, five minutes to almost doze in the unease before there’s a sudden flurry of activity in the castle. each dog in the kennel starts up barking at the same time, the horses stamping fretfully in the courtyard. multiple doors slam in quick succession despite the late hour. footsteps work quickly up and down the corridors.
valarr gets up first, even though he only manages to cover himself in some suspiciously damp linen shorts. his appearance is spared by the hastened and chaotic rush and bustle about the corridor. valarr glances up and down - just as confused as ashford’s blushing and uncomfortable guards right outside the door. the prince takes it in his stride, proudly almost, as he stands in just his linens and takes note of how no man will quite meet his gaze.
in an energised flurry, valarr returns and dresses in the dark. he steps into his haphazardly discarded boots using only the one remaining candle.
“are we safe?” you gather the sheets around you, suddenly feeling rather vulnerable in your nakedness. you scramble for a nightgown, a sleeping dress, anything at all to make you feel less defenceless.
“no need for you to dress,” valarr swears, deftly tucking his belt in. “it may be my uncle returning. I only mean to learn the results of his search.”
rushed, valarr leans down to set a hand behind your head and drops a kiss on your forehead.
“stay here, darling. daeron is probably being scolded as we speak.” valarr jokes, abandoning you rather quickly, actually. “I may have to save him.”
you find you cannot stay sat in the dark, unawares of the state of the castle. you dress yourself swiftly and without fanfare in clothes that do not require help. casual front lacings without a corset that slip on loosely. as you move into the corridors, it seems the guards have dispersed. you glance up and down finding, to your surprise, a muddy faced little boy curled up by the door pillar.
“egg?” you gasp in disbelief. “why in seven hells are you sat there?”
it’s with great relief and a dash of anger that you receive him, hearing out his tearful tale of taverns and turnip traders, of daeron’s shameful escape from the joust by simply running away. how he met a good knight and man of honour that came to aid the innocent.
how aerion, not even an hour past, was driven from his chambers in an unknowable rage and unleashed his fury on the troubadours and puppeteers.
you cannot but embrace him and sit down on the floor, seeing the boy behind the reckless acts. he gets your firmness too, but only after the tears have shed. on the march back to his room you surely repeat what he already knows, the same as he’s heard from his father and uncle thoroughly already.
as you round out the lecture with a hug and orders to take a bath, you find yourself standing uselessly in the corridor. you could return to bed, or … you might go glance the man in the gaol. on soft tread you could rush down the stairs, following egg’s directions.
because even though it’s well into the night, your husband still hasn’t emerged from the shuttered doors of the temporary council. candlelight spills and there’s many low voices overlapping. nobody protests when you walk past, aside from ser roland.
“I wish to see the man who despoiled prince aerion,” you mumble, standing close as he waits a lone guard. it seems empty in the corridor but you are far too aware of whispering birds.
“he’s a big brute. don’t hurt the fellow,” ser roland jests, opening the outer door.
you stand outside the strangers cell for a long moment, just watching him through the bars. he is a huge fellow, sat low on an upturned bucket. sandy hair and a square jaw. nervous blue eyes.
“you struck prince aerion?” you ask haughtily.
“aye, m’lady.” he mumbles.
“… how hard?”
“your grace… he was breaking her finger!” the knight protests. “the prince just-”
“I asked how hard you kicked him. give me the truth of it.”
“… near loosened a tooth, your grace.” the hedge knight says regretfully.
“good.” you hiss, spinning curtly on your heel and walking off.
you return to bed and lay half asleep and angry before your husband returns. somewhere in the hour of the wolf, you feel him slipping in between the sheets. valarr must think you sleeping as he kisses the back of your head and slots his knee between your thighs. a small thread of dread builds as he strokes a hand over your stomach. you aren’t sure why, because there’s no way at all he could know what sits inside simply by touching you.
you pretend to stay sleeping, not immediately sinking back into his embrace. valarr’s hand finally finds your hip as he tiredly mutters: ‘should’ve stayed abed.’
the morning comes choppy, leaving a strange bedchamber and your husband nowhere to be found. not even a message - he always leaves scribbled notes in your chamber in the red keep.
‘early council - eat without me.’ ‘find me in the library when you rise.’ ‘summons to father.’
and one rushed note that you’d kept near and dear to your heart. a piece of paper you’ll treasure sweetly for the rest of your life.
‘leaving for council. you make it unbearable. as I write you’re sweetly asleep. our son kicked out when I woke. beautiful wife. I treasure you both.’
you dress yourself all the while staring down the platters on the desk. one untouched, one half eaten already. no note. no earrings. a definite smudge on an untouched piece of paper with only an inked thumb smudge.
no sign he’d had a thought to say to you. no shaking you awake, nothing.
you eat as much as from the platter as your fear will allow before setting out with purpose. down the long corridors to the solar. a grand wing but so easy to run from end to end.
the double sunburst doors push open at the end of the corridor, spitting out the hulking beast from the gaol below. he staggers out in shock, face grave and nothing to say as he lumbers away as swift as he can. you let him leave, heading instead for the solar.
mutterings fall quiet when you slowly enter. it’s a thinly populated room. maekar slumps in an oak chair. baelor stands looking out the window, staring over the yard and pavilions sprawling into the misty distance.
valarr, arms folded as he leans against lord ashford’s desk, sighs when he sees you. it cuts rather deep to hear.
“… good morning.” you supply. “I hear the princes have been found at last. I have missed the commotion in the night.” you try to break into this conversation.
“they have,” valarr replies, tense. “there was also a separate incident at the market late in the eve.
“perhaps you could explain it later,” maekar mutters.
“there is no need,” you wave your hand. “prince aegon already found my quarters. there was a clash over puppets.”
“then surely you know aerion was assaulted last eve.” maekar huffs.
“in the defence of a woman.” you clarify.
“so we have heard,” baelor says flatly, staring out the window.
“the hedge knight demanded a trial by combat.” valarr explains.
you look about the room, feeling rather small suddenly. it’s a feeling you haven’t had in a long time - not since you last saw your cousins - but it comes back strong and fearsome as you stand in ashford’s solar. there’s something that you clearly don’t understand happening beneath the surface and the three men look at each other, seeking … something.
“as is his right.” you reply, feeling on shaky ground.
“aerion has demanded a trial of seven, instead.” valarr supplies, arms still folded tightly. “… as is his right.”
you glance at baelor but he keeps his back to you. maekar continues to bounce his knee and rest his grinding jaw on his fist. nobody speaks for a long moment.
“what … what is a trial of seven?” you ask hesitantly.
“seven champions apiece fight for the accused and the defence. it is an andal tradition,” baelor speaks up, looking over his shoulder at you.
“with the kingsguard, you and I would make six,” maekar sits further upright. he takes absolutely no notice of your presence and stares straight at baelor, accusingly. baelor does not seem to outright agree - simply standing with one hand behind his back and a thoughtful look on his face.
“and the seventh man?” valarr asks, glancing fleetingly at baelor.
such subterfuge makes you want to stand in the middle of the room and wave your arms around, shouting at them. tell me, tell me what your secret is! what is it that you keep from me?
“daeron would only make a fool of himself, but you would be a fine seventh.” maekar grunts. “you fight well.”
“no.” you blurt out. it falls from you in a sudden, convicted rush. you don’t even have time to restrain yourself before the protest is out in the open.
“no?” maekar asks. he chuckles lightly, rough and abrasive. you can tell he’s amused in the way men become when they think a woman has done something so endearingly stupid all that’s left is to laugh softly and gesture to her feeble-mindedness. “this is a matter of high treason. it is not so simple as no.”
“puppetry is treason?” you ask, disbelieving and angry.
“slaying dragons is fucking treason.” maekar corrects, pointing a steady finger at you.
“there are no dragons left to slay!” you hiss.
“intended or not, it was hardly a wise choice, princess.” baelor tries to rationalise. he’s calm and reasonable in the middle of a turbulent room.
“I do not expect wisdom to come from puppeteers,” you mutter. “I expect it from princes.”
the frustration sets you to tears, and you’re so regretful of it. they will see me as a weeping woman, too senseless in emotion to see the clear picture, you think. they are tears of anger and built rage. almost betrayed, you wonder if baelor alone will think this is the hysteria of carrying children.
“my husband will not join your foolish parade.” you reiterate, retaining a fragile shred of honourable conviction. no man can take that from you.
maekar scoffs and grinds his jaw slightly. “I expect him to defend his honour as-”
“his honour is not in question!” you snap in return, voice rising. “your sons have shamed the family repeatedly and you have allowed it.“
“mind your tongue, lady connington.” maekar warns lowly.
“why I see the truth offends you, ser,” you spit back.
“I think enough has been said,” valarr interrupts, standing from the desk and unfolding his arms. he moves closer into the middle of the room, trying to insert himself as a barrier. he holds a hand out by your elbow, calming harsh words that seem to be brewing.
you take an angered breath and turn your gaze to the floor, stewing with rage and wondering which road your husband will take here. baelor looks on from the window, face stoic and composed.
“brash as they were,” valarr begins, fixing you with a long and firm stare. he doesn’t seem pleased, but he doesn’t seem angry either, it’s that same unreadable face he’d worn when asked of children. pained. undecided. “my wife’s words ring true.”
suddenly you feel almost dizzy with relief. the tears on your face sticky and shameful, tongue hot with regret and pride at the same time. you feel like you might be sick again, but knowing how your image would never recover, you put all your strength into calming the urge.
“I will not be your seventh.” valarr says, looking straight at his uncle. with a sigh and a softer voice, he turns then to his father.
“aerion earned his fate. I will not stake my life and honour on his behalf before gods and man… he would not do the same for me.”
quiet hangs for a long moment where baelor seems to quietly turn it over.
“each man must fight of his own accord,” he says calmly. then breakspear fixes that intense stare at you.
“your brevity and … conviction is appreciated, princess, but be more mindful of such outbursts.” he lets the heavy warning hang a moment. “we are not in the red keep.”
“of course,” you nod, gathering yourself and looking at baelor. there’s something very firm at the edges but he’s giving you room here, letting you show your own colours. “it has been a distressing few days, but that was not gracious.”
another deep breath and you watch the table, aware of every gaze in the room. you don’t have to look to know what valarr would ask you to do: apologise.
but you look at maekar - sitting with one leg bouncing and the other propped on the table leg - and can think only of his arrogance. that terrible thing he’d passed onto his sons.
“I am sorry, uncle,” you say, succumbing to your husband’s good influence. “I should have…”
you trail off a moment. are you going to back down? will you back-tread and become another one of those who stands aside and lets the power-drunk have their merry way?
you smile in the pause as if catching yourself, re-approaching your sentence with folded hands.
“I stand by the … content of my words, but I should have delivered them with more respect.” you finish. it’s earnest but there’s been a line set now. how long the line remains drawn is up to maekar.
maekar lets the quiet hang a second, fixing you one of those frowning silent appraisals. his leg still bounces as he sits straighter in his chair.
“yes. very well,” is all he grumblingly supplies.
baelor turns from the window fully upon hearing that, going so far as to stride a few paces toward the table. one hand stays tucked behind his back while the other spreads in exasperation.
“brother, must you truly-”
“-prefer I said? I won’t fucking play games while-”
their voices begin to intermittently overlap somewhat - baelor’s steadfast and calming tone overlaid by maekar’s rising and dropping emotion. it’s hard to follow with their voices often colliding.
“-a sincere statement, you ought to at least meet it with-”
“-ought to? many things I ought to fucking do-”
“come, darling.” valarr tiredly offers, an hand at the small of your back. he throws a glance over his shoulder upon retreating through the door. “… I am sure they have much to discuss.”
oh my god every time I thought I’d finished another scene came to me. tough to get done around work but yikes the beast is tamed. part 6 & 7 coming out together. behind the scenes here for book lore and other bits.
turnnoffyourmind
pixelskylines
origamiaround
tangentwithtanner
dailybridgerton
gummygunk
areudirty
snowghoul
janainaart
vaporwave
