I love you when you do that
The prince comes to her room at night.
Author note: this is an extract from my fanfic. The female character is an oc.
When she opened the door, she held her breath.
Her prince was right in front of her. Looking even wearier and more tired than that morning: the circles under his eye had grown deeper and darker and his skin looked paler.
Elia opened her mouth to say his name, but he shut her down putting his lips on hers, cradling her face in his big hands, icy cold on her warm face. She pulled him inside her room, closing the door, wise enough to think they couldn’t be seen kissing like that.
When the door was closed, he slipped his tongue inside her mouth, groaning while tasting her, savoring her like he was starving.
He licked her lips one more time before interrupting the kiss, keeping his forehead against her without saying anything, his face tensed, a frown on his eyebrow.
They stayed like that for a bit, Elia understood he needed only that, he needed the calm and the silence, so she stayed in silence, waiting for him to speak, caressing the back of his hands, bony and soft.
He sighed and pulled her close, his eye still closed. “I didn’t know where else to go”
“I’m glad you came here” she admitted, brushing her nose against his.
“My father is dead” he whispered so weakly that she could hear him only thanks to their closeness.
She raised her hand and caressed his face. “I know” she whispered, nodding. “I’m so sorry”
“You’re freezing,” she caressed his cheek, right under the lace of his eyepatch. “Sit by the fire. I get you some water”
She poured the water into a cup, watching him walk to the fire almost limping; he looked drunk, but she knew he probably hadn’t been sleeping in days. When she brought him the water, he was sitting on the ground, on a big red carpet right in front of the fire. She held her gown and sat by his side, handing him the cup.
He looked at the cup and then at her, smiling briefly, a smile that looked almost painful.
“Thank you” he muttered under his breath.
She shrugged. “How are you?”
He chuckled, looking into the fire, he put his palms over the fire. “People keep asking me that, and I keep replying that I’m trying to be strong. But I’m not: the ugly truth is that… I don’t feel anything , at all. I mean, one should be sad on the day of his father's funeral, right? This is how normal people feel when their father dies. Then why can’t I feel anything? Why can’t I be normal for one fucking time?”
Elia had the impression that, if he had been in his full senses, he would have never told her something like that, he would have never opened up like that with anyone.
“Because love isn’t owed,” she replied, caressing his forearm. “It’s deserved”
He turned to her, nodding.
“I’ve tried, you know?” he admitted, turning back to look at the fire. “When I was little I followed him everywhere, I’ve listened to hours of boring meetings of the Small Council, of Lords making requests, I’ve asked him about his life, about his dragon… I couldn’t believe that my father was the last rider of the Black Dread. But he never cared about me, or any of us…”
The flames were burning into his eye while he talked. “The night I’ve lost my eye, something changed in me. And not just because I had claimed Vhagar. I was there, bleeding, defaced forever, and he was screaming at me, at me , for calling their precious grandchildren bastards . A simple statement, more than an offense, if you ask me.”
The more she heard that story, the more she realized that a war was starting only because of children’s bickering.
“I blamed Aegon, for telling me that.” he admitted, chuckling. “I thought he would have denied it, but my brother, the drunk idiot who had never missed a chance to taunt me, surprisingly had my back, he took the blame for me, and never said a word. I even had the suspicion he actually liked the Strong boys, but he took my defenses. Only he and our mother did. That night, I understood that we had just ourselves, that it didn’t matter how good I was, my father would have always preferred Rhaenyra and her family. I avoided him like the plague, since that night, and he has never asked why I suddenly stopped following him, so I thought it was a relief for him”
“The biggest lie of this world is that we should necessarily love our parents,” she told him. “Or that they will love us no matter what.”
“I wanted to punch all the people who had come to me today, saying how much he loved us” he confessed, closing his fists.
“You should have” she replied, shrugging.
He looked at her, giggling. He stopped and gave a deeper look at her hair completely loose, falling in black waves around her shoulder, it felt like he was seeing her again for the first time, without her colorful dresses or flashy jewelry. “I’ve missed you, sea girl”
Yeah, he definitely would have never talked to her like that if he was more in himself.
She chuckled, laying her head on the couch, looking at him. “I’ve missed you, too”
He looked down. “Can I stay here, tonight?”
She bit her lips, smiling. “I wouldn’t let you go anywhere else, my prince,” she said, tilting her head toward him. “Especially because you look drunk”
He chuckled. “I’m not drunk, I swear. I’m just really really tired”
She smiled. “Oh, I can tell. Do you want to lay on the bed?”
He shook his head. “Let’s stay here, just for a bit”
She nodded, coming closer.
“What about you?” his eye was battling to stay open, closing languidly for more seconds than a simple blink. “Were you asleep? Did I wake you up?”
She shook her head. “No, I… I couldn’t very much sleep”
“Were you worried about… I mean, about what would happen to us?”
That and so much more, my prince. She wanted to say, but she simply nodded.
“I’ve asked, before,” he told her. And her heart sank in her stomach, she realized only at that moment how scared she was to have to say goodbye to him. “They say nothing has changed, the wedding is still arranged.”
Her body relaxed with a deep sigh of relief when she heard that. Yet, she was far from being tranquil, but at least it was something less to worry about.
“What were you doing?” he asked.
She shrugged. “Getting bored, awake with nothing to do, and nothing to read except The Seven-Pointed-Star ” she admitted with a grimace.
“A delightful read” he joked, chuckling. “I’ve tried to read it to the twins but they get bored. They like stories, though.”
Elia came nearer, settling near him, her head almost on his shoulder. “What stories?”
“About our past, our ancestors, their dragons, how they conquered the Seven Kingdoms, how they forged the Iron Throne…”
She giggled. “I hope you tell them the part where Dorne refused to bow to the Targaryens and that’s why there aren’t dornish swords on the Iron Throne”
His tongue snapped lightly in his mouth. “I may have neglected that part…” he admitted with a laugh, “but Jaehaera asks me to tell her the tale of Nymeria every time she is sick. She has asked to learn how to use the sword“
She smiled. “Would you teach her?”
He nodded. “Of course I would. I’ve already commissioned a sword to give her for her name day”
“It’s very sweet of you” she admitted.
“I’ve always thought that when I would have had children, I wouldn’t have made any differences about them. Sons, daughters…they all should have the same possibilities”
That was sweet, other than absolutely right to say. Yet she felt like she wanted to sink into the ground and never came up again.
Here's what you’re taking away from him.
Go to your prince and tell him that he’ll never have an heir, that he’ll never give his family name to a child, that he’ll never put a dragon egg on his child's cradle, that he’ll never see his heirs play with his nephews… Tell him that and you’ll lose him forever.
“Do you… do you really want children?” she asked, tentatively.
He shrugged, he had finally closed his eye but was still clearly awake. “It’s not that I have other choices. It’s my duty, I have to make our bloodline continue. But… after all that’s been, I don’t really know if I could be a good father. I think about it sometimes…”
Elia had to bite his lips not to let tears drop down her face. She raised a hand and put it on his cheek, slowly caressing his cheekbones.
“You would make a wonderful father,” she told him, while her fingertips were starting to move in circles around his jaw until he relaxed.
He sighed, drowsy and almost peaceful when he spoke. “Gods, I love you when you do that”
She flinched. “You mean you love it ?”
But he didn’t reply, finally asleep, finally resting.
She took a blanket from her bed and put it on him, before sitting next to him and nestling on his shoulder. Falling asleep instantly.
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