flora

baelor targaryen’s estate attorney. following from @vi-verouys 🌷

[verouys]

“one not need intend harm to do it.”

𓂃˖𝜗𝜚₊˚⊹ flora. she/her. 21. southeast asian. pansexual.・✭࿐࿔ᯓ₊ southern california coast ✭ graduate student. 𓂃𝜗𝜚˚⊹ 𖠿 ゜

𖤓 investor of modern!valarr & "you are not my wife" maekar stocks

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my works :

kat taylor (backrooms)

── OAT MILK? (modern!AU)

── NEGATIVE FEEDBACK LOOP

── LACES AND LADIES (lady-in-waiting!AU)

[captainfern]

Hey Fern. I've been following you a few years now, since you've been writing about John Price and I absolutely love you're work. Is it possible to request a fic with Baelor and Maekar with reader for my birthday next week Wednesday? Also keep hydrated and get your rest. You've my favourite author on Tumblr. 🫶🏽🤍

Your Love Is King

Baelor Targaryen x fem!reader x Maekar Targaryen

✿ you've known the princes for many years now, and they always make sure to visit you any time they're in Dorne. ✿ 18+ ✿ wc: 8k ✿ cw: fem!reader, noblewoman!reader, no y/n, reader is dornish but not described, reader is from an unnamed house (not martell either), reader can be read as plus-sized (mentions of curves/larger thighs/tummy) but is otherwise undefined, pre-established relationship, SMUT, oral (f!receiving), fingering (vag+anal), unprotected piv, threesome (NO targcest tho), double penetration, anal, multiple orgasms, praise!!, pet names (sweet girl, sweetheart, etc), these men are in loooove with you, strong language, alcohol consumption, use of medieval lube lmao, title from the sade song :)

a/n: first time writing after my hiatus so please spare me lol. and happy late birthday !! i so hope you enjoy <3 and gosh i love that gif lol they're so silly

The melodic plucking of a harp fills the warm, dry air as you lounge across your cushioned divan. It mimics birdsong as you recline, the heat of the Dornish summer clinging to your bare skin, your dress a mere bundle of sheer ribbons across the curves of your body. You reach for your strongwine, sipping lazily from the cup as a servant enters the open-air room and bows where he stands.

“My lady,” he greets quietly, eyes darting briefly around the empty room. Sweet smelling incense pools in a thin, white wisp from a golden thurible suspended overhead, and he politely bats the smoke away from his head as he speaks. “Prince Baelor and Prince Maekar have arrived.”

You spare a glance through the sheer curtains that billow lightly where they frame the paneless windows. The sun sits high in the sky, blazing hot. Taking a deep breath, you smell blanched sand and ryegrass beneath the flowery incense.

You turn back to your servant, licking strongwine from your lips. “Is it that time already? I was quite enjoying my solace.”

Your servant offers you a sympathetic smile. “Apologies, my lady.”

With a groan, you place your cup aside and get to your feet, smoothing down the layers of your dress. You gesture to your harpist, whose fingers freeze against the strings, before you follow your servant through your residence. Your skirts flutter around your ankles as you walk, kicking up a breeze that cools the backs of your calves and knees. The movement of your arms has the bracelets there jingling together, and with each window you pass and with each beam of sunlight you cross through, the metals glint and sparkle.

A pair of solid doors give way to the main reception hall, ceilings high, windows curved. Sunlight dances in mottled spheres along the smooth floor, heat churning with the bodies that move to accommodate the recently arrived princes. But such bodies freeze when you enter, dropping into polite bows and curtsies until ultimately, it is you dropping into a curtsy as you find yourself before Baelor and Maekar.

The airy fabric of your dress shifts across your body, moving with the bend of your knees and the swell of your breasts as you greet them individually. “Prince Baelor, Prince Maekar.”

Maekar grunts in acknowledgement, but his eyes are considerably more telling than his brothers as they drop down the curves of your body.

You ignore it, smiling softly at Baelor and extending a hand decorated in rings—which he takes in two of his, strong and rough and worn down through weeks on the road. He grasps your hand firmly before bringing it to his mouth and placing a chaste kiss to your knuckles.

“My lady,” he says, mismatched eyes gleaming. “It’s a pleasure to see you again.”

“And you,” you reply, finally casting your eyes over Maekar, who stands idly with a hand resting on the pommel of his sword. His eyes raise when he realises your attention has shifted, and he offers you a curt nod. You smile in return. “I wasn’t expecting to see you both so soon.”

You slink up beside Baelor and take his riding cloak from him, noting the fine film of golden dust settled in the black fibres. Your hands slide over his shoulders.

“We left a few days ahead of schedule,” Baelor tells you as you remove his cloak and hand it off to a nearby servant. Both he and Maekar remain rooted to the spot as you glide behind them, the tips of your fingers dragging across his upper back before you settle behind Maekar and unlatch his cloak as well. Baelor clears his throat. “I hope our arrival hasn’t interrupted you too severely.”

“Not at all,” you say as you take Maekar’s cloak and hand it off, your fingers feathering over the back of his neck briefly before you move and stand before them once more. Both men stare at you, attention rapt. You smile. “It’s always a pleasure hosting you both.”

You crook a finger then, spinning on your heel. They follow obediently, and you lead them back through the grand double doors and down the long, open-air hall. Your combined footsteps echo through the solace of your castle, and you can’t help the heat that seems to transfer from the air around you to the pit of your stomach.

“When are you expected at Sunspear?” You throw the question over your shoulder as you walk, several nearby servants bowing as the three of you cross through a room lush with ornamental plants.

Maekar responds with a displeased huff. “Too soon.”

“What my brother means,” Baelor interjects, falling into stride with you. His hand brushes yours as you walk. “Is we are expected, but not by a certain time.”

You turn and smile at the prince, wriggling your fingers into his. Visible relief passes across his face and his hand clamps down firmly, his rings clacking against yours.

“Good,” you reply, before turning to Maekar, who walks with his hands clasped behind his back and at least one step behind you. You offer him your other hand, bracelets coming together like chimes. “Why must you sulk, your grace?”

Maekar frowns at you, but takes your hand without protest. His hand is cooler than his brothers, but the sword callouses along his upper palm are more pronounced. His grip is tighter, too.

“I’m not sulking,” Maekar grumbles, lifting your hand to press the words against your skin. “It is too hot, and we have been riding for too long, and I am fucking annoyed.”

You laugh, and the sound floats up towards the ceiling as you lead the princes back into the portico where you had been prior to their arrival. The harpist perches quietly on her seat in the corner of the room, and you send a smile across to her. She returns it and begins her strumming, the sounds louder and more pronounced.

“You are far too Targaryen,” you comment humorously as you remove your hand from both men’s grasps, turning solely to Maekar now. Your fingers find the hem of his padded doublet, tugging it pointedly. “Your mother was Dornish. Where did that go, your grace?”

Maekar grumbles again as he raises his arms and allows you to lift the doublet from his torso. You toss it aside, then lift a hand to Maekar’s cheek, stroking a thumb against the pink-tinted skin marred with pox scars and coarse white hair. His grumbling ceases, and you turn to Baelor then, seeing him already ripping the thick doublet from his body.

“Baelor’s always been better in this wonderful Dornish heat,” you say to Maekar as you rest a hand at the base of his throat. You feel him swallow, feel the working of his throat as you press your palm there. You address Baelor then, hand running up his chest. “Isn’t that right?”

Baelor’s next blink comes at the same time as a particularly flourished strum of the harp.

He nods, gaze heavy as he traces the lines of your face while you slowly withdraw your hand from his chest. “Yes.”

You smile, then spin around, skirts fluttering, movements like the rolling of water. You settle yourself onto the cushioned divan then, beckoning them with a pat of your fingers either side of you as you recline like a cat. Maekar, despite the dip in his brow, is the first to relent: collapsing down beside you with a pained grunt. Baelor follows not long after, lowering himself more slowly, more gently to your other side, but you don’t miss the relieved exhale as he leans back into the cushions.

As the princes settle, resting their wings, you call for your servant, who enters the room not long after with a tray of cups and strongwine. He places it on the small table before you, and you thank him, insisting on pouring the cups yourself.

Maekar makes a face, complete with narrowed eyes and a curling of his upper lip as you uncork the decanter and pour the wine. “Strongwine? Of all wines?”

You gasp, feigning disappointment. “You insult your Dornish heritage, your grace.”

He rolls his eyes, but accepts the cup you offer him. You hand Baelor his cup too, and he thanks you quietly before taking a generous sip. With your own full cup in hand, you relax back into the cushions, listening to the harp. 

As you sit, Maekar’s free hand shifts to one of the thin, silky layers of your skirt, fidgeting with the material, rubbing it between thumb and forefinger. Much like this brother, Baelor’s unoccupied hand finds the bracelets that stack at your wrist, running the pad of his finger along the smooth metal and the bumps of gemstones he finds there.

“How long has it been since you were last here?” You ask after a while, eyes drawing through the slight haze over your head, each inhale smelling faintly of floral incense and sun-soaked earth.

Baelor removes his hand from your bracelets, instead placing his palm firmly on your knee. The pressure is warm, almost branding, even through the material of your dress.

“Many moons now,” he tells you, thumb touching lightly to the dip on the side of your knee. “We’ve both been waiting long enough to return—haven’t we, brother?”

Maekar makes a noise, wet with wine and deep from the back of his throat as he continues stroking his fingers along the material of your dress. But his hand has shifted higher now, touch sliding up and onto the soft mass of your thigh. It dips inwards too as he sips slowly from his cup, and you turn and meet his gaze as his touch drops, drops, and drops even more until he can press his fingers into the covered fat of your inner thigh.

“The last time you were here,” you recall, reclining further into the cushions and drawing your cup to your lips. You speak around the rim before taking a sip, “It took the better part of an hour before I could even get you to sit with me. Now look at you both…”

You place your strongwine aside then grasp both princes by the chin, fingers firm against their jaws. They both stare at you with the same gloss over their eyes, pupils swelling over the colour of their irises as you hold their attention.

“So what’s changed?” You continue with Baelor’s hand tight on your knee and Maekar’s inching further between the split of your thighs.

Baelor’s mismatched eyes glance down your body briefly. He notes his brother’s hand, then notes his own, before he looks at you once more.

“The heat does interesting things, doesn’t it?” He whispers, then presses forward, battling past the grip of your hand and planting his mouth squarely on your cheek.

It’s not quite a kiss. An intimate, nearly domestic touch. Lips softened by the sweet, well-ripened strongwine, peppering slow kisses along the warm skin of your cheek. You let go of his chin, sliding your hand down his throat then pushing your palm flat against his chest. You feel the beating of his heart. It thuds heavily beneath his thin black tunic, and you wonder if it’s beating in time with yours.

But you turn your head when you hear Maekar grumble something beside you. Baelor lets the contact slip, his mouth drawing down the column of your neck as you face his brother. Maekar takes hold of your wrist, guiding your hand to his mouth. The heel of your palm receives touch first, and you quell the giggle that threatens to leave you as you watch him stamp the pink stain of wine from his lips to your hand. You watch him closely, Baelor nosing the pulse thrumming hot beneath your ear, as he traces the lines of your palm until he kisses around the side of your hand and cups it to his cheek.

Maekar has you cradling the side of his face as he gazes at you. “I have missed you.”

“I can tell,” you reply with a small, airy laugh. 

A dip forms in his brow, the beginnings of a frown, but you pull him to you before it can grow. Gently, your mouth finds his, and the sound that leaves him is a deep groan of relief. You taste the intense berry-sweetness of the strongwine as he opens for you, tongue flat to yours. The hand on your thigh digs deeper like a hand to clay, pawing at the flesh like he means to tear you apart.

The lulling strum of the harp blurs with distant birdsong as Baelor’s mouth slides down the slope of your neck and finds the junction of your shoulder. His teeth scrape, ivory along the intricately stitched hemline of your dress, as his hand slides up from your knee, gathering beneath your skirts. You draw in a breath, mouth still moving with Maekar’s, as Baelor’s hand draws higher and higher, bundling your skirts near the top of your thighs.

You pull yourself away from Maekar just as Baelor lifts his head. He leans in first, and you meet him halfway, mouth sliding to his effortlessly. Maekar takes your hand back into his, and you feel his mouth begin a trail from the bump of your wrist towards your elbow as Baelor’s tongue shoves heavily against yours, desperate and searching. Like his brother’s, a film of strongwine clings to it, drawing little gasps from the back of your throat as he licks across the points of your teeth.

But after a moment, sweat gathering at the back of your neck, you pull away. Maekar mouths at the pulse in the crook of your elbow, dark violet eyes watching you as you pant. Two large hands, each belonging to a prince of the realm, sit heavily on your thighs. Made of steel, they anchor you to the divan as an involuntary tremor racks through you.

You offer both men a coy smile. “I don’t suppose you’d both join me in my chambers?”

Maekar peers at you like you’ve insulted him. He places one last kiss to the inside of your elbow, muttering, “What kind of question is that, woman?”

And then he’s getting to his feet, his cup long discarded and long forgotten as he urges you to stand. You can’t help the smile that clings to your face as you let him move you, and Baelor follows immediately after, movements aligning with the final strums of the harp. As both princes lead you towards the door, you smile at your harpist, mouthing your thanks and nodding to the remaining bottle of strongwine on the low table. She smiles back, sending you off with a knowing wink.

—✿—

Your chambers are cool where fresh coastal air flows through the windows, sheer plum-coloured curtains fluttering softly with the movement. You draw the prince’s inside, with Maekar fisting one of the layers of your skirts, while Baelor wraps his fingers around your forearm. Once inside, you wriggle yourself free from their grasps and spin around, arms already working their way out of your flowing sleeves.

Maekar is undoing his tunic, eyes following where your dress drops away from your shoulders and slips past your elbows, the fabric falling away from your breasts. He groans, pleased, and shucks his tunic off. His abdomen is pale and well-stocked, both pox and battle scars mapping across the skin.

“Our sweet girl,” he mutters, more to himself than you as he steps closer. But you step back, smiling still as you push your dress over the curve of your hips and arse. It drops to the floor and pools at your ankles. Maekar groans, his hands finding the ties of his trousers as he stares at you. “Oh, gods above…”

You kick the garment away, now completely bare. Your eyes find Baelor then, who has managed to rid himself of his shoes, linen chausses, and now his tunic. Both princes’ clothing was scattered across the floor of your chambers.

“We’ve missed you,” Baelor admits as his brother closes the gap between you.

Maekar’s arms circle you tightly, and you let him press you firmly to his front. His trousers hang open but sit loosely on his hips. The imprint of him sits snug against the curve of your thigh and you moan loudly before his mouth melds to yours.

The kiss is forceful. It’s a continuous push, a forcing of dominance as his tongue swipes hot against yours. His hands are stone-solid on your hips, and he gently ruts against you as you kiss the taste of strongwine from each other. The Dornish summer heat seems to accumulate in the base of your stomach, spreading wide across your womb as Maekar backs you towards your bed.

That is, until you step backwards into the solid heat of another body. Baelor’s hands feather lightly across your ribs as he leans into you, his mouth dropping straight to your ear. You whine into Maekar’s mouth, hands tightening at the back of his neck, as Baelor’s bare abdomen plasters hot and sweat-slick to your back.

“Our prettiest girl,” Baelor whispers, lips dragging over the shell of your ear. 

His hands find the sides of your breasts, palming at the flesh before the roughened pads of his fingers swipe slowly across your nipples. You whine again, trying to pull from Maekar’s mouth, but he doesn’t let you—dipping his head lower to kiss you harder, the coarse hair of his beard scraping against your skin.

You’re pinned between them. Three bodies burning hot in the middle of your chambers.

Sweat sits damp at Baelor’s temples as he kisses down the side of your neck, and Maekar breathes hard when he breaks the kiss, sliding his mouth over the curve of your jaw. You crane your neck, head lolling back onto Baelor’s shoulder, allowing both men to trace red-hot lines down either side of your throat. You can barely keep your eyes open, blurred sunlight catching in your eyelashes as you blink through the rush of pleasure that grows hot within the confines of your skull.

You’re dizzy with it. Sick, feverish with need. Your core beats with your heart, aching between your thighs, and Maekar’s hands on your hips and Baelor’s hands on your tits—and both of their covered cocks pressing against you—threatens to pull you apart. And their words fan the flames inside you. Baelor mutters, all sweet and lilting, as he kneads your breasts and rolls his hips against the curve of your arse: sweet girl, our sweet girl, gods we’ve missed you. And Maekar’s hissing out between clenched teeth, hands trawling from your hips to the bottom of your arse, squeezing the flesh as he bites down the desire to sink his teeth into your shoulder: fuck, you’re beautiful—gods, just look at you, sweetheart. Un-fucking-believable.

And they bundle you towards the bed beneath a flurry of moving hands. Baelor sits on the edge of the feather-stuffed mattress, far enough that he can spread his legs wide and settle you between them. Maekar detaches from you as Baelor pulls you down, perching you on the lip of the bed, caught between the mass of his thighs.

A few strands of white hair fall across Maekar’s forehead as he huffs and lowers himself to his knees. He groans, joints popping as he hits the thickly spun carpet. You bite your lip, holding back a whine as two hands find your knees and spread you apart.

One of Baelor’s hands is still pawing at your tits, while the other slides up and wraps gently around your throat. He guides your head to the side, sliding your mouth to his—and the kiss is deep. Slow. Barely even moving as he palms your thundering pulse.

Carefully, Maekar begins trailing a line of kisses from your inner knee towards your core. His beard scratches along the skin as he moves up your thigh. Your stomach clenches in anticipation, muscles in your thighs jumping as you whine into Baelor’s mouth.

Baelor pulls away just a centimetre or two. You’re connected by a thin string of spit, and his pupils are wide, eyes nearly appearing the same colour. He holds you like this, holds the eye contact, as his brother kisses further and further up the inside of your thigh.

“More?” Baelor whispers, the string snapping.

His tone is hoarse, nearly a whimper.

The nod you give him is small, but he sees it. Slowly, he dips his head and slots his mouth back to yours in a rolling kiss that draws the breath from your lungs. And as that happens, Maekar groans: a rattling sound from behind his sternum as his mouth finds the split of your cunt.

He kisses you once, twice where the warmth of you grows hotter, wetter, before he’s hefting his hands below your knees and pushing your legs up. You gasp out of the kiss, head spinning in Baelor’s grasp as Maekar hoists your legs onto his broad shoulders, pinning you even further into the dark-haired prince.

Maekar doesn’t say anything as he wraps his arms around your thighs and presses his face between them. His mouth opens against your slit, tongue sliding down, then up; a long, continuous stroke until his lips find the bead of your clit and he can taste you in the back of his throat. Another groan escapes him. It’s harsher, more leonine, and his eyes fall closed as he angles back down to repeat the motions again.

A few seconds pass before Baelor gently coaxes your attention back to him. His palm rests against your throat still, his thumb stroking the tendon down the side. His eyes flit down to his brother for a moment, before he looks at you.

“He’s missed you,” Baelor mutters, pressing a tender kiss to the corner of your mouth. You whine, and he shushes you with a scattering of kisses to your warm cheek. “He has, sweet girl. We both have.”

Something tugs deep in the pit of your womb as Maekar’s tongue works inside you: it’s a thick, blunt push of muscle, paired with the press of his nose against your clit. And the sound of it is obscene: wet and vulgar, the sucking of nectar from ripened fruit. He moans with it, the vibrations cutting right through you and tearing a sob from your throat.

Baelor continues to work his hand across your chest, alternating in rolling your nipples between two fingers. He holds your throat still too, clutching you, helping you watch as Maekar rocks his head between your thighs.

“Listen to that,” Baelor says against your ear, hips bucking almost involuntarily. You can feel the hard press of his cock through his trousers against the small of your back. He hums, low in his throat, listening to the sounds Maekar pulls from your cunt and the little whimpers escaping your parted lips. “So wet, hm? You’ve missed us too, haven’t you, sweet girl?”

You nod. A hushed yeah finds the warm air, but you’re not sure you even said it as your vision seems to white at the edges as the pressure in your womb stretches through your pelvis. It’s hot and heavy as Maekar’s tongue curls inside you, his groans pushing vibration after vibration through every single one of your nerves. You mewl, and his eyes open, finding where you lean back against Maekar, one of your hands gripping Baelor’s thigh.

The white-haired prince lets go of one of your thighs and slides the hand higher. Moaning quietly, head resting back against Baelor’s shoulder, you get the hint. You drop your free hand into his and he clasps it firmly.

Baelor hums, pleased. “There we go, that’s it. Hold onto him, sweetheart.”

His hand shifts from your chest as he speaks. Rough with years hardened around the hilt of a sword, but still soft enough to raise goosebumps across your skin, he drags it between the valley of your breasts and over your belly. He feels you swallow beneath his palm as his hand ghosts over your mound before two fingers find your clit.

“Baelor,” you moan, head falling back now as your sounds reach the beautifully tiled ceiling.

Maekar squeezes your hand, peering at you through white lashes as his head moves. His tongue splits your pussy open, breath hot against you as he pants. He grunts too: muffled keens lost in the heat of your cunt, matching the fickle whimpers that leave you.

“Maekar,” you whisper as your thighs begin to tremble.

Baelor’s mouth finds the side of your head as he holds you against him, lips pressed open against your temple as he pants, his fingers moving in short, even circles across your clit. It’s the perfect pressure. The perfect speed.

The dark-haired prince smiles against you. He breathes you in, smelling the soap in your hair and the perfumed oil rubbed deep into your skin. As he holds you like this, this close, he feels you tremble, entire body shuddering with bottled pleasure.

You moan, and he’s answering you before the sound has completely left your mouth: “I know, I know, I can feel you, sweetheart, I can feel you.”

Maekar grunts as if acknowledging his brother’s words. His other hand moves from your thigh as your legs clench up around his shoulders, and he pushes his hand between his face and your core. He pulls back briefly, face wet, beard glistening, as he takes one finger and, without warning, pushes it into you. You gasp out, choking on a sob as a second follows not long after, before his mouth slides back against you.

It’s too hot. Too good.

Maekar’s fingers spread then curl, finding that perfect spot inside you straight away. No preamble, no search—the tips of the prince’s fingers are a blunt nudge against you, and the pressure in your womb pulls so tight that the shadow of a cramp passes through your calves as your toes curl.

Baelor’s fingers continue moving as he speaks lowly, “Give it to him, love.”

Your orgasm fissures through the base of your spine and the pit of your stomach like a crack through stone. It splits you apart, and you curl back into Baelor’s hold as a loud moan echoes around your chambers. Your cunt squeezes tight around Maekar’s fingers, clit thrumming hard and hot with blood beneath the rhythm of Baelor’s continual movements. It’s a hot, cloying release as a shudder racks through you, your thighs clamping tight around either side of Maekar’s head, and you feel the warmth that floods your stomach as real as the sun that streams through your open windows.

Maekar pulls his face from you first, wiping his wet beard along the inside of your thigh. You whine softly, limp where you lie against Baelor, whose fingers come to a stop but rest firm against your swollen clit.

“Brother,” Baelor warns, more tender than reprimanding, as the white-haired prince continues to pump his fingers into you. 

In… out… slow, methodical movements as your pussy flutters around him lazily. You let out another whine, a dull ache settling deep in your core.

“Maekar,” Baelor says, louder this time. More stern.

Maekar huffs, but obeys, pulling his fingers from you with a satisfyingly wet schlick that makes his ears burn red. Something swoops low in your tummy when you hear it too.

Slowly, Baelor removes his hand from your throat. He pats you on the cheek before both of his hands find your sides, resting there. Maekar helps you settle your feet back onto the floor.

“You ready?” Baelor asks, touching along your ribs, then over your waist.

You open your mouth to reply, but your words are stolen from you: Maekar gets to his feet and surges forward, taking your chin with a sticky hand and slamming his mouth to yours. The kiss is hungry, almost angry with the force he moves against you, his tongue finding yours like a wave crashing onto rock. You taste yourself as you dissolve into it, a hand shooting up to thread through his hair.

Behind you, Baelor huffs out a laugh. “Come now, brother. Fetch the oil.”

Maekar grumbles when he parts from you. He kisses you once more before pulling back and shooting his brother an annoyed look. “You fetch the fucking oil.”

Shaking away the haze of your bliss, you pull yourself out of their grasps and teeter to your feet. There’s a light tremble in your knees as you right yourself, your hand sliding down Maekar’s chest as you look at Baelor over your shoulder, trying your best to ignore the obvious tent in the front of his trousers.

“It’s beside the basin,” you tell the dark-haired prince, then turn back to Maekar. 

You lift your head and kiss him gently as your hands dip downwards to unthread what remains of the ties on his trousers. Baelor exhales a bemused laugh, and you hear movement as he gets off the bed and pads across your chambers towards the copper basin.

Maekar is practically purring as you let his trousers drop, then busy yourself with his breeches. The ties come apart easily, and you take his cock in hand as he kicks the garments away, a thick groan lodged in his throat. He’s warm and velvet-soft against your palm as you blindly wrap your fingers, jerking him lightly as you lead him towards the bed.

You break the kiss and let go of his cock as you climb up onto the mattress. But you catch a finger beneath his chin, grinning as you urge the prince onto the bed, watching proudly as his pupils swell even wider and he crawls to you on his hands and knees. 

You kneel against your multicoloured bed linens as he drags himself up to you, mouth finding yours again. You kiss him for a moment, before turning your head. The white-haired prince groans and presses a hot, open-mouthed kiss to the pulse beneath your ear as you watch Baelor return to the bed with a bottle of oil.

Your hand finds Maekar’s cock again, the tip red and flushed and leaking as you give it a firm squeeze while you address Baelor: “And how exactly do you want me, your grace?”

The smile on Baelor’s face is knowing. Amused, even, as he, with one hand, undoes the clasps and ties of his own trousers before shucking them down his legs. He does the same with his breeches, and he doesn’t answer you until he’s bare before you and the silence has stretched long enough to have you whining at him.

“Like that is fine, my lady,” he says, and the title is just as mocking as the way you had addressed him just moments ago.

Maekar lifts his head as Baelor clambers onto the bed, the mattress dipping beneath his weight. His hands draw around your body as your hand leaves his cock, and he situates you in front of him, your chest flushing against his.

And then he’s kissing you again. Cock heavy against your thigh, he holds you close as his tongue splits your lips apart for him to slide deeper. His hands are on your hips, holding you tightly against him, and you give into it with a small moan, your hands wrapping around his shoulders.

Baelor falls into place behind you, and something sparks in your core hearing the popping of a cork. You kiss Maekar, and your body moves without much thought—you’ve done this before, many times, and you shift your hips, lifting yourself slightly as your back arches and your arse pushes out towards the dark-haired prince.

Thick oil, warmed by the temperature of the room, pours out around two of Baelor’s fingers. He watches it seep like honey, a similar colour too, slightly earthy in smell as he slips the cork back into place and places the bottle aside. He leans in, pressing a soft kiss between your shoulder blades as his fingers feather down the split of your arse before finding your hole.

Anticipation rolls in your gut as you break the kiss and shift your head. Baelor catches the movement, tipping forward to replace the absence of Maekar, kissing you at a slightly awkward angle as one finger pushes past the tight ring of your hole. A small, breathy sound escapes you as your head rolls back onto his shoulder, and he levels a kiss to your temple.

“It’s alright,” Baelor whispers, other hand massaging the fat of your arse as he holds you open. He kisses your temple again. “You know what to do, sweetheart. Just let me in.”

He lures the tension from your muscles with the softness of his words. You relax into him as Maekar’s hands trace the curves of your body.

The press of Baelor’s finger inside you is not foreign, but the initial sensation will always be strange. His movement is slow and methodical, and the oil smoothens it out until he’s working himself into the first knuckle, then the second. An airy moan, consonants lost, leaves your throat as his finger crooks, then pushes, then pulls, then crooks again.

You feel the second take its place and push in beside the other just as Maekar grabs your face, impatient, and slams your mouth back to his. He kisses you as his brother works two fingers into your arse, and he guides one of your hands back onto his cock.

His hand is over yours as he moves it up and down, mumbling against your lips, “That’s it, just like that—y’such a good girl, aren’t you? Prettiest girl, too…”

You moan, scorching hot.

Maekar kisses you again and you feel like you’re drunk off of it. Your chambers swelter around you, smelling faintly of incense and oil and the press of bodies. Heat swims low in your belly, the ghost of that familiar pressure lingering in the base of your spine, curling through the marrow of your bones as you’re pressed between both princes.

As you slowly stroke Maekar’s cock, his other hand dips between your thighs and finds your puffy clit. He taps it once, then draws a tight circle, and you sob into his mouth as your cunt pulls tight around nothing. Behind you, Baelor groans, your hole clenching around his rucking fingers.

Then, Baelor’s fingers leave you. You moan loudly, the emptiness jarring as your head rolls out of Maekar’s kiss. You hear the pop of a cork, then the pouring of oil, and a few beats of your heart pass before Baelor is shushing you, three fingers now slowly, slowly pushing inside you.

“I know, I know,” Baelor mutters, kissing along your shoulder as you sob out in pleasure, nails digging crescents into Maekar’s bicep, which you grip tightly for support. The dark-haired prince curls his three fingers, and suddenly you feel impossibly full. He kisses up the side of your neck as your sobs devolve into impatient whines. He tuts. “We’re almost there, sweet girl—come on, don’t start that. You’re doing so well. M’just opening her up a little more, okay?”

You can’t reply. Maekar’s drawing rough shapes on your clit and Baelor’s fingers are rubbing deep inside you and another orgasm is brewing inside you. It churns like the sea, and you rock with its wake as it builds and builds. Maekar holds you steady, panting as he watches you begin to shake, chest shuddering with your laboured breathing.

“You like that?” He asks quietly, dipping his head to talk to you. You’ve tipped forward, eyes barely open.

But you manage to nod, whispering a timid “y–yeah, Maekar.”

His fingers work and work, as does his brother’s, and some long, sun-bleached seconds later, you’re toppling into your second orgasm. It seems harsher than the first: piercing through you sharply, your legs twitching hard where you kneel. Your pussy clamps around nothing, but you feel the muscles of your hole pull around Baelor’s fingers as you release. Maekar eases you through it, and only removes his fingers when you hiccup his name, your tremors subsiding as the warmth of pleasure dissipates once more.

Maekar looks at his brother over your shoulder as you slump into his arms. “Have you finished, or are you just wasting my time?”

Baelor smiles in return, shaking his head slightly as he pulls his fingers from you. His cock twitches against his thigh at your small, breathy whine. Then, he gives his brother a nod as he’s pouring more oil out of the bottle—dripping it over the length of his cock, watching it drool across the head as Maekar settles you higher on your knees.

You whine again, tired, your hands finding Maekar’s shoulders. He has one hand on your side, holding you against his chest, while the other guides his cock between your legs. Your eyes snap open when you feel him, the warmth of his head, slick and bruising with heat, slide through your folds. Up, down, a torturous glide.

Baelor shuffles in close behind you, and you exhale a shaky breath as you’re pinned between both princes. The air around you swelters, hot and sticky and smelling of sweat and rose water as they close in on you.

“Missed this,” Maekar grumbles first when the silence becomes stifling. You spread your thighs, whimpering quietly as he bullies the tip of his cock into your cunt.

“Missed you,” Baelor adds as his own cock finds your hole and slowly pushes in.

Your head tips back, falling onto Baelor’s shoulder as both men enter you at the same time. Both slow. Both gentle as they split you apart, nerve by nerve, the thick stretch of their cocks pulling you apart from the inside out. Maekar groans loudly as your pussy wraps tight around him, and the feeling of Baelor’s cock sliding into you, separated only by a thin wall of muscle, has him groaning again.

Baelor dips and presses his mouth against your neck, panting like a dog as he slides into you. The stretch settles a dull ache deep inside you, like the press of a thumb to an old bruise. But you rock back into him anyway, your body craving. The need that circulates is near constricting as your nails draw crescents on Maekar’s shoulder, sweat sliding down your spine and over the hairs on Baelor’s chest and abdomen.

“That’s it, fuck—gods, you’re tight,” Maekar mutters when he bottoms out. The walls of your cunt flutter as he rests up against the base of your cervix, a meager sting shooting through you before it settles, his hand coaxing across your ribs. He presses forward for a second, kissing you tenderly. “I love it when you take us like this.”

You breathe out, not realising you had been holding your breath. “Maekar.”

He shushes you, kissing you once more on the lips before pulling away. 

He peers again at his brother, brows furrowing. “Can I move?”

“No,” Baelor replies quickly. He’s still slowly, slowly feeding his cock into you. His brows pinch together, and a thin sheen of sweat has gathered high on his forehead. “Not yet.”

Maekar huffs, but doesn’t say anything else. He busies himself instead with a hand across your chest, palming the mounds of your breasts as you shudder, body relaxing into their combined touch.

Another minute passes before Baelor is seated comfortably inside you, and he gives an experimental roll of his hips. Air fills your lungs too quickly as you gasp, feeling the way both princes rub against one another. So close.

Baelor kisses your cheek. “Our sweet girl. So patient, hm?”

You nod, eyes barely open. You don’t know where you begin and they end. You’re so impossibly full and it never gets old: feeling their combined mass in your tummy, confining you between their strong, battle-hardened bodies.

“Now can we fucking move?” Maekar grits out, the muscles in his jaw jumping.

Baelor doesn’t reply with words, but he pulls out, then shoves back in.

And that gives Maekar his answer.

You cry out, too empty, and then too full, as the dark-haired prince ruts his cock into you in one deep, rolling thrust. And then those thrusts don’t relent: his hips slamming against your arse, flesh rippling, the feather mattress groaning with the movements as he thrusts into you.

Maekar doesn’t want to get left behind. With his hands firmly on your hips, he drags his cock out of you—sparing a glance down to watch the way his cock slips from you, wet and glistening in a way that hits him straight in the gut—then rucks back in. It’s forceful, not nearly as gentle as Baelor, and the tip slams up towards the plug of your womb like he means to brand you. The bed shakes when he and his brother fall into the same rhythm, an uncanny level of unison, and the groan that leaves his throat has you clenching around both of them.

“Fuck, you were made for this,” Maekar utters, hair falling across his forehead. His cheeks are pink, and the same colour crawls up his bare chest. Vice-like hands knead the flesh above your hips. “Made for us. The gods have—oh, fuck—”

He moans when your pussy tightens around him again, drawing him deeper.

But Baelor finishes his sentence. “The gods have made you for us, haven’t they, sweetheart? Why else would—uh, uh—w–would you take us like this?”

The dark-haired prince stutters through his pleasure as he holds you up. The oil drips down the length of his cock, runs along the seam of his balls as he thrusts into you. It’s messy and loud and he’s missed this feeling more than anything.

Your tits bounce as they heft you between them, speared across both. A human scabbard draped in jewels and littered with bite-marks, skin slick with sweat and spit. You moan loudly as Maekar hits that perfect spot, made even more euphoric by the rub of Baelor against the posterior wall inside you.

One hand still anchored to Maekar’s shoulder, you reach behind you and curl your fingers against the back of Baelor’s head, fisting the short, dark hair and catching his head beneath the crook of your elbow. His chin rests near your shoulder as he rolls his hips against you, cock hitting deep, the angle battling the air from your lungs.

He moans softly, right by your ear as one of his arms wraps around you. His hand rests between you and his brother, resting over your stomach.

“Tell me how full you are,” he whispers. His hand presses down.

You mewl, and the words that leave you don’t even sound like they belong to you. “M–M’so… m’full, Baelor, s’just—oh, gods.”

Baelor’s head moves and his lips draw against your neck, sucking briefly before he speaks again. His hand bears down, palm over your navel. “D’you feel us here?”

Us.

Maekar grunts, obviously pleased. The word has you moaning too, and it sets a spark across the burning-hot pressure seeping back into your womb. Another orgasm crawls from the ashes of the second, fanning out across the base of your pelvis as both princes fuck into you hard and fast.

You feel dizzy as you manage to mutter out a pathetic, “Yeah…”

Baelor grins lazily against the side of your neck as he continues his even thrusts. But Maekar’s, on the other hand, are growing more and more erratic. He huffs above you, hands near white-knuckled at your hips as he pulls you onto his cock over and over, hips snapping to meet the movements with such force that the bed creaks with each motion.

“Need to feel you,” the white-haired prince is muttering as he fucks you, eyes on your face. He looks down at you like you’re the prettiest thing in the entire world.

“M’so—” You cut yourself off with a whine, but continue, fighting through the pleasure stretching taut beneath the press of Baelor’s hand. “M’so close. Maekar, I just—please.”

“I’m here,” Maekar utters, surprisingly tender as his cock splits you apart. Baelor mumbles something against your neck, and you miss the subtle roll of the eyes Maekar gives him. He relents for his older brother, “We’re here.”

You’re caught between the hammer and the anvil; wedged between both the tail and maw of the serpent ouroboros, and you’re falling apart. Heat simmers, then flares, burning hot in your belly as your third release grows. And it grows, soaking through the marrow of your bones as you shake and tremble. You’re not a weak woman, but they have you boneless between them, and there’s no place you’d rather be.

So you call for them when the heat peaks and the pressure snaps inside you. You moan for Maekar as you come, body rivalling the tautness of a bowstring. Your pussy tightens around the thick of his cock as he fucks you through it, and you swear you see stars dancing across the mosaic on your ceiling. And you’re sobbing Baelor too when the release keeps coursing through you, unrelenting as your muscles tighten. He groans into the side of your neck as his thrusts turn to rolls, the soft, velvet ridges of his cock rubbing perfectly against you.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Maekar rambles as he thrusts. It’s messy and uneven and you can feel his cock twitch inside you just as you begin to fizzle down from your high. Your breathing is laboured as he leans forward to mouth at the dewy skin of your forehead. “Oh, fuck, fuck, sweet—my sweet girl, oh f–uh–ck.”

Just like the last time you were together like this, Maekar comes first. He bullies his cock right up against the plug of your womb and comes deep. Every time without fail. He moans your name, breathing more hound-like than man, as his cock jerks and his balls draw up and his cum fills you thick and warm.

And Baelor feels the shift inside you. Feels the added heat, the fluttering of your muscles as you take his brother so well. 

He doesn’t spit out a mocking jibe of lasting longer. He doesn’t comment on the way Maekar completely unravels with his cock inside you, his mouth proving faster than his brain.

“Are you going to take me all in here?” He asks you instead, nose rounding the shell of your ear. His hand pushes against your tummy, and both you and Maekar share a soft moan. Baelor huffs, too tired to smile as his own release finds him willingly. “‘Course you are, sweet girl.”

Then, he’s coming, hips snug against your arse. He fills you just the way Maekar had: with his cock deep inside you, jerking with the effort. The sensation has your hips bucking away involuntarily, but both men hold you still, sitting you down until there is nothing you can do but sit there and take it.

Baelor empties himself with a moan, and when he twitches, milked dry, he stays inside you, plugging you full.

You puff, heart racing. “Ha… gods…”

Both princes kiss you at the same time: Baelor twisting your head to kiss you squarely on the mouth, and Maekar dipping down to lick the sweat from the lower portion of your neck.

“You’re so good to us,” Baelor says when he parts from you, taking your chin and holding you still so his mismatched eyes can trace the lines of your face. “So good, sweet girl.”

You smile, small and tired.

Maekar agrees, humming as his nose and beard drag up your neck, over your jaw and cheek, until he can steal a kiss from the corner of your mouth. “Our best girl.”

———

i want to go to there

tags 🌿 @svnbleachdflies @breakspearz @targlocket @sem-ra @ghostlybfgf @sweetplea @breakspeur @pearlessance @julez-5 @littlerequiem @pinkdoeweirdo

[cintoasted]

warnings: non con. dub con. incest (adoptive parent). alluding to grooming (but no detail of it). dacrayphilia. modern au. captive!reader. spanking. smut. mdni. 18+

based on this ask.

you are responsible for the content you consume. make sure to read warnings before proceeding with any of my fics

ormund enjoys watching you.

it’s his favourite sport. after a long day out in the forest he’ll come home straight to you. he’ll drag his chair from the dining room table, place it a few metres from wherever you are and man spread across it. he’ll whistle in a low tone, and you know it’s your queue to deliver him a cold beer out the fridge, which you do with a smile and a kiss on his cheek. then before you walk away, he delivers a harsh smack against cheek.

today is different.

this morning ormund left a thrilly apron on your dressing table, a note beside it that stated: only this today. you knew exactly what it meant. so you attempted to put it on, only to find it two sizes too small and your breasts falling out of it. you thought you’d compromise. wearing a cute top and some thrilly panties underneath.

you should know there’s no compromising with ormund. ormunds word is law.

—should have known that when you went to college without his permission, only for him to hunt you down and bring you right back home to him. but you didn’t think the man that raised you, that fed you, kept a roof over your head would want you as his wife. you thought wrong, should have known he raised you to be smarter.

it’s why you’re bent over the stove, naked except from the apron wrapped around your frame. your ass cheeks stained red, tears streaming out your eyes and lips formed into the pout that makes him stiff in his pants.

“it hurts,” you whimper after the fifth smack, fingers gripping the stove top for dear life.

but he doesn’t listen, instead his hand comes down again, plain mean and nasty and you can’t help but squeal on impact.

he leans over you, lips pressed to your ear as he tells you in a low grumble, “this is what happens when you don’t listen.”

SMACK “i spend all day slaving away for you. to keep this roof over your head and food in your mouth—” SMACK “—and you can’t listen to the one thing i ask for—” SMACK “one thing.”

you’re crying after ten, barely able to keep track as his hand repeatdely comes down against your cheeks. it’s harsh and unforgiving, and all you can do is mumble your apologises like that will make it any better.

like it ever does.

his hands cease the slapping after a while, but he doesn’t move. his hands rub against your ass , calloused and hardened skin caressing your bruised cheeks. he groans when you whimper, and you feel him, thick cock pressing between your cheeks as he rocks it back and forth against you.

“it’s okay,” he tells you, voice gentler now but there’s still the hardened edge that makes you shiver. “i know you can be a good wife, just got to give you a firm hand when you disobey me.”

“i’m trying to be,” you whimper, twisting your head to look back at him through wet lashes. “want to be.”

“i know.” he leans in till his breath is hot against your lips. “i know, baby.”

then you hear it, the sound of his button popping out and his zipper coming down. and even though you know it’s coming, but you can’t help the filthy gasp that leaves your lips as his cock slaps against you.

“going to take care of me?” he hums, rubbing his leaking cock against your ass. “i’ve been working so hard today.”

your nod but your body tenses as he guides you backwards, falling on top of the chair but pushing you between his legs.

you know what it means and even after three long months together, you still struggle to do it. stomach twisting into knots every time you have to sit pretty between his legs with his cock in your mouth like he wasn’t the man that raised you. but you know the consequences, bruises forming on your ass as a reminder, so you kneel down without being told and get into the position you know he wants you to be in.

but it still makes you a little bit sick as you look up at him, blackened eyes with that hungry look as you take him in your mouth. even if you could go back, you don’t know if there was anything you could do to change your fate, to stop from becoming his wife.

dividers by @/chrisssiren

as always comments and reblogs are appreciated

[ratgirl300]

hello! i have a request for a maekar x wife!reader fic. it’s like 4-5 instances where their marriage is seen by the eues of servants, knights, guards etc. moments from when they first get married to them having children and falling in love. in this, reader would replace dyanna as the maekarlings’ mother. smut can be added if you please 🫶🫶

Stolen Kisses

18+ MDNI

Maekar Targaryen x fem!Reader

Summary: Three times you and Maekar get caught somewhere you shouldn’t be, and one time you get away with it.

AN: Wrote this wine drunk af in one sitting bc I was so besotted with the concept. Y’all know how I feel about Maekar lol. Anyway please enjoy <3

Warnings: Smut, slight voyeurism, breeding, pining

3.9k Words

Maekar had never been so embarrassed in all of his days.

He’d never been one to leer at comely ladies or peek at a woman’s backside, nor had he been found to stare longingly or daydream about taking a wife, holding her in his arms and kissing her gently in the moonlight. He knew, better than anyone, his place in the world. The fourth son of the King, face marred by pox scars and a sneer cold enough to scare any dainty lady away. Instead of flirting, he chose to practice in the yard, instead of stealing kisses, he’d gone and proven himself on the battlefield.

He told himself the victory was worth the loneliness.

Yet here he was, trying in vain to ignore the rapid beat of his heart at the sight of the pretty new guest in the Red Keep. You stood at the edge of the yard, surrounded by other noble ladies and whispering over the knights- and Princes- training. He could hear your laugh ring through the crash of training.

For weeks now, he’d watched you; trailing behind you when you walked with your Septa, standing close enough to be awkward when you spoke to your friends, just to hear your voice. He wanted to know how you took your tea, what you thought of the book you were reading, what it meant when you tucked your hair behind your ear and bit your lip. You always smiled when he came near, curtseying for the Prince, but he’d yet to have the courage to speak your name, to kiss your hand and offer his intentions.

It angered him, how distracted he was. Twice now, Lyonel Baratheon had knocked him on his ass. On any normal day, Maekar knew he could take the stupid Stormlord, but the shining star across the training yard kept drawing his eye.

“My Prince, I’d heard you were better with a sword than this.” The Laughing Storm’s voice echoed across the lot. Clashing swords stilled, bows and arrows froze, and sights fell on the Prince and the knight.

The only sight Maekar cared about was yours.

His gaze cut to you, only to balk in horror at you staring so intently at him. Lyonel’s gaze followed.

“Ahhh,” he said, quieter than before, “I see your problem.”

Maekar’s head snapped back, glaring as the dark haired knight extended a hand to him. He batted it away, instead stumbling to stand and grabbing his sword.

“Again.”

Lyonel smirked.

“I understand, my Prince. She’s a beauty.”

No sooner had he spoken did Maekar’s practice blade come down on him. Lyonel laughed again, catching the sword and stepping into the offense. The Prince was wild; bringing his sword down onto the man again and again.

Maekar knew Lyonel was one to tease, but the comment still irked him. What if he decided to pursue you? Lyonel, with his easy smiles, charming words- Maekar hadn’t even spoken to you. What would he do if Lyonel decided to enchant you before the Prince could even work up the courage to introduce himself? Would you choose a Prince over a man who knew how to please a woman?

The thoughts ran through his head as the pair of them danced across the courtyard. Lyonel kept an easy grin.

“Didn’t like that, did you? Tell me, have you courted the fair lady, or is she free to accept the hand of any worthy knight?”

Maekar slammed his shoulder into him, and both men tumbled to the ground. Lyonel was laughing so hard he could barely sit up, or maybe it was the Anvil sitting on his chest. The blond man’s forearm pressed against his opponent’s throat, holding him down with his teeth bared. Lyonel blew him a kiss.

“If I’d known how easy it was to disarm you, I would have found a pretty girl to smile at you years ago. Maybe I’d’ve started winning.”

Maekar grumbled and reluctantly let him up, giving him a hand.

It was the princely thing to do, of course.

Lyonel gripped his shoulder, squeezing before retrieving his practice blade.

“Some advice, my Prince?”

Maekar gave him a short nod.

“Stop wasting time and pursue the fine lady, before someone else does.” He gave the Prince a wink before turning, shouting out to his men with a laugh.

“We really shouldn’t be doing this.” You whispered, teasing evident in your voice. Maekar was not amused, but kept his hand firmly in yours as he tugged you away from the dreary afternoon tea. He peeked around a rosebush, halting for a moment before continuing once the coast was clear.

He’d found you at the party; a silly, frivolous affair to be enjoyed only by the pampered gentry, Maekar was sure. He watched you, first. Your command over the conversation, the confidence, the poise, you would make a formidable lady of Summerhall. Maekar was sure of that too. Weeks now, you’d been engaged, and soon you’d belong to him entirely. He couldn’t help the strain in his trousers, nor the color in his ruddy cheeks, at the thought of you wrapped in his cloak, smiling up at him in the Sept for all the world to see.

Your eyes found his across the garden, a knowing look in your eye as he immediately stalked toward you. Glimmering in the summer sun, your beauty drew him in like a moth to a flame. You turned from your companions as he met you, extending your hand daintily to afford him a place to kiss. He eagerly took it, bending low and pecking your knuckles.

So quickly you found yourselves pressed into the slender stone alcove Maekar had found. You let little time go to waste before gripping the leather of his doublet and pulling him close. He let out a breath as he leaned in against you, pressing you up against the wall and caging you between his arms.

“I could not sit by and watch you for another minute, sweet lady. You have bewitched me, entirely.”

His forehead came down to yours, the warm weight of it a welcome pressure before he leaned down farther to join your lips. It was tender, clumsy, the two of you still learning the finer intricacies of romance. He took your hips in hand, his mouth sliding against yours and the spikey white stubble on his chin rubbing against your smooth cheek. You pulled away with a giggle, holding his face between your palms.

“My Prince, you’re scratching me.”

“Forgive me, I will be sure to remove it for you.” Maekar grumbled low, determined to do whatever it took to keep you kissing him. You shook your head, grin spread wide.

“No, no, please. I quite like you like this, all rugged and handsome.”

Maekar scoffed as you gently scraped your fingernails over his pocked cheeks. He was certain his face was turning an embarrassing shade of crimson, and prayed to whoever was listening that the gloom of the alcove hid his shame.

“Don’t be ridiculous. Certainly a little lady like you wouldn’t take some wild-faced barbarian as a husband.”

He was looking away from you know, brow hard and grip on your hips close to bruising. You hummed, pulling his face close and pressing kisses across his jaw.

“Maybe I would. I quite like the idea of you looking a little wild.” You whispered against his skin. Maekar let out a groan, turning his head to meet your lips again. Teeth clashed, the firm muscle of his tongue slid against yours in an effort to learn every inch of you.

You let out a sound close to a whimper, and he tried in vain to cant his hips away from you.

“I think I saw the Prince go- oh!”

The two of you jumped apart instantly at the sound of a new voice. Your breath was ragged as you turned and saw the two squires watching, eyes the size of dinner plates. At the sight of their Prince, the one they’d been so adamant on finding moments before, the pair of them dropped into identical bows. They began to talk over one another.

“My Prince, we were-”

“Your mother, our- our Queen-”

“She had only asked after where you’d gone.”

You turned back to Maekar, only to see his brow hard and his fists clenched.

“Do not speak of this.”

His voice was icy, so different from the way he spoke to you. You were beginning to see the cracks in the armor he’d worn especially for his betrothed, and it occurred to you there was a reason for his reputation.

It did the trick: both boys nodded vigorously, stepping backwards before turning tail and skimpering off.

You pressed a hand over your rapidly beating heart. Even if they hadn’t seen you crowded together, surely your swollen lips- and Maekar’s pink cheeks- were enough to tell anyone what you’d been doing.

“Oh gods, your mother is going to think she’s marrying her son off to a harlot!” You whined, your face falling into the cradle of your hands. Maekar stepped closer, fingers wrapping around your wrists and gently exposing your quickly dampening eyes.

“Do not fret, my lady. I will kill them before they can do anything to sully your reputation.”

Truth be told, Maekar quite liked the idea of the men at court knowing you were happy with your match, but he understood the cutting edge of noble society.

“Oh you will do no such thing!” You gently slapped his chest emphasis. Maekar smirked down at you, rubbing his thumb against your wrist in a way that made it very difficult to concentrate on his words.

“It is my duty to my lady wife to protect her, be certain that I will not break that vow.”

The bells of the Sept were still ringing as you kissed your now-husband, tucked away behind a wall near the grand feast. Maekar’s hands were on you; gripping your hips, sliding over the curve of your waist, one finding a place at the back of your neck, the other keeping you flush against his chest.

The two of you had become quite proficient in secreting away from crowds to steal a kiss. The Prince was steadfast in his honor; never going farther than licking behind your teeth and grabbing your bottom, but you knew how hard he was fighting his urges based on the lead pipe pressed against your abdomen.

You’d gripped his arm tight as you’d entered the hall, music and laughter all around. Maekar was as close to smiling as he ever was, tall and strapping in his dark silk and bloodred velvet. He’d grown his beard out for the occasion- his brothers incessantly teased him for the snow white hair- but the way you were raking your fingers through it made it worth it to him.

“Maekar, my husband. Please, I want you.” Your voice was soft, breathy, and it pulled a growl from the back of his throat. His mouth moved from yours across your jaw, leaving wet kisses down your neck and biting against the column. The ruckus from the party drowned out your mewling, but he was close enough that the sounds felt just for him.

Maekar laved his tongue over where he’d bitten, before sucking the skin against his mouth. You halfheartedly batted at his shoulder.

“Maekar! Stop people will see the mark, we do still have to go in there you know.”

The both of you were now no strangers to high collars, but your wedding gown was devilishly low, and Maekar felt an all-consuming need to claim. He smirked against your skin.

“I thought you said you wanted me, my lady.”

You took his hand, dragging it up the gossamer front of your dress and pressing his palm over your breast. Maekar’s lavender eyes were blown wide, dark gaze boring into you as he groped gracelessly at your tender flesh. As he touched you, you reached up and thread your hands through his hair, the blunt cut so charming in your eyes. The new leverage let you bring him down for another kiss, hot and wet as your mouths met. He groaned into your mouth, pressing the bulk of his thigh between your shaky legs. The force of him, wrapped around you, all over, pushing you close up into the wall, made your head swim.

You began grinding down on him, furiously trying to find some small pleasure in the cloth between him and your cunt. Maekar pulled back again to watch, eyes hard as you rubbed your hips against him.

You pulled his hair again.

“Maekar, please. Do something.”

Your quivering voice broke him from his lustful trance. Your Prince grabbed your waist, fingers digging into the softness there and raking you against him. You let out a pretty shout, head tilting back and exposing the expanse of your neck and chest. Maekar hungrily took the opportunity; hot kisses over your collarbones and the tops of your breasts.

Maekar mumbled against your skin:

“My lady, my wife… So beautiful… and mine.”

You nodded fervently.

“Yes, yes my love, all yours.” You barely spoke above a whisper. He could feel the tension in his stomach building, the warmth of you against his body bringing him close and tightening the tension in his balls. You must be close, if the harsh grip on his hair and the broken movements of your hips were any indication.

Quickly, Maekar gripped your skirts, moving to ruck them up around your hips and touch your warm pussy. As humiliating as it was, he knew he could not withstand coming, untouched, watching you take your pleasure from him. He’d be damned, however, if you did not finish alongside him. He would find the place on you he’d heard so much about from older knights, the place that would make you call his name out, tell the court who he belonged to.

The sound of a cleared throat broke him from his concentration.

Maekar turned his head with his teeth bared, not unlike a dragon, and tugged your exposed form tight to his chest where the unwanted voyeur could not see. Shame flooded through him at the sight of Baelor, his beloved older brother, standing before the pair of you with his arms crossed and a knowing smirk on his face. The small snort of a laugh you let out eased him, a little, but the look on the crown Prince’s face set his blood boiling.

“Fuck off.”

The growl rang out in the narrow hall, and to Maekar’s chagrin, Baelor had the nerve to laugh.

“I have to say, brother, I didn’t think you had it in you. Though I must apologize, my lady, for the intrusion. I was sent to find the wedded couple; I had no intention of seeing you so…”

Baelor gestured to you and Maekar’s grip tightened, curling you in his strong arms and tucking you under his chin.

“I appreciate the thought, my Prince, but I can assure you we were only trying to bless the sacred act of marriage.” You answered, trying your best to sound innocent in such a compromising position. Baelor did not look convinced, but he only laughed at your excuse.

“Oh, I am certain my brother has eagerly tried to consecrate your ‘sacred marriage.’”

“You think I cannot please my woman?” Maekar spat. The younger Prince was well aware he was being baited, but his anger clouded his ability to control himself. Baelor laughed again.

“I have every confidence you and your lovely lady wife will have no qualms with the bedding, if what the servants say is anything to go by. Though I would request you wait for the proper hour in the night.”

You could feel the tension building in Maekar, muscles bristling. He was about to shoot back a response when you softly stroked his side, reaching up to whisper:

“Darling, maybe it's best if we find somewhere more private.”

You punctuated your statement with a kiss on his jaw, and slowly he began to relax- just a little.

Baelor watched the exchange curiously. He gave a satisfied nod when you reluctantly stepped away, attempting to straighten your gown before reaching up to pet down Maekar’s silver hair. He closed his eyes as you preened him. Baelor’s intentions softened as he watched you cup his little brother’s cheek. The blond took your hand in his own, kissing your open palm before weaving your fingers together.

“I am glad you both are understanding; it is only fitting you go about this the proper way.”

You nodded thoughtfully.

“Of course, my Prince,” You turned to Maekar, “Lord husband, shall you show me to your chambers?”

Your Prince’s eyes blew wide, before his grip on your hand tightened and he gave you a terse nod. Baelor did not look amused.

“That was not what I was saying and you know it.”

The pair of newlyweds were clearly not listening, already wandering down the hall and passing the older Prince. Baelor watched you go, irritated only because he would have to explain all of this to his mother.

Maekar stopped you before you turned down the next hall.

“Baelor?” He called back.

The older brother sighed.

“Yes brother?”

“You can tell mother, and the rest of the court for that matter, there will not be a bedding ceremony tonight.”

Maekar had awoken, for once, with only his lovely wife in his bed. No sons pressing tiny, cold feet to his back, no daughters stealing blankets; only you, head on his chest and arm slung around his waist. He ran a hand down your spine, stroking the softness of your skin and gripping the fat of your bottom.

“Something you like, darling?” Your voice was raspy with sleep. Maekar hummed, his large hand cupping the back of your head as he leaned down for a kiss.

“Can you blame me for waking with a need for my lovely wife?”

“Mmm, I suppose not.” You said, smiling softly as he kissed you again.

The tranquility of the golden morning was soon broken by the sound of child-sized fists on the door.

“Mother! Aegon won’t leave me alone! Tell him he’s not allowed to talk to me today.”

Maekar groaned, rolling his eyes as his head fell back onto the pillows.

“He started it! Tell him he can't talk to me!”

The small voices began to mix together, different sides to a story overlapping as each of your five children tried to tell their side. Each one was a joy, a new love of your life, but damnit if they weren't loud.

Maekar pulled himself out of your arms, mumbling:

“Its too fucking early- damned children.”

You laughed as you watched him stride to the door, swinging it open to find the small army you called your own peering up at their father.

“Your mother is resting. Do not disturb her.” His voice was clear and low. five little heads nodded reluctantly, peeling away but trying to get a glimpse of their apparently sleeping mother as they went.

Maekar shut the door, pulling the barring it.

“My love, is that really necessary?” You laughed, though you stopped when his heated gaze met yours.

“It is for what I’m about to do to you.”

Maekar could hear the change in your breath as he came closer, watching the rise and fall of your chest through your thin nightgown. He hooked a hand under your knee, tugging you flat on your back and opening your legs for him. Your shift was hiked up, your hands and his working the fabric up over your hips to expose your cunt to him. He could see the tremble of your fingers; after all these years married, he still relished how much he affected you.

He wasted little time, pressing a quick kiss to your lips before wedging his broad shoulders between your thighs. The broad, flat muscle of his tongue languidly swept over the plain of your pussy, pressure focusing on the button of your clit.

You moaned low.

“Keep that pretty mouth shut, wife. We wouldn’t want anyone to hear you.”

It was so rare, with all the princely work sent from the palace, monitoring threats from any corner of the realm, and parenting so many children, that he would still find time to tease you; you took it as a gift.

Your hands slid into his hair as he began his incessant assault on your cunt; alternating between firm sucks to your clit, and slipping his tongue between the folds to lap up your juices. Maekar used his fingers to spread you, kissing your opening before thrusting his tongue inside.

You were ignoring his words, whining as you ground your hips against his head. Maekar was not amused, pressing the flat of his palm to your stomach as he continued his onslaught. He savored the sweet, musky taste, the clench of your thighs around his ears, the way you said his name.

“You want my fingers?” Maekar mumbled against you.

“Give me your cock.”

He huffed a laugh, kissing your folds gently before slowly rising up onto his knees with a groan. You smiled lazily at him, a sheen of sweat across your forehead and your dripping cunt exposed.

“Is it your back, darling? Not getting any younger you know.” You emphasized your statement by pushing your toes against his chest. Maekar’s eyes narrowed, grabbing your ankle. He relished the startled sound you released.

“Do you want my cock or not, little lady?”

You nodded eagerly, and it was all he needed to come crashing down over you; propping himself up on his forearms and lining the head of himself up to you.

Maekar thrust, and you felt him slide all the way in. your hands grabbed his shoulders, fingertips digging into the firm muscle as he began to piston his hips into you. He tucked his face against your neck, mouth open in a not-quite-kiss as he rode out the overwhelming feeling of his lady love’s cunt wrapped so snuggly around him.

“Made for me, wife. All mine.”

He felt you flutter around him, and knew you were fast approaching completion. Your lips pressed against his ear to whisper:

“And you are all mine.”

Maekar shuddered, feeling the familiar tension in his stomach. Your legs came around his hips, shaking but squeezing him close.

“Come now, my lord husband, give me another.”

He nodded fervently against your shoulder.

“Gonna fill you up, sweet lady, get you nice and- fuck- full of me.”

Maekar’s small resolve was coming to an end at the image of you round with his child again. Your pussy clenched around him, and your hips began meeting his thrusts as you rode out your orgasam. He could not wait, painting you with his come and using his cock to push it deep inside your warmth.

You grabbed at the back of his neck, whining as he slowed down his thrusts. Both of you were panting hard; wet, ragged breaths against each other's skin as you tried to catch your breath.

Minutes passed, joined, before you spoke.

“That was pretty fast.”

Maekar snorted.

“Guess we’re both not as young as we used to be.”

You tugged his hair, getting the sweet moan you were looking for.

“Speak for yourself, darling. I’m going to have another baby.”

He rolled his eyes, giving you another short thrust.

“Now that we have the time, I should make sure it takes.”

You nodded, smirking.

“Yes, a marital duty. Just in case.”

[maybestrid33]

In name, at first

Sean Rafferty x aristocratic!reader - House of Guinness (2025)

Summary: You marry Sean Rafferty because your father tells you to. You stay because you can’t seem to hate him as much as you should.

Warnings: 18+ SMUT, arranged marriage, power imbalance, morally grey behaviour, mentions of violence, slow-burn, domestic tension, storms (literal and emotional lol), an alarming amount of pining, possessive behaviour, praise kink energy, unprotected sex, oral (fem rec), chaos of two repressed idiots finally giving in <3

A/N: so i got a huge amount of requests for a marriage of convenience fic for him, which kinda surprised me because tell me why i never had the idea?? anyways who am i to deny the people so here you go (might be a lil ooc dont come for me pls 🤗)

MASTERLIST - REQUESTS

WC: 8.3k (oopsie)

The study smells of tobacco and damp wood, the way all rooms ruled by men seem to. You stand at the edge of the rug, fingers pressed together so tightly your knuckles ache, watching your father pour himself another drink he doesn’t need.

He doesn’t even look at you when he says it.

“You’ll marry him at the end of the month.”

Just that. No preamble, no discussion. As if he’s commenting on the weather or the current price of barley.

You blink, trying to catch up. “Marry- who?”

The crystal clinks. A sigh. “Mr Rafferty.”

The name drops like a weight in the quiet. You’ve heard it before, whispered at dinners, muttered in half-fear by men twice his age. Sean Rafferty. Guinness’s right hand. Foreman, fixer, whatever you wish to call him.

You swallow. “You can’t be serious.”

“I can, and I am.” He settles into his chair, leaning back, the firelight cutting sharp across his lined face. “The Guinnesses trust him, and he trusts me. It’s an alliance, not a romance. You’ll have a household, stability, protection. That’s more than most girls get.”

You laugh, because the alternative is screaming. “Protection from what, exactly? Evil men? Or from the embarrassment of your debts?”

His gaze snaps to you, cold and authoritative. The one that used to silence you as a child. “Watch your tone.”

The air thickens. You can hear the rain on the windowpanes, the faint sound of carriages somewhere down the street. Dublin hums beyond these walls, alive and indifferent.

“He’s not even-” You stop yourself before you say our kind. The words taste spoiled in your mouth anyway.

Your father hears it anyway, of course he does. "He’s a self-made man. Knows the value of work. Works for the most powerful family in Ireland. He's not some idle fool who’ll drink our fortune away. You could do worse.”

“Could I?” you mutter.

He ignores you, swirling the amber liquid in his glass. “He’s not as old as your previous options. Handsome, by all accounts. They say he’s got charm enough to make anyone forgive his roughness.”

The word charm lands like a warning.

You turn toward the window, staring at your faint reflection in the rain-streaked glass. “And if I refuse?”

He laughs softly, the kind of laugh that comes from victory, not amusement. “Then I’ll remind you that refusal isn’t a luxury our family can afford.”

Silence.

There’s the creak of his chair as he stands, walks past you to the sideboard. “He’s expecting an answer tomorrow. I told him you’d be ready.”

“Ready,” you repeat, because the word doesn’t fit your mouth.

He pats your shoulder once. “You’ll thank me for it someday.”

He leaves before you can find words sharp enough to follow him with.

You stay there, rooted, the firelight flickering over the decanter, over the smoke curling toward the ceiling. Outside, the city keeps breathing, carriages splashing through puddles, voices rising and fading.

You try to picture this man. All you know are fragments. A soldier once, a foreman now, a man who makes things happen for powerful people and never gets his hands caught in the blood he spills.

You sit beside your new husband like an actor waiting for her cue.

The table stretches down the length of the hall; crystal, gold, and candlelight flickering off faces you only half recognise from endless society gatherings. It’s loud, warm, and suffocating. The laughter doesn’t reach you.

Your hand rests in your lap, ring finger weighted by a band that still feels borrowed.

Sean Rafferty sits at your right.

You’ve barely spoken since the vows. A few quiet exchanges, polite, practical, always empty. He’d looked at you once during the ceremony, and that single look had undone every clever insult you’d prepared.

Now he’s the picture of composure. Black suit, shoulders broad, tie immaculate, posture perfectly straight. Every few minutes, someone leans down to murmur congratulations in his ear.

To them, he looks perfectly at ease. To you, he looks like a man playing the long game.

Arthur Guinness, already deep into his fourth glass, stands with a flourish. “Ladies and gentlemen! A word, if I may, before I’m cut off from the wine!”

Laughter ripples across the hall.

You glance at Edward, seated further down, pretending not to know his brother.

Arthur continues. “To our dear friend Sean, who’s managed to do the impossible. Marry into refinement without losing his common sense. And to his lovely wife,” his eyes flicker to you with a grin, “who’s clearly got a stronger spine than the rest of us combined.”

The guests laugh again, and you smile tightly, the kind you’ve practiced for years. Sean doesn’t laugh, but the corner of his mouth curves. Just slightly.

Arthur raises his glass. “May their union be as profitable as it is passionate!”

A roar of approval. You nearly choke on your champagne.

Sean leans a little closer, enough for only you to hear, and murmurs, “He means well. Unfortunately.”

The toasts continue, Edward, then someone from your father’s circle. The same words repeated like a hymn. Fortune, alliance, prosperity.

No one says love. No one even pretends.

When the speeches end, people start circulating again, couples dancing, servants refilling glasses. You think maybe you can breathe.

But then your father appears.

He’s flushed from drink, his smile the kind that’s meant for display. He claps Sean on the shoulder, grip far too familiar. “Well done, Rafferty. You’ve done well for yourself.”

Sean inclines his head. “And for your daughter, I hope.”

Your father laughs, a little too loudly. “Aye, for her too. She’ll learn her good fortune soon enough.”

You feel your stomach twist. “Father-”

He cuts you off with a raised hand, already turning his attention back to Sean. “I won’t keep you long, son, but I’ll say this plainly. The first night is important. For everyone’s sake.”

The words hang there like the echo of a slap.

Your chest goes cold.

Sean doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink. He only tilts his head slightly, studying your father with that unnerving calm. “You’re referring to the matter of heirs, I assume.”

“Of course,” your father says, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. “The union’s no use unless it’s sealed properly.” He chuckles. “I’ve no doubt you’ll handle it. You’re a man who handles things.”

Something flickers across Sean’s face. It's not anger, but something sharper. As if a line has been drawn silently between them.

“I’m aware of what’s expected,” he says finally, voice low.

“Good man.” Your father raises his glass again, oblivious. “To the next generation, then.”

You can’t look at either of them. Your throat burns. You manage a brittle smile as your father drifts away, already flagging down another drink. Sean doesn’t speak right away.

Finally, he says, “You’re pale.”

You turn your head, eyes still fixed on your untouched wine. “It’s the candles. They make everyone look ghostly.”

“That’s not it.” His tone isn’t mocking, but it isn’t soft either. You take a slow breath, trying to keep your voice level. “You could have told him that was none of his concern.”

“I could have,” he agrees. “But he would have taken that as insult. And I prefer not to start our marriage with blood on the carpet.”

Your eyes snap to him, his expression is unreadable.

He adds, quieter now, “Don’t mistake me. I don’t need him to tell me what a husband owes a wife. And I’m not about to let him decide when or how I do it.”

You look away first. “You sound very sure of yourself.”

“I am.”

He lifts his glass, takes a slow sip. “You’ll find I don’t do things halfway, Mrs. Rafferty. Including patience.”

The name in his mouth feels like a weight. You sit very still, staring into your wine, wondering how a room so bright can feel so much like a cell.

Sean sets his glass down with quiet precision. “You needn’t fear I’ll rush anything. You’ll have your space.”

You look up at him despite yourself.

He meets your gaze evenly. “But not forever.”

By the time the last toast fades and the orchestra slows, you’ve learned the art of breathing through smiles. The guests blur together; lace, perfume, slurred blessings.

Sean stands when you do. Ever the gentleman, ever composed. He offers you his arm, and you take it because every pair of eyes in the room expects you to. His sleeve is warm under your fingers; you can feel the quiet strength beneath it, the steadiness that makes other men defer.

Arthur intercepts you both near the doors, wine glass in one hand, grin too wide. “Off so soon are we, Mr and Mrs Rafferty?” he sing-songs, and the crowd nearby titters. “Don’t be shy, we all know what newlyweds get up to on the first night-”

Edward materialises like a ghost. “Arthur.”

Arthur waves him off, leaning toward you conspiratorially. “He’ll be gentle, I’m sure of it. The man’s got manners. And if he hasn’t...well, you’ll teach him, won’t you, darling?”

Your face burns. You don’t know if it’s the champagne or the humiliation. Sean doesn’t flinch. He takes Arthur’s empty glass and sets it neatly on a passing tray.

“Goodnight, Arthur.”

“Goodnight, Mr Rafferty.” Arthur’s grin widens, half-mocking. “Don’t forget to toast the heir while you’re at it.”

Sean’s hand settles at the small of your back. You can feel the tension in him, it's the restraint of someone who could crush a man’s jaw but chooses not to.

He helps you into the carriage like nothing happened.

The city outside is slick with rain, lights flickering against the wet cobblestones. The horses shift, the driver clicks his tongue, and you lurch forward into the quiet of the night.

For a while, there’s only the sound of wheels and water.

Sean sits across from you, one arm resting casually along the seat, the other gloved hand on his knee. The lamplight spills through the window, catching the edge of his jaw and the faint stubble there.

He breaks the silence first. “You can stop shaking.”

You blink. “I’m not-”

He raises an eyebrow.

“I’m not going to force you,” he says evenly. “Tonight, or any night. You’re my wife, not my captive.”

Your throat tightens. You want to snap back, to tell him that captivity doesn’t always come with shackles, but the words won’t form.

He sighs softly and looks out the window. “Your father’s an ambitious man. I don’t fault him for that. But ambition makes people careless with what they value.” You glare. “You think he values me?”

Sean’s gaze returns to you. “No. I think he values what you can give him.”

That lands sharper than you expect. You press your hands together in your lap. “And what do you value, Mr Rafferty?”

He doesn’t answer right away. The carriage rattles over uneven stone. “Order,” he says finally. “Loyalty. Things that last longer than one season’s profit.”

It’s a strange answer, and far too honest.

You laugh quietly, bitter. “Then congratulations. You’ve married the least loyal person in Dublin.”

His mouth twitches. “We’ll see.”

You look away, staring out at the blurred lights. “You didn’t have to agree to this.”

“No,” he says. “But once your father suggested it, refusing would have insulted men I can’t afford to insult.” You turn back to him. “So you did it for business.”

He leans forward slightly, elbows on his knees. “You think I’d tie myself to someone I didn’t want to?”

Your pulse jumps. “You don’t even know me.”

“I make a habit of studying what I’m bound to,” he says. “And I know enough to see that you hate being looked at but hate being ignored more.” You want to slap him. You want to disappear. You want him to stop being right.

You cross your arms, glare at him. “You’re not as clever as you think.”

“I hope not,” he says dryly. “Clever men get lonely.”

The silence that follows is heavy but not cruel. You find yourself counting the rhythm of the wheels, anything to fill the space between you.

Then, quietly, “Your father doesn’t care who touches you,” he says. “Only that it happens. I do. So we’ll do it my way, not his.”

You look at him sharply and he meets your gaze without flinching. “You’ll have your own room. For now. Settle in. Find your footing.”

Your heart’s in your throat.

“But don’t confuse patience with surrender.” His tone softens. “I married you. Eventually, we’ll have to share something.”

The carriage slows. He taps twice on the roof. The driver stops.

Sean steps out first and turns, offering his hand to help you down. The rain’s eased to a mist, the air cool and damp.

You hesitate.

He looks at you; not impatient, not demanding. Just waiting.

You take his hand.

The first weeks of marriage feel less like a honeymoon and more like a ceasefire.

You learn the geography of the house faster than you mean to. The halls echo, the carpets hush your steps, and the smell of tobacco clings to the study at the back where he spends most of his hours. You make a point of not going there. He makes a point of not asking why.

In the mornings, you rise before he does. You’ve learned the pattern; the sound of boots on the floorboards, the quiet curse when his sleeve cuff snags on the dresser. You stay in your room until the front door shuts behind him.

Then you breathe.

The staff call you Mrs Rafferty with tentative smiles, unsure which side of the war they’re on. You smile back. It feels like a performance neither of you auditioned for.

At dinner, you sit across from him. The table could seat ten, but it’s just you two. Always just you two.

You call it pointless. He calls it marriage.

He talks sometimes. You rarely answer. Still, you catch things, like that he oversees the brewery’s transport routes now, that Arthur managed to start a rumour involving the mayor’s wife and a barrel of stout, that Edward’s trying to quietly fix it. Sean tells these stories without looking up from his food, voice even, like they’re just logistics.

Once, a storm rolls in, the kind that rattles windows and drowns Dublin in its own gutters. You find him standing by the window, coat still on, watching the rain. He turns slightly when you enter.

“You’re restless,” he says, as if he’s been keeping score.

You bristle. “I’m fine.”

“You pace when you’re not.”

“I do not-” You realise you are, in fact, pacing.

His mouth twitches. Not quite a smile, but close. “Try sitting. It helps.” You glare at him for the suggestion alone.

One morning, you come down to find him already in the dining room, sleeves rolled to the elbows, reading correspondence. There’s a plate waiting for you. It's your breakfast, exactly how you like it.

You hover in the doorway. “Did you tell the cook-?”

“I asked,” he says simply, without looking up. “She told me.”

Then there are the moments when the house feels smaller. When your paths cross in the hallway and you can’t quite get around him. He steps aside immediately, of course, but his presence lingers like smoke. He always smells faintly of rain and leather.

You tell yourself you hate it. You tell yourself that a lot lately.

And yet-

You start noticing little things. His gloves always neatly left on the table near the door, the way the servants respect him, the way he says please to the housekeeper and means it.

Once, you overhear him speaking to Edward in the study. You shouldn’t be listening, but the door’s slightly ajar and curiosity wins.

Edward says something about your father’s latest “proposal.” Sean’s answer is low, steady, “Tell him she’s not part of his business anymore. He made that trade already.”

The words stick to you. You don’t know what to do with them.

Later that night you find a book waiting on your nightstand, one you’d mentioned in passing weeks ago. There’s no note. You don’t need one.

The next morning, at breakfast, you finally say something first.

“Thank you.”

He looks up briefly from his paper. “For what?” You nod toward the book.

He hums, a small sound of acknowledgement. “Figured you’d be less likely to run away if you had something to read.”

You roll your eyes. “How generous.”

“Don’t mention it.”

It's about a month later when it happens, and you don’t even notice anything’s wrong until you open your bedroom door and find it… empty.

The wardrobe, gone. The vanity, gone. The bed, gone.

Just a pale square of dust where the rug used to be and the faint ghost of lavender from your perfume bottle.

For a full five seconds you think maybe you’ve walked into the wrong room. Then-

“Evenin'.”

His voice comes from the hallway behind you, deep and calm and entirely too casual. You turn. Sean leans against the doorframe, sleeves rolled, top buttons undone, like the man has never once known the concept of guilt.

“What-” You blink at him, half-sputtering. “Where is everything?”

He tilts his head slightly, like he’s debating whether to bother explaining. “Moved.”

“Moved where?”

“Into our room.”

You stare at him. “Our-?”

“Bedroom,” he says easily, as if you might have forgotten the word. “Figured it was time.”

There’s a stretch of silence so sharp it hums.

“You... you could have asked.”

“I could have,” he agrees, tone maddeningly even. “But you’d have said no.”

“Because I don’t want to share a room with you.”

He hums, thoughtful. “Alright.” Then, with a faint shrug, “But it’s still happening.”

You’re half tempted to throw something at him. Preferably something heavy and priceless.

He steps aside and gestures down the hall. “You should see it before you decide how angry to be.”

The door at the end of the hall opens into a room you hadn’t bothered exploring before. His. Or now, apparently, yours too.

It’s not what you expected. The space is large.

The bed dominates, massive, almost absurdly so, draped in deep navy and cream. A fire glows low in the grate, throwing soft light across polished wood and folded linen.

Your belongings are already here, your books on the shelves, your perfume bottles lined neatly beside his cologne on the dresser. The placement is unnervingly seamless, like this has always been the plan.

You hover by the door. “This is ridiculous.”

Sean glances at you, unbothered. “You said you like space. You’ll have it.”

You cross your arms. “That’s not the point.”

He looks over from where he’s loosening his cufflinks, unhurried, voice steady. “Then what is?”

You don’t answer. Not because you can’t, but because the sight of him in the firelight steals the coherent words right out of your head. His shirt’s half-unbuttoned now, the collar open just enough to reveal a line of skin at his throat, the sharp edges of his collarbone. His hair’s slightly mussed, like he’s run a hand through it too many times.

You hate that you notice. You really hate that you notice.

“I don’t know what you expect me to do,” you manage, finally.

“Sleep,” he says simply. “That’s all.”

You narrow your eyes. “That’s all?”

He pauses, cufflinks resting in his palm, and looks at you properly, not amused, not cold.

Just real.

“I told you before,” he says quietly. “I’m not going to force anything.”

You shift your weight, uncertain. “Then why this?”

He exhales through his nose. “People talk. Servants. Partners. Your father’s circle. If it starts getting around that we live like strangers, there’ll be questions.”

“Questions,” you echo, dry.

“About whether the marriage was real,” he says. “Whether it’s been… fulfilled.”

Your stomach twists. “You think that matters?”

“I think it does,” he says simply. “To them. And unfortunately, their opinions keep our doors open and your father’s ambitions quiet.”

You look down at your hands, fingers twisting in the silk of your nightgown. “So this is to keep up appearances.”

“Partly.”

You look up sharply. “Partly?”

His gaze holds yours. “And partly because I wanted to.”

The words hang between you like smoke, slow and curling. You can hear the clock ticking somewhere behind him.

You laugh, but it sounds thin. “You’re insufferable.”

“Probably.”

You glance at the bed. “This is a mistake.”

He smirks faintly, setting his cufflinks on the dresser. “Then it’s one we’ll make.”

You glare, but he’s already turned toward the wardrobe, unbuttoning his sleeves, casual and maddeningly composed. His shirt slips from his shoulders just enough to make your pulse stutter, and you suddenly remember that you’re not exactly fully dressed either. Your hair is loose, and the neckline of your nightgown sits scandalously low under lamplight.

You feel his eyes flick briefly toward you, a flicker so quick you almost miss it. Almost.

He clears his throat softly, like resetting the atmosphere. “You can take whichever side you like. I don’t move much.”

You bite the inside of your cheek. “How considerate.”

He smiles slightly, but doesn’t answer, instead folding his shirt neatly and placing it on the chair. That discipline again.

You climb into bed with the most dramatic show of indifference you can manage, pointedly keeping to the far edge. The mattress is huge, practically a continent between you, but you can feel him there. His heat. His calm breathing.

He reaches over and blows out the lamp. The room plunges into darkness.

“Goodnight, Mrs Rafferty.”

You stare at the ceiling, heart beating too fast.

The fire’s burned low when you wake up, pale light filtering through the curtains. For a few seconds you don’t remember where you are. You only know that the sheets are soft, and the pillow smells faintly of cedar and smoke. Then the bed shifts beside you, and memory clicks back into place.

Sean.

He’s already awake, half-sitting against the headboard, reading something, a folded letter or a report, the kind of thing you imagine doesn’t stop arriving just because he’s married now.

You realise, with quiet horror, that at some point in the night you’ve migrated closer to his side of the bed. Not much, but enough that your hand rests near his forearm, your body angled instinctively toward him. You shift back an inch. Maybe two.

He doesn’t look up, but you swear you catch the faintest trace of a smile.

“Morning,” he says, voice low, roughened with sleep.

You pull the blanket up, as if modesty might erase the evidence of how you slept. “You’re still here.”

“I live here, this is my bedroom,” he says mildly, eyes still on the paper.

“You know what I mean.”

Now he does glance at you. His hair’s damp from a quick wash, the collar of his shirt still undone, sleeves rolled. You hate that he looks that good at this hour.

He folds the paper and sets it aside, then swings his legs off the bed, moving with that same quiet precision he always does. You watch him cross the room. Like this is already his routine.

“Do you have to walk around like that?” you mutter, watching him tuck his shirt into his trousers.

“Like what?”

“So... so casual.”

He glances over his shoulder, smirk tugging at his mouth. “Would you prefer I make a show of it?”

You scowl. “Don’t you dare.”

He laughs softly under his breath, reaching for his waistcoat. “Relax, I’m only teasing.”

You stay in bed, arms wrapped around your knees. “It’s indecent.”

“I'm your husband.”

“Still indecent.”

He turns, buttoning the vest. “Then avert your eyes.”

You glare at him, but it has no heat. He knows it too.

He’s almost ready when you finally speak again, quieter this time. “Can I ask you something?”

He pauses, glancing over. “You can.”

You hesitate. “Do you mean to… properly marry me?”

The question lands heavier than you meant it to. He studies you for a moment, expression unreadable.

“I already have,” he says.

“You know what I mean,” you press, heartbeat quick.

He exhales slowly, crossing back toward the bed, stopping just out of reach. The morning light hits the side of his face, turning the edge of his jaw gold.

“Yes,” he says finally. “Eventually.”

You stare at him. “Eventually.”

He nods once. “When I think you’re ready.”

You can’t help the dry laugh that escapes. “How generous of you to decide that.”

“I could’ve done this your father’s way,” he says evenly. “Told you it’s expected, demanded obedience, locked the door. But that’s not the kind of husband I want to be.”

You look down at your hands. “And what kind is that?”

“The kind you stop hating long enough to trust.”

Your throat tightens. You look up and he’s already watching you, completely composed. “I don’t hate you,” you lie.

His mouth curves slightly. “You’re getting there.”

He reaches for his jacket, slipping it on, adjusting the cuffs. “Breakfast in half an hour,” he says. “Eat something. You look like you didn’t sleep.”

“I didn’t, really.”

“Then don’t waste what rest you did get,” he says, heading for the door.

Before he leaves, he pauses, hand on the frame. “And for the record,” he adds, glancing back, eyes flicking to where the morning light catches in your hair, “You look the part.”

You weren’t supposed to be there.

In fairness, you hadn’t meant to snoop, you’d just grown tired of the house swallowing its own silence, of endless afternoons with nothing but polite conversation and embroidery to keep you from chewing through the wallpaper.

So when a servant mentioned that Mr Rafferty was at the brewery, again, you decided a walk into town might do you good.

A little air, a little rebellion.

The building looms bigger than you remember; iron gates, brick buildings stitched together by pipes and smoke and the rhythmic clatter of industry.

You see the men first, all rough and broad-shouldered, pausing mid-task as you pass. You can feel their eyes, not cruel exactly, just surprised. You are not the sort of creature that normally wanders through their world in lace and gloves.

Then you hear his voice.

Not the even, civil tone you know from the house. This is something sharper. The kind of voice that could cut through wind and machinery and still have people scrambling to obey.

He stands near a cart, sleeves rolled, hair damp with sweat, two men flanking him looking like they’d rather be anywhere else. You can’t hear every word, just enough to catch the rhythm.

“You think because he’s a partner’s son I’ll let it go?” he says, too calmly. “No. If he touches another shipment, he’s out. I don’t care whose dinner table he sits at.”

The other man mumbles something, an apology maybe. Sean steps closer, so close that the man flinches back a little.

“Say it again,” Sean says. “So I know you mean it.”

The man swallows hard. “Yes, Mr Rafferty.”

You feel something twist low in your stomach. It’s not fear exactly, more like recognition. Oh, you think.

This is what he is when no one’s watching.

He turns slightly, and that’s when he sees you.

His whole posture shifts in an instant; the authority doesn’t drop, but it changes. He says something short to the men, clipped enough to end the conversation, and starts toward you.

You should probably leave. You don’t.

“Do you have any idea where you’re standing?” he says quietly when he reaches you. There’s no greeting. Just that low, steady reprimand.

“I went for a walk,” you say, chin tilting up. “Didn’t realise your empire had borders.”

The corner of his mouth twitches, but it’s not amusement. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“Why not? It’s all terribly educational.”

He exhales through his nose, not quite a sigh. His hand finds your elbow. You feel the weight of it through the thin fabric of your sleeve.

“Because this,” he says, nodding toward the yard, “is where men get hurt. Where deals go bad. And I don’t need you standing in the crossfire of any of it.”

You try to pull back, but his grip tightens just slightly. “You’re making a scene,” you whisper.

He leans down, voice low enough that only you can hear it.

“I’m making sure you don’t become one.”

Your pulse stutters. He’s close, close enough that the scent of him fills your lungs. You hate how steady his breathing is compared to yours.

When he straightens, you notice how many people are watching. Workers pretending to be busy, partners lingering near the office doors. And suddenly you understand what they’re seeing. Him, tall and dark and unyielding, and you, pale silk and defiance under his hand. The picture of control dressed up as devotion.

He notices it too.

“Come on,” he murmurs. “We’re leaving.” You want to argue, but the look in his eyes stops you.

You walk beside him out of the yard, your steps quick to keep pace. You can feel the gazes follow, curious, admiring, assessing. To them, it probably looks romantic. Powerful man, beautiful young wife, perfectly composed as he guides her into the waiting carriage.

He waits until the door shuts behind you before he speaks again.

“You can glare all you like,” he says quietly, “but don’t come back here without me.”

“I wasn’t in danger.”

“You don’t know that.”

You turn toward him, voice low. “You think I’m too fragile to stand near a barrel of stout?”

“I think,” he says, eyes cutting to yours, “that you don’t understand what kind of men drink it before noon.”

You fall silent. He doesn’t look away, just watches until you do.

When the carriage starts moving, you finally mutter, “Everyone saw that. They’ll think you’re possessive.”

He leans back, watching the city pass by. “They already do. And they love it.”

You glance at him. “And you?” His jaw softens, just barely. “I don’t like being watched. Especially when it comes to you.” You want to say something clever, something biting. You find yourself looking out the window instead.

You don’t even hear him at first. You’re standing before the mirror, fingers combing through your hair, trying to coax it into something respectable before bed. The candles are burning low, the warm light sliding over lace and the curve of your shoulders.

Then the door opens. No knock, no warning, just the sound of the latch and his voice, low and rough around the edges. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”

You turn, heart kicking. You’ll never get used to how quietly he moves for a man of his size. He’s already halfway to the dresser, shrugging off his coat. The white of his shirt catches the lamplight, open at the throat, sleeves rolled carelessly.

You hate that your first instinct is to stare.

“What do you want?” you ask, sharper than you mean. You reach for the tie of your robe, trying to make it look like you hadn’t frozen halfway through the motion.

He glances up, eyes flicking briefly to your reflection in the mirror. “Wanted to speak with you.”

“Now?”

“Now,” he says simply, pulling at his cufflinks, dropping them on the dresser with a quiet clink.

You fold your arms. “About what?”

He gives a dry huff of a laugh, as though the answer’s obvious. “About this afternoon. You shouldn’t have been down at the brewery.”

There it is, the edge.

“I was curious,” you say, defensively. “I wanted to see what it is you actually do.”

“And you saw enough.” His tone isn’t loud, but it lands heavy, final. “That’s not a place for you.”

Your temper flares. “You mean it’s not a place for a woman.”

“No,” he says, turning to face you fully now, eyes catching yours in the mirror. “I mean it’s not a place for my wife.”

You laugh, short and bitter. “That’s the same thing.”

“It isn’t.”

He rests a hand on the back of the chair beside you, leaning slightly. You swallow, refusing to look up. “You can’t just tell me where to go and where not to.”

“I can when men like the ones you saw start wondering how to test me,” he says quietly. “They see you there, and they start to think they can use you to get to me. You think I want that?”

Something tightens in your chest.

“You could’ve said that,” you mutter.

“I just did.”

The silence stretches. You can feel him still watching you, the weight of his gaze heavy and steady. It’s infuriating how calm he looks.

“You’re impossible,” you breathe.

“Maybe.” His voice softens, almost amused. “But you’re not exactly easy yourself, Mrs Rafferty.”

That Mrs Rafferty again, the way he says it like a reminder and a promise all at once. It does something to the air between you.

He straightens, runs a hand through his hair, and says, more gently this time, “I don’t want you frightened of me. Just… stay clear of the brewery floor. You don’t belong in the crossfire.”

He moves past you toward the wardrobe, already half in his own routine. The quiet domesticity of it unnerves you, how normal it’s starting to feel.

“Do you always come in here like this?” you ask, trying to sound unimpressed as he reaches for a clean shirt.

“Only when my wife keeps taking things that don’t belong to her,” he says, and there’s that spark of humour again.

“I didn’t take anything.”

“Mm.” He doesn’t argue, just smirks faintly as he unbuttons the cuffs of his shirt. “You took my peace of mind when you stepped into that brewery.”

You glare at him, but it’s half-hearted. He’s too composed, too sure of himself, and that makes your stomach twist.

“Goodnight,” you mutter, heading for the bed.

He pauses, shirt still in hand. “Goodnight,” he echoes, voice low.

The storm starts sometime after midnight.

At first, it’s just the faint rattle of rain against the windows, the kind that whispers rather than hammers. You lie awake staring at the ceiling, tracing the grain of the dark wood above you, trying not to think about the man on the far side of the bed.

The bed is ridiculous. It’s easily twice the size of the one in your old room, custom-made, he’d said. As though a few extra feet of mattress could make this less absurd.

He’d said nothing, only blown out the candle on his side and murmured a soft, “Goodnight.”

That was hours ago.

You can tell he’s still awake. His breathing hasn’t settled into sleep; it’s too controlled, too even. You imagine him lying there, hands folded behind his head, staring at the ceiling like you are now, both of you caught in some stubborn, silent truce.

Then thunder cracks.

It rolls through the walls, deep and close enough to shake the windowpanes. You flinch before you can stop yourself. A stupid reaction, you tell yourself, but your heart kicks up anyway.

Across the mattress, there’s movement, the faint sound of fabric shifting. You don’t look.

You absolutely do not look.

But the thunder comes again, louder this time, and the room flashes white for half a heartbeat. You turn onto your side, pulling the blanket higher, and before you can think better of it, you shift an inch closer. Just one.

You tell yourself it’s nothing, you’re only cold.

Another crack, another flash. Another inch.

You can feel the difference now. The faint rise and fall of his breathing. You wonder if he’s fallen asleep after all, or if he’s just too polite to say anything about you migrating across no-man’s-land.

Then his voice, low and quiet in the dark. “You’re not very subtle, you know.”

You freeze.

“I-” you start, but another roll of thunder cuts you off.

There’s a pause, and you can almost hear the smile in his voice when he adds, “Come here.”

It’s not an order, not quite. More like a suggestion.

You hesitate, but the next flash of lightning makes the decision for you. You edge closer until your shoulder brushes his arm, just barely, and he shifts slightly, enough that your hand grazes his. The contact is so small it shouldn’t mean anything.

But it does.

He turns his palm upward, slow, deliberate, offering rather than taking. You stare at it in the dark for a long moment before resting your fingers there. His hand is warm, calloused, heavy and real. He doesn’t grip, doesn’t pull. Just… holds.

The thunder rolls again, but it sounds softer now, distant somehow.

You let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding.

He speaks again, quiet enough you almost miss it. “You’re safe, you know.”

You don’t trust your voice enough to answer, so you nod, a small movement he feels rather than sees. His thumb moves once, a faint brush against the back of your hand.

At some point you realise your head has found his shoulder. It smells faintly of soap and smoke and something you can’t name.

You should move. You don’t.

His eyes flicker between yours and your mouth, breathing gone shallow, heartbeat echoing in the quiet room like a metronome that’s suddenly off-tempo.

He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t have to.

You don’t pull away.

Sean's thumb strokes once again. Your mouth is dry. Your skin buzzes.

Then he leans in. Slowly.

You feel it before you see it, his breath across your cheek, his nose brushing yours. His lips don’t touch you yet. He’s giving you the out. The space to change your mind. But you don’t. You tilt toward him, so slightly it’s almost nothing, and it’s all he needs.

His lips ghost over yours. A breath. A hum. Then, contact.

It’s soft. Softer than you expect from him. No theatrics, no push, just someone who knows how to kiss and doesn’t need to prove it. You inhale sharply through your nose, and when your hand comes up to his chest, it’s not to stop him. It’s to feel him.

His lips move against yours again, firmer this time. Still slow. Still careful.

His hand slides up from your hip to your ribs, under the fabric of your nightgown. You break the kiss to breathe, your eyes fluttering open to find him already looking at you.

“Tell me if you want to stop,” he says, voice low, roughened with restraint.

You don’t. God, you don’t. You shake your head, barely a whisper, “Don’t.”

A flash of something crosses his face. His mouth finds yours again with more certainty, and this time, he pulls you closer, his leg nudging between yours. The shift in pressure has you gasping against his lips.

You don’t even remember moving your hands, but suddenly they’re at the hem of his shirt, slipping underneath. He’s all heat and muscle, the sharp ridge of his stomach taut under your palms. He exhales hard into your mouth like the touch unmoors him.

He breaks the kiss again, just long enough to murmur, “C’mere.”

You think he’s going to pull you into his lap, but instead he leans close enough that his mouth brushes your temple. “Maybe it’s time we were properly married,” he says, the words almost a laugh, almost not.

Your breath stumbling and fingers curling tighter in his shirt is the only answer you can manage.

Then his hand finds the laces of your nightgown, loosening them just enough to tug it off your body in one smooth movement. Your breath catches. You’re not used to being undressed like this, being looked at like this.

Like he’s opening a gift he’s waited for.

His eyes drag over you. Not leering, just taking his time.

“Fuck,” he whispers, like he can’t believe you’re real.

Your skin prickles under his gaze. You reach for him, fingers curling in the hem of his shirt. “Yours too.”

He lets you, lifting his arms, and the shirt comes off, mussing his hair slightly. He’s golden in the low light, toned, and suddenly not just Mr Rafferty, the scary foreman, but Sean, your husband.

Then he leans back a little. He doesn’t touch right away. Just looks.

“You’re beautiful,” he says, like it’s the most obvious fact in the world. Like he’s not even trying to seduce you, he just can’t not say it.

His hands are slower now. He lets them trail up the outsides of your thighs, to your waist, then your ribs. He stops just under your chest, thumbs brushing along the swell of your breasts without touching more than necessary.

He kisses you again, slower now. Lazier. Like he’s savouring it.

You reach for his trousers. He shudders when you touch him, just slightly, and then pulls back with a small shake of his head.

“Not yet,” he murmurs, breath hot against your cheek. Your brows lift slightly in question.

“I want to take my time.”

You nod, lips parted, chest rising and falling too fast. His hands find your hips again, guiding you gently down so you're lying flat on the bed, head against the cushion. He lies on the mattress, flat on his stomach, between your legs.

He's still half-dressed, but oh it's devastating, his eyes locked on yours, mouth already tracing a path down your abdomen.

Your back arches slightly when he kisses your hip, and his hand slides between your thighs, coaxing them apart.

“Still alright?” he asks, voice rough.

You nod, barely able to form words. “Yeah. Yes.”

His mouth curves, and then he lowers his head.

At first, it’s just his mouth on the inside of your thigh. Then another kiss, higher this time. His hands keep your legs parted, not forcefully, but firmly enough that you can’t close them, even if your nerves beg you to.

But then, he looks up.

You’re already watching him. Cheeks flushed. Breathing shallow. He doesn’t smirk. Doesn’t gloat. He just says, voice low and serious, “Tell me if anything’s too much.”

You nod. “Okay.”

His mouth moves again. Higher.

And then he kisses you there, over the lace of your undergarments first. Just pressure. Just warmth. Your hips jerk slightly, and his hands tighten on your thighs like a silent I’ve got you.

Then the fabric shifts. He peels it down slowly, eyes flicking up to your face like he’s cataloguing your reactions, making sure you’re still with him. You are.

You’re so with him.

When he touches you again, it’s with his mouth, no teasing now. No practice.

You gasp, his tongue strokes slow, deliberate. He groans softly against you, like he’s been waiting to do this for longer than he’ll ever admit. And when his finger slides in, just one, gentle, you lose your rhythm altogether.

“Sean-” you breathe, and it cracks at the end.

His eyes snap up to yours.

“You okay?” he asks, slowing immediately.

You nod, frantic, and try to pull him closer instead.

He murmurs something you don’t quite catch and then lowers his mouth again. This time with more intent.

It builds. Slow, devastating. His fingers work in rhythm with his mouth, coaxing you up, up-

You come fast. Faster than you mean to. You try to fight it, to draw it out, but he knows exactly where to press, where to flick, when to curl his fingers. It crashes into you hard, like heat and lightning.

You cry out, shuddering. Your thighs clamp around his shoulders and he lets them, mouth never leaving you until you’re whimpering and twitching from the aftershocks.

Then he eases back; face flushed, jaw glistening, eyes wrecked.

You’re still trying to breathe when he crawls back up over you. He presses a kiss to your temple, your cheek, the corner of your mouth.

You blink at him, dazed. He cups your face with one hand, thumb brushing your cheekbone.

You reach for him.

This time, it’s your turn, even if you're figuring it out as you go along.

You kiss him again, tasting yourself on his mouth. Your hands find the waistband of his trousers, and he helps you shove them off. He’s already hard. Thick. Heavy against your thigh.

Still, he pauses.

“You sure?” he murmurs against your mouth.

You nod, breath shaky. “Yeah. God. Yeah.” He kisses you again, deeper this time.

Hungrier.

And then he shifts, reaches down between you. You feel him, hot and blunt at your entrance. Then there’s another moment. One breath. One heartbeat where everything hangs in the air.

Then he pushes in.

Your mouth falls open in a silent gasp.

He’s careful, so slow you want to cry. But it’s good. It’s so good. He stretches you inch by inch, filling you so completely it's overwhelming. He groans as he sinks in, like he’s holding himself back with everything he’s got.

“You’re so tight,” he grits out, burying his face against your neck. “Fuck.”

You cling to him, arms locked around his shoulders. He feels real like this, like you're just two bodies that were always meant to move this way.

He stays still once he’s fully inside, giving you time. Breathing hard against your collarbone. His fingers trace your jaw, brushing hair off your face.

“You okay?”

You nod, barely able to speak. “You feel so good.”

That earns you a groan, low, strained.

Then he starts to move.

It’s not frantic. It’s not frenzied. It’s smooth, like he’s trying to memorise what you feel like around him.

Your bodies fall into rhythm, a slow drag and roll that has you moaning every time his hips meet yours. His name slips out of your mouth over and over again, like a mantra, and he answers with soft grunts, low murmurs of praise.

“Just like that,” he breathes. “Fuck, you’re perfect.”

At one point, he hooks one of your legs higher around his waist and the angle changes. Your breath stutters, and he feels it.

“There,” he murmurs, driving deeper. “That it?”

You whimper, nodding frantically, your fingernails digging into his shoulders.

It builds again. Not as sudden this time, but hotter. Slower. A kind of pressure that curls in your spine and expands with every one of his thrusts.

He watches you the whole time.

When you come again, it’s with his name in your mouth, your back arched, your whole body locking around his.

He follows seconds later, buries himself deep and groans your name into your neck like he can’t hold it back. His hips stutter. He pulses inside you, hands trembling where they brace on either side of your head.

Then, silence.

Heavy breathing. Sweat-damp skin. Your bodies still tangled together, your chest heaving under his.

He lifts his head, just enough to see your face. You’re flushed. Glowing. Wrecked in the most delicious way.

You smile. Soft. Spent.

So does he.

And neither of you says a word.

You wake to sunlight. And you’re not alone.

The realisation hits slow, like the tide coming in. You’re warm, too warm, your body has stayed pressed to his through the night. The space that used to feel like a battleground between you is now gone entirely. His arm is draped loosely across your waist, heavy and protective. You can feel the steady thump of his heartbeat against your back.

You lie perfectly still, afraid to move and break whatever fragile peace this is. The house is quiet, unusually so. Even the city beyond the window sounds muted, as though the whole world has agreed to let you have this one morning untouched.

His voice comes after a while, low and still a little rough with sleep. “You’re awake.”

You hum in response, not trusting yourself to speak yet.

He shifts slightly, not pulling away, just enough that his breath brushes the side of your neck. “Didn’t mean to keep you up half the night,” he says quietly, tone softer than you’ve ever heard it.

You could almost laugh, he kept you up? You don’t even know where to begin with that. So you say nothing, just let your hand rest lightly against his where it lies at your waist.

There’s a pause, then, “Do you regret it?”

The question hangs in the air, with none of his usual teasing. You can tell he’s not asking out of vanity. He’s giving you an out, if you want one.

You stare at the window, at the light spilling across the floorboards. “No,” you say finally. Your voice surprises you with how certain it sounds. “I don’t.”

He exhales, the sound quiet but heavy with something you can’t quite name; relief, maybe.

“Good,” he murmurs, and his hand tightens briefly at your side before letting go.

You roll onto your back, finally daring to look at him. He’s already watching you, hair mussed, still shirtless, a faint smile tugging at the corner of his mouth like he’s trying not to push his luck.

For once, there’s no mask of control, no carefully measured words. Just a man; a little tired, a little undone, but undeniably yours.

You study him for a long moment. “So what now?” you ask quietly.

He thinks for a second, then says, “Now, we see if we can stop hating each other before breakfast.”

It’s meant as a joke, but the way he says it makes you smile despite yourself.

"Ambitious."

“Necessary,” he counters. “We’ve got a long life ahead of us, Mrs Rafferty.”

You roll your eyes, but it doesn’t sting the way it used to. Not this morning.

yall hes so cute im convinced. anyways yeah ik its been a while but schools been shit and i've been trying (and failing) to plan other fics lol

[targlocket]

OUR BOY

ormund hightower x wife!reader, mom figure!reader & daeron targaryen

cw: spoilers for ep 4!!, found family trope, reader thinks of daeron like her own, tension, religious themes, slight manipulation, fluff fluff, motherly reader!!, hurt/comfort, reader is very protective of daeron, emotional distress, quarelling, ormund does love his wife, petnames (my love, sweetheart, sweetling), (2.7kw).

synopsis: A child doesn't need to come from the womb to weave his way into your heart. Your husband knows as much.

a/n: this was a wip since the second episode sitting in my drafts, and now with episode four out, it sparked me to continue it! i love daeron so much, and so does reader. they're a dysfunctional family, but they make it work! guys this piece is very dear to me okay it's my baby i love it so much.

"From King Aemond."

"King?" You frown, looking at the young squire for confirmation, which he gives with a slow nod of his head.

"Yes, my lady," Daeron says, brows pinching, mimicking your bewilderment. "The messenger said so himself when he delivered the letter to Lord Ormund."

You huff, the news rattling you a bit, sighing as if the weight of what must've transpired back in King's Landing is already heavy to carry. "Gods helps us all."

Daeron's expression turns sympathetic as he sees your mood sour, prompting you to step closer, one hand moving to brush his cheek as you speak, your tone hushed but warm. "Don't give me that look," you scold, but it contradicts the softness of your touch and tone. "There's nothing to worry about." Your thumb smooths over his cheekbone, motherly and reassuring, as you always do when he's putting others' emotions onto his own young shoulders. "Ormund will know what to make of it."

"As always."

Both of you perk up at the familiar voice, watching as your husband enters the tent through the flaps, one eyebrow raised as he assesses the scene, eyes narrowing at the sight of your hand cradling Daeron's cheek, jaw clenching minutely. "Such matters are not for wives," he shoots you a look, "or squires," his voice dips to a firmer tone as he glances at Daeron, "to worry about." Ormund closes the flap behind him before continuing, seeking privacy. "Or talk behind their hands like gossiping mongrels where I cannot hear."

You feel Daeron tense beneath your hand, and your thumb brushes his cheek to soothe, huffing as you hold your husband's gaze. "The boy was just relaying information to me, which I am grateful for." Daeron relaxes under your touch, which makes you hum, sneaking him a small smile before turning your gaze back to Ormund. "As any squire would."

"He is my squire."

"I borrowed him," you counter, lifting your chin, not backing down.

"You cannot borrow someone's squire. It is unheard of."

"And yet you are hearing about it now. Novelties are common during wartime, are they not?"

The corner of Ormund's lips twitches for one moment at your audacity before he scoffs, eyes narrowed as he holds your gaze enough to let you know this will not be the end of this conversation. It sends a shiver down your spine.

"So they say," he responds, stepping closer, motioning with one hand towards the flap of the tent. "Go see what that beast of yours is doing, won't you? There are matters I must discuss with Lady Hightower." Ormund's tone is firm, brooking no argument as he waits for Daeron to obey, the young boy nodding curtly, before turning to do the same to you, albeit a touch more reverent.

"My lord, my lady."

You smile, thumb tracing his cheek once more before he moves, letting your hand fall to your side, watching as he makes haste towards the tent's exit.

The silence he leaves behind is thick for a heartbeat, two, before it is broken by your husband's voice. "You coddle him incessantly," he reprimands, face scrunching in distaste, as if such a thing offended him personally. "Petting him like a cat and cooing at him as if he were but a babe."

Being a touch theatrical has always been one of your husband's most endearing traits, and one of his most daunting, as you sometimes remind him, to his annoyance. You will never admit that poking at that certain flaw of his tickles you greatly, just as it does now.

"He is young," you combat, "and this is his first ever war. A gentle touch would do him well."

"Too gentle of a touch will soften him overmuch and he will not be fit to fight alongside me, as is his duty," your husband counters, tone resolute as he takes slow, measured steps towards you, eyes narrowed, jaw clenched. "You know this."

And you did. The importance of coming out victorious was paramount to your husband, his house, and his cause. Seating the rightful heir on the Iron Throne was the one thing that mattered most, and Ormund was hellbent on seeing it through to the end, by any means necessary.

"I am aware," your tone softens, sighing as you reach for him, hand touching his cheek as you did Daeron, but the difference was stark in the way you offered your affection, thumbing at the cut of his cheekbone with intent, leaning in until your breaths mingled. Ormund frowned, knowing you were trying to appease him, but didn't pull away, instead leaning into your touch, tilting his head into the cradle of your palm, eyes boring into yours. “But someone has to soften the rigour you instill in him, husband, for he shall not be cruel, but just, even in times of war.”

“Being just is not enough,” he protests again, and you can feel his jaw tighten beneath your hand, which you try to soothe with soft swipes of your thumb along the bone, a touch that he welcomes, despite the turmoil in his gaze. “If one needs to be heartless, then the Gods have willed it so.”

Your brows pinch together, the urge to try and make your husband see reason slowly curdling into something acrid. “Since when have the Gods willed a young boy to cruelty, Ormund?” Your tone is no longer soft nor warm, sharpening at the mere thought of Daeron being made into something he was not meant to be. “Is this what the Seven Pointed Star had taught us all these years?”

Ormund’s eyes widen for a fraction, the use of his name in such a cadence from you and the sting of your words halting his breath. He knew how fiercely protective you were of the boy, like a lioness with its cub, even if not yours by womb. Now it was his turn to try and bring back the sweetness in your tone, for he shall never admit it, but having his wife cross with him was a fate he did not particularly enjoy.

“My love,” he murmured, and tried not to react when he saw your expression pinch even more at the fond moniker. “Sometimes, in the midst of war, we cannot abide by all that The Faith has taught us, no matter how much we wish to grace the Gods with our deeds.” Ormund took a breath, trying not to get irritated when your pretty face didn’t soften an inch. “And that boy is fated to sit The Iron Throne, for his blood is pure, and not savage, and his teachings are proper, and not the stuff of legends long past.”

Sit the Iron Throne.

You took a step back, recoiling from your husband as if burned, the warmth of your touch no longer on his cheek as you whispered, mortified. “Sit the Iron Throne?”

Such plans were news to you, for Aemond was to be the rightful heir now that Aegon was gone. But it seems your husband’s ideals reached further than you could’ve ever conjured up yourself. Was it because Aemond was to be sent to Harrenhal? Did your husband believe Rhaenyra’s forces would slay Vhagar and thus leave the throne with no one to occupy it?

“No,” you said, resolute, fingers starting to tremble as you curled them into fists at your side. “I will not have my boy thrown into that den of vipers that we’ve tried so hard to keep him safe from.”

Ormund’s chest rattled with the deep breath he took, as if preparing himself for the onslaught of your dissatisfaction to come. “He is not—”

“Don’t you dare!” Your tone was sharp as steel, voice rising, all pretence gone now that your husband had braved to utter those words to you, knowing how much they would chip at your tender heart. “You know just as well as I that Daeron is more mine than anyone else’s. I have raised him since he was a babe—”

“And you have done so valiantly, my dear, but—” Ormund tries to soothe, but the bitter taste in your mouth from his words is more pungent than anything he could say to save himself from your wrath.

“Do not patronise me so!”

Your chest is heaving, and you feel those damnable pinpricks behind your eyes, moisture dampening your lash line, tears slowly forming, as if already feeling the grief of losing one of the things you cherish most. “King’s Landing is a wretched place, devoid of honour and swarming with enemies, and you want to send our—”

Our son.

But you stop, chin wobbling, not daring to say such a thing now, knowing it will do no good, and only make your husband protest further.

The sweetest boy, who hid his chubby little face into your skirts and clung to them when nightmares came at night, is now sentenced to a life you know he does not wish for. You can already feel your stomach churning with trepidation just at the thought, your gaze unwavering despite the tears brimming in your eyes to shoot daggers at your husband, who stays unmoving before you, looking equal parts irritated and unsure of how to proceed in the face of such strong emotions.

“I cannot, Ormund,” you whisper, voice breaking around the edges. “I shall not let you make a scheme of my boy just to fuel your own ambitions.”

You expect your husband to protest, to scream and rage and rip the very tent you’re in apart in his hands, but he does none of those things. Instead, he watches you, as calculated as he’s ever been, as if devising a plan to turn your sorrow into something for his own gain, or so you think.

What you do not anticipate is for Ormund to sigh, long and suffering, before walking towards you, lessening the distance between your bodies until his sword hilt bumps against your hip. “Do you believe that I am doing this solely for my own gain, my love?”

And you want to argue that, yes, you are certain of such things, for your husband was never one to not think of himself or his family first and foremost. But you don’t get to verbalise that, Ormund’s voice, softer than before, carrying that tone which could melt the marrow of your bones in mere seconds, but now, your impending grief is too great, your sorrow hardening you too much for such mellowness so quick.

“I do it for us,” he says, tilting his head to the side, bringing your faces closer, noses almost brushing. “For our legacy. For the future of House Hightower, which is now in ruins given the death of Otto and the usurpation of the King.”

You wish to protest, but your husband does not let you, sensing the argument on the tip of your tongue before it forms, a habit he picked up after more than a decade by your side, knowing you inside and out.

“Ascending Daeron to the throne will grant us power beyond our imagination, and allow the boy to live in a world of his own making.” The words are just and sound, but they do not go through you; the image of your sweet Daeron sitting upon that blasted throne full of swords and lies is too heavy on your heart.

“He will be in grave danger,” you croak, tears brimming along your lash line, slowly slipping down warm cheeks. “People will seek to harm him, to demand favours he’s not ready to offer, to—”

“And I will be in his shadow, making sure none of that comes to fruition,” Ormund says, tone brooking no argument, his gaze holding yours, willing you to see the seriousness of the matter. “If anyone dares to conspire against our boy, I will have their heads before they can draw their next breath. You have my word, sweet wife.”

Our boy.

You draw in a trembling, wet breath, your husband’s words breaking your heart and putting it back together in one fell swoop, a quiet, choked sob parting your lips as you try to utter a word back, anything to dismantle Ormund’s words, but you cannot.

“Oh, my love,” he coos, and it does not sound as condescending as it should’ve, as Ormund would pity those around him who show weakness. No, not with you. He wouldn’t dare make a spectacle of your tender, caring heart, which has grounded him many a time in his darkest, most turbulent moments. “Come here, sweetheart. Do not weep so.”

And you, powerless to resist, take the small step which is needed to bridge the distance between you, allowing your husband to cradle you in his arms, holding you as gently as one would a flower, but firm enough to make it known he wishes not to let go anytime soon.

One of his broad palms settles along your back, slowly smoothing down from the small of your back to the nape of your neck, the other anchored to the back of your head, coaxing you to rest your face along his throat. “Shh, shh, sweetling,” he whispers, turning his head to brush the words against your temple before pressing a soft, lingering kiss against your brow. “I will never let anything befall you or the boy. You know that with certainty.”

You do.

Gods, you do, but the fear that gripped your heart like a vice at the thought of such a grand plan was more powerful than reason and proof. Ormund had always gone above and beyond to ensure you and Daeron were safe at all times, even when he was away, instructing guards to follow you around like shadows and sit unmoving at your doors while you slumbered.

“I-i know, but the peril that awaits him if—”

Another kiss brushing your skin halted your incoming spiral, the feeling of your husband’s warm, rough lips against your temple melting you further into the safe strength of his arms, a haven in itself as you feared for what was to come. “The peril shall not exist. Our boy will have me, you, and more men-at-arms that I can count to keep him away from harm. In that, you must trust. In me, also.”

Your arms, which have hesitated until now, moved to grip at the back of your husband’s tunic as you embraced him tightly, needing a rock to cling to, nuzzling your face into his throat, dampening his skin with your tears as you sobbed quietly. “I trust in you more than life itself,” you croaked, and felt the pleased hum your words elicited from Ormund, as if the thought of you confiding in him so wholeheartedly brought him immense satisfaction. “But not that place, those people, that damned chair.”

“And you are right to do so, my love,” he approved, slowly putting weight from one foot to another, guiding your bodies into a gentle sway from side to side, meant to soothe you further. “Gods know everything the Targaryens touch is defiled beyond words. But we shall change that. Make it our own. A place where we and the boy can build a world fit for us alone.”

It sounded too good to be true, like a fairytale the septas would whisper to babes as they grew older, but the determined tone of your husband’s voice made you want to cling to this fantasy as well.

“Just us and our boy?” You murmured, fingers curling tighter into Ormund’s tunic, as if you could etch the very hope of such notions into his very bones.

“Yes, my sweet,” he whispered, brushing another lingering kiss to your temple, eyes fluttering shut as he held you close, still swaying. “Just us and our boy.”

gif cr: @/emmaziadarcy

[diirty--chaii]

Messy

Summary: Your marriage to your much older husband has faired far better than you ever thought it would. Though, sometimes you wish there was less...cleaning involved Pairings: Hyperspermia!Baelor Targaryen x Reader Warnings/Tags: Unspecified age gap (big and girthy), smut (light spit kink) Word Count: 2.1K Notes: blame eve and the brainworms for this

Prince Baelor was hesitant to remarry. In fact, he was perfectly content to be on his own after his wife's passing. He already had an heir, there was no rush. But then your father had offered your hand and when he'd laid eyes on you he couldn't refuse.

Your inital fears had vanished soon after your wedding. He was older, yes, but he was kind. Stories of cruel kings becoming crueler husbands were common to to noble born girls. Hushed lessons taught by worried mothers in an attempt to save their daughters from a shared fate.

Your wedding day was full of nerves, stomach turning as your maid from childhood dressed you for the last time. You were conscious of each footstep down the aisle, desperately trying to make your way to the alter without fumbling on your dress or your own two feet. Everything had occurred exactly how you imagined it.

Your wedding night? That was completely different that you had been told. Your mother had sat you down the night before and told you everything to expect. She also reiterated that it would hurt, but it was important to smile while you performed your wifely duties. You were not to make too much noise, not to move unless he instructed and to be patient until it was over. Your heart hammered in your chest as Baelor undressed you,

But after your down had slipped to the floor, he'd kissed your shoulder and lain you on the bed. Your whole body stiffened as he spread your legs. But instead of the head of his….member stretching you open his fingers gently pressed into the sensitive skin of your thighs, holding you open as he pressed a kiss to the sensitive bud between your legs. You could feel his smirk against your skin as his tongue ravished your body.

When he did finally push into your entrance, you were pleasantly surprised that it actually felt good instead of the searing pain your mother described. You body was pleasantly loose from Baelor's earlier actions, which helped your body accomodate him.

And after you'd gotten a taste of this new activity, it was hard for Baelor to deny you. There was just one problem-

"Lady Dyanna," your sister in law turns to you as you call out for her. The two of you are enjoying your tea on the balcony overlooking Kings Landing, "Because of my union to Baelor we are now sisters, correct."

"Yes, princess."

"May I ask you a question then? One that may be considered too…vulgar for me to ask another," your face warms.

An amused smile unfolds on her face, "Of course, princess. Though it was a while was many moons ago, I remeber what it was like to be newly married to the son of a king. What plagues your mind?"

"When you are finshed with your relations," you look at the foor unable to meet her eye, "How are you meant to deal with the mess afterwards."

Dyanna chuckles, "A simple cloth will suffice. You may ask your maids to warm the water as well. It well help soothe the ache that sometimes occurs. Though you want to be careful not to wipe away too much or you may be preventing the future heir from settling in your womb."

"This I know," you pause, unsure of how to say your true intention, "I mean moreso - when you are walking around afterwards. How do you manage the…leaking."

The older woman tilts her head, confused, "Well I remain in bed for the rest of the night so that is not as much of an issue."

"You've never had morning relations?"

"Not never," she says, a bit nostalgic as she thinks back to her youth, "Though I can't say I recall not being able to solve that issue with a cloth before I left my chambers."

"W-well I do," you sputter, "But sometimes it's quite a lot and it's uncomfortable when I walk. Especially if we've also had relations the evening before as well-"

"Relations in the evening and the morning? I didn't realize Baelor was quite so ravenous."

"It's not always him who initiates," you murmur, stirring your spoon in your tea, "In fact it's usually not him who initiates."

Dyanna laughs, "Oh, how I miss my youth. Though, I do not blame you. They are a handsome set of brothers are they not?"

Baelor has been busy this past week. He doesn't call you into your chambers until early the next morning. He's sitting at the desk in his room when you arrive. He smiles at you when the squeak of the door on its hinges announces your prescence.

"My prince," you say in greeting.

"My love, I am sorry to wake you so early. I missed your presence while I was away," he beckons you over with one hand as he stands, silver rings glinting in the light, "Did you sleep well?"

Your body follows easily, drawn to him. You shake your head as you fall into his embrace, "My chambers are far too cold without the blood of a dragon near."

"My apologies, my princess," he chuckles tipping your head up, and gently pressing his lips to yours, "The hunt lasted longer than inteded, but I am rested now."

His hands grip your waist firmly to pull you closer before reaching back to peel you out of your night clothes. You hesitate, stepping back.

"My lord, perhaps we should wait until this evening for those activities."

"What's wrong, my love?" he frowns, emphasizing the lines between his brows that you adore.

"Nothing," you shake your head, "I may have embarassed myself during my meeting with Dyanna and I need time to heal my pride, my lord."

"What happened?"

Your face warms, "I'm not sure I should discuss these matters with you."

"I am your husband, and the prince of the realms, you can discuss anything with me, my love," he tucks a stray curl behind your ear.

You sigh, "I had a question for her about…relations and now I fear she may believe me to be too enamoured with it."

Baelor chuckles, sitting on the edge of the bed, pulling you along with him.

"You are aware that Dyanna and Maekar have six children. There is nothing we are doing that they haven't done already."

"I know that," you say with a groan, buried your face in your husbands neck, "You should have seen the way she looked at me when I told her of my problem.

Your husband tilts his head, "Problem? You did not speak to me of any problems. Pray tell, I have not been hurting you have I?"

"No, no," you shake your head, reassuring him, "I have no complaints of our relations itself, husband. It's afterwards that I am sometimes I encounter a nuisance is all."

"I see," he nods, "Care to elaborate on this nuisance?"

You avert your gaze to the wall behind him, "It doesn't concern you, husband."

He smiles, "If it concerns my queen, then it concerns me."

"After we finish," you sigh, "Sometimes when I walk about the castle, I can feel you dripping down my leg. I simply asked Dyanna what she does, but it seems as though she does not have this same issue."

Your husband nods. He's had his suspicions about his condition. He may be king but he has taken part in his share of celebrations after a particularly well won tournament.More than a few of his past acquiantences have brought this very same topic to his attention before.

"My love, I believe I have a solution to your nuisance."

He stands to undo his robes. You lean back on your elbows watching his clothes fall to the floor. You bite your lip in anticipation, pulling his body on top of yours.

Your legs fall open for your husnband, your mouths moving languidly against each other as he his fingers reach the coarse hairs at the apex of your thighs. You sigh when his long fingers skim across your folds, diping into your entrance to spread your slick. He teases your sensitive bud with a light touch.

"Baelor," you whine which makes your husband smile as he kisses your neck, "Do not make me wait."

"I thought you were prepared to wait until nightfall, my love," the heel of his hand stays pushed up against that spot that drives you mad while his fingers slip inside you.

"Changed my mind," you pant, pulling him closer you you, "You would keep your wife waiting, my lord?"

"Never, my love."

Your back arches off the bed as Baelor pushes into you. He grips your leg, hooking it over his shoulder as your hips meet. His nose nuzzles along your jaw making his beard hairs tickle your neck.

"How's that feel, my love?" he murmurs planting a kiss on your collar bone.

"G-gods, Baelor," you groan, "So good."

He moves slowly, watching the way your face contorts in pleasure as he drags his cock inside you. His hand slips between your bodies to slow circles that drive make you moan.

He knows your body well, works it like like an instrument tuntil you're clawing at his back and shouting his name. He manages to stave of his own release but only for a few moments, just enough to drive into you once more filling you to the brim.

Though he tried his best, some of spend starts to leak out of you once more.

"Shh, my love," he coos, as he stands, trying to doge your attempt to keep him close, "I'm not going anywhere."

He sinks to the floor, grateful for the rug cushioning his aging knees. He wraps his arms around your legs, tugging you towards him.

"Baelor!" you gasp out, "What are you-"

"Why do you act as though I have not done this before," he chuckles, pressing a kiss to your mound, "This is my favourite place to be while unwind at the end of the day."

"But you've already...finished."

"I am quite aware, darling, worry not about me."

He spreads your legs apart, groaning at the sight of his seed leaking out of you.

"Wish you could see how we look together, my princess," he teases, leaning forward kiss your inner thigh, "Perhaps we should move the mirror to the bedroom."

He doesn't wait for your response, too entranced by the sight of you. He licks broadly, moaning at the taste your joined mess. You squirm in his arms, still sensitive from your release. He chuckles, digging his fingers into your thighs, holding you in place.

"We're divine together my love," he groans, licking at your entrance, "Want a taste?"

He meets your eye, grinning when you nod hesitantly at his words. He uses his tongue to scrape at your walls, collecting your shared juices with an obscene slurp and gently holding your ankle in the air to keep you from kicking his head.

He crawls up the bed to where you await with wide eyes, anticipating his neck move. He holds your head in place and forces your jaw open his thumb.

You don't even flinch when he spits into your mouth. You close your eyes, licking your lips with a moan when you swallow.

You're summoned into the Princes chamber later that night once more. Baelor is already in his bedclothes atop of the covers. You rush over, settling yourself on his lap.

"How was your day, my prince," you greet with a smile, running your fingers through his hair.

He preens, "Much better now that you're here, my love. How was yours?"

"Much better now that you're here," you laugh, repeating his words.

"And tell me, how was my solution to your nuisance today?" he chuckles. His hands start to lift your night dress, exposing more of your tanned skin.

"It worked," you smile, toying with the hem of his shirt, "Though I must admit I missed the reminder of you."

"Oh?" he quirks a brow, "How so?"

"I felt…" you pause, tilting your head trying to think of the right word, "empty today."

"Empty,?" Baelor repeats. You giggle, feeling the start of his interest poke you in the thigh.

You nod, "I missed the feel of my prince leaking down my leg during the day. Though I did enjoy what we did this morning-oh!"

Your yelp turns into a moan when Baelor flips you over and your back hits the mattress.

"Careful now," his voice is husky in your ear, "keep speaking like that and I'll have no choice but to put another heir in you, princess."

[chuluoyi]

once upon a broken heart

- ormund hightower x wife!reader

in the crucible of war, tying the two strongest houses in a holy matrimony is a scheme easier than any other. you’ve known ormund hightower your entire life, but he is also the man who has broken your heart... in a play of power and game of love, how will you protect your heart from him?

genre/warnings: suggestive, marriage of convenience, unrequited love, slight enemies to lovers, hurt/comfort, yearning, age gap, mentions of pregnancy, kidnapping, fluff, tyrell!reader (reader is ormund's second wife), takes place during the dance of dragons, spoilers! from house of the dragon season 3

notes: gif by @/alysmond. wc. 5.5k ! so ormund hightower makes an appearance, james norton is hot and i just watched house of guinness... so here's some brainrot concocted in my brain <3

They said... the best fairytale is the one that begins with a wedding.

The lady of the roses and the lord of the high tower. There was no union more perfect in the eyes of the Reach as the drums of war began to echo across Westeros. You were the vision of genteel grace and elegance while Ormund stood beside you as a stalwart protector.

Men mourned the loss, for the fairest maiden of Highgarden was no longer theirs to dream of, while women looked on with envy, wishing for a husband with the strength and stature of the Lord of Oldtown.

If only they have known…

Had it been ten years past, you would have been the happiest woman in the Seven Kingdoms.

And if fairytales begin with a wedding, then yours was doomed from the start— because long before the day you wed him, your story had taken root in heartbreak of your own making.

You had known Ormund Hightower all your life, loved him when you were young and foolish enough to believe that your innocent heart mattered to him. For years, you had molded yourself into his ideal—you kept yourself pretty, perfected your manners, and stayed up late reading tedious books just so you could casually strike up a conversation on subjects he cared about.

“Only you would throw yourself in the studies of the arts of war. What a charming young lady you are.” He would smile and be amused, and you would bite the inside of your cheek, genuinely believing you were winning him over.

You had carefully crafted your image as a prim, intellectual lady, dedicating every ounce of your grace and intellect to a singular, desperate goal: enticing him.

And you really thought you were at the forefront of his thoughts too—

“I present my victory to you, my lady. And at my behest, name you as the queen of love and beauty.”

The day you were crowned by the dashing heir of Oldtown right after he won the tourney before the entire court was the day you truly believed your girlhood dreams had come to life.

However... Ormund Hightower was apparently a man of distinct taste— and the young flower of House Tyrell was not on his list of potential brides, despite his fondness of you.

“Any good man would be delighted to be the object of your affections, no more so than I.”

It was the night after the news had broken of him asking for the hand of the vivacious Lady Tarly. He had a crooked smile, even as you stared at him with heartbreak shining in your eyes.

“Alas, I am a man soon to be wed. We must cease these meetings, so I ask you not to call on me any longer.”

Your heart died then, and stayed cold for the next ten years.

But fate, working its cruel irony, returned Ormund to you just as the war of succession for the Iron Throne began to tear the realm apart. Although the man before you was no longer the posh new lord of Oldtown, but a seasoned man hardened by politics and a wife who died in childbed.

“Declare Aegon the rightful heir and commit five thousand of your men. In exchange... my protection and the hand of the Lady Tyrell.”

Your good sister, the Lady of Highgarden, who was the regent for her infant son, had wished to remain neutral amidst the ongoing civil war. But the Hightowers were kin to the queen dowager and had been fiercely loyal since ancient times. Confronted with Ormund Hightower’s formidable host and the threat of dragonfire, she simply could not refuse his offer.

However, you had not forgotten the man who had broken your heart.

. . .

“Who would have thought that you would remarry? Your poor wife must be weeping in her grave.”

That was the first thing you said to his face after ten years, and he was entirely unfazed and amused instead.

“Of course, no one is more delighted than I to accept this most generous proposal,” you followed, your voice dripping with sweet venom as you paced before him. “But I wish to settle an arrangement first.”

Ormund leaned back, an intrigued glimmer in his dark eyes. He had a small smile and gave you a nod, gesturing for you to continue. “And what might that arrangement be, my lady?”

“I wish to maintain my freedom. I expect to be allowed to live on my own terms, and that includes being permitted to keep my own counsel, travel as I see fit, and take my own companions.”

Ormund’s lips twitched, as he tilted his head. “Companions? Do you mean lovers?”

You lifted your chin and looked down at him with haughty defiance. “I suppose so. Because frankly, I cannot see either of us engaging in romance in our otherwise unfortunate union.”

How was it that the man who once meant the world to you be the one you felt nothing for when fate twisted its narrative so you could become his wife?

“The rose has grown rather sharp thorns, I see.”

For the first time, you saw how Ormund’s eyes lit with distaste, even if he was ever amused. “As much as I could imagine, I couldn’t possibly allow that. At least for old times’ sake, shouldn’t you grant me the grace of fulfilling the role of your lord husband?”

“Let us speak freely here. If I recall correctly, it is my house’s bannermen you seek, and ten years is a long time,” you scoffed. “We might have been fond of each other once, but we are, at present, not.”

“Oh, but I am,” he countered smoothly, “still very fond of you, Lady Tyrell.”

Ormund finally rose from his seat and approached you with ease. His blue eyes narrowed, and a wicked, knowing smile curled his lips.

“And I have no intention of sharing what is mine, least of all with men lesser than I am. If it is a lover you want, then you will find I am more than sufficient.”

He stepped into your space, a particular yet pleasant smell—from his collection of pomander, no doubt—filled your senses. Leaning down, he whispered directly into your ear:

“At least let me prove to you that we don’t need romance to find… a common ground.”

This man was far more cunning than you had ever given him credit for, seamlessly crafting a trap for you to fall into.

But if he thought he could effortlessly master you like a piece on a chessboard, he was sorely mistaken.

He might have broken your heart a decade ago, but now, you held the shards.

Ormund Hightower, however, seemed intent on making good on his word.

He lavished you with his wealth, stood beside you like a devoted and gallant husband, and before long, even the smallfolk began singing praises of your match—utterly charmed by the sight of their Lord and the new Lady Hightower.

And he wanted the exclusive rights to your bed? Fine. You would grant him lordly dues, but—

—seven hells, you would have never expected that sex with him would be this great.

One time, it had started with him pinning you against the walls of your chambers, devouring your lips like a man in heat. The other time he took his time, worshiping every inch of you until you were weeping his name into the silk pillows, begging for a release he purposely delayed.

And now—

“Haah...”

The breath hitched in your throat as you sank down onto him, the heat and friction from where the two of you were joined striking like a sudden fever. You sat astride his hips, your skirts pooled around you, anchoring him beneath you.

Ormund’s calloused hands were gripping your waist as he let out a grunt, trying to steady himself against a shifting tide. He looked up at you, his blue eyes hooded, blown wide with a hunger that melted away the facade of composed lord from the war council.

This was him entirely at your mercy—

You rolled your hips with a fluid, agonizing grace that drew a ragged groan from deep within his chest. You kept your chin tilted high, meeting his lustful gaze with a mocking smile.

“Is this all it takes to render the Lord of Oldtown into submission?” you taunted, your voice trembling slightly with the pleasure of him, though you forced the words out like a dare. “A woman’s touch?”

Ormund’s jaw clenched, a breathless grin on his face. “Since when... have you become so sharp-tongued?”

“Since I realized pretty words are wind and noble lords are fickle liars,” you provoked, leaning forward until your tangled hair brushed his cheek, your breath hot against his ear. “Now, are you content to let me rule your bed just as Highgarden rules over you?”

Crafty little lady. That was his breaking point.

With a low roar, Ormund seized control. He didn’t unseat you—instead, his hands locked onto your hips like iron clamps, guiding your body into a bruising rhythm that completely shattered your cool. He drove up into you with fierce thrusts, proving with every deep stroke just how formidable he truly was.

The smug defiance bled out of you, replaced by needy gasps of pain as he chased your peak, drowned in his carnal dominance until the world blurred into a haze of white-hot heat and mutual ruin.

. . .

When it was over, the heavy silence of the chamber returned, and you woke to find yourself tangled in his arms.

Ormund lay with his eyes shut, his broad, bare chest pressed against you, holding you fast.

His hair was disheveled, his eyelashes were long, and for a moment you saw your first love again, who stood tall amidst the rose gardens.

How is a man well-known for his faith lure you into thinking of sins?

You immediately tried to pull away as your pride demanded that you re-establish your distance. However, when you moved to swing your leg off him, a sudden ache between your thighs made you wince slightly.

Ormund noticed instantly as his eyes fluttered open. He shifted beside you, his voice unusually soft in the dim light. “Are you sore?”

“I am perfectly fine,” you snapped, brushing his arm away as you reached for the sheets to cover yourself, trying to regain a semblance of independence.

You had expected him to either offer an argument or wear that infuriating smirk. He did neither. Instead, he quietly rose from the bed, and you watched him, expecting him to leave you be.

However, a moment later, Ormund returned to the bedside. He gently pulled back the linen sheet and before you could protest, the soothing, comforting heat of a warm towel pressed against your inner thigh, wiping away the slick remnants with tenderness.

You froze, the sharp retort dying in your throat.

His touch was gentle, devoid of the lust from moments ago and completely stripped of the smugness he wore by day.

“Do not coddle me, Ormund,” you croaked, your voice tight as he pressed another clean, warm towel gently over your lower abdomen for comfort, before pulling the sheets over you.

“You ride like a wanton, yet you are far from used to it,” he sighed softly, as if lamenting. “I would have been gentler, if I had known.”

You fell silent as shame coiled in your chest—a mirror of when you were just a young girl vying for his attention only to face the news of his impending wedding to another woman.

But he is taking care of you now, and you have become his lawfully-wedded wife. And in this quiet gesture, a dam broke in your memory— of a young man who draped his coat over your shoulder as you basked amidst the roses of Highgarden.

“You must be cold. Go inside already,” he would say, a smile crinkling the corners of his eyes.

You used to dream of his touch, his love, his everything. It was bittersweet how he was yours now, but you were torn between heartache and a desire to pay him back in full for what he had inflicted on you—the bitter, humiliating pain of not being chosen.

“Must you hate me that much?”

You blinked up at him, caught off guard. Ormund met your gaze with a certain sternness you had rarely seen from him.

“...to the point of hurting yourself?” he went on, his brow furrowing as he looked down at you. If you were bold enough, you would presume that it was concern that you saw in his eyes.

Yet… it only made that part of your heart clenched instead.

Why now? Why only after you had hated him enough to last a lifetime? Why only after you had spent nights crying yourself to sleep that he finally turn his eyes on you?

It was so fucking unfair.

“You presume too much, Ormund Hightower.”

Your response was biting cold, yet so soft and whispery. He blinked, a flicker of surprise crossing his features.

“Rest assured, in this very contractual marriage of ours, I have no intention of feeling anything for you,” you continued, your lips curving into a cruel smile. “Other than with my body.”

To your relief, not a single muscle in his jaw twitched, burying whatever thoughts your words had stirred in him.

He shook his head lightly, finally breaking your gaze, a ghost of a smile returning to his lips, though it never reached his eyes.

“So be it then,” Ormund murmured, his voice dropping to a low baritone that carried no warmth, only the absolute finality. “How regrettable though. One may mistake you as the rose, whereas you have long since become its thorns.”

Without waiting for your answer, he straightened, turning his back on you to dress, leaving you alone in the quiet wreck of the bedsheets.

You have done it. You had ensured that his affection would forever remain beyond your reach.

That may be so, but it did not mean the physical hunger between you regressed in the slightest

You had laid with him a few more times afterwards. Each encounter in his chambers was an exercise in numbing hearts— he took you with a demanding dominance that left you breathless and slick with sweat and pleasuring you as if you were the only woman he worshipped.

Yet, as soon as the sun rose, Ormund was back to his cynical self, his crooked smile and calculating gaze ever keen on you. He kept you at an arm’s length though since that night, strutting through the halls of the Hightower as the proud lord he was.

You truly believed you could kill that fragile part of your heart that still yearned for him, matching his coldness with your own pride.

Until the turn of the moon, at least.

“My lady... this is strange.”

The pale morning light filtered through the arched windows of your solar as your maid, Ellyn, tugged firmly at the laces of your corset. You stood before the tall silver mirror, waiting to be cinched into your dress.

“What is?” you asked, feeling how her fingers slipped on the laces.

Her hands smoothed over the small of your back as she tried once more to force the edges of the bodice together. “The laces simply won’t meet. It is as though it has shrunk.”

“Do not be foolish. Pull harder.”

“I am pulling, my lady, but...”

Ellyn hesitated, her eyes shifting to your reflection. Slowly, a realization dawned to her as she stepped to the side. “Oh, my...”

You looked at your reflection then, and for a moment, you forgot how to breathe.

There, beneath the unlaced corset, your normally slender waist held an unmistakable curve—a slight protrusion in your belly that had not been there a moon ago.

“Bless the Mother,” Ellyn whispered, her hands dropping away as a smile broke across her face, entirely unaware of how your breath had caught in your throat. She beamed at you, asking:

“My lady... your courses— when did you last bleed?”

. . .

“We will march for Tumbleton.”

You were pulled from your daze at the dining hall when Ormund’s voice broke your thoughts.

“You, however, are to remain in Oldtown,” he continued, adjusting the signet ring on his finger. “You know the city and the ledgers. I need a steady hand to rule it in my stead.”

His words passed by at first.

“I’m bringing my ward Daeron and his beast. I have also arranged for the merchant boy to have his hair dyed to stand in his place—”

“A double?” you asked, almost in disbelief. “If anyone notices the deception—”

“They won’t,” Ormund interrupted smoothly, a cold smile touching his lips. “People see what they expect to see. Silver hair, a fine cloth, and the right escort would do to make one a prince. It keeps the boy safe, and more importantly, it keeps our leverage intact. I’d wager sooner or later they’re going to demand his head.”

It was this exact cunning that had captivated you. He was a man who saw the board three moves ahead, possessing an intellect forged for the cruelties of war. The fact that your child would have him as father brought a wave of reassurance, somehow.

But at the same time, dread creeped in— with the news of his departure, the secret beneath your skirts suddenly felt twice as heavy.

Ormund paused, his sharp eyes narrowing as he caught the hollow look in your eyes. His lips crooked.

“No counsel to give? You already wear the expression of a widow grieving a husband lost to the war.”

The barb pierced through your fog, sparking a sudden flash of ire as you gave him a look. “Do not flatter yourself.”

“That’s more like it.” He rose from his seat with a low chuckle. He didn’t see the ghost that seemed to settle over you, nor the way your hand instinctively wanted to press against the fabric of your skirts.

There were barely two days before his banners moved out, and somehow you didn’t have it in you to let him go without any parting words.

“May the Seven guide your path.”

The hollow blessing tasted like ash in your mouth, but it caught his attention. Ormund paused and turned back to face you.

However, there was no warmth in his expression—only an expressionless stare that bore straight through your soul.

“I thank Her Ladyship for her blessing,” he said, his voice dropping into a formal cadence. “Though I find it unnecessary.”

Three weeks had passed since then, and even the air in Oldtown was thick with the apprehension of war.

With Ormund riding out to lead his host, the governing of the city fell upon your shoulders. While it was your first time doing so, you found that you possessed the head and patience for it.

And thankfully, it kept you busy enough to keep the ghost of him out of your thoughts.

Yet at the same time, unbeknownst to you, your devotion to the city made you a conspicuous target.

It happened on a gray morning while you were overseeing the distribution of rice near the harbor. Before your household guards could even draw their steel, men in dark cloaks had surrounded you and cut down the soldier closest to you—

“Lay down your swords!” you screamed, trembling as the smallfolk were sent into a cries of horror after the man’s blood splattered across the cobblestones.

The crowd erupted into a panicked frenzy, scattering like birds before a hawk. Your remaining guards hesitated, their blades shaking in their hands as the cloaked men closed the circle around you.

From the shadows of the docks, a man stepped forward. He wore a dun-colored cloak, his brigandine bore the banners of Targaryen black and red. Men loyal to the Queen Rhaenyra.

“Yes, yes...” the leader sneered, his voice cutting through the screams of the fleeing smallfolk. “Tell them to keep their steel sheathed, Lady Hightower, or we will turn these docks into a slaughterhouse.”

“You dare bring violence to Oldtown?” you demanded, your voice finding its steel despite the frantic pounding of your heart. “Lord Ormund will have your heads on spikes before the moon turns.”

The man laughed, a harsh, grating sound. “Oh don’t you know, my lady? Lord Ormund bit off more than he could chew. Even as we speak, he lies dying in a pool of his own blood in Tumbleton.”

The world seemed to tilt beneath your feet, leaving you hollowed out by an icy shock. Without thinking, your hand flew to your abdomen, your fingers pressing firmly against your velvet gown, trying to find something to hold.

Dying. The word echoed in your mind like a funeral knell. The fortress of ice you had built to protect your heart shattered. For all your vows of indifference, the thought of him bleeding into the dirt tore a jagged wound through your chest.

Your captain of the guards stepped in front of you, his sword raised. “My lady, we can take them. Run for the gates!”

“If a single blade is drawn, my men will cut these peasants,” the leader warned. “We will burn these docks, and every innocent soul on them will die because of your pride. Come with us quietly, or watch Oldtown bleed.”

You looked at the terrified faces of the very people you had spent weeks watching— the women holding their children close, the old men trembling behind the grain carts.

For years, Ormund had protected them as their lord. Even if he is now— No matter how, you couldn’t let his city fall.

You placed a firm hand on your captain’s arm , forcing his blade down. “Lower your sword,” you commanded quietly.

“But my lady—!”

“I said, lower it.” You stepped past him, lifting your chin, refusing to let these dogs see you tremble. Looking at the leader in the eye, you spat, “I will go with you. Spare the city, and let these people go.”

He gave a mocking bow. “A noble choice, Lady Hightower. The realm will remember your piety.”

A rough hand seized your arm, dragging you towards a waiting carriage. The smallfolk of Oldtown wept aloud as they watched their lady—the sweet rose who had looked after them these past few weeks—spirited away into a cage.

Only when the heavy door slammed shut and the iron bolt clicked into place did the stark reality finally crash over you.

Tears welled in your eyes, spilling down your cheeks as you cradled your belly and struggled to breathe under the crushing weight of the very possibility that the man you had once again fallen in love with might well be dead.

There were many things, in truth, that Ormund favored in you.

You always smelled of sweet roses— out of everything, that was probably what he liked the most.

The vast gardens of Highgarden suited you, and he remembered the girl you used to be, the one who had been too timid to look him in the eye at first, but who had beautifully worked herself up to be able to do so.

He knew of your affections— he has always known. It flattered him, though none but himself and the Gods would ever know that he, too, harbored a quiet fondness for the innocent Lady Tyrell.

His little rose. In truth, he had believed that someone so young and sweet as you shouldn’t be bound to a man like him. His late wife—rest her soul, for he had been fond of her too, though it was never a blind, consuming love—had been different. She had been compliant, and more than ready to submit herself to her wifely duties, and she was who he needed when he first took on the mantle of the Lord of Oldtown.

The Gods are cruel, as all men know, especially when his dutiful wife died in a tragedy and he had to turn to House Tyrell to aid his house in its conquest for the throne— only to find you, his rose, still very much beautiful and unwed.

However, that sweet rose has grown thorns. So sharp the thorns that he has almost forgotten how soft the petals are.

You no longer stuttered and conducted yourself with pride that both vexed and captivated him. In the beginning, he had been intrigued by the woman you had become because he was convinced that the gentle little lady of his memories was still there, waiting to be coaxed out.

That was why on the day he took you to his bed and realized the truth—that you were merely performing and he had been anything but gentle—he drew the line.

But you merely looked at him with eyes as cold as winter.

“Rest assured, in this very contractual marriage of ours, I have no intention of feeling anything for you.”

Every time those words echoed in his mind, it felt as though a dagger were piercing his lungs.

. . .

“Lord Ormund! My lord! Thank the Gods you’re back!”

Tumbleton had been a bloodbath, and he barely survived it himself—a blade having pierced his armor and a hair’s breadth from his heart. But the market city had fallen, the Blacks had been broken there with the betrayals of two of their own dragonriders, and in the grand game of thrones, that was all that truly mattered.

However, the moment he stepped his foot back at Oldtown after six weeks, the atmosphere in his own home were grim— his household servants were openly relieved, some almost weeping, as if he was a ghost returned from the grave.

“They told us you were dead, my lord,” the head guard told him somberly. “We thought all was lost.”

“A blatant lie made to weaken our morale,” Ormund hissed, his hand dropping to the pommel of his sword as his wound ached. “Tumbleton has fallen, and I’m far from the grave.”

Still, he sensed something dreadful had occurred by how mournful the maidservants were—

“My lord!”

Before Ormund could demand what had happened in his absence, a shrill voice cut through. Ellyn, your faithful handmaiden, pushed past the other servants, her eyes were red-rimmed from days of crying.

She fell to her knees, clutching desperately at the hem of his traveling cloak.

“You must help her, Lord Ormund! You must bring her back!”

A cold knot of dread coiled in his stomach. He looked down at the trembling girl, his brow furrowing deeply.

And the words she uttered next, as she looked up at him with tear-streaked cheeks, made his blood run colder than when he saw dragons burning Tumbleton.

“The lady! Three weeks ago, while the city was fooled by the news of your death, the false queen’s men took her away!”

They had taken you to Tumbleton.

The market city was ravaged beyond repair. For three weeks now, they had held you hostage in a makeshift holdfast. They gave you barely enough bread and water to keep you alive, and as the days bled together, your hope withered to nothing.

Your unborn child, who grew heavier by the day beneath your heart, was the only thing left to give you the strength to survive this madness.

And as if your situation weren’t desperate enough, through the timber door of your cell, the muffled voices of your captors reached your ears. They were conversing in frantic, hushed tones.

“The smallfolk are rioting in King’s Landing. They’re storming the Dragonpit. The Queen is fleeing!”

“Then what of us? What of the woman?” another rasped.

“Leave her. If the Hightowers find us here, they’ll flay us alive. Set the fire. Let the ashes cover our tracks.”

Alarmed and struck by a sudden, feral terror, you flung yourself against the door.

“Let me out!” You screamed for help, your voice raw, hitting the wood until your knuckles bled.

But the only response was a thud, followed by the crackling of fire and pitch. Smoke and heat began to seep through, as the chamber was slowly being consumed. You were trapped.

Realizing you would soon meet your demise, the strength left your legs, and you collapsed into the dirt, trembling with tears.

I would die, Ormund already did, and I have never told him.

You bitterly regretted never telling him that you were with his child.

As the heat grew unbearable, your mind drifted away to the sun-drenched rose gardens of your home, where you and Ormund Hightower had first met.

He is devilishly handsome and gentle. Your first love who had broken your heart once, but still owns it to this very day, when you would breath your last.

The black smoke filled your lungs, choking the breath from your throat. Your vision began to tunnel, the edges of the room blurring into darkness as you surrenderred to the Stranger.

Then, through the flames, a sudden, violent crash echoed— the sharp ring of steel slicing through. Through your fading, tear-blurred sight, a figure burst through the burning doorway.

You could have sworn you saw the shimmering edge of Vigilance cleaving through the smoke, its blade gleaming. That was the Valyrian steel your husband wielded.

Was it a cruel figment of your dying imagination?

But then, the heat of the fire was eclipsed by the fierce, solid weight of heavy arms wrapping around you, lifting you from the ground. And right against your ear, came a trembling voice you recognized:

“I have you,” Ormund whispered, his voice cracking with a raw emotion you had never heard from him before.

“Hold on to me. I have you, dearest.”

The next time you awoke, you were in his bedchambers in the Hightower.

The suffocating stench of smoke and pitch was gone, replaced by the familiar, comforting scent of the crisp sea breeze blowing off the Whispering Sound. The moment your eyes fluttered open, you saw him.

He was staring down at you, his dark eyes ringed with exhaustion, but shadowed with a profound relief. He was only in a loose linen tunic that showed the bandages wrapping his chest.

“Ormund...?” your voice was a broken rasp. You reached out a trembling hand, terrified your fingers would pass right through him. “Are you... are you truly here? T-they told me you were slain—”

His eyes softened, and he smiled. Not the crooked one or a smirk, but the sincere, tender smile you had fallen in love with ten years ago.

“I’m here,” he assured, his deep voice and scent wrapping around you as he took hold of your hand.

Your first tear fell, and your voice broke into a sob then. Ormund pulled you gently but fiercely into his arms, tucking your head beneath his chin, and you clung to him, burying your head into his chest, weeping for the horror you had survived and the miracle of his embrace.

Slowly, he pulled away. His hand moved from your hair to cup your jaw, tilting your face up. The sorrow in his eyes flared into something primal— and he pressed his lips to yours in a deep, passionate kiss.

He drank you in as if you were the only life-giving water in a world reduced to ash, and you kissed him back with everything you had left. You had the man you loved returned to you, and he had the sweet rose he cherished safe in his arms.

When he finally pulled away, both of your breaths coming in ragged gasps. The tender silence stretched between you, but then Ormund’s gaze drifted downwards.

His large, warm palm rested against your belly, a knowing look in his blue eyes.

“Must you hide so many things from me?” he asked softly, his gaze boring into yours with an intensity that made your heart skip.

“I... I was—”

“Would you continue to do so if I told you that now, it is you who holds my entire heart and soul in the palm of your hand?”

You didn’t even dare to blink, and he held your gaze and a bittersweet smile touched his lips.

“I have always longed for that lady amidst the field of roses,” he murmured, his voice dropping to a rough, impassioned whisper. “Even though she knows nothing of it, even though I know she is too pretty for the likes of me, and even though I have broken her heart... I still selfishly wished I could have her for myself.”

“Ormund...” Your lips wobbled, ingesting every word as the tears pooled fresh in your eyes.

“So know that even if roses bear thorns,” he continued, his thumb brushing a fallen tear from your cheek. “I would gladly suffer a thousand cuts from now on, so long as I am the only one who gets to hold you.”

That was everything you needed to hear. You surrendered yourself to his embrace again, letting him kiss the crown of your head.

Dragons might continue to dance and the kingdoms would burn, but in that fleeting moment within the walls of the Hightower, the bloodstained game of thrones ceased to matter—

For the lord had reclaimed his lady, and their story might lead to a fairytale after all.

[jacefiles]

DJ JXCE || J.V

Synopsis: He's been sneaking around for weeks. Late nights, mystery calls, unexplained perfume and you’re convinced he's cheating. Turns out he's just secretly a masked DJ who never worked up the nerve to tell you.

⤷ Based on THIS request

Word Count: 5.3k

Pairing: Modern!Jacaerys Velaryon x Reader

Genre: Modern au, dj jace, established relationship

Warning: themes of infidelity (don’t worry it doesn’t happen), a little angst but not too much, Misunderstanding, inaccuracy about DJ equipment perhaps?

A/N: This took longer than I expected cuz I was lowkey confused how I should describe the DJing in the club. I had to research 😭 this is not proofread!

Divider Credits: @pixopix

The story of how Jace ended up in this situation was, depending on who you asked, either hilarious or mortifying. Honestly, it was probably both.

It started with mosquitoes, or at least that's how he always told it. Those first months of the semester when nothing had been due, when every professor seemed content to let the syllabus gather dust while the whole lecture hall sat half asleep.

Then, almost overnight, the dam broke. Presentations, projects, quizzes, and group assignments crashed down all at once, like all the professors on campus had conspired over the summer to make October miserable.

Jace came home one evening looking like a man drafted into a war nobody warned him about, dropping his bag on the floor with a groan so loud that Cregan, sprawled across the bed scrolling his phone, glanced up.

"I need a hobby," Jace announced. “Something with my hands. Something that has nothing to do with uni.”

"Pottery," Cregan offered, having gone back to scrolling on his phone.

"I'm not making a bowl, Cregan."

"Knitting, then."

"I will end you where you sit."

In the end it was DJ equipment. A secondhand controller he found online for less than he probably should have paid, studio headphones that cost more than he wanted to admit, and mixing software that took him the better part of a week and several unhinged YouTube tutorials to even partially understand.

It was supposed to be nothing more than a pressure valve. Something to occupy his hands at two in the morning when his brain was too fried for essays but too wired for sleep.

He turned out to be good at it almost immediately, because Jace tended to be good at things he never tried very hard at. Within a couple of weeks he had a small stack of remixes he was quietly proud of. It was Cregan who ruined everything, leaning over his shoulder one night while Jace worked through something moody and bass heavy.

"You should post this."

"Absolutely not."

"Why not? It's good."

"It's good and it's embarrassing. Both things can be true at once."

They filmed the video anyway. They dug up an old masquerade mask from the back of a costume shop, black and gold and faintly sinister, and Jace pulled on the only all black outfit he owned. They posted the clip expecting maybe forty views from people who already knew him.

Instead it hit four million views in two days.

Jace remembered sitting frozen at three in the morning staring at his phone while Cregan practically vibrated beside him reading comment after comment. People loved the mystery of a faceless DJ appearing out of nowhere, and within a week actual clubs were reaching out with actual money for a persona he'd built essentially as a joke to survive midterms.

DJ JXCE was born, and you would never let him live down the name.

"You had four million people watching and that's what you went with," you told him later, the first time he explained the whole saga. "JXCE. Like your name. With an X."

"It felt cool at the time."

"It felt like you ran out of ideas halfway through."

"Also true."

By this time the two of you had been together for over a year, Jace was quietly living two entirely separate lives. By day he was exactly what he'd always been, a stressed business student who complained about his professors and fell asleep on your shoulder mid study session and still aced everything. By night, several times a week, he became someone else, hidden behind a mask, holding a room in the palm of his hand.

Somewhere in between, poor Cregan had accidentally become his assistant, publicist, hype man, and emotional support system all at once.

The problem was that Jace never told you. Not because he didn't trust you, but because he was embarrassed. He told himself every week that the next quiet moment would be the one where he finally brought it up, and every week his nerve failed him right as the moment arrived.

Which was how a string of entirely avoidable misunderstandings began.

┈┈・୨ ✦ ୧・┈┈

The first crack showed up on an otherwise lovely Tuesday afternoon. You'd been looking forward to it all week, nothing elaborate, just a walk to the little café near campus for the lattes you both liked. You'd even picked out what to wear the night before, which felt silly for a coffee run, but Jace had a way of making ordinary afternoons feel like something worth dressing for.

You'd barely made it two blocks before his phone buzzed. You watched something shift in his face the second he saw the screen, a flicker of tension so quick you almost convinced yourself you'd imagined it.

"Sorry, one second," he murmured, already stepping away, phone pressed to his ear.

You busied yourself with a shop window, though it was hard not to catch the sharp, hushed edge in his voice.

No, absolutely not. Don’t tell them that, are you insane.

A long pause, then a defeated exhale.

Fine, I'll be there.

He hung up and turned back to you already wincing.

"Everything okay?"

"Yeah, just." He rubbed the back of his neck, not quite meeting your eyes. "Urgent thing. I'm so sorry, I have to go handle something."

"Right now?"

"Right now." He kissed your forehead quickly. "I'll make it up to you, promise."

Then he was gone, jogging off toward whatever Cregan needed, and you stood alone, watching his back retreat until he turned the corner and disappeared entirely.

You told yourself it was nothing. A group project crisis, probably. A professor being unreasonable about a deadline. You sat on a bench and drank both lattes yourself, and told yourself the small, hollow feeling in your chest was just disappointment about a canceled coffee date, nothing more complicated than that.

It didn't quite feel like just that. But you didn't have a name for what else it might be yet, so you let it sit, unexamined, and walked home alone.

Three days later it happened again, this time at a study session that had barely started, books spread out between you two and Jace had lasted all of eleven minutes before his phone lit up silently against the wood.

He didn't answer it there. He just stared at the screen for a second too long, jaw tightening, then gathered it up and murmured something about needing air.

Through the glass wall of the study room you watched him pace a tight little circle in the hallway, one hand dragging through his hair, voice too muffled to make out but the tension in his shoulders unmistakable even from a distance. You found yourself watching him more than your notes, trying to read the shape of whatever this was in the way he stood.

When he came back he dropped into his seat like nothing had happened, opening his textbook to a page he clearly wasn't reading.

"Everything okay?" you asked, echoing yourself from days before without meaning to, and hating a little how quickly the question had become a reflex.

"Fine. Just Cregan being dramatic."

"About what?"

"Nothing important." He said it too fast, eyes fixed on the textbook. "Don't worry about it."

You let it go, mostly because you didn't have a reason not to yet, and partly because some quieter, more anxious part of you was already afraid of what asking twice might turn up. You noticed the way his knee bounced under the table for the rest of the session, and the way he checked his phone four more times without ever fully relaxing, and you spent the rest of the evening pretending you hadn't noticed either.

A week after that you'd planned an entire sleepover, face masks and terrible movies and the skincare set you kept at his place because he loved how soft his skin felt afterward. You'd been looking forward to it practically vibrating with joy.

You were in his kitchen making popcorn when his phone lit up on the counter, and you watched him go rigid.

"Who's that?" you asked, half joking, though something in you was already bracing.

"No one."

"No one is calling you?"

He glanced at the screen, something flickering across his face. "It's Cregan." Somehow that answer made things feel worse. "I'll be right back."

You told yourself to let it go again, but a small question about the movie pulled you after him without much thought. You didn't mean to eavesdrop, not really. You told yourself that afterward, over and over, as if the intention mattered more than what you heard.

But his voice carried, low and urgent, from just around the corner.

No, not tonight. Because I'm with her.

Something about the word her made your stomach drop clean through the floor. You stood frozen in the hallway, one hand pressed flat against the wall, feeling suddenly, stupidly exposed, like the floor had shifted under a house you'd thought was solid.

Tell them I'll make it up to them, he continued, then sharper, don't say it like that, I'm not choosing favorites, that's not what this is.

Choosing favourites… not her…them.

You backed away as quietly as you'd come, heart suddenly loud in your ears, throat tight with something you didn't want to name yet. By the time Jace reappeared looking sheepish and distracted, you'd already half convinced yourself you'd misheard, because the alternative was too big to hold standing up.

"Sorry about that," he said, wrapping an arm around your shoulders. "Where were we?"

"Nowhere," you said, quieter than you meant to. "It's fine."

His smile looked strained at the edges. You noticed it and committed it to memory something you’d started doing with every small thing lately, building a case you didn’t want to have evidence for.

Not ten minutes later he was rubbing the back of his neck again, a habit you'd started to recognize as a warning sign.

"So," he started, and you already knew what was coming. "I actually have to go. I forgot about this project thing."

"Now? It's nine at night."

"I know, terrible timing, I'm sorry."

He kissed your cheek on his way out, quick and slightly off center, more escape than affection. You stood alone in his apartment surrounded by unwatched movies and untouched face masks, feeling something cold settle into your chest, and for the first time let yourself actually think the word you'd been avoiding.

Cheating.

You hated how quickly it came once you let it in. You hated more that once you'd thought it, you couldn't quite stop.

There was no way Jace would cheat on you. And yet the doubt had already found a foothold, small and cold, and it didn't leave when you turned off the lights and lay in his bed alone, staring at the ceiling, waiting for a version of him that didn't come back that night.

┈┈・୨ ✦ ୧・┈┈

Against your better judgment, you decided to ask Cregan. In hindsight, this was possibly the worst decision of the entire ordeal, though at the time it felt like the only thread you had left to pull.

You cornered him after a class you shared, and the moment you said Jace's name, his face ran through an entire visible spectrum of panic before settling on something like terror.

"What is he hiding?" you asked, and heard your own voice come out smaller than you meant it to, less like an accusation and more like a plea.

"It's, um. Complicated."

"What does that mean?"

"He's just not ready yet. For certain things."

The phrase landed like a stone in your stomach, and you had to look away for a second to keep your face from doing something you didn't want him to see.

"Not ready for what, Cregan?"

"I've said too much already," he muttered, and then he was gone, leaving you standing in the hallway with your books clutched to your chest, while your thoughts spiraled into every worst version of that sentence you could construct.

You replayed it for days. Not ready yet for certain things. Your mind, unhelpfully, kept building out the story none of it had actually confirmed, filling silence with the worst possible shape, because silence was somehow harder to sit with than even bad news would have been.

Then came the group chat.

Your roommate sent it first, a screenshot of some fan account speculating about DJ JXCE's real identity, alongside a caption that read ok but who IS this man, I need him immediately. You liked the post absentmindedly, half paying attention, laughing along with the group chat without really looking at it.

What you didn't know was that Jace had seen the notification pop up on your shared streaming account an hour later, your name attached to a like on a thirst post about the masked DJ he happened to be. He'd gone quiet and strange for the rest of that evening, and you'd chalked it up to exam stress, never once guessing the real reason, which was that your own boyfriend had briefly, irrationally, felt a flicker of jealousy over a version of himself.

You noticed the quiet, though. It just added one more strange, unexplained thread to the growing tangle between you, one more night you fell asleep further from him than you wanted to be.

The perfume came next. Jace showed up one evening later than he'd said, hair damp as though he'd rushed through a shower, and when you hugged him hello something unfamiliar and floral hit you immediately.

You pulled back fast, eyes narrowing. "Why do you smell like perfume?"

"What? I don't."

"You do. Women's perfume."

"Could be unisex."

"It is not unisex, Jace. My friend wears this exact scent."

He laughed, a strange nervous sound. "Maybe I mixed up one of my mom's bottles by accident."

You stared at him. He stared back, guilt written plainly across his face, he clearly believed he was hiding better than he was. Something in you wanted, badly, to believe the bottle excuse, and hated yourself a little for how easily you almost did, just because believing it was easier than the alternative.

Against every instinct, you let it go. Barely.

That night you lay awake beside him longer than usual, listening to him breathe, running through every version of an explanation that didn't end with him lying to your face. None of them felt convincing anymore. You found yourself doing something you'd never done before, quietly cataloguing his absences like you were building a timeline, and hating that this was who you'd become, someone keeping score in the dark next to the person you loved.

Two nights later, you actually caught him mid lie, or close enough to feel like it.

You'd stopped by his apartment unannounced, a rare thing for you, planning to surprise him with food from the place he liked, telling yourself the gesture might close some of the distance that had opened up without either of you naming it. Cregan answered the door instead, eyes going wide with the particular panic you'd come to associate with him whenever your name came up.

"He's not here," Cregan said, too quickly.

"His car's outside."

"He's, uh. Sleeping. Really deeply. Can't be disturbed."

Behind him, muffled but unmistakable, you heard the low thump of bass through the wall, and Jace's voice, distant and animated, clearly not asleep at all.

"He's sleeping," you repeated flatly.

"Very deeply," Cregan said again, wincing at his own words even as they left his mouth.

You didn't push past him. You didn't demand answers. Some part of you was almost afraid to, afraid of what you might see if you did. You just stood there a moment, food going cold in your hands, feeling something inside you go quiet and hurt because anger at least gave you somewhere to put it.

"Tell him I stopped by," you said, and left before Cregan could stammer out anything else, walking back to your car with your eyes stinging the whole way, furious at yourself for crying over something you didn't even have proof of yet.

┈┈・୨ ✦ ୧・┈┈

The final straw arrived three weeks later, at five in the morning, in the dead quiet of your apartment.

You hadn't planned to be awake. You'd simply found yourself sitting upright on the couch in the dark, some instinct telling you he was coming even though he hadn't texted. You sat there with your knees tucked to your chest, watching the door, running through weeks of small evidence like beads on a string, and feeling, underneath all of it, a grief you hadn't let yourself feel yet.

When the lock finally clicked, you didn't move.

The door opened and there he was. Leather jacket, matching pants, heavy boots, a button down shirt half undone. His hair was a wrecked, sweaty mess, something faintly glittering across his collarbone. A backpack hung off one shoulder.

You reached over and switched on the lamp beside the couch.

Jace froze in the doorway as if he'd been shot.

"Oh," he said faintly. "You're up."

You stood slowly, arms crossed, and it took everything in you to keep your voice from shaking. "Who is she?"

His face went blank. "What?"

"The girl. The one you're cheating on me with." Saying it out loud made it real in a way that terrified you, and some small, stubborn part of you had been hoping until that exact second that he'd laugh, that he'd say something that made all of it dissolve.

The backpack slid off his shoulder and hit the floor. "What? I'm not, what are you even talking about?"

"The calls, Jace. The late nights. The perfume. Cregan lying to my face about you. The way you disappear the second your phone rings." Your voice cracked, tears finally spilling over, weeks of held breath breaking loose all at once. "Just tell me the truth. Please. I would rather know than keep doing this to myself."

"There's no truth to tell, I swear, I haven't been-" He stopped, something shifting behind his eyes. "Oh my god. You think I've been cheating on you."

"What else was I supposed to think?" The words tore out of you, raw and scared, weeks of careful composure gone. "I've been lying awake for weeks convincing myself I was being paranoid. Just break up with me if you don't want to be with me anymore. I can handle that. I can't handle not knowing."

"No." He said it immediately, closing the distance between you, his own voice cracking now too. "No, absolutely not, I am not cheating on you. I would never- you have to know that, whatever else this looks like."

"Then explain it!"

He stared at you, chest heaving, then let out a long, strangled groan and dropped to his knees in front of his bag, unzipping it with shaking hands. The contents spilled across the floor. A laptop, tangled cables, headphones, a handful of USB drives.

You stared down at the mess, utterly lost, the fear still humming underneath everything else, not yet ready to let go of it.

"I'm a DJ," he said, looking up at you, and something in his face had gone open and unguarded in a way you rarely saw. "I'm the DJ. The one in the videos, the mask, all of it, that's been me this whole time. Cregan's my manager. It started as a joke during exams and it got completely out of hand, and I never told you because I felt stupid, and then I felt too far in to bring it up without it looking like I'd been hiding something, which I was, which just made it worse."

"Wait." You held up a hand, something clicking together slowly, weeks of fear starting to give way to something dizzier. "The masquerade mask. The one my roommate has screenshotted a hundred times. That's you?"

"...yes."

Something in your chest cracked open with the force of understanding all at once, relief and disbelief and the last of the fear draining out of you so fast it left you a little unsteady. "Oh my god."

"I need you to believe me." He reached for your hands, and you let him take them, feeling how badly his own were shaking. "There is no other girl. There has never been another girl. It has always just been you. I know I gave you every reason to think otherwise, and I hate that, I hate that I did that to you."

And then, because your body apparently needed to release weeks of pent up anxiety through violence, you smacked his arm, hard.

"You absolute idiot." Another smack. "Do you know what the last three weeks have been like for me? You were acting like a criminal for weeks. Sneaking off, whispering on the phone, coming home smelling like perfume-"

"People hug me at events, that's not-"

"Disappearing every time your phone rang like you were hiding a body-"

"I was hiding contracts-"

"Cregan told me you were asleep, Jace, while I could hear you through the wall-"

"That was supposed to be a secret set for a fund, I panicked-"

"I thought you were cheating on me!" The words cracked out of you along with a fresh wave of tears, all the exhaustion of holding that fear alone finally breaking through. "I spent weeks lying to myself so I wouldn't have to ask you directly, because some part of me was scared that if I did, you'd actually say yes."

His expression shattered completely at that, all the frustration draining out of him at once. "Hey." He pulled you into his chest, one hand coming up to cradle the back of your head. "Come here, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I never wanted you carrying that alone. I should have seen what all of this looked like from where you were standing."

You cried into his shirt, which still smelled faintly of smoke and stage fog. His hand moved slowly up and down your back, steady and warm.

"I should have told you from the beginning," he said quietly, into your hair. "I was embarrassed, I didn't want you to think I was some try hard idiot playing dress up on weekends. And then the longer I waited the scarier it got, and I let that fear cost you weeks of thinking I might be the kind of person who'd do that to you. I'm never going to forgive myself for that part."

You pulled back far enough to look at him, still sniffling, but something steadier settling in your chest now. "You are cool, Jace. You could be the biggest loser on this entire campus and I would still like you exactly the same. But please, from now on, if something's eating at you, tell me. I'd rather sit with a hard truth next to you than a good guess alone."

Something in his expression softened completely. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." You wiped at your eyes, a watery laugh escaping despite everything. "Also Cregan is the worst secret keeper I have ever met. He basically confessed everything just by looking guilty. Multiple times."

Jace groaned, dropping his forehead against your shoulder. "I'm going to kill him."

"You should thank him. He's the reason I found out at five in the morning instead of five months from now."

"I was going to tell you eventually."

"Sure you were."

"I was!"

You laughed properly this time, and he pulled back just enough to kiss you, soft and lingering, like an apology and a promise both.

"I love you," he murmured against your mouth. "In case that got lost somewhere in all the chaos."

"I love you too. Even though you're apparently a secret celebrity."

"Please don't call me a celebrity, that's so much worse than DJ."

"I'm never letting either of those go."

Later that night, once the tears had dried and the adrenaline had faded, the two of you sat together on your bed, your cheek resting against his shoulder while he opened his laptop and finally showed you everything.

Folders full of tracks. Software he navigated with a confidence you'd seen from him in class. Careful explanations of BPM matching and vocal isolation, delivered with a quiet enthusiasm that made your chest ache fondly.

"This is how I match tempos between songs," he said, pointing at a waveform, "and this separates the vocals so I can layer them differently."

"This is genuinely so cool," you admitted.

"You mean that?"

"I do. Also slightly betrayed you hid an entire secret talent from me for months. But yes. Cool."

He laughed, opening another folder, then went suddenly still, a strange snort escaping him. When you asked what was funny, he silently turned the screen toward you.

A playlist title stared back: Aemond Diss Set Vol. 4.

You burst out laughing loud enough that he had to shush you through his own laughter. "You made four of these?"

"He deserves every single one."

By the time he moved on to transitions and cue points, your eyes had started drooping. Half asleep, you mumbled against his shoulder that he should take you with him next time, to one of his sets.

He went still a moment, then answered softly that he'd like that.

┈┈・୨ ✦ ୧・┈┈

He kept his word the following weekend.

You spent an embarrassing amount of time deciding what to wear, texting your roommate three separate outfit photos before settling on something you hoped looked like it belonged in a club instead of a lecture hall. Jace picked you up looking almost unrecognizable already, dressed down in a plain hoodie with the mask and everything else stuffed in a duffel bag, like he was smuggling his other self across state lines.

"You get nervous before these?" you asked in the car, watching his fingers tap an unconscious rhythm against the steering wheel.

"Every time." He glanced at you, a small, crooked smile. "Different kind of nervous than exams, though. Better kind."

The venue was a private club downtown, with a strict guest list and a bouncer who barely looked up from his clipboard until he saw Jace's face, at which point his whole posture changed.

Backstage was a cramped little room behind a black curtain, mirror rimmed in bare bulbs, a rolling rack of clothes that were unmistakably not Jace's usual wardrobe. Cregan met you at the door looking more professional than you had ever seen him, wearing glasses he probably didn't need and clutching an iPad like it was his lifeline.

"Absolutely not what I expected from you," you told him.

"You have no idea," he muttered, already scrolling through something with the sound tech. "Green room's through there. Try not to distract him too much, we go live in forty."

You watched Jace get ready, and it was strange in a way you hadn't braced for, watching your boyfriend disappear piece by piece into someone else. He pulled on black leather pants that fit like a second skin, tucked in a fitted button down he left mostly undone at the collar, and shrugged into the same black leather jacket from that morning a week ago, the one that had made you think the worst. A thin silver chain caught the light against his throat. He rolled up his sleeves to his forearms, and when he ran a hand back through his hair to mess it into something deliberately unkempt, you felt something low and unfamiliar twist in your stomach.

"Stop staring," he said without turning around, catching your reflection in the mirror.

"I'm not staring."

"You're staring."

"You look different," you admitted. "Good different. Just different."

He turned around then, and even without the mask yet there was already something shifted in the way he held himself, shoulders squared, chin lifted, the faint slouch he always carried from hunching over textbooks completely gone. Then he picked up the mask off the counter, black and gold, and slid it into place, and the transformation finished itself right in front of you.

"How do I look?" His voice came out slightly muffled, teasing.

"Like a stranger I'd very much like to talk to," you said honestly, and his low laugh under the mask did something dangerous to your pulse.

Cregan stuck his head through the curtain. "Ten minutes."

The club itself was already heaving by the time you and Cregan made your way through a side door onto the small elevated platform beside the booth, the crowd a dark churning mass beyond the edge of the stage lights. Fog machines pumped thin curling trails across the floor. Lasers sliced green and violet through the haze in sharp geometric bursts, catching on raised hands and sweat slicked shoulders. The bass from the warm-up set was already a physical thing, a pressure you felt behind your sternum before you'd even reached the booth.

Thanks to what Jace jokingly called your girlfriend privileges, you were allowed close enough to feel the metal decking hum beneath your shoes.

Then the warm-up DJ stepped back, the lights dropped to near black, and a low voice over the sound system announced him.

"Ladies and gentlemen. DJ JXCE."

The crowd's reaction hit like a wave, a wall of noise that made the hair on your arms stand up. A single spotlight cut down onto the booth, and there he was, mask gleaming black and gold under the light, both hands raised slowly over his head like he was commanding the room to hold its breath.

He let the silence stretch a beat too long, the whole crowd hanging on it, and then he dropped his hands onto the deck and the first track exploded out of the speakers.

You had never seen Jace move like that. Not once. Not at parties, not dancing badly in his kitchen while cooking, not even the handful of times you'd dragged him out to actual clubs where he mostly stood at the edge nursing a drink and looking faintly uncomfortable.

This was someone else entirely, someone who owned every inch of the small platform he stood on. His whole body moved with the track, not just his hands on the controller but his shoulders, his hips, the roll of his neck as a bassline dropped and the crowd screamed back at him. One hand rode the crossfader while the other pumped a fist into the air, urging the room higher, and they answered him instantly, hundreds of hands shooting up in unison like he'd pulled a string tied to every one of them.

He worked the deck with a fluency you hadn't fully understood even after the laptop tutorial back at his apartment. His fingers moved across the pads in quick bursts, layering in a vocal chop, riding a filter sweep up until the whole room seemed to inhale, and then cutting the bass entirely for one suspended, electric second before slamming it back in. The crowd's collective scream when the drop hit was so loud it rattled through the room.

He prowled the length of the booth as he played, never fully still, boots hitting the platform in time with the kick drum, leather jacket catching the strobing lights every time he turned. At one point he grabbed the mic clipped to the stand beside him and leaned into it, voice low and rough through the mask, telling the crowd to get their hands up, telling them he couldn't hear them, and the roar that answered him was deafening.

He wasn't just playing music at them. He was performing, feeding off them, giving it right back tenfold, and they were eating out of his hand.

Sweat had started to darken the collar of his shirt within the first twenty minutes, dark strands of hair sticking to his forehead beneath the edge of the mask. He didn't seem to notice or care. Every few tracks he'd glance up toward the platform where you stood, and even through the mask, even with a few hundred people between you, you could feel it when he found you, could feel the small private smile hidden behind the black and gold.

Once he pointed straight at you mid transition, just a flash of a gesture before both hands went back to the deck, and the girls nearest the stage turned to see who he'd singled out, and you felt your whole face go hot despite the cool club air.

Around the halfway mark he did something that made Cregan groan audibly beside you. He cued up a fire set, an honest to god fire set, twin jets of flame erupting from either side of the booth timed exactly to the drop of a track you recognized from one of his practice sessions weeks ago, something he'd played you half asleep on his laptop that you'd had no idea was destined for this.

The heat of it washed over the front rows and the crowd went absolutely feral, phones up everywhere, capturing him silhouetted against twin columns of fire, mask glinting, one arm thrown up triumphant while the other kept the mix rolling without missing a single beat.

"He asked for the flame cues without telling me the timing," Cregan muttered, half laughing, half exasperated, watching his own screen. "I nearly had a heart attack."

Somewhere in the transition between two tracks he ripped off his jacket entirely and flung it toward the side of the stage without looking, revealing the shirt beneath sticking damply to his shoulders, sleeves shoved further up his forearms, and the crowd screamed like he'd done something far more significant than take off outerwear.

You found yourself dancing without ever deciding to, swept up in the same current pulling everyone else, laughing at how easily your body had given in.

Near the end of the set, he slowed things down deliberately, easing the tempo into something moodier and heavier, the bass sitting low and sultry under a vocal sample that looped and stretched until the whole club seemed to sway together instead of jump.

By the final track, his hair was completely soaked through, shirt clinging to his back, chest visibly heaving with the effort of an hour spent moving nonstop, and he still hadn't lost an ounce of the manic, magnetic energy that had carried the whole set. He ended it exactly the way he'd started, both arms thrown up as the last beat cut to silence, the crowd's scream filling the space where the music had been, and for one long moment he just stood there under the spotlight, chest rising and falling, letting the sound wash over him.

Then he turned, found you immediately even through the mask, and pointed at you again, more deliberate this time, before Cregan was already pulling him off toward the side exit and a wall of people trying to reach the booth.

Backstage he was still buzzing when you found him, mask pushed up onto his sweat damp hair, cheeks flushed, breathing hard, grinning in a way you'd genuinely never seen on him before, not after exams, not after anything. He looked wrecked and thrilled and completely, unmistakably alive.

"So," he said, pulling you against him despite the state of his shirt. "What'd you think?"

"I think," you said slowly, "that I have never in my life seen you move like that."

"Good different or bad different?"

"Extremely good different." You reached up, pushing the mask fully off his head and setting it aside. "You set the stage on fire, Jace."

"Cregan's idea. Well- my idea, his logistics."

"You pointed at me. In front of four hundred people."

"I wanted them to know." He said it simply, honestly, still catching his breath. "That you're mine. That you were there."

Something in your chest went warm and soft despite the pounding bass still ringing faintly in your ears. "You're ridiculous."

"You don’t seem to be complaining.”

"I’m not." you admitted, and kissed him before he could say anything else, not caring in the slightest that he tasted like sweat.

By the end of the night, buzzed on secondhand champagne and pure adrenaline, the two of you sat together outside the club in the cool night air, his jacket draped over your shoulders now instead of his.

"You're the coolest person I know," you told him honestly.

He laughed, soft and disbelieving. "Yeah?"

"I know so. I watched four hundred strangers lose their minds over you tonight."

He went quiet a moment, some of the performer's swagger fading back into the version of him you knew best, the one who overthought everything at two in the morning. "I should have told you from the start. I'm sorry I let it drag on so long."

"It's okay," you said, and meant it. "Just don't forget who I am once you're some famous masked DJ with sold out shows."

He gasped, mock offended. "I would never forget my sweet girl."

Then he kissed you, slow and warm, right there under the streetlights, and everything that had felt so uncertain weeks earlier finally settled into something solid and unshakably good.

┈┈・୨ ✦ ୧・┈┈

BONUS 😉:

It was one of those mandatory gatherings the entire Targaryen-Velaryon family dreaded and somehow never managed to escape, orchestrated by Viserys with the quiet insistence of a man who refused to acknowledge how deeply his family disliked being in the same room together. Jace had asked you to come along specifically so he'd have someone on his side before he got frustrated enough to throw a punch.

The table was, as always, a masterclass in barely restrained mess. Aegon and Lucerys were locked in some tense, whispered argument. Rhaenyra sat with her head in one hand. Alicent was quietly working through her third glass of wine. Viserys sat at the head of the table pretending not to notice any of it. Aemond kept sending long, calculating looks toward Jace.

At least Helaena was pleasant company, cheerfully telling you about her latest bug collection and the chicken coop she'd been building.

Then Joffrey, scrolling on his phone, suddenly snorted loudly enough that everyone turned to look at him.

"Sorry," he said, not sounding sorry at all. "Just saw this DJ posted a new set. Apparently it's another one dissing Uncle Aemond."

Jace choked on his water so violently you had to shove a napkin into his hands before he ruined the tablecloth.

Aemond's expression went ice cold. "And?"

Joffrey squinted at his screen. "The title is, uh." A pause. "Certified One Eye Hater Mix Volume Five."

The table went utterly silent.

Aemond rose slowly from his chair, both hands slamming flat against the table. "I will sue this man."

You buried your face in your hands, shoulders shaking with laughter, while beside you Jace trembled with the effort of holding his own in. Across the table, Rhaenyra shot him a single sharp look promising very real consequences.

Under the table, you found his hand and laced your fingers through his. He squeezed back immediately, glancing at you with amusement dancing behind his eyes.

You looked around at the whole scene, at Aemond threatening legal action against a masked DJ he had no idea was his own nephew, at Rhaenyra silently contemplating homicide.

Life, you thought, biting back your own smile, was pretty great.

⬩➤ Want to read more? Check out my MASTERLIST!

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[the-darklings]

Okay but hear me out: Kat x Companion

Maybe I’m just gay but something about the idea of them circling each other trying to navigate the complex feelings they have towards each other making out in the pool rooms has me in a headlock.

Am I insane?

if backrooms never happened, kat would have seduced companion after you and bobby broke up (so he can have his character growth) and then lovely, nasty poly eventually.

in the version you mentioned they absolutely have this underlying tension running through their interactions. if you guys notice, companions is never actually bitchy/mean toward kat even in privacy of your thoughts. so imagine companion saving kat, companion getting kat girlie supplies 🫪 tension of loving the same man while also being forced to be around each other and rely on each other for survival. close quarters, adrenaline fuelled proximity. they should do some stress relief (who said that?)

[louloucake]

will never deny you ₊˚⊹

aerion targaryen x wife!martell!reader

-18+, arranged marriage, forced proximity!!!, husband!aerion loves pussy, controlling behavior, power imbalance, dornish/targaryen political tension, apology through sexual intimacy, oral f receiving, cum eating, aerion begging, dubcon-ish, no full intercourse!!

aerion targaryen had not wanted a martell bride, that was the simple truth of it.

when the match had first been proposed, he had regarded it as what it was, another arrangement crafted by older, wiser people who believed they knew what was best for the realm.

best for him.

he remembered standing beside a window overlooking blackwater bay when the news had been delivered. "a princess of dorne?" he had said flatly.

his father had given him a look. "a beautiful princess of dorne."

"i do not particularly care." and at the time, he had meant it, or at least he had thought he did.

then he met you and, unfortunately for aerion, everything became much more difficult, because you were beautiful, not merely beautiful in the way courtiers described ladies to secure favor, you were genuinely, devastatingly beautiful.

you were kind.

gods, he hated how much he liked that. your confidence, your sweetness, your fire…

the trouble began when they were forced to spend time together, before marriage there had been dinners, walks, appearances and conversations neither of you could reasonably escape.

at first aerion had expected them to be tedious, instead he discovered that you were clever. you challenged him, argued with him and even laughed at him. the first time you laughed directly at one of his dramatic declarations, he had stared at you in complete disbelief. "how dare you laugh."

"because you sound absurd!!”

aerion's jaw tightened at your insolence, but something in him stirred at the sight of your unapologetic smile. no one- no one- dared speak to a targaryen so, let alone laugh at their pronouncements.

"you find me absurd?" he asked, his voice dangerously low.

"i find your declaration that 'all lesser houses should bow before the might of dragons' rather theatrical for a supper conversation," you replied, taking a sip of wine. "especially when the only dragon present is the one carved into your knife handle."

he stared at you, speechless for a moment. the courtiers nearby had gone silent, their eyes darting between you both like spectators at a tourney.

"you walk a dangerous line, princess," aerion finally managed, though he couldn't keep the faint hint of amusement from his voice.

“and i must admit, your family's reputation precedes you." you said with a shrug.

a flicker of his old arrogance returned. "as it should."

"as it should," you agreed, much to his surprise. "but reputations are often exaggerated. i prefer to judge people by their actions rather than their bloodlines."

"and what have my actions told you so far?"

"that you enjoy being admired," you said thoughtfully. "that you're accustomed to getting what you want. and that beneath all that targaryen pride, there's a man who doesn't particularly enjoy being laughed at."

he leaned forward, "and what else have you discovered?"

"that you're lonely," you said simply.

his immediate instinct was to deny it, to push back with some cutting remark about dornish impertinence, but the truth of your statement left him momentarily defenseless. "i have a family," he said finally. "a dynasty."

"a family is not the same as companionship," you replied, your voice softer now. "a dynasty is a burden. a companion is a choice."

the evening ended with an unspoken understanding between you. as you parted ways, aerion found himself watching you retreat, the sway of your dark hair against your vibrant silks, the confidence in your stride. he had come to this marriage expecting to endure it, to fulfill his duty and nothing more.

now, for the first time, he wondered if duty might not be such a burden after all.

then came marriage and forced proximity finished what attraction had started because now you were everywhere.

at breakfast.

at supper.

reading by the window.

laughing with your ladies.

sleeping beside him….

the chambers that had once belonged solely to aerion suddenly felt empty whenever you left them. you had somehow become part of every routine, and months later, the transformation was complete. aerion adored you. there was no point denying it anymore, the servants knew, everyone with eyes knew, he followed you around the red keep whenever possible.

if you entered a room, somehow aerion appeared shortly afterward, if you mentioned liking something once, it mysteriously arrived days later.

flowers. spices. books. rare dornish wines.

anything.

everything.

the greatest shock, however, was how gentle he became with you…true, aerion targaryen would never be soft, but he was gentle. his hand always found the small of your back, he noticed when you were tired, when you were cold, when court became too much. it was as though he had developed an awareness of you that bordered on obsession.

yours and his first major argument had been simmering for days. you wanted to visit your family in dorne for the harvest festival- a reasonable request, in your estimation. aerion, however, saw it differently.

"you are my wife," he'd stated, his voice dangerously quiet. "your place is here. with me."

"and i am your wife, not your prisoner," you'd retorted, "i have not seen my siblings in nearly a year. my mother sent a raven specifically requesting my presence."

that night in your chambers, the tension was thick enough to cut with a knife. you stood by the hearth, arms crossed, while he paced before you like a caged dragon.

"it is not safe," he insisted. "the roads are perilous this time of year. and i do not trust dornish hospitality toward a targaryen princess."

"my family would never harm me," you said, exasperated. "this is not about safety. this is about control."

he stopped pacing and faced you, his eyes blazing. "i have given you everything- books, wines, silks from across the narrow sea. is that not enough? must you always test the limits of my generosity?"

"generosity?" you laughed without humor. "you give me trinkets while denying me the one thing i truly want- a connection to my home, my family. these gifts are chains, aerion. beautiful, expensive chains."

“you will not go and that is final.”

the finality in his tone was absolute, a royal command that brooked no argument. he stood before you, not as the gentle man who brought you rare wines, but as the targaryen prince who expected obedience.

for a long moment, you said nothing. you simply looked at him.

"very well, husband," you said, your voice dangerously soft. you turned away from him and walked to the window, gazing out at the darkened gardens of the red keep. "as you have commanded me."

a flicker of triumph crossed his face, quickly replaced by confusion. this was too easy. he had expected tears, pleading, another sharp retort. he had not expected this quiet, hollow acceptance.

"good," he said, his voice gruff. "it is for your own protection."

you didn't turn around. "of course. everything is for my own good. i am a fragile thing, after all. a targaryen princess who must be kept in a gilded cage, lest i break."

the sarcasm in your tone was a subtle poison. he took a step toward you. "that is not what i meant."

"isn't it?" you finally turned, your face a mask of serene indifference that was more cutting than any glare could have been. "you do not trust me. you do not trust my family. you do not trust my judgment. you only trust your own will."

you walked past him toward the adjoining dressing chamber.

"where are you going?" he demanded, his voice tight.

"to bed," you replied without looking back. "alone. i find i am not in the mood for company tonight."

you disappeared behind the screen, leaving him standing alone in the grand chamber. the silence that fell was heavier than any shouted words.

he stood there for a long time, the silence in the chambers growing heavier with each passing moment. the victory felt sour, hollow. he had won the argument, but in doing so, he had lost something far more valuable. the rooms, once filled with your vibrant presence, now felt cavernous and cold. the fire crackled, but it offered no warmth.

an hour passed.

the moon climbed higher in the sky, casting silver shadows across the rugs. he could not sleep. he could not think. all he could do was feel the vast, empty space you had left beside him. he was a dragon prince, heir to a dynasty, and he was being tormented by the absence of his wife.

finally, with a low growl of frustration, he pushed himself away from the chair and strode toward the dressing chamber. he didn't bother to knock. he threw the door open with enough force to make it slam against the stone wall.

you were curled up on your side in the smaller, simpler bed, facing away from the door. the room was dark, save for a single candle burning low on a table. you didn't startle at the intrusion. you didn't even move. you had been expecting him.

"get up," his voice was a low command, rough with exhaustion and anger.

you remained still, your breathing even. "i am comfortable here."

"i did not ask for your comfort. i gave you an order," he said, taking a menacing step into the room. "you will not sleep in here like a scorned servant. you are my wife. you will sleep in my bed."

slowly, you rolled over to face him. your face was illuminated by the flickering candlelight, serene and utterly devoid of the passion he so often provoked in you. "i am obeying your command, husband. you commanded i not go to dorne. you commanded i stay here. i am staying here. is this not what you wanted?"

his jaw tightened. "you know what i meant. do not play these games with me."

"i am not playing a game," you said, your voice quiet but clear. "you made it clear that my will, my desires, my home- they mean nothing. you have decided what is best for me. so i have decided what is best for me tonight. and that is to sleep alone."

the calmness of your response was infuriating he had not expected this quiet, unassailable wall of indifference. it was a rejection far more profound than any shouted insult could ever be.

he crossed the room in three long strides and grabbed your arm, his grip firm but not bruising. "i will not be made a fool in my own home. you will come with me now."

you allowed him to pull you to a sitting position, your body pliant, but your eyes remained locked on his, filled with a chilling resolve. "drag me if you must, husband," you said softly. "force me back to the bed you wish to share. but know this. you can command my body to be there, but you cannot command my heart to follow."

his grip on your arm loosened. he looked down at you, at the woman he adored, who was now looking at him with the weary resignation of a prisoner.

he stood there, torn between the urge to throw you over his shoulder and carry you back to bed or leave you be.

"it was not my intent to make you angry with me." he muttered, his voice rougher than usual.

it was a pathetic attempt at an apology. he wasn't truly sorry about the slight, just sorry that you were upset, and you knew it.

"i am not in the mood for your excuses, aerion," you replied.

the thought of sleeping apart- of a night without your warmth, your scent, your skin pressed against his- was unbearable.

"please," he breathed, reaching out to gently take your hand. he pressed his lips to your knuckles, kissing them with a reverence that made his usual arrogance seem distant.

the targaryen pride that usually demanded submission from others suddenly bent its spine for you. he released your hand and dropped to his knees on the cold stone floor of the chambers, the silence of the castle amplifying the sound.

he reached for the hem of your sleeping gown, his hands shaking slightly as he worked the silk upward, exposing your legs to the golden glow of the firelight. aerion didn't waste a moment, he pressed his lips to the inside of your knee, his mouth hot and eager against your skin.

he worked his way down slowly, kissing his way along your calf, his tongue darting out to trace the path, his breathing growing heavier. he reached your ankle and gently kissed your bare foot.

"lay back, my darling," he murmured, his voice dropping an octave, losing the boyish panic for a more settled, desperate need.

you obeyed, sinking into the softness of the bed, the sheets cool against your heated skin. "you are not to make love to me tonight," you reminded him, your voice breathless as he settled between your spread thighs.

he froze, his mouth hovering just above your skin, his breath warm against your inner thigh. the command was a stone wall thrown up in the middle of his desperate supplication. for a moment, the arrogant prince warred with the pleading man. he had come here to conquer this silence, to erase the distance with the one language he knew you both spoke fluently. to be denied it now, when he was on his knees, was a humiliation he hadn't anticipated.

he lifted his head, his eyes locking with yours in the dim light. they were dark with a mixture of frustration and a raw, aching need. "you would punish me so?" he asked, his voice a low rumble. "you would have me worship you and then be denied?"

"i would have you understand," you replied, your voice steady despite the tremor in your limbs. "you cannot buy my forgiveness with pleasure. you cannot command my affection with your hands or your mouth. you denied me my will. tonight, you will be denied yours."

he stared at you, and you saw the moment he understood. this was not just about sleeping arrangements. this was about power, about respect, about the very foundation of the strange, fierce love you had built. he had tried to wield his authority like a sword, and you had just turned it back on him, showing him its edge.

slowly, deliberately, he lowered his head again.

for a long moment, he remained perfectly still, his forehead pressed against your thigh, his breath warm and ragged against your skin. then, slowly, as if testing the boundaries of his new submission, he turned his head. his lips, soft and reverent, brushed against your inner thigh, a question asked without words.

when you did not pull away, he grew bolder. his kisses became open-mouthed, his tongue tracing lazy circles against your skin, tasting the salt of you. he was worshiping, just as he had promised, but with a new, desperate humility. his hands, which had been clenched at his sides, came up to rest on your hips, his thumbs stroking the soft skin there, a silent plea for permission.

"let me," he breathed against your skin, his voice thick with a need that went far beyond the physical. "let me show you."

you remained silent, your body still, but you did not stop him. that was all the encouragement he needed. he shifted, settling more comfortably between your thighs, his shoulders pushing them wider. the firelight gilded the white-silver of his hair as he lowered his head, and then his mouth was on you.

there was nothing hesitant about it.

it was a hungry and desperate.

aerion targaryen, the proud prince, was a man starved, and you were his feast. his tongue flattened against your folds, a broad, firm stroke that made your back arch off the bed. a soft gasp escaped your lips, a sound you couldn't contain. he heard it, and a low groan rumbled in his chest, the sound vibrating against your most sensitive flesh.

"gods, you taste like honeyed syrup," he slurred, his words muffled against your cunt. he was messy, unrefined, his usual aristocratic grace completely abandoned. he ate you like a man dying of thirst, his tongue delving inside you, fucking you with it before moving up to circle your clit with a devastating precision.

he wrapped his lips around the sensitive bundle of nerves and sucked, hard. your hands flew to his hair, your fingers tangling in the strands, holding him to you. he took it as encouragement, his enthusiasm redoubling. he alternated between sucking and flicking his tongue rapidly against you, one of his hands moving from your hip to slide two fingers inside you.

"is this for me?" he growled, pumping his fingers in and out of your slick heat, his mouth never ceasing its assault. "this sweet, perfect cunt? all for me, my love?"

you could only whimper in response, your hips rocking against his face, chasing the pleasure he was so expertly giving.

he was a mess, his face slick with your arousal, his chin dripping. he looked up at you, his eyes dark with lust and adoration, and the sight of him- your proud husband on his knees, his face buried in your cunt, worshiping you with his entire being- sent a bolt of pure ecstasy through you.

"that's it, my darling," he coaxed, his voice a husky whisper. "let me taste you. give me your forgiveness, pretty girl."

he curled his fingers inside you, finding that spot that made your vision white out, and sealed his mouth over your clit, sucking with a relentless, rhythmic pressure.

“please? please?…” he continued to beg, his voice sounding whinier and whinier. "sleep with me in bed, come back to me..."

the tension that had been coiling in your belly snapped, and your orgasm crashed over you in a blinding wave. you cried out his name, your body convulsing, your thighs clamping around his head as you came.

he stayed with you through it all, his tongue lapping gently, his fingers stilling inside you as you shuddered through the aftershocks. when you finally went limp against the sheets, he gently withdrew his fingers and placed one last, lingering kiss on your swollen, sensitive flesh.

he crawled up your body, not to lie beside you, but to hover over you, his arms braced on either side of your head. he didn't try to kiss your lips. instead, he buried his face in the crook of your neck, his body trembling slightly. he was still hard, a testament to his own desire, but he made no move to seek his own release.

"i am asking for forgiveness" he whispered, his voice raw and hoarse, “i am regretful, my love.” it was different from his earlier attempt. this was not an excuse. it was a true apology of a sort, stripped of all pride, offered in the aftermath of his complete surrender. "not for making you angry. for taking your will."

he lifted his head, his face still glistening with your essence, his dark eyes searching yours. "i will spend the rest of my nights proving my respect to you, if you will let me."

aerion looked at you as though you had hung the stars over king's landing with your own hands and perhaps, in his mind, you had.

his beautiful martell princess with your warm smile and clever tongue and impossible ability to make him love you- aerion targaryen had long since discovered there was only one thing he could never bear losing.

[verouys]

— LACES AND LADIES ... lady-in-waiting!AU headcanons

PAIRING — lady-in-waiting ! kat taylor x princess ! reader

SUMMARY — lady kat taylor has never met anyone quite like you, and now neither of you can foresee a future without the other.

NOTES — this idea came to me when i was on the edge of sleep. lowercase intended. this was born from my hotd & akotsk brainrot colliding with the kat taylor train i'm still on. super short and sweet. no ai was used for this.

- lady-in-waiting kat who is both entirely dependable and devastatingly loyal to you.

- lady-in-waiting kat who felt like the most obvious choice to you when your parents presented you with a list of ladies that were suitable to bring into your inner circle. although, as the daughter of an earl, she was not the lady with the highest social standing, you already knew quite a bit about her: her penchant for colorful paintings and literature, her interests in politics and worldly issues, and her talents for commanding a room— all qualities that you found extremely admirable. besides, you grew rather curious of her after seeing her beauty from afar during a feast. 

- lady-in-waiting kat who is honestly unsurprised to have made the list, but is completely stunned during her first meeting with you. you had called upon her during the early spring when the trees lining the palace were heavy with bright green leaves. she started to feel the nerves creeping up her skin when the master of the household led her through the estate. even though she knew she could hold her own, she was already bracing herself for the subtle competition between all the ladies. when you get up to greet her, she nearly forgets her manners when she realizes there were no other ladies in the drawing room. 

“I apologize, your highness. Have I arrived too early?” 

“Oh! No, you are perfectly on time, Lady Taylor. It is I who must apologize for not having been completely candid. I have been rather eager to meet with you privately, so I hope it is alright that it is just the both of us?”  

- lady-in-waiting kat is a fast learner. she has spent her entire life surrounded by the low whispers and coy glances of the court— so when it comes to being by your side, she readily takes up the task of being your eyes and ears.

- lady-in-waiting kat takes note of the subtle shifts in social hierarchies and cliques: even the faintest rumors of scandal is mentally catalogued away so she could later relay them to you.

- lady-in-waiting kat who is completely magnetic. she carries herself with complete assuredness and possesses a sharp wit that she strategically veils behind a face of guilelessness. ladies of the court simultaneously wish to be her and wish to be her closest friend.

- lady-in-waiting kat who is your sole companion for nearly two moons before your mother urges you to bring a few more esteemed daughters into your fold. though a bit hesitant, it is kat who ultimately convinces you. 

“Is it not too premature of me to do so?” you wonder aloud, closing the book in your lap. 

Kat smiles a bit, setting her teacup down on the low table between you both. “Her royal highness is correct in her suggestion, my princess. I have heard word from council meetings that the heads of loyal households are eager to have their daughters positioned by your side.” 

“They all merely wish to secure royal favors from me.” You sigh and gaze at her, “Besides, I have no use for any other ladies. You are all I need.” 

Glancing around the study as if expecting your knight or maids to burst through the door at any second, Kat stands and makes her way to your side. “And I am incredibly honored by your trust in me. However, it would not hurt to curry favor with these lords and ladies. You will preside over the throne in the future, so it is never too early to start.” 

You can see how pleased she is by your earlier words through the glimmer in her eyes, and you take her hands in yours. “What a treasonous tongue. My parents’ reign is younger than us both, this future you speak of will not come for many, many more years.” You say lightheartedly. “You are right, however. I should send out letters on the morrow.” 

- lady-in-waiting kat who is eventually not your only lady-in-waiting, but certainly your most favored and treasured. while you had a few other ladies that orbited you now, kat had been swift in cementing her place by your side, delegating many of the higher stake tasks to herself.

- lady-in-waiting kat who subconsciously vets the other ladies-in-waiting for many moons, sensitive to even the slightest hint of envy or deceit.

- lady-in-waiting kat who is not afraid to get her hands dirty for you. tasks requiring knowledge of public opinion and scrutiny regarding your family means she is already fastening her cloak and slipping through various tunnel networks into town.

"there you are— why are you in a cloak?" you tilt your head and smile fondly, albeit also confusedly, at her.

She pushes down the hood of the cloak and rubs off some dirt smudged up against its sleeve. "I just went out for a bit, my princess." she replies quickly.

Noticing the flush in her cheeks, you allow the subject to pass. "Well, I won't pry, but please, take guards with you next time. I cannot risk your safety."

- lady-in-waiting kat who protects you from petty drama— not because she believes you are incapable of handling it, but because you should not have to deign to reply to such nonsense. chatter about your choice to avoid hosting another tea party? how very kind of the viscount’s daughter to care about such matters, and while you are quite busy as of late to organize such events, the viscount’s daughter surely is not. 

“Yes, her highness has been occupied lately with correspondences. However, Lady Turner you are right, it has been some time since we have all gotten together for tea.” Kat says pleasantly, smiling at all the ladies. “Since the Viscountess has recently had delphiniums planted in your gardens, we are all eager to see them after having heard such wonderful praise from you. Perhaps we could all enjoy some tea together at your estate?”

- lady-in-waiting kat who is conflicted when you confide in her that your parents are speaking of securing a marriage for you. 

“Have the King and Queen set their eyes on any particular candidate?” Kat asks softly, tying off the laces to your dress. 

Shaking your head, you look down to your arms as you slide on some bangles and bracelets. “Not as of yet. Though I have no doubt they will soon have a plethora of options once word gets out that I am up for bids.” You joke sardonically. 

“I am certain they will not choose anyone unkind.” She comforts you, adjusting the sleeves of your dress gently. 

“It is not only temperament that I worry about, but I also fear I will have to spend the rest of my days with someone completely dull.” You huff, giving a small smile of amusement. “You have spoiled me with your presence, Kat. There is truly no man who can compare to you. 

She says nothing in response, but you are too distracted by the clasp of your bracelet to notice her silence. A few moments pass and her hands hover over your back after finishing with the laces. The bittersweet sting sheds into a deep warmth in her chest as she settles on resting her hands on your upper arms, leaning her chin on your shoulder. “Well, regardless of what happens, I will stay by your side.”

You smile at her through the mirror and lean your head against hers. “How lucky I am to have you.” 

- lady-in-waiting kat who now needs to figure out what these tangled feelings in her chest mean. 

[rottenbites]

WEIRD GIRL!READER THOUGHTS

CHARACTERS: modern aegon ii targaryen, aemond targaryen, gwayne hightower, jacaerys velaryon, ormund hightower

DESCRIPTION: thoughts of hotd characters with their favourite girl

NATASHA SPEAKS: weird girl!reader resonates so deeply in my bones… i am her… she is me

AEGON II TARGARYEN

modern aegon is a hot mess; literally and figuratively. he smokes in the shower, carries tote bags filled with stacked wine bottles, and fucks his way through the majority of kings landing to get his mind off the fact that while he has nothing to give, his mother still expects too much of him. he doesn’t date or tie himself down to another person, for aegon fucks and whores as a perfected lifestyle, and he is completely content with continuing his life as such. that is until he meets you, a girl who covers her eyelids in purple and pink glitter, who works at a bookstore and enjoys reading faerie smut, and who has a collection of converse so vast, aegon has never seen you wear the same pair twice. the eldest targaryen covets you like a jewel, hiding you away from his family and friends not because he’s ashamed of you, but because he doesn’t want to share you with anyone else. hidden in the rows of books at your store, aegon steals kisses from you like a thief, caressing your jaw while whispering words of devotion in your ear. he loves the way your cheeks dust a light pink, his expecting mouth kissing at the cherry hued skin. aegon loves the thrill of keeping you to himself; answering calls from his mother while his fingers are buried inside of you and fucking you in his shower while one of his siblings mules about his apartment. when his family finally learns about you, it’s on his terms, aegon secretly loving all the shocked faces when you walk in and he introduces you as his girlfriend. you and helaena get on splendidly, conversing excitedly about different insects that are both to your liking. aegon is secretly jealous when you leave him at family gatherings to go find his sister, but in the end, he always finds you, wrapping an arm around your waist and placing his chin on your shoulder so he could listen intently and silently to the two of you rambling about bugs. he doesn’t look twice at a girl when he’s with you, and even though he’ll never tell you this, aegon is grateful that you came into his life and changed his ways, for he feels so secure and loved when you’re by his side.

AEMOND TARGARYEN

modern aemond is a weird guy himself. he likes being alone, has different types of collections, and doesn’t really have many friends. his family — especially aegon, always teases him about his lack of companionship, harping on the fact that aemond is more of a hermit than a man himself. deep down, aemond yearns for connection, wishing for the friendships and relationships he never experienced as a child. though frustratingly, aemond is a shy recluse, one who doesn’t have good communication skills. these feelings stem from the bullying he experienced at the hand of his own brother and nephews, and aemond finds it hard to start conversations and keep the other person engaged and interested. when he meets you for the first time, aemond feels seen at finding another person who is so similar to him. you also like keeping to yourself and have a scarce collection of friends. you and aemond connect on the grounds of not being seen by the people around you, and this similarity has aemond clutching onto you tighter than he ever has with another person. the two of you spend most of your time inside, watching new shows and movies while getting to know each other. you find out that there is no interest gap between you and aemond, leaving the targaryen to feel comfortable in sharing his likes with you. aemond trusts you with his entire being, allowing you to share moments with him that he hasn't allowed himself to share with anyone else. he lets loose with you, allowing you to do different things such as braiding his hair and touching him in places no one else has. you experiment together, learning new things the crux of your relationship. when you finally meet his family, he holds onto your hand so tight you're afraid the circulation running through your veins is going to give away. he glares at his brother and nephews over your shoulder when you are talking to them, silently telling them to behave with his eyes. the two of you understand each other at the end of the day, feeding into the need you both have for garnering connections. you’re aemond’s person, and he is yours, that being the only thing the both of you need to function.

GWAYNE HIGHTOWER

modern gwayne is a simplistic man who is a gentle and steadfast lover. he doesn’t settle for hookups or one night stands like aegon, he wants a companion who he can shower with love and cherish like they’re the only person in the world. when gwayne meets you, he is utterly curious and enthralled. you, a girl only a few years younger than him, who has the whimsy of someone who’s never known pain in their life. he doesn’t think it as a bad thing. gwayne sees it as you having the soul of a woman who knows and understands love; a soul perfect for him. he visits you at the bookstore, keeping you company by sitting in the seating area and cracking open a book. sometimes you two barely talk, but he likes being in your company. likes seeing the smile that lights up your face and the way you twirl the end of one of your plaited pigtails when you get nervous. he takes you on dates not proper, but centric to your interests. a cat cafe you had pointed out once before. puppy pilates that end with you adopting a small pup you name frodo. it’s soothing and gentle, something gwayne exudes with a steady hand. speaking of his hands, they are always on you, either placed delicately in the confines of your hair, twirling and twisting it between his fingers, or on your body, placing them on your shoulders or on the supple skin of your waist. like his touch, gwayne kissed you with a softness made for handling glass, tasting the sugary gloss on your lips with the fondness of a man obsessed. that’s what he was with you; wholly and utterly obsessed. he loved everything about you. every quirk that people called weird, every mannerism that came with your soul. gwayne hightower loved you ardently and with his whole being, and he wouldn’t stop until the muscle that beat in the cavity of his chest gave out.

JACAERYS VELARYON

modern jace is strung tight, a rubber band waiting to snap. the pressure of being his mothers heir weighs on his shoulders, and he doesn’t allow himself to have fun or let loose because he’s too busy worrying himself to death. when he does go out, it’s because lucerys or aegon forced him, dragging him out of his comfort zone so he could finally have some fun. jace first sees you at a party, the two of you hiding in some desolate corner away from the people who brought you. jace is mesmerized by your glittery nail polish and funky boots, shyly complementing you to the best of his abilities. you two hit it off almost immediately, and jace can’t find it in himself to interrupt your ramble on the hobbits in lord of the rings. he finds you intriguing and different and a whole bunch of things he can’t name, but even though he can’t put his fingers on the feelings you give him, he knows he still likes the sensation they deliver. it takes jace a while to ask you to be his girlfriend. not because he doesn’t like you, only because he doesn’t feel like he can give you his devout time. he spent most of his late teens and early twenties focusing mainly on work, how can he now add in time for a girl he cares about so deeply? after some heavy debate, and a swift knock on the head from his step-father daemon, jace asks you to be his girlfriend, and he’s never been more content in his life. he’s finally relaxing more, spending much needed time with his family and his girl. he would do anything for you, even sitting through the many fashion shows you give him after you go shopping at the thrift. jace would do anything for you. he buys you limited edition copies of books, fails his way through a sewing class in attempt to make you an owl printed dress, and helps you tie and twist your hair into the different styles that you love. at the end of the day, jace is there to support your interests. he never tears you down and always loves you through whatever niche interest or certain fixation you have at the moment.

ORMUND HIGHTOWER

modern ormund is a retired war veteran who is way too tired to be caring about relationships. he’s well into his 40s yet he still hasn’t had a solid girlfriend since he’s been home. he doesn’t yearn for one, and it takes his family convincing him to find a companion that he finally makes himself out as available. at the end of the day, he expects to find some girl who’s going to fill the hole that war left in him. a girl who’s going to aid any nightmares or horror-filled dreams that wrack his brain. what ormund least expects is a girl barely 25, decked out in doctor who paraphernalia, to claim his heart as hers. ormund is a very hands on lover. he always has one part of his body on you, wether it be his arm around your waist, or his leg thrown over yours while you sleep. he needs to feel that you’re real, that you’re not a figment of his imagination and he’s going to wake up to you gone. he comes with you to your conventions, a guard dog of hulking muscle mass the glares down any man who dares to even stare at you twice. you’re usually dressed as some comic book character, either wearing fishnet tights or low cut tops that show off your breasts. he tells you that your costumes are silly, but he thinks you look so beautiful, never having wanted to touch you more. like jace, he’ll listen to you ramble, fist underneath his chin as you yap about your latest interests. ormund loves having you as his weird controversially young girlfriend, and he’ll praise you for that every single day.

taglist: @pinkdoeweirdo @rporter19 @ladylottiee @c0c0nutbiscuit @zer00o0 @rilakuma-lover @cosmoscoffeee @lilybear1-2 @snowflake-tenshi @yaash19 @qardasngan @himbohunnicutt @feralyetiraven @dreamer-doe @boyfriendimnervous21 @jacaerysqueen @haikutee

[verouys]

— NEGATIVE FEEDBACK LOOP ... Kat Taylor x Reader

PAIRING — kat taylor x f!reader & (brief) kat taylor x bobby franklin

SUMMARY — things become infinitely more complicated when bobby and kat start dating because for as long as you've known kat, you've loved her. Of course, she loves you too— just not in the way you want her to (at least, to your knowledge).

NOTES — angst-ish. hurt/comfort. still on the kat taylor train. implied closeted kat & reader. bobby gf applications open now. featuring my undergrad notes about neuroinflammation. err not proofread tbh. no ai was used for this.

"Hold still!"

You groan and give a weak, dramatic cough. "I'm dying, Kat. The fumes..." you mumble lowly, flopping back in your chair as Kat maintains her tight grip on your left hand.

"You need to stop hanging out with Bobby so much. He's rubbing off on you. He said the same thing to me after literally begging me to paint his nails." She rolls her eyes lightheartedly, gently swiping the cool polish on your nail.

"Wait, pause. You've painted his nails?" You raise your head again to look at her.

She shrugs casually. "Yeah, once. And once was more than enough. He complained so much my ears started ringing."

A small chuckle slips past your lips, but you feign hurt. "Ouch. I thought this was a special moment between us, but here you are, repeating your date ideas on me."

Kat gives you an exasperated look before flicking your wrist in a joking reprimand. "Stop with the theatrics, you know you're my favorite."

A small ball of warmth blooms behind your sternum at her words, and you look down to your nails. She was currently doing a second coat on your pinky nail, cleaning up the runny polish on your skin with the tip of her own nail. Her eyebrows are furrowed in concentration as a miniscule frown tugs at her lips.

After a few moments of comfortable silence, you clear your throat and keep your tone light. "Which reminds me that I forgot to ask earlier, but how did your date with Bobby go?"

Kat is evidently surprised by the new topic, her eyes briefly raising up to meet yours. "Uhm, it was fine. Good, I mean. He was surprisingly being a gentleman." Her voice humored at the end.

"Our Bobby being a gentleman? Jeez, who would have thought. That's good to hear though." You respond with a small smile, looking out of her apartment window and toward the street. "So... does this mean I'm officially the third wheel of the group now?"

She finishes up and gently blows on your nails. "Ugh, please don't say that. It's not like we're dating or anything right now. It was just one date— a test run, basically."

"Uhm, yeah, a successful one, Kat. Which is impressive for you given the fact that you didn't even do a test drive on your used Mini Cooper before you bought it." You tease her, nudging her leg with your foot.

She caps the polish and stands up, huffing as she stretches her back. "God, please don't make this weird. I promise, nothing changes between us." Kat smiles reassuringly at you before walking off to her dresser, pulling out the middle drawer.

Taking a moment to process her words, you glance outside again where the sun begins to set slowly, a cast of orange and pink permeating across the sky. Swallowing harshly, you click your tongue and wave her off playfully. "Fine, fine. Spare me the details then, but I expect you both to be civilized when we're all out in public together."

She evidently appreciates the levity as she looks over her shoulder to give you a fond eye roll.

The next time the topic is brought up again, you're sitting with Bobby in the bed of his father's beat up truck, scarfing down burgers together after classes. It had become a new tradition for the both of you, born out of a tired desperation for respite from departmental budget cuts and inept, yet somehow tenured, professors.

"Fuck, it's flat." Bobby grumbles as he sips his Dr. Pepper, peeling back the wrapper of his burger some more. "Y'know Kat was telling me if I keep drinking this shit, I'll need dentures by forty."

Perking up, you grin at his words. "She's been on a little health craze, I think."

He grunts and nods in confirmation, crossing his legs. "Yeah, she told me when we were at Foster's Freezers last week."

At the mention of the diner, you hum and quirk up an eyebrow. "Oh yeah, how did your date with her go?"

If he notices the sudden weird lilt of your voice, he makes no comment on it, leaning back against the truck. "She didn't tell you about it?"

Stealing a ketchup packet from his pile, you shake your head. "Oh no, she did. I just want your perspective on it seeing as I'll be your little tag along for the foreseeable future. Have to compare notes, y'know?"

"Oh god." He groans and swats at you as you lean over to steal his napkins too, "You are not crashing our dates." He deadpans, though his eyes glimmered in amusement.

Nodding sagely at his words, you pop another fry in your mouth. "Well, I think it's sweet that you think you have a choice in this."

He huffs at your jest before continuing to eat. After a few moments of silence, he sighs and fully turns to you. "Okay, you know her best," He starts off, crumbling up the empty wrapper and rolling it between his hands.

"Right." You follow along, giving him your undivided attention.

"I just feel like there's this weird barrier between us." He states plainly, "I mean, the date was great. She's incredible, obviously, but I just feel like she's holding me at arms length still. It was almost like we were still just hanging out as friends."

Frowning a bit, you try to sift through your memories for any indications of reservations from her end, but you draw a blank. "Well, I don't know anything about that, but maybe she's just easing into it? Do you guys have another date planned soon?"

He shakes his head. "I've asked her, but she's busy with job applications right now. And besides, I've got that media study project coming up too." He says lamely, picking at the edge of his jean shorts. "It's just been bothering me is all, you know I'm not good at this shit."

"Well, all I can really say is don't ruminate too much on it, Bobby. It could really be because anything," You say sympathetically. "Ultimately, the cause of it— if there is one, is out of your control, so I think it's best if you just have an honest. conversation with her when it's a good time for the both of you." You reassure him gently, hugging your knees to your chest.

He nods a bit, genuinely being receptive to your advice. "Yeah, you're right. I've got to chill." He chuckles and runs a hand through his hair.

"Luckily for everyone involved, you're more than capable of that." You joke and ignore the sinking feeling in your stomach. Slapping your hands on your legs to change the subject, you stand up and approach the tailgate. "Now, let's go get ourselves dessert to cheer you up. It's weird seeing you frown so much."

As much as you loved both Kat and Bobby, being around either of them felt like an inescapable reminder of the hollow ache that carved itself into your chest.

So logically, you decided to drive some distance between you and the couple-not-couple, using the excuse of having finals to study for to justify your absence.

It's about two weeks after your conversation with Bobby that your plan is interrupted. You're surrounded by three separate textbooks, sitting criss-cross on your bedroom floor as you stare down in disbelief at the text below you.

The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis... stressors activate the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus... which release the CRH hormone... These hormones travel to the pituitary gland which then secretes ACTH. When ACTH enters the bloodstream, the adrenal glands release cortisol... which circulates back to the brain in a negative feedback loop...

You blink once. Then twice. And you decide to preserve your sanity by closing the book and convincing yourself you'll recognize the important terms and steps when they appear on the exam.

While rubbing your temples to ease the pulsing in your head after your humble surrender, you hear a series of knocks at the front door. Getting up with a soft groan, knees clicking and legs straining from sitting down for so long, you make your way downstairs.

The hallways were dim, a cool shadow casting over the furniture as the sky balanced between sunset and twilight. You open the front door and pause in surprise. "Uh... Kat?"

Kat is standing on your porch, arms crossed with a bag of takeout in one hand. She was in a comfortable navy zip-up that you recognized to be yours, a black baseball cap obscuring her eyes a bit. "I've brought you sustenance." She jokes quietly and smiles.

"My hero." You smile appreciatively. "Seriously, I was getting ready to reheat some eggs and rice." You step aside to let her in, pressing a hand to your mouth as you yawn.

She toes off her sneakers and walks through your dimmed house with the efficiency of someone who had its entire layout committed to memory. "No one else is home?" She asks as she flicks on the lights to your kitchen.

"Nope. Everyone decided it would be the perfect time to go on vacation." You joke and pull out two glasses from the cupboard. "I guess it worked out though because I can study in peace."

Behind you, Kat unpacks the food onto the kitchen island, opening the containers. "Right. How's that coming along? You've gone AWOL on me." You can tell it's meant to be a joke, but the questioning in her tone is evident.

"Ah, I've been hiding out from the entire world. Sorry about that." You reply sheepishly, keeping your voice lighthearted. "Trying to beat the wonders of neuroinflammation and the biological stress response into my brain before Tuesday."

"Oh that's fun." She replies sarcastically before reassuring you with a sweet smile, "but you've got it."

Leaning against the counter with crossed arms, she watches you. "I've missed you though."

You freeze on the spot before slowly filling the glasses with water. "I missed you too. And I promise, when the semester is over, I'm all yours."

"Good." She says simply, satisfied with your promise. "Now let's get you fed, soldier."

As you both eat the food she brought, you and Kat spend time catching up. It's a nice change of pace from the last few days, and you watch her with a fond smile as she rants about her new workplace— some ginormous furniture store in a dead plaza.

"Isn't being hired on the spot and then promoted to assistant manager on your third day a bit of a red flag?" You ask as you pick out the bell peppers from your takeout container to give to her.

"Well, yeah, but I spend most of my shift doing sudoku and reading so I think it's a pretty equal exchange." She jokes with a pleased grin.

Pretending to ponder on her words, you nod along. "Well, as long as you don't have to stay until after dark, it sounds like a pretty sweet gig."

After finishing up your food, you both decide to sit together in the living room. You're lazing against the arm of the couch, eyes drooping as sleep slowly creeps up on you. Kat sits next to you and breaks the comfortable silence, voice mellow. "Bobby and I decided to stay friends."

The sleep dissipates from your brain immediately, and you turn your head to her while blinking owlishly. "What? Wait, why? What happened?" You ask in rapid succession, the concern evident in your voice as you sit up straight.

She tucks her hair behind her ear, seemingly unaffected by the end of her short-lived romance. "It wasn't anything bad. I think we're just better off as friends."

"Oh fuck." You mumble, not sure what to say to that. "I mean, I hope you're both okay though." You continue with a frown, rubbing her ankle in comfort.

"It's fine. I'm not upset. I just didn't want it to be unfair for Bobby because I feel like my heart wasn't in it and he could tell."

"When did you guys end it?" You ask gently, making a mental note to come out of your hibernation to check in on Bobby later.

"Wednesday morning? So, like three days ago." She says before slowly takes your hand, bringing it up closer to her face. "Your polish is chipped. Let me repaint them."

She starts to stand up, but you hold onto her hand. "Kat, wait. Are you sure you're good? Seriously, you know you can talk to me about anything." You lean over to try and catch her gaze.

Her head is turned away from you and she says nothing for a few moments. Finally, she slowly meets your gaze, her eyes shimmering with tears. Her brows are drawn together, lips tugging down as she tries to compose herself.

"Oh, Kat, you don't have to hold it in." You say softly, standing up to hug her.

"It's not about Bobby." She mumbles, voice a little muffled as her face is buried in your shoulder. "I... need to tell you something, but it might change how you look at me."

"Kat, I highly doubt anything could ever do that." You say and pull back to look at her. She sniffles and wipes her face, her hands briefly covering her eyes as she shakily sighs and attempts to compose herself.

After a few moments of building up the courage, she meets your warm gaze steadily. "I like girls. In the same way that I've always liked guys. And... I understand if that makes you uncomfortable."

You blink as your mind goes blank, hands still resting on her arms. "Oh. Kat, I... I don't care about that." Fumbling for the right words, you bluntly continue, "I mean, I like girls, too. I think I've been in denial for some time, but, yeah." You chuckle shyly and smile. "Besides, even if I didn't, I would never judge you for that."

Kat's eyes widen a bit but her face lights up, her shoulders sagging in relief as she draws you back into a tight hug, "Thank you... you're just... just thank you for being you." She mumbles into your neck.

Huffing out a small laugh at her words, you slowly get her to sit down again so she can fully process the moment.

When you both get settled on the couch again, you can tell there's still something weighing on her mind. Glancing past her face as you wait, you can see the blanket of the night sky fully engulf the neighborhood.

Kat says your name softly and slowly leans over to lay against your side. "I think a part of me has always known, but I struggled to fully accept it more recently."

A small hum leaves you as you listen carefully to her words, gently rubbing her back in comfort.

She shuffles against you and looks at you as she continues, "I really think I could have gone the rest of my life with that knowledge in my back pocket, but it became... real for me." She pauses as she tries to articulate how she feels, "I mean, thinking girls are attractive is one thing, but actually growing to romantically care for one is an entirely different thing. I think I underestimated just how much my heart clouds my head."

Swallowing harshly, she purses her lips as her voice gets shakier. "Not to mention I couldn't talk to anyone about it, or even rant to Bobby about how jealous I was feeling. And then he asked me out, so obviously I really couldn't tell him anything."

Nodding at her words, your heart hurts for her as you put yourself in her shoes. "You could have talked to me, Kat." You say gently, "But I can understand why you hesitated, it's not an easy weight for you to carry."

She sits up suddenly at your words and runs a hand through her hair with a deep sigh. "I couldn't— It's not the same. Of course, I could talk to you about anything. Just... not this." Rubbing her forehead with a soft groan she shakes her head. "I'm sorry, that came out wrong."

"Kat?" Following her lead, you sit up too. Worry paints your features as you try to think of ways to soothe her, knowing her mind must be running a mile a minute.

"I just meant that it's not only because I was fucking terrified, it's so much more than that..." She continues, a tear slipping down her cheek as she gets worked up again. "Because you're amazing— far too good for me. And you wouldn't have made me feel stupid or fucking defected for feeling like this if I told you."

"Defected?" You echo in shock, hands moving to catch hers as she gesticulated frantically. "What's going on, Kat? Did someone say something to you?"

"No, fuck." She shakes her head and meets your worried eyes. "I couldn't tell you because I love you."

Your breath hitches at her words, and you can feel the bloom of disbelief clawing at your chest, smothering away any semblance of a coherent response emerging from your throat.

She doesn't wait for a response as she repeats herself, as if saying it aloud again would truly cement her sudden courage. "I love you. I love you so much that it fucking burns me every night to think about it." Her words spill out quickly, silent tears rolling down her cheeks.

You attempt to respond, a pleasant warmth envelops your nerves, burning at your ears and face, but nothing comes out as you open your mouth.

Her words continue to flow out, like a tap unable to be shut off. "And I can't not say it anymore because everything is a mess. I thought maybe I could try it out with Bobby because I knew you could never look at me that way, and he's sweet and dependable— but you fill up every space in my life. These past two weeks without you have been so hard. I thought maybe you didn't want to be around me anymore because I decided to fucking date our friend out of nowhere and made things weird in our group." She sniffles and rolls her eyes at herself, visibly frustrated by her own thought process.

You gently dab her cheeks with the sleeve of your own jacket, relief flooding deep into the marrow of your bones as your disbelief wilts away completely. "I love you too, Kat." You whisper softly, a mixture of wonder and surprise swirling in your eyes. "Just as wholly— in a way I didn't even dare to hope you'd ever reciprocate." You continue with an affectionate smile, finally able to interject before she could spiral.

Her eyes focus on you as her emotional storm is halted, her pupils dilating. "What?"

You grow shy under her gaze and look away nervously. "I've loved you for an embarrassingly long time. Actually, I'm not even sure this is real right now or if I'm having a pleasant dream after studying for 12 hours straight."

She gently grabs at your wrist, eyes glistening with more unshed tears as she looks at you. "It's real."

You look to her again and smile, elation buzzing through your chest. You both just stare at each other for a few moments, equally as struck and. delighted as the other. "So, is this the part where we kiss?"

A loud laugh echoes through the room as Kat wipes her eyes and leans closer. "Shut up! Way to ruin the moment." She jokes, cupping your cheeks.

You grin widely and tilt your head. "I mean, no pressure. We can wait."

"No, no. Enough waiting." She mumbles before leaning in to seal her lips over yours.

She nudges herself closer to you, and deeper into your embrace as your hands move down to her waist. You tug her impossibly closer as your lips press firmer together, your nose nudging against hers.

Nothing outside of her seems relevant in that moment, your mind and body sinking further into the cocoon of warmth and devotion curling around you both. It felt like this is where you were meant to be, a thought that filled you so deeply with love and happiness that it almost frightened you.

"We could have saved ourselves from so much stress if we talked sooner." She smiles against yours lips, practically laying on your chest now.

"Probably." You smile back, "I love you."

"Mhm... I love you, too." She hums and kisses you again, her hand hiking your leg up so she could settle between them properly.

You grin broadly at the sudden movement, and run your hand up her back. "Whoa, at least buy me dinner first, lady."

"Shush."

extra.

"So, yeah... that's everything."

Bobby stares at you both in disbelief, the static of his truck's radio humming lowly.

"What the fuck?" He narrows his eyes, mouth agape in utter shock. "What the fuck, guys!"

You and Kat share a look, both wincing a bit at his loudness.

"What the fuck!" He cries out again, hands thrown out as if you could offer him a tangible explanation.

"I know, I know, we fucked up. We're sorry." You say shamefully, lips tugged down as if having been scolded.

Bobby shakes his head, "No seriously—"

"—What the fuck. Yes, we understand, Bobby." Kat finishes for him. "But seriously aren’t you dating that lifeguard from the cabana club now?"

"It's the principle!" He says in faux outrage, making you sag in relief as you realize he wasn't genuinely incensed by this development. "You both owe me." He finishes before rubbing his face tiredly, "I think my blood pressure just skyrocketed."

You and Kat watch him for a few moments before he turns back in his seat and grips the steering wheel. "Jeez. Well, I'm happy for you both. For real. But let's just never mention my entanglement to anyone else— ever, okay?"

You nod with a small laugh, "Done."

Kat shrugs and sits back in her seat. "Already forgotten."

Bobby grunts and grabs the camcorder he borrowed from the university's department of journalism and mass communications, rolling his eyes. "Well, thanks cause now I'm wide awake. Let's get inside before Clark decides to hurl his costume peg leg at my truck."

fin.

[eldrith]

shark smile jacaerys velaryon

“i was told sirens drag men to their deaths.” “we do.”

jacaerys velaryon x fem!siren!reader words: 23.2k notes: this was written before s3e1, but still contains major spoilers. non canon compliant. i have a lot of new followers since i last posted & im v happy to be back writing here; pls feel free to stop by my inbox to chat or request something <3 description of reader is intended to avoid physical features, including skin tone. this is relatively unedited so sorry for any errors. warnings: heavy discussion of death. fear. angst/grief. graphic injuries, mild horror & gore, vomiting, allusions to blood eating. fluff tho! reader is a siren and not human so (?). sex - piv, nudity. light praise kink, inexperienced jace, experienced (?) reader. light power dynamics but relatively tame smut. fluff & a surprisingly happy ending for me !

WHEN HE FALLS FROM THE SKY, THE SEA DOES NOT CARE THAT HE IS A PRINCE.

In fact, it does not care that he is the story of the sky and the sea both, nor that he carries within him both a line of an old empire and a claim to a kingdom. No, the sea does not care that Jacaerys is a prince; it takes him all the same. 

Scorched by a burn down the throat of Dragonfire – though not in flame, but the aftertaste of it, he sinks; orange veins through black, smoke threaded deep into his lungs with the craning roar of Vermax long since vanishing from his ears through the crushing depths around him.

There is no color left now, not enough to discern banner from banner or hull from hull, scale from scale. Bizarrely, what remains is red, and it lingers both in the water and his mouth; And soon, true as the gods and their cruelties, it is also drifting in thick ribbons from his shoulder.

Though he is well submerged in water, in an instinct at the basest of his kind’s nature, Jacaerys inhales.  

Choked immediately by the force of salt down into his very being, Jacaerys tastes iron and brine and something scorchingly distant, the residue of dragonfire made to liquid, swallowed back down into the deep as it tugs at himself, too; rolling in fizzing bubbles of fire and thundering waves overtop his back. 

He does not remember the fall, and he hardly remembers the splitting of both sky and earth; Only that glassy world between the two, reflecting in depths and in minds alike, echoing the sound of groaning hulls and roaring beasts and the warbled screams of dying men. 

It is a deep descent, crushing with a searing pain that emanates in the ribbons of red that float out from him, flying leathers heavy, dragging him down, down, down. 

He is learned enough to cease his useless inhales as the salt hardens and grows deeper, meeting that which flows through his veins, dizzying his mind until water and salt and blood are all he tastes. The fire of war becomes a distant thing high above his sinking body as his consciousness loses him for what might be the last time. 

Indeed, he hardly feels it when the sudden, ripping jerk tugs his body; up, or sideways, or some elsewhere – through something darker than anything he’s ever known.

WHEN HE WAKES, JACAERYS BLINKS AGAINST A SKY FAR TOO VAST. 

The smoke of battle has thinned into a distant smear upon the horizon, a notion he gathers only after coming to and completely emptying his stomach of kelped water, scraped with barnacles and blood and shipwreckage splintered into his throat in their ascent from his guts.  

A length of broken timber presses beneath his spine, which is his second gathering; Perhaps a spar from his grandsire’s fleet, or perhaps merely the rib of some lesser ship cracked open like a carcass to be feasted by the vulturous gulls of the Narrow Sea. 

When at last, sluggish and stinging, his eyes open – they do so with a fluttering knot of long lashes, and he must squint into the vastness above and around him, feeling the wilt of hope dying like a low wyck in his chest. There are no sails near him now; nor cries, nor banners. 

Jacaerys well and truly and fully floats alone. 

He lets himself stare, just for a moment, to gather himself. A fine day, by any standards less measured with the smoke and searing screams of both sky and sea, the sun hanging upon its bright band in the heavens and oppressive enough to give Jacaerys need to close his lids once more. Gulls circle lazily in the distance, a sole sign of life in a deserted plane of rocking water.  

Well, then. He is far from the Gullet now. 

Indeed, he is far from anything, as indicated by squint of his eye; The sea rocks him on his raft like the cradle of a cherished babe, horrible but lulling as his mind drifts further than his body. He lies flat upon it, cradled by splintered wood that dips and sways with the sigh of the sea. 

Perhaps it would be a gentle thing, if not for the arrows lodged deep through the flesh of his shoulder and chest.

He had not felt their strikes, though now he indeed feels them. Each shift of tide drives the shaft in his shoulder deeper, grinding splintered wood and barbed iron into bone and muscle alike, a searing ache that permeates each stretch of his being. The shallower one, Gods be true, lies in the fleshy muscle of his chest, lodged but loose enough to flounder like a babe newly-horsebacked with each shift of wave. Because of this, breath fractures into something ugly and thinly agonized, pressed by cheek against the splintered wood beneath him. 

He does not give himself more than a moment with this unceasing pain; instead a hand rises, weakened and trembling and searing with the protest of barbed metal against bone, to tug at the wood protruding from his chest. The shoulder, he knows, is no use to try and save now; but the nearly insouciant rhythm of the shallow arrow upon his chest mocks him with its pulsing agony, and thus he tugs at it with all the dwindling strength he may remain. A roar rips from chapped lips, burning with the taste of bile and dragonsmoke; and still he pulls, the sinewy rip of arrowhead as it dislodges itself from its shallow grave and frees, violently, into the salty air. Jacaerys lets out no more than a whimper at the gaping, pulsing pain now ebbing from his wound; the arrow in his grasp is listlessly cast from his palm, down into whatever depths now lie below him.

The wound pulses with every faint heartbeat, and though he should surely press it to fend too much loss, he finds himself weakened with agony and exhaustion. Water still lives there, salty and ancient, in his lungs; he feels it with each inhale he takes. A warmth both viscous and determined seeps sluggishly down his side and crawls into the dip of his collarbone and throat, pooling in a glistening ruby shimmer before diluting pink into the endless blue beneath him. 

Jacaerys watches the darkest parts of him go with not so much a single sound besides wafery breaths delivered sparsely between groans of aching ribs and short, wet coughs.  

A prince should not bleed so quietly, he thinks. 

Though it is for hours Jacaerys floats like this – if he is so to believe the lies spun by the sun in the sky – shifting upon agonizing weight every few moments, feeling the life of him seep out with every weak pump of his tremored soul. He floats limply, one weakened boot dragging in the cold water beneath his torrid liferaft of broken war.  

It is too lonesome for a boy like him, perhaps. All that emanates from his brain is an ache of heart, the memory of screeching; of the jerking strike and dragging descent, such a slow death. Jacaerys floats for hours and hears wailing; sees the final glance of his lifelong companion, his truest friend; feels the sinking again, the horrible moment when he and his Vermax were swallowed beneath the surface. He wonders, in that dim place between consciousness and sleep, if there are those looking for him. If Rhaena and that wild beast are back on land; if Corlys and Baela and the rest are safe, dry perhaps, unscathed; if his mother remains still untouched by danger. It was a fair trade, he thinks. Their lives for his own. 

The agony in his chest and shoulder grows as the sun slips into a smoky horizon. He is blistered by the sun and drained of half his life, memories of his drowning roving sluggishly in his mind more as sensation than coherence: A sharp tugging, far less than natural, from the very depths of the sea. He recalls, only faintly and through some hazy delirience, that he did not resurface, nor did he pull himself rightwards onto this very raft; He has hardly the strength to move his arm at all, and knows best that he did not, indeed, save himself from the death that found him just hours ago in the Gullet. A horrible thought pulses just beyond coherence; the sensation of wrongness permeates the prince as he lies, motionless and alone, in the middle of a silent sea. 

Jacaerys falls in and out of the world with heavy, tear-laced eyelids and a ceaseless ache in his torso.

WHEN HE NEXT FINDS HIS CONSCIOUS, THE SUN HAS BEGUN TO DANCE VIOLET AND ORANGE ALONG THE GLISTENING RIPPLES OF SEA. 

He stirs not from pain nor hunger nor any kind of distant tremoring sound; instead, he is roused by the sensation of something brushing his ankle. 

Unable to do much else, he only stiffens; The water beneath him is darker than it ought to be, sheared in half by a bright and burning glint reflecting from the horizon, a shifting pane of glass so v ery fathomless and swallowing in its wholeness. He squints at the burning orange searing the water and lives, for a blissful for moments, in the belief that it is only delirium of a dying man that makes him feel the brush against his boot, surely only the blood clotting his sight into the watery depths which his leg splays into. 

But then he sees a flicker. 

Silver, or perhaps its more shyly shimmering cousin; some reflective thing which catches the light, winking like ancient dragoncoin beneath sand, glinting against the oppressive glare of dying sun splitting his vision in half. 

Blinking salt and dying sun from his gaze, he lulls his cheek back upon the raft, tasting his blood as it resides within the grain of wood and the split of his lips alike. His wounds are near dried now, though he is no fool. He suspects the Stranger will visit him quite soon. 

But then, a drifting, long-winding vision once more through the water, near his boot beneath the shifting of his splintered raft. Long and swirling like weeds at sea, it coils and slinks just out of sight; though still, Jacaerys is given a startled pause. 

Hair?  

A squint against the sting of salt in lashes, hazeled eyes catch not the jerking dart of fish, nor the rolling glide of a seal or any such beast. It is real – perhaps only in the way visions might be real to one on the brink of death – though real all the same as the arrow through his shoulder or the wound in his chest. 

Whatever it is, it circles.

His pulse thunders weakly, and in a delirious moment recalls stories of pirates across the sea who leak from the cracks of the Stepstones and surface from the sea itself; men who swim upon unattended boats to thieve the pockets of men who lie shipwrecked. 

“Go,” he rasps madly, though his voice is hardly more than wind over broken mast, matted with pain and expiring life. It takes the last of his very soul, the raw and trembling memory of green scales sinking into the sea, that he presses.  “Please. I’ve…I’ve nothing left to steal.”

And a tragic truth his words are. The sea answers the Prince with a soft lap against wood, echoing gently as a kiss against his cheekbone; and then, as though relenting, the shape vanishes. 

Wildly, perhaps madly, Jacaerys laughs once; though the salt and brine have made a home in his lungs, and blood slicks his lip now. Yes, death will find him quite soon, it seems. He tastes himself again, metallic and fading. If this is death, he thinks, it is far quieter than he imagined.

He lets his head fall back, and the sky blurs.

HE DREAMS OF WINGS BURNING.

Or something of the sort. Scales which rot, boys with laughter like bubbles in the depths, a garden with a rusting gate and a fog that seeps into his mind and twists his feet until his boots are gnarled roots; he dreams of dragons sweeping in from the skies, of an ancient beast swallowing an entire dragon in its maw, of fire upon fire, claws tearing and blood weeping over entire ships until the whole ocean lay rubied and burning. He sees odd things, indeed, in his dreamy death: girls trapped under ice, brides kneeling at empty graves, men growing into trees; he sees moons and suns dance, he sees women with sharp teeth and soft skin, he sees tears that fall like moonlight. He sees poisoned teacups, singed butterflies fluttering out of spiderwebs; black cats slinking like shadows around breathing roots. 

It is peculiar, perhaps, that he dreams so many deaths so vividly, and yet Jacaerys wakes only after their horrors subside. 

He jolts to consciousness violently to find that the sky is enormous above him, a vault of black pricked with viciously indifferent stars. His wake comes body-first, mind trailing behind as the residue of sleep melts away, fading thoughts of smooth skin giving way to coyish glints and roaring waters and sighing voices. 

And there, nearly indistinguishable from above or below, the sky’s twin yawns in a stretch, that dark mirror – the sea. He watches that glassy expanse breathe slow, tidal sighs against the splintered timber that keeps him from sinking. 

For a moment he does not remember where he is, only that the world is vast and he is very small within it. 

But then it is when he takes a breath, and in such a daring intake, shifts his shoulder just partially; then true, raw agony explodes down his arm and across his chest. A broken noise spills from him before he can swallow it back, dampened only by the largess of the world around him, the depths swallowing the pain of one mere boy. 

The pain, it seems, tears more than breath from him. Memory follows, from the expiring mind: of smoke and fire and ships and men dying and women screaming on dragonback. The moment comes to him far too soon and with it, a wash of agony so raw and true that he suspects the last time he felt such a way was when he lost his brother. 

“Vermax,” he calls, throat raw and cracking, and like a boy he waits, tears slipping and burning against his sun-scorched visage, staring up as though a shadow might pass over the stars. As though green wings might descend from the heavens or surge up from the starry depths below. He knows, though, that even beyond the horizon – beyond wherever he is, now – there does not remain a dragon searching for him. 

The sob which escapes him is restrictedly delved in searing pain from his wounds; his cries die on the water, so unlike a prince, as he whispers the name once more into the dark, followed only by a weak call for his mother.

The name is swallowed there, along the starry water, as is his grief. 

In a turn of mercy, the pain surpasses enough to render him lack of thought; after only a final hitching breath, Jacaerys is stricken mind-numbed with a plaguing grief, tamped only by the unending agony haunting his form. A turn of cheek presses a metallic mouthful of seawater through sunscorched lips, and he coughs it back out into the deep with tormented effort. 

The glint strikes him, then, as he coughs his blood back into the sea. 

Across the glassy pane of stars, just an arm’s reach away: A lurking thing, reflecting back whatever meek light survives the night’s breath across the sky. 

He cannot make it out fully, but it ceases his mind cold with a sharp turn of familiarity, that lingering horror of nails trailing down the back of one’s nape or the draught of chill in an empty graveyard. 

Jacaerys blinks at it with that same low strike of horror; At first he deems it merely the moon fracturing the water’s skin, some trick of depth and distance. He blinks once, slow and heavy, as if that might wash the vision clean; But the shape does not break. It lingers there until the doubt in him thins, until even his certainty of illusion begins to feel like a falsity he has begun to assure himself for the sake of breathing; and only then, in that false security, does he come to understand what the shape truly is.  

Eyes. 

Eyes, true as the gods, fixed upon him and tilted upward from the depths below, bewilderingly catching the moonlight instead of merely catching it. As the raft dips in a slow wave and relevels, he catches the curve of a forehead, too – and then, gods, the slow inky spread of salt-threaded hair; he sees it then, flowing out its tendrils like weeds of the sea towards the measly splinter of wood upon which he lies. 

Panic surges up raw and ancient in Jacaerys; older than any crown or dragon or war, something buried deep in marrow that recognizes the shape of a predator in the basest part of a man before his mind might dress it in the common tongue. 

There is a woman in the water, a strange thought comes to him, lucid in its stillness, and he begins to wonder whether delirium has perhaps granted him some courtesy of idiocy. A woman, where no woman should be.

A lurch of the body, called upon by sole instinct; Every lesson beaten into him since boyhood demands that he rise and reach for a sword no longer hanging at his hip, that he make himself larger than his fear and meet such danger standing rather than waiting for it to devour him. 

Instead, agony flowers white through his shoulder and chest, so bursting and complete that his limbs answer with little more than a miserable tremor, feverish and vitiated, and his near-valiant effort dies unborn. Among the shards of moonlight glass shattering the sea, he is pinned not by rope or chain, but by his own ruined flesh and the arrow lodged deep within it. Should this woman – this creature – wish to come for him, there is naught left with which to refuse her. 

His eyes, ambered in the brightest of his days but now sooted with the grim ash of war and loss, do the only thing left to do; stare back. And this creature, this nightmare, this woman – whomever she may be, she remains there in her pool of ink and watches him in patient return.

And so, time sifts. 

The moon lays a narrow road of silver across the water, and in that thin illumination he conjures only fragments of her horror as she finally nears; the smooth curve of forehead breaking the surface, a sharpened gleam fixed upon him, so unnerving in its patience; the breath of cheekbone and brow, far too fine to belong to any storm-battered sailor’s daughter. When the sea parts, next come her tresses, which fan outward along the surface like ink spilled in the dark night, water-darkened tendrils drifting and coiling as the lulling coax of kelp swaying in the tides. 

Perhaps Jacaerys has gone mad. For, as he stares helpless as a babe unto a descending knife, he comes to understand that she is beautiful. 

A vision of moonlight upon ruins: she is jagged, obscured and sharpened only where soft sighs hide themselves away; though he is not a man wholly mad-made yet, for her beauty – however intrinsic it might be – does not beget the wrongness of her presence, the impossibility of eyes at this hour, in this emptiness, so far from shores that even gulls have long abandoned him. 

His pulse stammers painfully against his ribs, and the sharded arrow in his shoulder throbs in time with it, each beat threatening to unmoor him from the fragile raft entirely. Though fear licks itself in shivers of agony across his spine, he dares not move again. 

Eyes – those glinting coins so mad under the grace of moon – do not blink once. 

The prince swallows against a throat flayed raw by salt and smoke and swallowed seawater, and his lengthed voice is scarcely more than wind dragged over broken wood.

“Are you real?”

A question which drifts uselessly into the air, swallowed by stars both hanging in the sky and swallowed in the depths below; she nor the sea answers his question, only rippling and sighing, only her eyes ever-staring, unceasing. 

She remains still for so long that Jacaerys begins to blink out the thought of the eyes at all, wondering if his mind had tricked him into conjuring up company in the middle of the world where there is none. 

Perhaps that is all there is to death, Jacaerys thinks: some slow unspooling of the mind, a final merciful trick where pain and terror are softened into symbols and story until what remains is merely a dream stitched together from drowning thought and fading blood. 

What strange mercy, he thinks distantly as consciousness slips from him, that the mind, standing upon the threshold of oblivion, should choose not horror but a beautiful woman waiting beneath the water.

HIS DREAMS, IT SEEMS, DO NOT CEASE EVEN ONCE HE WAKES. 

When he stirs again, it is to a sky rinsed pale and enormous above him. And, he registers in turn, to her.

A startled jerk drives a battered back to jerk faintly against waterlogged wood; an agony of dying-man’s pain ripples from sunscorched lips which part in raw, pulsing horror. Fire explodes through his shoulder; his ribs protest with a sickening ache; his vision burst in lurching lashings of white, until sea and sky become one blinding smear which remains even when his lids sew shut. 

He breaths out a disbelieved sigh. Cursed as they are, Jacaerys always thought dreams to be faithless things, ones which vanish with coming daylight. Though here one lies, lurking in the dredges of nightmarish deep waters even in the forgiving breath of day. 

A petrifying thought, which permeates his sleep-laced mind with a strike of cold deeper than the sea itself: She remains here, in the silver light of dawn, as though she had kept watch through every pained unconscious hour. 

He finds the strange woman half-emerged from the deep blue waters, elbows resting lightly upon the broken spar of wreckage which keeps him from the deep. Her chin is balanced upon interlaced fingers in a posture nearly – gods preserve him – nearly girlish; the pose occurs so absurdly innocuous that, in any other place or perhaps upon any other woman, he might have mistaken it for idle curiosity. 

Though there is nothing idle about this creature, no thing innocent at all in the incessant bore of her gaze; a luminous thing, glowing like mother-of-pearl and flashing deep as his stare of horror meets her own hungered one. 

Then, with the flow of tresses across a bared shoulder and the sharp flash of a blinding, pearly smile, she speaks. 

“Am I real?” 

The fear finds its home burrowed beneath the wounds of his chest, the splintered wounds seeming suddenly to send dark roots through his body, tendrils of fever and terror winding together in a spreading, helpless dread. He stares, and stares, and stares; a gaping thing, a helpless thing, marooned upon a floating shard of war with a woman he believes is far too beautiful to belong anywhere land might dare reach. 

Jacaerys finds no words to offer; instead a gaze skitters in disbelief, lower and lower, until it dares the water itself. 

The tide, it seems, remains loath to surrender her entirely from its foamy grasp; yet the dawn has stripped away the moon’s deceptions. Jacaerys sees, in its bareness, the horrible line where soft flesh churns into something iridescent and blooming; a vision of scales delicately breathing down curve of hip, only to vanish beneath the shifting blue. Light fractures there, living colors or breath – silvered coin to heavy moss to bruised violet; it is the sight of crushed old jewels and of forgotten gods, a thing from so deep it seems to swallow the sun. 

Within his ruined chest, a fevered breath snags. 

The stories conjure to him in a half-breath’s moment, swirling in his mind with the faintness of memory; His father's voice upon the deck of a ship as he taught his sons to read the currents and to never hearken singing over open water. 

His grandsire’s grim tales at Driftmark, softened by the spray of ocean as he told how the sea keeps daughters as well as tides. There too had been stern faces of septas beneath vaulted ceilings of that keep of Red, with their hands folded within sleeves and eyes far too sharp for jest. There are creatures whom the Stranger did not intend for the land.

There were things in the sea, they all said; things older than the kingdoms who watched ships and learned of the longing which laced itself into the weak fabrication of human hearts. 

Old stories shake loose from childhood until they drift before him like wreckage: Sirens whose bellies hung swollen with the flesh of drowned men; whose true faces, septas insisted, belonged only to the daylight: slack with rot, mouths split too wide for any mortal smile, eyes filmed pale by the abyss; and yet when the moon pours itself across the sea, that same cold light becomes their greatest deceit, veiling evil beneath impossible loveliness until lonely sailors mistake hunger for some kind of beauty. 

He remembers an old captain, spoken of as though he had once truly lived, who abandoned his helm to answer a woman's laughter floating over calm water; how weeks later they found him cast upon the strand, tangled in flowering kelp with his body bloated white and his eyes pecked hollow by gulls unwilling to look too long upon whatever he had seen beneath the waves. 

There were darker tales still: Of fishermen, taken whole into the green-black depths, where the sunlight and the Seven alike surrendered their potency; of merchant princes lured ashore into hidden coves by women whose songs promised warmth and whose mouths promised kisses, until those same hands opened a man from throat to belly and peeled apart their ribs like the bars of a cage. 

It was said, too, that sirens slept inside the hollowed remains; nesting deep within the boned ruins of the men they lured. 

There had been a time that Jacaerys had laughed at such tales. After all, there is little room for fear of monsters in the heart of a boy who commands one of his own; though now, upon a broken raft with death bleeding slowly through his flesh, he finds the old tales returning with only sufferance. 

He lifts his eyes to her once more. 

But he finds that, despite the tall tales which ebb and flow within his fevered mind, she is not the grotesque nightmare promised by septas; he finds no slack-jawed carrion thing crowned in weeded sea nor whale bone.

Indeed if anything, the dawn is crueler still – for it reveals that her beauty belongs only to her. 

Her hair, lighter now with the glint of early sun and lacking in distortion of depth, spills over her shoulders, threaded with strands that catch silvery and oddly pearlescent when the light tilts just so; wet tresses cling to the graceful hollow of her throat, to the slope of her collarbones, garnering affection from the droplets of seawater which gather there greedily before falling one by one upon the weathered timber. Her eyes are clear, no longer luminescent but merely intent, fixed upon him with an unwavering and unsettling stillness.

Jacaerys stares at this creature because he cannot do otherwise. 

She is the only solid thing in a world that hours ago dissolved into blood and brine; and those eyes, wide and reflecting and sweet and hungry, watching him back without embarrassment, without coyness, as though he is the creature newly risen from myth and she has been only patiently waiting; stilled in predatory wait for centuries, to examine him. Perhaps he should feel stronger fear than has settled into his bones; Perhaps he should scream, or merely attempt as much, with what little life he has left to fight.  

“I’ve died,” he says instead. 

His voice is thin, scraped raw by salt and disbelief, and it falls along the flat plane of sea that stretches around him farther than the eye can strain. From his rather blunt observation blooms the faintest crease between her brows, a consideration almost scholarly in its descent over so sinless a visage. For a moment her eyes travel along the span of his ravaged, waterlogged riding leathers, the ripped remnants of war – then up to the lick of his exposed, blood-beating skin; Her gaze deepens. He feels his heart, a slow-march but suredly still there, thump within the mass of his chest’s swollen flesh. 

But then a slight intake of breath breaks loose from her parted lips in a sudden laugh. 

The sound is the quick silvered cry of a gull cutting across morning air, not dissimilar to those harkenning echoes of song which wailed across the sea in the darkest hours of night past. Shivers rise beautifully along Jace’s chest at the sound and he watches her eyes follow their trail over the exposed skin of his neck. The echo of her laugh stills the salt air and cloudless sky high above; and, though it fractures the heaviness between them, it does not fully dispel it – for it rings chillingly and yet entirely captivating nonetheless, a note plucked from the sweetest, coldest reaches of the sea itself. 

“No,” she sighs just then, a tilt of head to expose a curve of throat, the water which lives there so sweetly in the junction of neck and chest. The water pearls, too, where her palms cradle her chin. Her eyes do not blink. “Though… you nearly did.”

Her voice is wrong, he thinks, for a nightmare; for it falls so incredibly soft, so full of wonder and voracious low-buried hunger, and he finds himself more unsettled by it than any shriek might have rendered him – though still, some low-reaching part of his gut shivers in an expression less than fearful. Hungry, he thinks faintly. 

And she is wrong, he thinks; indeed, the proof of it is there, in the souring wound of his chest, in the blood which has begun to seep once more from the arrow lodged firm in his shoulder upon his startling wake and the feverish haze which has crept through base of skull to linger front-of-mind. No man survives such wounds. 

No man survives drowning.

Breath grows shallow from both injury and the vastness of what he does not understand – and then comes the growing churn of unease within his stomach that might possibly be starvation, too. Might a dead man starve? 

“What are you?” he asks faintly; the question trembles upon that string of reverence and accusation and she studies him with an unsettling seriousness, lonely only to the wake of lapping waves. It is too quiet for far too long in that solace of sights, rocking upon his death. 

“Hungry,” she answers at last.

The word slips into him and coils low in his gut once more, birthing a horrid sensation which is not wholly fear but perhaps something darker and more unknown, the basest of human instinct sacrificed to churn instead some anticipation he knows not how to tame. 

Though accompanied with a bitter, half-delirious laugh, his voice carries a fragility; the cadence of a man who has already crossed one threshold and suspects another waits nearby. 

“Have you eaten me, then?” 

That same laugh touches her mouth again, soft enough to be swallowed by the very foam of the sea which cradles her, and it sends a new jolt of shivers through his whole being; though seared pain chases those quivers immediately. The moan of suffering he lets out at the shifting of his shoulder draws her gaze to the faint rust-colored pond of the junction of his throat, where his blood has pooled and since half-dried into a congealed offering before the sea might fully claim it. 

Her head tilts with the rocking of the raft. “Not yet.”

It is a thing that would make a sane man recoil. 

He knows he ought to perhaps demand whether her teeth hide long and sharp behind that gentle curve of lip – whether she means to devour him and take his bones to whatever cathedral of wreckage lies beneath her domain; But the sea around them is impossibly calm, stretched glassy and infinite to a horizon so distant it seems to play more of a trick of eye than any such reality, emptied of sails and smoke and war and left only in calm. 

There is nothing but the prince and the siren and the fragile slab of driftwood that, in this moment of death and between, binds them bizarrely together. 

Perhaps from his startle, blood has begun to leave him once more in streams; little rivulets this time, which twist down and drip in lurches onto salt-swelled wood. Jacaerys’ head grows heavy, and the dizziness comes creeping through like fog at the corner of garden gates, slinking through the darkening edges of his mind, rendering him aired and heavy in the same labored breath. 

“It was you, then.” The words come as wreckage to rocky shore, splintered into odd sensations of memory into near-coherence, laced with strange visions of women with teeth lodged within their cheeks and talons long as his own sword; of bubbles swallowing a massive beast and the shock of sharp chill as his own body sunk to a watery grave in the Gullet’s roar. “You pulled me from the deep.” 

When his eyes open once more, he finds hers resting upon him with that same patient stillness.  “No.”

A crease grows upon his brow. His neck slackens against the splintered timber, too weary now to hold itself upright, landing below with a weak breath of expiring life. Above him the sky yawns open without end; he imagines it swallowing him whole.

“I promise you,” her voice comes, a soothing balm, so very cool where the sun has left him burning. “I kept you from it.” 

He might have responded, in another life. Though now, pain has ceased to belong to any single wound; It wanders him now, crawling beneath skin – living fire, it finds fresh places to bloom and scorch until he can no longer remember what it felt like to possess a body untouched by suffering. 

Somewhere beneath the fever, Jacaerys accepts that his consciousness will soon be lost; to either the tide, or the Stranger himself. 

The knowledge, as it comes, is strangely peaceful. So in his last moments, Jacaerys lets himself mourn as he stares at the strangely beautiful woman in the water, at the dawning sky and stretching sea behind her.  

His mother's face comes first, as it always has; followed by his brothers, blurred by memory until laughter and quarrels and childhood become indistinguishable in his slogging mind: and Baela, Rhaena, Joffrey, Aeg and Viserys; all of them, in the breath of a moment. The sea rocks him in agony as he thinks of Dragonstone rising black from the sea, of Vermax banking through cloud and soaring through breathless air; of the long hall of the Keep, of the salt upon Driftmark’s shores; of the gleam of Ser Steffon’s blade when Jacaerys squired for him in that final tourney; of his grandsire’s knee, upon which he perched on that throne of swords and heard the promises he’d been deigned since birth. 

Whole kingdoms rise and vanish behind his closed eyes; wars begin and end, lives he has lived and those which he will never reach – hundreds of deaths and hundreds of lives split apart and seal themselves in the seams of his mind, all in the space of a single trembling breath, before dissolving into the tide.

His cheek settles once more upon the weathered wood, eyes drowsy in the pale-lilac of early morning. You pulled me from the deep. The fight in him is nearly gone; only one question remains upon his tongue. 

“Why?”

A shift below the depths as she pushes upon the raft with flattened palms, and Jacaerys watches in awe how water yields so willingly round the soft flesh holding her ribs; the sensation of the war-battered raft tilting him down, tantalizingly closer to those singing depths hardly breathes across his mind. 

A tongue passes thoughtfully across glossy lips. “You were sweet,” she murmurs at last, a chill of breath crossing over his own cheeks, loosing a wave of shivers through his spine. He can only watch as her arms give way once more to sink down, as the sea – so resentful to lend even this much of her to daylight – claims all but her shoulders and head.

There is blood in his mouth now; he tastes iron upon tongue as his eyes fall shut, a spinning sensation conjuring to his mild the felled taper of a feather, fluttering to lie at rest upon a pond. An odd death for a prince, indeed. His voice escapes him as little more than a frayed whisper. “S-sweet?” 

He can think of no stranger a word to be labeled in those last moments of battle. Sweet. His eyes slide beneath their lids, a slogging thing in their sun-dried, salted shells, laced shut with exhaustion and perhaps delirium. 

“Your blood,” her voice murmurs, and it has become near enough now that he can hear the movement of water bubbling when she breathes; a lulling sweetness which sticks to his teeth and dances upon his tongue. Just a taste, he thinks just then, rather absurdly. 

“It tasted of the sky,” comes that voice once more, a bubbling wet sound as though her mouth has descended to taste whatever now leaks into the water. “And… I wished to know you.” 

Nausea finds him at the thought. “You tasted me,” he grunts through pain-wired teeth, delirious, odd visions of swimming scales and lace-frilled fins skittering from outreached hands. He imagines that river of blood seeping from him now, flowing into an open, hungered mouth. 

“I did.” 

This pain is too much for life, he believes. It consumes him, so intense it has numbed him, bled a fever into his mind and stretched the tendrils of infection through each last vein in his body. 

“Then I am dead,” he decides quietly. For what else would he be? 

The water stirs, and when he feels her presence once more his gaze strains to return, blurry and searing when he pries his lashes apart. 

She leans close enough once more, close enough that he might smell the sweetness of her, something so peculiar for mid-sea; breeze and softness and shadowherbs lace through his inhale and stir some hollow hunger in his gut, a piercing, ravaged thing that brings a bout of nausea to return. 

“If you were dead,” her lips are glossed with the sea, “you would be far below me.”

His pulse answers in a hare’s pace, quickening beneath skin rotting and infected and plagued with a slow death. “Then,” his tongue darts out to soothe the pain upon sunscorched lips, but instead is met with dry air and dripping blood, slicking from his mouth. Her eyes glint at the sight, an observation which twists unease deeper within his gut. “...Where am I now?” 

The smallest smile touches her mouth – a thing soft enough that once more, upon another countenance, it might almost have nearly been kind.“The sea,” she says. “Of course.”

Of course. Heavied, his head falls once more against the weathered timber, a movement slow and borne from exhaustion; drowsy eyes gaze into the endless blue where sky and water seem forever to pursue one another without meeting. Here he lies suspended between them all the same: neither upon the land nor surrendered to the abyss, neither wholly living nor yet claimed by death, merely adrift upon that trembling boundary where one world dissolves into the next.

The woman watches him stare out at the expanse for another long while before speaking again.

“You must rest, Prince.”

The title bears itself foreign upon her tongue; Jacaerys wonders, with a rather dislocated peculiarity, how she might know it belongs to him at all. In three-and-twenty years, he has never once heard a tale in which a siren urged a man to sleep for any purpose save to ease his passage into her hunger; though still, true as the gods, fever laps at the edges of his thoughts. 

His eyelids descend by degrees, each blink lingering longer than the last against the shimmering yawn of morning, until the daylight begins to disappear between his lashes, swallowed by that other abyss. “If I do,” his breath utters weakly, wondering to himself whether he asks from futile hope or some simply morbid curse of curiosity. “Will I ever wake?” 

His vision is betrayed; all which he knows are the steady rock of his rotting raft and the ache of his agonized body. The plaguing sun scorches one side of his visage whilst the sea cools the other; and he thinks, as his lashes flutter again sun-oranged lids, that he hears a voice once more through the waters: 

“Perhaps.”

THROUGH HIS UNCONSCIOUSNESS, JACAERYS STILL FEELS. 

Peculiar enough that his mind churns even as it once did when he lived on land and rode through the sky; And yet it is more peculiar still that he so faintly in his fever registers himself being turned; dips with the wreckage as it tilts beneath him, feels the lick of sea shift its grasp upon his failing, limp body. An interruption of the boiling heat; some chilling presence pressing firm against his chest and splaying over the slow, weakened pulse of his heart. Agony is a memory, a faint pulse like the outer ridge of a bruise or rime over spring fields in the Vale. 

While Jacaerys dreams of a hundred deaths, he dreams, too, that the arrow in his shoulder leaves him without the violence of pain. 

There is no fresh burst of agony as when he’d expelled the first one, no sharp white flare behind the eyes; It is as though the wound inhales and exhales and then merely forgets its own carved carnage, the blood that had been pulsing from him like a rubied river beginning to reverse its direction. 

The deaths come to him in fits not unlike the rolling pangs of arrow wounds: He dreams of Vermax dragged from the sky, of Luke swallowed by stormy sea; of his mother’s crown dripping and glinting red as fresh meat. 

Most peculiar yet in this sluggish purgatory between slumber and awake, he feels something freezing and dragging against his throat; lapping, like the waves upon the shore. He feels, too, how that chilling sweetness spreads within him in a foreign rush, coming as nothing so familiarly savage as dragonfire – that blaze he has known since childhood – but instead as something slower and stranger, a cooling calm which seeps instead of burns, which travels along his veins like tides instead of flames.  

Only then does he wake once more. 

THE SUN, THAT GREAT OPPRESSOR, HANGS MIDDAY WHEN HIS EYES OPEN. 

For several moments Jacaerys mistakes waking for dying once again; Light pours over him, molten vast sheets which strike the water until the sea becomes a field of shattered mirrors, the sky above a merciless blue, immense and empty as eternity. He lies upon the slab of rotting wood and wonders if this is what remains after death has finished with a man. 

Though grief, such a fickle thing, sneaks itself back through his weary bones, tearing with a force that casts his mind about and settles where fever once lived. Only then does he become aware of his body: a shift in his chest as he lets a small sound escape him, ragged as he wakes. 

He swallows, bracing instinctively for the agony of grinding iron lodged in bone; but there is nothing. 

It occurs then that his shoulder is bare to the slight seabreeze, and wholly unburdened. The arrow is gone; the wounds which had poured him into the sea exist now only as faint blushes of new skin, smoothed and unbroken with the passing of months which could not have passed in the space of a single night. Even the salt-burn that had left his skin raw and flayed has disappeared, flesh warm and sun-browned rather than blistered and fevered. 

Impossible. His riding leathers are gone; everything above his waist has vanished entirely – save for the leather riding boots which sit propped sidelong near his breezed, salt-laced trousers – left only in bared skin and a scattering of freshly silvering scars. Wonder and horror mix within his gut as fingers flex experimentally, braced for pain which never comes, save for a faint weariness of tightened muscle. 

It does not occur to him that this was anything else but the work of that creature from the water. And so, habit asserts itself; for he is still Prince as much as he is castaway, it seems, and dragonlord still before any such prey. 

“Show yourself,” he commands to the shards of mirrored ocean, voice hardened with some falsity of health he has yet to fully take to mind – for he knows, indeed, that this was no immaculate recovery of mercy from the gods. 

Though the fever has left him, weakness remains; he cannot yet sit wholly upright, the cords of his stomach quivering with an insatiable hunger and exhaustion. 

The day lives on silently, for a moment, and within him grows an impatience sprouted by nerves; he is healed, miraculously so – and in those odd, faint memories of dying rest, did he not feel touch, feel that chilled drag laving over his very skin as a parched hound might a fresh pond? 

The sea stirs and then, only after another moment, she surfaces several yards away. 

With her comes no violent breach of the surface nor shrieking gulls; she comes to the glassy glint of eye with the sea parting its dark skirts, water streaming from her in glistening threads to cling to the lengths of long tresses and running in shining rivulets over bare skin of sunbreathed beauty. A sight to be seen – particularly for a prince so lonely. 

Jacaerys stares once more, stripped of every certainty and left with only wonder and dread to keep him company. A wonder it is, her bareness hinted only by the breaking surface of reflected pools at the soft turn of her chest; and Jacaerys draws away his eyes in some gathered lucidity of shame, no longer coaxed to desire by fever. He swallows back a hoarse laugh, cheeks heated by not merely the sun’s glare but her beauty so raw and unmodest in front of him. 

She waits for him, all those reaches away, watching with a peculiar apprehension as though he might perhaps take her down to the depths instead to give some odd, murky end to her own life. 

“You healed me,” he says at length, accusation and gratitude so closely twined in his words that neither might be separated from the other. The sea seems to breathe for her, and it trembles with some unknown nerves. 

Her head inclines by the smallest degree, that odd glint in her gaze once more. “Yes.”

The simplicity of it disturbs him, he believes, far more than denial might have done. “You admit it so easily,” he says then, because he can think of little else to say. 

A flash of a pearled, glinting grin that brings even the sun-kissed sea to shame. “You wished to know.” 

As though this were answer enough; As though all truths are equally plain to her and require no ornament nor human ceremony of explanation. Jacaerys draws a slow breath, tasting salt and sunlight and the faint metallic tang of his own fear lingering upon his tongue. 

“I was told sirens drag men to their deaths.”

She, it is no denying, has floated closer to his small raft of living death. Her eyes watch unblinkingly; a chin tips until only the soft peaks of shoulder and bottom lip peak out from the murky sea. Her visage has gone dark with some horrible hunger. 

“We do.”

There comes no hesitation in her reply, nor turn of trick, and the honesty of it brings him no refuge in disbelief. His stomach seems to fall away beneath him; for it rings with it the realization that he is alive, indeed. He is alive, yes, only stranded – a castaway clinging to a forgotten shard of war in the middle of an endless sea; alive only because a creature of the deep has chosen, for reasons he cannot yet fathom, to keep him so.  

It leaves him strangely breathless. “Why?” he asks, roughened by salt and disuse. “I was – I was dying. Y-you could have taken me.” He is unsure what compels him to remind her of her own nature, though fear laces itself tight around his abdomen. 

For several heartbeats she only regards him, and in that silence there is something so old and fathomless that it makes the skin along his arms prickle. Then, at last, she speaks.

“I’ve known of your war for some time,” her voice comes low. “One drowned sun past, I watched your great beast’s fire swallow the men who have hunted me and my sisters for eons. I watched you kill those men and leave them for my sisters below.” Silence comes between them, save for the gentle dripping cascade of water from her countenance to return to the sea. “And I saw you as you fell.” 

Jacaerys’ eyelashes flutter in a sudden sting of salt and memory, though he dares not speak. 

Her tongue sweeps once more over glossed lips. “The cries of the men upon the hippocampi ships said that you are a prince,” she murmurs, leaning closer as though a thought too reverent to speak aloud, “a son of both salt, and fire.”  

How wrong she might be, he thinks – for he is not son of salt; Velaryon blood runs not through his strong veins, though still the words are cold water poured over a fevered brow, spoken with a strange and almost reverent note. 

“My sisters have told stories of your kind,” she says, and her eyes drift briefly toward the horizon as though somewhere beneath it lay the endless kingdom from which she had come. “Those humans whose blood carries flame, who ride the sky upon winged beasts. We have watched them for longer than your kingdoms have stood.” 

A faint smile ghosts across her lips, and it is haunting as it is ethereal, glinting in the sharp edge of teeth. “I had never seen one close enough to taste.” 

Her eyes glint, and he feels the familiar churn of unease. “I wondered” A tilt of her head, studying his bared chest and visage with a curiosity so untouched by human shame. “If the sea claimed a son of fire,” Her gaze drops briefly to where the arrow once buried in his shoulder, “...would he burn beneath the water?” 

Despite himself, despite the bewilderment and discomfort threatening to steal him away once more, a breath quite near a laugh escapes him. “I’ve disappointed you, then.”

She, it seems, is quite unfamiliar with the mortal crutch of humor. “You’ve done no such thing,” she assures dazedly, though her gaze has unsettlingly drifted toward the bare expanse of his chest once more. Jacaerys stiffens in nature, his own hand rising without thought to his throat; The touch of something wet and careful in memory, the blood which had gathered at his neck and collarbone, laved away, cleaned with a voracity which only bordered on tender. 

He nearly recoils at the thought. It had been her, indeed, who tasted him again. With it comes another bout of nausea; though quieter, and more treacherous still, is the hungry and awed way in which he cannot cease his staring. 

She is beautiful – in the line of flesh so cool beneath the water, such swirling, glinting eyes and gentle turn of cheek; that glint far below, silvered as mother-of-pearl and strange iridescence as she moves with the tide. 

It is perhaps this trance, this pull of fate or of fools, in which he extends his fingers – weak still despite their healed wounds – towards the very water which clings to her shoulder. There are glinting marks there, some half-scaled beauty, and he moves slow enough for her to vanish into the depths if she wishes. 

She does not move – only watches him nearer with a stillness so harrowingly unnatural. 

His fingertips brush her shoulder, so very cool to the touch; enough so, such a respite from the beating oppression of the midday sun, that Jace lets some strangled breath loose from his throat, a half-relief at the sensation of cooled, glinting flesh so sweet against his burning palm. 

She, in turn, leases a short inhale, chilling enough to send ridges of thrill across his bare spine. The noise which leaves her is none he has known of man nor beast; a sound of glistening shores and soaring seas, of sunkissed reaches and tidepools swirling in slow wakes. 

A jolt from his touch, swallowed of regret and instead burgeoned by a sharp motion, her fingers perhaps tightening somewhere below the greened depths of the mirrored sky. Glossed lips then tremble, eyes flicking to his and down to the slip of wood which separates his warm shoulder from her sea. 

“I’ve brought you something,” she says gently, and when her elbows beach themselves as they had yesterday upon the edge of his raft, he finds her palms abound with bounty. 

In one hand comes a small, dripping bundle of greenery – dark fronds and pale, tender shoots which look as though they sprouted from some moonlit cavern far beneath the waves; in the other she bears a cluster of oysters and other mollusks, their shells slick with salt and glinting beautifully in the sun’s breath. 

Jacaerys watches in startled awe as she lays them before him upon the raft, visage painted with some odd, nearly unnatural shyness about her. His lips part, though the tearing, churning hunger persists violently within his stomach; she offers food to him now, as she keeps him alive and afloat. “You must eat.” 

Her voice is a sound which bubbles gently against the lapping of water over her elbows, bare skin warmed only by the sun. 

Jacaerys does not waste a moment more. 

It is an effort, indeed, to rise himself to his elbows; hauling himself upon rippling, quivering muscles into a position where he might grasp the kelp and seaweed by the handfuls and tear at their stringy flesh with his teeth. He eats them handful by starving handful. 

A savage, he must be; for he does not so much as turn his mind over as he swallows the pale stalks tasting of pepper and brine, nor do his lashes flutter in the slightest when she bends her head and, with the sharp glint of nails he hardly glances, pries open the shells one by one. 

The meat of them lie glistening and large, singing with a gentle grace of saviour to his ears as he finishes the greenery in mere minutes. 

Her nails, nearly claws, rip through shell seams as though they’re merely sheaths of parchment; the sound of it sends shivers through him and goosepimples along his flesh, lets his voice splinter in a half-moan of hunger as she pierces into them as though shell and flesh alike are no obstacle to her will. 

In her clutch comes the first scallop, offered to his lips. 

He eats from her grasp as though he has not tasted food in weeks, perhaps longer; he tears at the meat with a hunger never felt before, brine running down his chin and slpping onto his chest. Still he scarcely pauses, too ravenous to care for such things as propriety, and all the while two glinting eyes watch him with such concentration it nearly feels like a touch. 

For a long while they remain suspended between sea and sky as the prince gathers strength one careful mouthful at a time; the siren only lingers beside the raft, elbows anchored lightly upon the weathered timber. The tide whispers in patient breaths as sunlight wanders across the waves, reaching her face and fracturing into shifting gold upon her damp skin. 

“Gods,” his voice nearly cracks only once the remains of broken shells and the trails of oysterjuice track down the sun-browed skin of his chest. His finger graces over the oystershell nearest his knee as he half-sits, energized from the sustenance. “Thank you.” 

She smiles at this; a bizarre yet gentle thing, just a breath away, with her own elbows perched upon the raft. His fingers brush the shell again, tracing the smooth curve worn soft by the endless overchurn of the sea. 

“It is a shame,” he finds himself murmuring absently, “that there was no pearl within.” With his words come a strange bashfulness, an emotion so foreign upon him that he’s struck to hear it at all. There is little left of the prince in his voice now; Only a boy adrift upon broken wood, speaking to a creature who should belong only to nightmares. “I would have had something to give you in return.”

A dip of brows upon her ethereal visage; an expression enough to rouse a dusting of heat to his cheeks. 

“We give pearls as gifts,” he explains quietly, watching the blank confusion linger across her countenance. “To those who are…special.” The words catch faintly, tumbling in sheer awkwardness as he wonders faintly if the fever ever truly left his mind. “I suppose it is not the same for your kind.” 

The sea dips them; her coiled hair, shining with the remnants of the deep, curls over the broken timber where the ship’s remains have since become the expanse of this strange world. His hand rests near it, close enough that the strands occasionally brush against his fingers when the sea moves. 

She stares at him, always so watchful; Even as saltwater slips over her lashes and gathers upon her gleaming eyes, she does not blink.

“Have you gifted pearls before, my Prince?”

Heat touches his face, caught entirely unprepared. He looks away with a faint, embarrassed breath that might have once belonged to some other boy – some boy who’d not fallen from the sky, nor stared at the starry sea of death and found a woman waiting beneath the waves.

“No,” his voice is far softer than he’d endeavored. “I’ve not.” 

This, it seems, affects her. A strange flicker warms her expression, fleeting as first light of dawn; not human, but recognizable in itself as Jace watches her lashes dip over her pearled eyes. Shyness, he thinks wondrously. A creature who could drag ships beneath the waves and rip men open whole; and she is shy. 

I’ve gone mad, he thinks, and the vision of her is so impossible under the midday sun that he nearly smiles. The sea rocks them gently upon the raft, the movement drawing her hair away from her shoulders which gather sunlight in soft, golden sighs; Jacaerys realizes he’s been staring for farr too long and casts his gaze upward, half-closing his eyes to feel the sun true and warm upon his countenance once more. 

For some time, they remain like this: the prince regaining his strength, the siren floating beside the raft, the smell of the seabreeze between; The water whispers around them in secret sounds, and when Jacaerys tips his gaze to levy her once more, he finds the sunlight trembling over her features, rendering her unreal in the golden shimmer of warmth. At last, very quietly, he speaks.

“You are quite kind, I think.”

The words seemed to startle her even more than his touch had; her eyes dart, skittish things, from his propped elbow and down towards some unseeing depths which linger far beneath them. Still, he continues. “You saved me. You healed me, fed me.”

Marked by the silence of the sea, Jacaerys lets his head fall back to hang upon a stretched neck, exposing his throat to the open air, to the sun, to the salt; there is a prickling awareness there, of her gaze upon the pulse beneath his flesh, though he does not, for once, return her stare. 

“If you mean to drag me beneath the waves one day,” he continues – and he is mad, surely, for there is now a faint, unsteady amusement in the curve of his mouth, “then perhaps I am a fool.” 

He glances back toward her to find surprise glinting so slight and fleeting over her visage; a small trace of humor lingering in her own curve of cheek.  

He shrugs, a half-boyish thing belonging to another lifetime. “But you are kind nonetheless.”

The silence which follows swallows; it is full of her watching, and of the sea breathing around them. Kind, that word conjured once more – she acts as though perhaps she’s unfamiliar; As though no one has ever looked upon her and chosen any name but monster.

Then, for the first time since he had seen her rise from the depths of the murkiness the night past, she truly looks away – and before he can ask what he has done, she slips beneath the surface entirely. 

The water closes over her, merely a shadow of shoulder and hair lingering like shadow before it is all swallowed by the blue – a final glimmer of silver follows, that glint of treasured coin; and then she is gone. She leaves behind only the trembling of ripples and the bright, indifferently gilded sunlight scattered across the vast expanse of sea, a blinding thing now that there is no beauty to obstruct its harshness. 

The tide shifts beneath his raft, and for the first time since he fell into the water, Jacaerys is well and truly alone.

HIS SIREN, SHY AS SHE MIGHT BE, RETURNS WITH THE SUN THE NEXT DAY. 

And, indeed, the same time the day following. Habit grows within this drifting life so quietly that Jacaerys notices it not until it has rooted itself far within him; for three days pass in the very same rhythm, churning with the slow grace of heat and then chill, shivering and sweltering, some warmth in his skin which bleeds not and sheds not but always persists in hunger, if not for sustenance than company, or its more wretched and unknown twin. 

The sea becomes his tell of time; tides mark the hours better than bells ever had, and somewhere in those long hours between sunset and moonrise, she always appears. 

Sometimes he finds her instantly; that coy shape glittering in sharp glints beneath dark water, silvered scales catching and vanishing amongst the waves. Sometimes she watches him first, a sensation which comes to him as a strange awareness upon the nape of his neck and deep below his stomach, lingering as though some odd thing awaits for him across the water. 

Always, though, she brings him food. Bounties of shellfish, mollusks, fish gleaming like polished coin, strange seafruits and vegetation which taste of figs and peppers and salt and brine; once she returns with an odd brown-haired hard shell, which contains within it not only a sweetly hardened white fruit but also water – a sugary kind, which drips itself across his thirsted flesh and dries tacky until the next morning he wakes to his skin laved fresh and clean once more. 

There are many things he learns during this time. Most of all, he learns that questions mean very little to her; and answers, perhaps, mean even less. 

When he asks how far they are from land, one morning as the sun rises soft and pale over the endless blue, she only tilts her head. “The sea touches many lands,” she provides in response, a notion which is incredibly uneasy as it is exacerbating. Jacaerys discovers then that the creatures of the sea do not measure distance as men do; They do not count leagues or days or the fading hope of a distant horizon finally appearing, for the ocean is no obstacle to them, but a home.

There are other times in which her companionship is close as he can remember to any other; She learns of him through the little movements of his human visage – captured things, the pull of amusement at his lips and the lowering of sadness at his eyelids. He catches her watching him often, studying these small betrayals of emotion; One afternoon, as the sun dances upon her bared back, she attempts to replicate his amusement upon her own ethereal reflection. 

A near imitation of a smile grows too intentional and solemn, reflecting a study of joy yet not yet a true wielder of it in the flesh. The sight pulls a laugh from him, boyishly bright, doubling him from the waist in amusement. 

She, at his outburst, reflects a ture smile – not forced or painted but merely grown of inordinate pride that she might create something so bright within him. It is the first instance, perhaps of many, in which he finds himself watching her lips with a very specific intention of curiosity. 

Days pass, or weeks; Time behaves strangely upon the sea, and he watches suns rise and fall, tides come and go, no stretch of land or ship or life in any distance. 

THough each day and evening she returns, and eventually he learns the sound of what passes for a name amongst her kind. It is a sequence of beautiful notes which his human throat cannot wholly reproduce; and each time he attempts it, she only laughs, a sound somehow more beautiful than what she is called, and it rises and falls like water spilling through caverns. Eventually, with some fond exasperation, she allows him a shortened thing, a simpler name which his tongue can manage. In return, she learns his; and she calls him Jacaerys in that watery lilt of hers, so low and fresh and pulling. 

One night, as she brings him a supper of squid and weeded sea, she requests something of him in return. 

“Tell me of your kind.”

He looks up from the small task of fastening reeds and torn netting together, a distraction made for himself to tear his eyes away, for at least a moment, from her cloyingly alluring countenance. His nose scrunches against sun-kissed freckles, tipping his head. “Men, you mean?” 

Her tresses are floating tendrils in the near-dead sun, so different from their glimmer of day, and he watches in entrancement as she shakes her head; Another human instinct she’d learned from him in days past. “Your kind,” she repeats, coming closer to the raft. He no longer recoils at her proximity; now, when she approaches, his first instinct is dizzying anticipation instead of fear. “The ones whose blood tastes of fire.”  

His stomach finds a chill at her words, though he only leans back upon calloused palms and glances up and the nail-sliver of moon peeking through bruise-crushed curtains of sky. 

He tells her, then, of Old Valyria; of dragons filling the sky and empires of families, the dredges left of them who crossed both Doomed ash-shores and poisoned seas, carrying the last embers of a dying civilization. When he thinks he’s finished, or that she might tire of his voice, she only asks more – starry eyed and curious, leaning her head against the wood and asking how it feels to fly upon the sky. 

It’s only after the sheer blackness of night has found the sea that he speaks of Dragonstone. He murmurs of his own family, too; he tells her of soaring towers black as dragonglass and fields of lurching green which become swallowed up by jagged volcanic breath, of his mother and the war in her name. He whispers of his Usurper uncle; of Luke and Arrax – and that is when words truly start to tremble. He does not realize he weeps until he tastes the salt of them, until she lifts a cool finger to wipe them away and taste them instead upon her own tongue. 

He whispers the rest – of Meleys and her rider; then of Vermax and of the end in the Gullet. And when he finishes, she remains silent for a long while.

Her voice comes in the watery traces of a whisper. “You have been lonely.” 

He does not respond to her. 

He couldn’t have, even if he’d wished to; there are truths too large for the mouth to carry, and this is one of them. 

So he turns his face away, letting his gaze drift over the restless dark of the sea, over the silvered shiver of moonlight trembling upon the water’s skin. But she has watched him long enough to understand despite this, and the glint of her is dimmed under the blackness of the sky, that mirrored world broken only by her sweet form half in the glassy depths. 

“I have sisters,” she says then. “I know I’ve spoke of them to you before.” 

And though she’d indeed mentioned it days past, still it is odd to think a woman like her – if she is to be labeled such a thing, so swathed in tide and shadow – might have a family at all; His eyes find her and try to conjure the thought of a life down below. Within him he finds something curious and tender. “Do you have many?” he asks, because it is the easiest of his questions.  

She nods, a spill of hair along her shoulders. “Yes.” 

“How many?” he asks then, shifting upon the raft to lie closer along the edge, his bared shoulders freckled even beneath moonlight, their faces so very close. 

And so with a dip of her chin, she tells him in turn of the hundreds of sisters which live down in the depths, of the Mother-sister which birthed them and watches them, and of the ribbed-world of bleached bone and darkness which she came from. He asks her of her childhood, and of her people; and when she gives him all in kind, he finds himself pondering – with a distant recall of dragonseeds and countless nameless silver-haired visitors to the island – how abundance itself can be another kind of exile.

ON THE EVENING FOLLOWING, SHE COMES TO HIM WOUNDED.

He had waited for her through the expanse of the day. It was a strange thing, he thinks now, how he had once every morning begun with thoughts of war and strategy, of what ravens might arrive and what battles might be waiting beyond the horizon. Now, he wakes with the sun and listens for the sound of water changing. 

He’d fashioned something resembling a task for himself; a crude thing, a boy’s invention against the endless boredom alone at sea; With reeds and pieces of his torn trousers and the remnants of salvaged seanet, he has rigged a small tether, a foolish little snare which occasionally lures fish close enough for him to catch if his hands are quick and his luck is kinder. Still; after exhausting himself upon the empty bounty of fish his game provided him, he’d waited for her for far too long. 

When she comes, it is in the glint of moonlight which catches red upon the curve of skin, and his heart thuds once within the cave of his chest when he finds the long, horrid lacerations crossing one shoulder like clawmarks across her flesh. 

“What did that?” he asks her sharper than intended. She only watches him; She has brought him a handful of shells, gathered carefully in her torn and bloodied fingers, a sight which churns painfully in his chest. She has come to him injured, and still carrying gifts. “Are you all right?” he attempts again, kinder this time. 

It is silent for far too long as she dips her head, working open the few shells for him with jagged nails, which he takes hungrily, though not distracted enough to forgive the strained stiffness of her normally voracious movements. At length her voice comes in a quiet tense, low as a groan. 

“My sisters are displeased.” 

It is enough for Jacaerys to study her, those lacerations and such sweet skin ripped apart, and understand enough that the wounds have something to do with him and, indeed, with the food she brings to the surface each turn of sun. Perhaps, too, with the sheer notion that he still breathes at all. 

“Because of me,” he whispers, and she says naught but a small trembling sigh; though when his knuckles raise to tenderly trace along the marred flesh of her shoulder, she does not turn away. A churn of water, she keens to his touch, coming nearer until and she is close enough to drop a weary, shivering cheek upon the cloth of his thigh. Heat burns there, roving from the seeping chill of her bare cheek upon his pant. She gazes up at him once more from his lap, a reflective but morose thing, as though she doesn’t quite understand why he sees her suffering as so horrible; as though perhaps it is merely the price of wanting something and keeping it. 

He whispers to her then, when she asks – tales of Princely youth and sailing upon the sea with his father; and she whispers quietly of her own life, of the schools of fish which keep her company and guide her to the most treasurous depths of the sea. 

And that night, after she leaves, he lies awake and watches the stars. 

They are cruel things, stars – so beautiful and yet unreachable. And the songs, as they always do, begin sometime past the hour of Ghosts, reaching him across the water from the odd-hazed distance; the song of her sisters, he’s come to understand. He lies upon his raft and wonders if she will return tomorrow – and then, if she might one day decide he is no longer worth the trouble, worth her pain.

He thinks then of his mother, and of Dragonstone, and all those who must believe him dead; who have likely carried on in the war that he has so reluctantly left behind. 

And beneath it all, in that endless sky of stars, there remains one true wish upon his tongue: that his siren might come back unharmed.

TWO DAYS PAST, AT THE EDGE OF THE BAT’S HOUR, SHE FINALLY RETURNS TO HIM. 

She reveals to him in a depth of shimmer, dancing upon a surface of purple and orange which streaks his tanned skin and curls his hair with salt and warmth, still in the early eve of the day. Water warms him; the sunset bleeds crimson across the horizon and Jacaerys sits at the edge of the wreckage with both legs dangled within the sea. 

She surfaces soundlessly between his knees, an appearance so sudden he nearly startles back; with a glint of amusement she stares, brows ticking upwards in an impossibly human expression. Jacaerys, warmed through his unease shock, lets his lips curl in a fond relief. 

In an urge so boyish; a thing laced with sheer hope and solace, he forgets himself and, indeed, the weakened state in which she’d appeared to him two long nights past. 

“Hoping to drown yourself?” he jests before he remembers himself. 

She – having since learned the human habit of jesting and recently found herself one for the same sharp wit he often bears – only tips her glinting, glimmering eyes skyward in a roll of vexation, a thing she’s also long learned from him to do. 

“I cannot drown,” she chides, voice like seafoam, amusement leaked so warmly through her mouth that he nearly forgets the glint of teeth which live just beyond those sweet lips. 

“No,” he, solace at last to have his siren returned unharmed, only smiles. “I suppose you cannot.” 

Her hands settle upon the timber, mere breaths from the outer line of his thighs as he leans back upon palms to regard her fully. “Are you well?” He wonders – and then, with a faint heat upon his cheeks that grows not only due to the dying sun, “I worried for you.” 

It casts something bright upon her eyes and twitches the coltish smile which belies her lips; and the shimmering is there once more, so evergreen in her beauty as she pushes only closer to him, her cheek ghosting that giving fabric which clothes his inner knee. 

For a moment he merely gazes down upon her visage, raining with beauty and dripping still with that unsettling stillness. Her eyes glint only faintly in the dying day, so beautifully lit between his thighs. 

“You should come in,” she says in response. 

To this, Jacaerys laughs. It is not the first offer; indeed it is a thing she’s supplied in more than a handfuls – when the sun reached its blistering peak and he winced at the searing upon his flesh, when the moon made whatever hides below her hips in the depths glow, even when the breath of conversation dwindled in the easy laze of the heat, the water so inviting as it kissed over her skin. 

And Jacaerys might, these days, be a mindsick – or lovesick – fool; but still, he knows better. 

“You hide it well,” he murmurs, only partial in his jest though some lace in the back of his mind truly yearns to yank himself from the pull of those depths, to coil away in fear of the creature between his legs. “But you cannot trick me, siren.” 

She does not particularly enjoy the name; though still she only tilts her head, a coy thing he resents only so far as it makes the urge to slip into the water even stronger, to feel her skin between the warmth of the water and his own salted skin, cooled by the depths below. 

“I only wish for you to join me,” the words rise from her with the hush of tidewater slipping through black stone, soft and inexorable, the sea itself speaking so longingly through her mouth.

There is little mirth in the laugh he gives once more. He mirrors the tilt of her head boyishly, curls tangling with lashes. “And be dragged into the depths?”

The levied gaze upturned against the glint of dying day did not waver from his visage; in the dimming light her eyes held such strange, fathomless brightness, submerged stars peering at him through leagues of darkened water. “ I would not drag you.” 

It is so sweet, the lie; and perhaps it is not inherently such a thing, but instead borne from those odd, coiling natures which juxtapose your very being – to tear flesh and to soothe it, to lave upon fear and to charm it away. She is kind, and she is, despite it all, sweet – though yet, Jacaerys remains uneager to discover yet whether her self restraint survives immersion into the sea. 

Nonetheless, he cannot help his faint tick of a grin, amused perhaps only at the absurdity of it all. 

“I am not eager to test your limits,” he confesses. 

A ribboned smile, lurking against the water as her hands grasp the wood beside his knees. Something in the depths brushes his ankle; boot against something stronger, faint and fluttering though still startling enough to ridge his bare spine. She hums. “Do you think so little of me, Jacaerys?”

It is a song, to hear his name from such lips. The sea rocks impatiently, and he feels the leverage of his hips tilt just so against the tides. She rocks with them, a gentle flow that splays tendrils of hair across bare shoulders, glimpses of sweet skin lower than his eyes dare dip. “I think,” he says with a wettened lip, “you have already admitted to dragging men beneath the waves.” 

She finds amusement in this, it seems, and she gives a small tilt of head. “Men.” Such emphasis comes with a tightened flutter across his chest, and his brow lifts, emboldened so as to lean forward until their breaths meet the same stretch of salted air. 

“Am I no man to you?” he wonders. 

Her eyes, those unblinking lives of dying stars through the last breath of day, flare with some kind of heat from the expiring sun. “You’re far more than that.” 

In her wake washes aboard his wooden raft a fresh kiss of sea, straining her bare chest against the expanse of plank between his thighs; the movement is a gentle rocking, though it brings them keenly close, so close indeed that Jacaerys is rendered dizzied by the sweet smell of her once more, of the cloying honesty in those deepened, reflective eyes. 

Jacaerys has lived a life told of titles and beings; prince, son, rider, piece upon the board of kings and queens, bastard and heir, all of the muddled things which lie between old bloodlines indistinguishable from myth. 

He watches that myth now, splayed before him, and silently marvels at her tangibility. So he says her name, her common-tongued name, and tips his head boyishly. “You say such strange things,” he murmurs. 

Her head tilts in a mirror, one which makes his heart skip over itself faintly, the lick of warm sea against his knees lapping over the salted air. Her skin glows under the red-streaked sun, a thing of marvel and unconfounded beauty. “As do you, prince.”

A laugh escapes him, bubbled from the space between them as it rocks, the sea yearning for the two hearts which beat not together nor on the same natural track but instead in some odd counterbeat of each other; and Jacaerys lets the water dip him forward just so, enough to see the iridescent lines shimmering upon her cheeks. Her face is so very pure in the setting death of sun. 

He tips his head sidelong, somewhat intrigued by her words. “And what strange things have I said to you?”

She, who never blinks, is overcome with some minute breath of shyness, a mirror memory of nights before, and her gaze drops to the fire-streaked water before looking to him once more. “You call me kind.”

Of all things, the prince thinks; Of all the impossible, absurd madman things she has witnessed him do: speak of dragons, bleed upon the sea, command her to rise from the depths as though he still possessed a court and the shadow of a crown to succeed – this is what remains with her.

“You find that so strange?” he shakes his head faintly, letting his lip lift slightly. “You have spent every day proving it.”

She says nothing; The silence between them is no longer the terrible silence of their first meeting, for it is now laced through with those more sweet things, a vulnerability shared through salt-laced glances and small smiles.  

“You healed me,” he continues quietly when her voice still shies away from sound. “When there was no reason to. And you fed me when your own kind would sooner have fed upon me. You listen when I speak, though I imagine my life must sound terribly unexciting beside yours.” 

This, at last, coaxes a small curve of glossed lip to her visage. 

His smile is slight, too, though still he continues. “And when I grieve...” He lowers his eyes toward the darkening glass slipping between the broken planks, thinking of ancient wings and smoldering waters. “...you still care, even if my troubles seem so minute to you.” 

The sea breathes around them in spilling sighs of waves; She studies him with that unnerving patience once more, until she asks, in a voice so soft he almost mistakes it for the tide, “is that truly kindness?”

His brow knits, struck at once by both her honest bewilderment and, too, her capacity for tenderness. The breath which slips his lips is one of wonder.  “What else would it be?”

Her gaze drifts beyond him, toward the place where the sun has nearly drowned itself beneath the world’s edge, and her head tilts in that learned habit, a small mirror of his own. 

“My sisters sing until men forget they are afraid. And then they feed.” she says after a long while. Her fingers trail idly through the water, and the sea bends around them as though eager for the touch. “When I first saw you upon your beast,” Her eyes lift to meet his once more, startlingly bright. “I thought I might do the same.” 

His heartbeat stumbles; a thought which should bring terror but, in its absence, only reminds him how very alive he still is. She speaks before he can dare. 

“I do not know why I did not.” A draw comes upon her brow, a tremble of her lips. “I only know that when you sleep...” she murmurs, almost wonderingly, “...I do not wish to leave you.” Her fingers curl and he watches them catch upon the pearl of sea. “When you laugh, I wish to hear it again, and when you hurt...” Her voice catches upon something. “...There is… pain in me, also.” A shake of tresses, bewildered. “I have never known that before.”

A burgeoning warmth spreads across the very fibers of his being. The last breath of day lingers across the water between them, red as banked embers beneath ash, and Jacaerys stares at the woman who saved his life, wondering how she has gone a whole life without ever hearing a gentle name spoken of herself.  

“I should think,” he says softly, scarcely above the whisper of the tide, “that whatever name your sisters would give such a feeling…” His heart skips its own beat within his chest, watching how her eyes dance with the light of late eve, “…among my people, we would simply call it affection.”

The evening deepens around them; she does not respond but instead leans closer to him, just slightly so, her bared beauty brought higher momentarily. The sun has nearly swallowed itself unto the horizon, leaving only the last remnants of gold bleeding beneath the line between sky and sea; the water beneath his knees is dark and glassy, reflecting the first early stars as they begin to appear one by one. 

“Affection,” she repeats, a sweet thing from lips so parted, wondering. Warmth spreads boyishly across Jacaerys’ visage, and he only nods gently. 

It is this very moment that she chooses to spill her grace onto the palms steadying her between his legs; he watches her rise higher from the sea, arching until the water gives way to the scaled glow beginning below her hips. 

Early moonlight pours over her as though it has waited all evening for this very purpose; and his gaze follows the hush of young moon over the sky of deepening violet, tracing how beauty glows through the curve of her breasts as she breathes shakily in the salted air. Lower still, with heated cheeks, his eyes fall – down where human shape surrenders into luminous impossibility. 

He must have stared too long, for her mouth parts in a chilling breath. “You stare at me often, Jacaerys.” 

“You are difficult not to.” It comes from his lips with no such reservation of courtly politeness nor intent to charm; it is a simply known truth, one he’d likely repeat with each breath, if she so wished to hear. “Surely, you know such things.” 

Seabreeze breathes the wet strands of her hair in damp kisses across her cheek; the sea rocks gently beneath them as though to lull him closer – though he needs no more encouragement than the sight of her alone.  

“I truly wish you would come in,” she chides, and her voice – a thing nearly lost beneath the hush of the water and the gentle streaks of dead sun; a confession of sorts, some private form of longing which spills from glossed lips into the air of hunger between them. 

Her breath ghosts upon his cheek as she leans impossibly closer between his thighs. “Though, I suppose I must come to you instead, prince of the sky.” 

A quiet smile ghosts across his mouth, a jilted thing borne from nerves and, perhaps, fate; If such there is a thing. And there, beneath the youngest stars of the sea’s early night – after days of floating in the wide expanse of nothing – he kisses her. 

Her lips are cool as water beneath shade; rainfall upon fevered skin, and from sugary lips comes the faintest breath of her surprise. She presses against him with an eagerness bolstered by uneven weight, a lamb unstable upon fresh legs, some sweet hunger that calls to him louder than the songs of her sisters which have already begun to leak over the surface of the horizon. 

Lips shift, sliding salty and sweetened with hunger. The raft shifts beneath them at her eager lurch; Jacaerys’ hand comes to steady himself upon the wood as his hips cant, slipping further towards the edge of that abyssal water, and still he does not resist, he merely lets his other palm, the one so hungrily pressed to the flesh of her collarbone, slide upon wet skin. Her own ripple upwards like waves upon shores, threading like rivulets through his curls and the other casting her chilled palm over the warmth of his pounding bare chest. Webbed, he thinks faintly, as her fingers splay over his skin; The stars above seem to tremble upon the water in her rippling wake as she presses closer still. 

Tongues prod and slide, a slow dance neither is particularly familiar with though the beat alone brings them closer, breaths melting into soft sighs and gentle hiccups of need. Her lips are of brine and sweet seafruit, and he finds himself insatiable to the taste. 

His hand, hungry and of its own mind, slides past supple flesh; he squeezes only where her sighs come out with faint sounds of enticement – exploring where the deepest keening of her throat meet his own, whilst her own exploration tugs at his scalp and grasps sharply at his warm skin. Hunger and that deeper urge mix deliciously within the basest instincts of his manhood; though his hand pauses at the place where her skin changes, where the familiar ends and the sea wholly begins. Perhaps, days ago, he’d have recoiled at such a sensation – though the man he is now only feels wonder. 

And so he pulls her closer, close enough to taste the brightness of her tongue, so cool and familiar in his memories of his bloodied flesh, so hungered and placant still. And when she pulls back, hardly enough to breathe, her forehead presses cool against his. 

“You taste of fire,” she whispers, a trembling and insatiable thing. 

A smile touches his mouth, and he imagines she can feel it all upon her own lips. “And you of salt.”

For the first time, she laughs against his mouth; and the sea, ancient and endless, carries the sound away. 

JACAERYS IS NOT LOOKING WHEN THE WORLD RETURNS. 

Indeed – as has become the quiet habit of these strange and borrowed days – his gaze has long since abandoned the horizon in favour of the creature beside him. The world has narrowed these days to a single pair of luminous eyes and a curve of shoulder which rises with the tide; to the silvered wake she leaves whenever she slips, laughing, beneath the glassy panes of water and vanishes into whatever hidden depths lie beneath the waves. He watches her instead, the compass by which all mornings begin and all nights fall. 

Seamist sighs over the Narrow Sea in wandering veils, drifting along the horizon and stitching the heavens to the waters with threads of pearl; The sun has drowsily set itself an ascent, still seeping pale across the panes of water, when she grows suddenly still.

“What is it?” He inquires, voice still syrupy with the dredges of sleep. He lies upon the swollen and salt-rotted board, one arm draped lazily over the edge of the raft, fingers absently threaded through the cool silk of her hair so unable to ever fully dry from the cloying breath of sea. 

She does not look at him, nor answer; a glossed gaze remains fixed upon the immeasurably distant horizon. Perhaps, if he were not drunk with the drowsiness of morning laze and early heat – if he’d not given up the hope of such sights days ago – he’d have turned and looked with her. 

Only after so long a silence that he almost repeats himself do her lips part.

“Land.”

This, indeed, sobers the prince entirely. He rises at once, the raft pitching beneath him as he lurches quickly upon one knee. Fingers, still caught amongst her hair, loosen hurriedly lest he pull her with him; He shades his eyes against the low morning light. 

Afar stretches the same rolling sea, thick with mist and silent as a phantom, that horrible blue which has swallowed days and weeks from his life. His eyes strain, a sharp sting of salt and sun, though still he soon makes it out.

It’s a far distant thing – far beyond the rolling waves, hardly more than a shadow painted against the morning; despite such meager an observation, Jacaerys lets out a breath through laced teeth. A miracle, a blessing answered by the gods who had watched him drown and then live in the same eve. 

How many nights had he whispered it into darkness? When his fever burned, and the sea seemed endless, when the empty sky swallowed the empty sea and rocked him, lonely and stranded, in a cold nothingness. 

Land.

For the first time in what could be weeks, or months – or perhaps merely some strange lifetime lived entirely between one sunrise and the next – Jacaerys feels the world opening again, yawning back into a wide berth of cliffs and coves and spine-ridges mountains, of valleys and lakes and beaches and forests. 

And an odd thing passes him, then. Jacaerys has now lived so long suspended in this place, so far between water and sky, between continents, between worlds; how odd to remember a life, as though peeking into a jarred, seaside old bottle-scroll of another man’s dream. 

When he lowers himself again, it is not the distant shore that once more first claims his attention. 

She has drifted nearer without his noticing, borne gently upon the breathing swell until her face nears the side of the raft, a glint of silvery tendrils curling just beneath the sun-shattered surface. His boots, which lie at the end of the disintegrating raft, dry in the early morn; she leans a cheek drowsily upon the sun-warmed wood near his knees, and he has a mind to trace the soft curve of her there, that sweet expanse of skin. Though her words come before he might even think to lift his palm. 

“I will bring you there.”

The words are gentle, and only after he takes time to study her face does he discern it: Shine glistens there, upon her cheeks – no seawater nor salted spray, but some pooling glisten of silvery glum. It pools there, clinging to her lashes for a final moment before it slips soundlessly along the delicate slope of her cheek, falling unto the weathered timber between them where it shines for one heartbeat before the thirsty wood drinks it away. Another follows, then another. She is crying.

The sight unmakes him. 

Though not one to ever endure the tears of any woman so disheartened, this proves impossibly more grievous: This creature of the deep, born of sea and darkness, who he once believed belonged only in stories meant to frighten babes – weeps now with all the helplessness of any mortal girl. The tears which fall from her eyes catch the light of morning; pieces of the moon itself, dissolving upon her skin.

A man at his very core, his words come foolish, perhaps. “Why do you weep?” His hand rises to instinctively brush away the shining path glittering beneath her eye. 

“It is foolish,” she murmurs, a thing so nearly human that Jace forgets himself; wrought, momentarily, with visions of some garden back on his Island, of curling tresses and sweet fruits and quiet whispers and gentle laughter. 

“You’re no fool,” he insists with a whisper of her name, quiet as the waves coaxing them closer to that distant promise on the horizon. Jacaerys soothes beneath her eye as one rescues dew from the petal of a flower; his signet glinting upon his thumb though he possesses neither dragon nor kingdom here. Touch has grown familiar now, a thing he’s been gifted to explore for the better of four passed days together, natural as the sunrise. 

“There are those who still wait for me,” he says quietly, a sprout of hope tugging at his chest at his own words; and though her visage remains sweet as the sunlight, lashes tangle and loosen a small wave of silvered sorrow onto the wood. He leans upon elbow now, so close he might feel her chilled breath upon his own lips. “My mother, m-my family, my people, my… my home.” 

At this, her eyes flutter open, kind as she is understanding. “You belong to the land, Jacaerys.” her lips wilt with the beautiful breath of shared sorrow. “I have long known this.” 

He, unable to help himself, searches her face; a twinge of desperation, that old thing, tugs within his chest. His eyes sting. “And you?” 

A curious sadness enters her expression then, a flicker of some emotion Jacaerys thinks is, perhaps, not fully known to man. She says nothing again, and in this silence, his gaze flickers toward the scars that still cross her shoulder – though the wounds have begun to close beneath whatever strange grace lives within her blood, they remain angry against her skin. 

The sea moves around them and it churns restless, unhappy; dangerous as the land in the distance, roving and hungry as those ancient creatures who lie in wait, far beneath. His lips part in a horrible fear. “Your sisters.” 

At the flinch of her visage, he only cradles her further in his palm, tipping his face to find her gaze watery, silvered even in the breath of morning. His own gaze swims with tears. “Will they hurt you, for what you’ve done?” 

Her gaze remains on his, and the reflection of them brings a small mirror of his own sorrow. “There will be no place beneath the water for me as there was before,” she breathes, as though exile is merely another current she must learn to swim against. “Though I knew this the moment I chose to take you.” 

The words ache all through his marrow, coiling tenderly in the notches where once arrows had struck through him. She speaks of it as though kindness is a betrayal; some selfish thing instead of the most selfless thing a creature might ever do.

It is a horrible moment in which Jacaerys looks toward the distant shore, voice imbued once more with the memory of smoke and fire, of burning ships and dragons swooping from clouds. A lifetime, it seems, has passed. 

He takes her hand, that webbed softness which boasts tender flesh and frilled wonders of silver, and when she takes him in kind, the feeling is still just as strange and wonderful as the first time he felt her under his palm. 

“I cannot remain upon the sea forever,” he says. “There is a war waiting for me. A life.” The taste of salt upon his lip; in the distance, a swooping shadow dives toward the pane of sea, and Jacaerys sees the first gull he’s seen in days. “But..” he murmurs, and a faint smile touches his lips. “There could be a life waiting for you, too.” 

There is some gleam in her eye, a terribly sad thing. Her cheek lifts from the wood to near his own visage, sweet and chilled by the breath though none the less warm in her unending kindness. 

Her lips curve into a watery smile. “You promise impossible lives, Prince Jacaerys.” 

“I promise the only one I possess.” He only pulls her closer, lifting her hand between both of his. "Dragonstone rises from the sea; Every stone of it knows the tide. If there is a place in this world where sea and fire have ever learned to live beside one another…” His smile, though weary and water-laced, has found him at last. “...Surely it is there.” 

Hope is perhaps too dangerous a thing for a creature such as her to possess. He wonders, fleetingly, whether she has ever known it at all. She looks at him then, and he finds not hope within her gaze but something gentler, infinitely sadder: the aching desire to believe him, shining there with its silvery terrible nakedness. Very quietly, she asks, “And if the sea wishes for me back?” 

Jacaerys rests his forehead against hers, and her skin carries with it the scent of salt and deep places untouched by sun. His own lashes flutter shut. 

“Then it may ask.” A faint shake of his head, voice scarcely stirring the morning seabreeze. “It has taken enough from me.” 

He feels the tremble of something across her lips; and then, before the shore can steal another heartbeat from them, she rises just enough for her lips to find his. 

He turns instinctively to meet her, his mouth yielding beneath the cool sweetness of hers, tasting of salt and seafruits and sweet residual of those peculiar sweetwater shells. Her hand comes to rest against his chest, splayed lightly over the place where once an arrow had sought his heart; his own disappears into the silken weight of her hair, drawing her nearer. A sighing thing, the sea, as it lifts their joint mouths and sways Jacaerys closer still to the depths she hales. Wood sighs beneath their joint weight, small waves claiming its splintered sides; the morning is still, water softly hushing around them. There are no birds in the sky. 

Jacaerys thinks, for a moment, that if the world were to end now, it would do so quite gently.

WHEN LAND FINALLY CLOSES AROUND THE RAFT, IT SWALLOWS THEM WITH A FUNEREAL QUIET. 

In the very last stretch of current, spurred by both tide and whatever ethereal tail lies below her hips, the sea narrows gradually; great walls of black stone rise from either side as they float nearer to the shore, until the open world is swallowed behind them into a small opening, a breath of sunlight through the keyhole of some grand door. Jace sits upon the wreckage, watching the horizon as that endless breathing vastness that had carried them for so many days retreats into a distant strip of silver; When the land swallows the last of the abyssal sky, he is finally welcomed by the first breath of shaded light he has felt in what might be ages.

It is a balm to his being. 

An old-born tyrant, weeks beneath the sun’s gaze has tanned and chapped him; Salt lives in every crease of him, wind has carved into his bones. A sigh of seeping shade crossing overhead, the looming shadows of the cliffs are cool, rich with the scent of stone and moss, and Jace draws a breath so deep it begins to ache in those places where the arrows once lived.

Passing into the mouth of a cave the size of a small ship, the rock shoots high overhead, blacker than any rock he’s yet to see in his three-and-twenty years; The slate slices sharp from the water, scarred and riddled with smaller caves whose mouths yawn open toward an emptier abyss further within the dark. Some are no larger than doorways, though others crack open high to the heavens, large enough to swallow entire fleets. 

Jacaerys finds himself staring at their scars; the sea has gnawed these caves for a thousand years, and its teeth marks rake through sharp stone everywhere. 

Soon, the cove opens around them, and the water becomes clear; and there, so close he could perhaps dive and swim to it, the water yields to a rocked edge of beach. 

Breath catches within his throat; a stretch of black beach, soft as velvet to the eye for a slope which turns flat with slabbed black rocks, warmed by the breath of sun but cooled by the deep cavernous chill. Pools gather within them in fragments of captured sky; He looks into them and feels a tremendous relief. 

It is only then, that his gaze falls upon the bones.

Lying strewn among the rocks is a whale’s skeleton, half-entombed, the great spine twisted through the stones; ribs arch upward in weather-worn curves, bleached white as old moonbone. The wind moves through them with a hollow music, a sound so mournful it brings shivers cascading down Jacaerys’ bare spine. 

As they near the cove’s shore, there reveals more bones beyond the whale’s shattered being – and these are not the bones of beasts. With the creeping dread of a fever dream, the cave peels back its own skin: A skull half-buried in stone, empty sockets filled with shadow and crystallized salt; A yellowed hand thrust up through the earth, still crawling itself towards the spot of dripping sunlight from high above; Fragments of a spine tangled in driftwood and root. Jacaerys feels that cold thing so long past creep over his chest once more. Death has not passed through here and moved on; indeed, it has become one and the same with the cove – one with the rocks and caves and tide pools. 

His breath only ceases entirely when he finds the skeleton laid beneath the nearest cavemouth. Ribs have been forced apart; shattered not by storm nor time but instead pried wide apart with care, a doorway of the corpse, a nest. 

A gaze lies upon its mangled shape in horror as those same old stories of youth now rise in him like bile; His stomach tightens, mouth stuffed of cotton and pulse pounding within his chest. 

Nearby – scattered among the rocks as though left by pilgrims or fools, lie offerings of silvered halfgroats and Tyroshi copper, greened with age; strings of fine stones dulled by salt, salt-rotted silk, fragments of pottery, even a rusted gilded dagger. 

Jacaerys feels, once more, impossibly small upon the broken raft. How many men have stood where he stands now, trembling before the dark; How many had crossed black waters with pockets heavy from gold and bellies full of fear, believing that beauty might yet bargain with death? 

With a flick of fear, his eyes shift to the glistening clear waters. Beside him still, she watches from the shallows, and he finds that she remains beautiful as the sea when it means to kill a man; floating in the clear waters, visage kissed from pearled ripples, entirely at home among the bones as though she has spent all her life here with the dead to keep her company. Perhaps she has. 

Old as it is, still the fear returns to him, surging to his throat at the sight of the pried ribs, to the trail of finger-bones littering the nearest tidepool, to her. And, after all, Jacaerys is only a man. 

“Are you going to eat me?” His voice calls out quiet, but in the wake of silence, it rebounds through the cave – a sonorous thing, not trembling though surely frightened the same: eat me, eat me, eat me. It falls dead after its repetition, laying to his expanse of bare back a cool whistle of breeze which sets the hair upon his nape on end. 

Her eyes still in the water, as still as the day he first caught glimpse of her. What comes next is a minute shift; a fall of gaze, some learned softness drawing away as a crab takes to its shell, and the cove falls still. Even the water ceases, for a breath, its incessant lapping at the black-beached shore. 

“The death of so many suns,” comes her voice at last; a thing scarcely louder than water finding a path along the sand. “And birth of so many moons.” Her eyes lift, and within those wisps of lashes, so sweet and salt-clinging, he finds only that very moon she speaks of, reflected so deep, so sharp and luminescent. “And still, you fear my mouth.”  

Jacaerys opens his own to answer; though worse still is the breathless thievery of his chest – the lack of words which crawl to his throat yet remain perched upon his tongue. Words gather there, frightened birds against the bars of his ribs, yet refuse to fly – because he knows not what he might say. 

For he has spent weeks dying in the water with her hands upon his skin, her voice in his ears, her lips upon his own; with her keeping breath inside his ruined body. And perhaps he could tell her that still, beneath all such tenderness, a frightened boy remains – that the songs of his childhood are carved too deeply into him; that men are weak creatures who inherit fear long before they inherit wisdom. Silence answers for him instead. 

His gaze returns to her, then. 

And he finds that here, in the lucid water of the cove, nothing is so softened by darkness; the sea renders her wholly to him now, silver scales glinting as hammered mail and stitched from both woman and abyss alike. Fins, a near translucent thing, taper along the delicacy of hips and fold in the current of a dreadful languor of tail; a strong shing, a terribly powerful thing which scatters ribbons of light across the cave walls as she shifts. 

Her gaze rests upon him, so eternally unblinking, and a faint smile touches her mouth then – a smile made of frost and moonlight, beautiful and dangerous and far too sad to any longer be called kind. “I could have eaten you when your blood first touched the tide.” 

The sea stirs around her hips as she shifts. Her gaze does not leave his own. “I could have eaten you when your fever took your senses and you hardly knew your own name, when all you could do was cry out in the dark.” Tresses curl, tendrils cloying towards the edge of the wood. “I could have eaten you when I drew the wounds from your flesh and cleaned your blood.” 

Eyelashes burn as Jacaerys watches her, helplessly foolish to hois own nature; he traces how her visage shifts under the reflections of the shimmering waters. 

“I could have eaten you when you first laid your mouth on mine.” 

His breath catches in a shamed flush to his cheeks, for memory betrays him all at once: her laughter beneath the stars, the cool sweetness of her lips, the shy turn of a smile after a handful of shells were deposited upon his lap. That she should speak of it all now, with such resentful sorrow – a horrible emptiness within him gapes further. 

“But you ask now,” eyes lift to him once more, moonlit and wounded even in the light of day. “even after I have done each kind thing you once praised of me?”

Regret coils ugly within him. He lurches toward the water without thinking, knees upstable upon the disintegrating salt-logged wood. “Wait,” he calls, hand outstretching in some boyish fit of desperation, as though command might counter the hurt he’d levied. 

She only slinks away, velveted water swallowing more and more of her. 

Sorrow, that horrible thing, falls deep within him at the sight. “Please.” The word breaks from him then, raw with a desperation he cannot hide; The cliffs catch it and throw it back at him once more in a hundred dying echoes – please, please, please – the cove lamenting his grief. 

Her eyes shimmer with unspilled silver. “I know you do not wish to fear me.”

It is then that she lets herself fall back into the sea. Scarcely a small sigh of water; Jacaerys is helpless to himself as the dark swallows her, absorbing the shape of her glinting scales as completely as though she had never existed at all. 

He is left quite alone. 

Silence occupies not just the ear but his bones themselves; Jacaerys remains kneeling where she vanished for some time, a hand suspended foolishly above the water in hopes the tide might, struck by some late compassion, yet choose to return what it has taken from him. Water kisses the edges of his boots and the splintered ruin he floats upon, and only when the last warmth of day has wholly bled from the cliffs lining the mouth of the cove does he at last force himself to move.

His limbs, it seems, have long forgotten the labor of belonging to him; For weeks they had been sustained by the cool touch of her palms against burning skin in the dead of night – that curious miracle by which each waking day found him a little less dead than the evening before. 

Rising upon his feet calls forth a strength he’s not attempted in what feels like true moons. 

Boots sink into the black sand; Solid earth has haunted his prayers through endless nights upon the water, yet now it feels strangely faithless and wholly dead with its lack of sway and ease. He walks because standing still becomes unbearable in both his limbs and mind. 

Slowly the prince wanders the little cove she had chosen for him. He threads first between the vast white arches of whale skeletons; then, fingertips drift across stone polished smooth by centuries of tides. Here and there the sea has driven whole ships into the stone, timber petrified into the bones of the earth; Human skulls peer from beds of mussels, seagrass growing through the hollows of their eyes; And yet nowhere among these countless things might he find the single thing he seeks. 

In time, night paints the caves into a black mouth, moonlight catching to glow horribly upon saltbleached bones. Jacaerys could leave; There is land beneath his feet, a miracle for which he once would have traded kingdoms, and somewhere beyond these cliffs there must surely be roads or villages with harbors and living men.

He does not go.

Instead he returns to the water’s edge and lowers himself among the abyssal sand, and tells himself that he will wait only until morning, when either his siren returns or daylight might reveal some path for him inland. He makes no fire, for the darkness feels less lonely when it remains unbroken; hips upon land and back against sharp rock, Jacaerys stares at the shifting current with broken regret. 

And when dawn finally begins to silver the eastern rim of the cave, washing the black water pale as beaten steel once more, bleeding with that softened lilac, Jacaerys is still there, watching with sunscorched eyes for any hint of silver within the waves. 

JACAERYS WAKES TO COLD. 

No chill which lives in the memory of his bones – not that of blood seeping from a dying body; he wakes to the roll of the frigid tide reaching calves, just where he’d collapsed upon the sand. Water laps over his boots and retreats again, a chilled thing as eyelashes unlace themselves from their salted hold upon his consciousness. 

For several breaths he reposes where he is, suspended in that memory of sleep and waking. A turn of head, pressing cheek to softened volcanic sand; and then his eyes open in memory, a lurch of disorientation at the sensation of land beneath him. 

What he finds, instead, are eyes. 

They are waiting for him from beyond the dark shelf of rock where the cove deepens suddenly into black water, faintly luminous now beneath the gentling dawn. He is struck with such immense relief that he laughs before he knows he has done so.

He croaks out your name, carrying with it all the lonely hours of the night between them as he rises swiftly, stiffness of limb protesting with the neglection of weeks upon the raft. His balance falters upon the uneven stones, though he crosses the cove as swiftly as the gods allow, ducking through whale ribs to where she waits where the black stone falls sheer into fathomless water, only her shoulders and head above the tide, hair spreading behind her. 

Jacaerys lowers himself carefully onto the warm volcanic rock, stretching close so he might lie upon his stomach along its edge, one arm hanging over the precipice towards her watchful countenance. The tide slips lazily between her tresses, coiling shyly.

“I was cruel.” He murmurs, gentler than the lick of tide which coaxed him awake though the words scrape against his throat. “I have no excuse.” 

She studies him without expression, unsettling enough that he cannot tell whether she means to forgive him or leave him once more. 

“I am so sorry,” he whispers, one last offering cast into the cove alongside the coins and daggers and futile silks of drowned things long past. Nothing answers him but the crashing wave, coaxing the glint of purpled crabs alongside the underbelly of his rock. 

Only then does her arm emerge from the water; with an upward reach, she glances up at him – and there he finds a bewildered heartbeat of hope that she might touch him again. Instead, her fingers unfold; in the glint of morning glare, Jacaerys blinks upon her palm, leaning further once more to find there, resting in the center, something shining. 

A pearl, fresh and small enough to disappear beneath his thumb. Morning gathers itself there upon its surface, a stolen captured piece of dawn pale as milk and luminous as mist-laced moon. 

Lashes flicker momentarily as the breath catches within his chest, a small laugh of absurd affection rising sweet and sharp in his throat as his eyes burn with emotion. 

Hesitation sits so strangely upon so beautiful a creature; her eyes glisten with those silvery tears, too, as her lip trembles. Her voice comes between pressed lips, a rather bashful countenance among the waves. “I wished to bring you one before you left me.” 

Her palm, he registers, trembles with the small thing, a glinting haze of the cave; affection burns bright through him as Jacaerys takes her palm with his own, closing her fingers gently around the pearl. 

“I don’t wish to leave you,” he says instead, and the confession comes before pride can catch it, before the careful walls built by a lifetime of crowns and expectations can remind him that princes are not meant to plead with the sea. His fingers remain around hers, warm against the strange coolness of her skin, the pearl hidden between their palms as though they have together captured some tiny fragment of the moon itself. “I wish to stay with you,” he whispers wetly. 

Her eyes swim just as the ancient, beautiful tail of shimmering silver does beneath the waves; currents curl and fold, and she remains utterly quiet for one moment, hand trembling within his own. Her gaze lowers briefly to the pearl still enclosed between them, then lifts again.

“The place you spoke of,” her voice ripples along the whisper of the tide. “The stoned castle that watches the sea, the home you say waits for you beside the water.” A lip trembles before it is speared with sharpened, pearled teeth. “You would truly bring me there?”

Dragonstone. He thinks of black towers rising from volcanic earth and halls warmed by fire, his mother’s chambers and dragons circling above cliffs where the wind wails. 

“Yes,” he says, lacking any such hesitation of a prince with the duty of war still looming upon his back. “I meant it. Truly.”

Something changes in her face then, though still he leans closer, lowering himself further over the stone until the water nearly reaches his bared visage, nearly kisses his chest. But before he might let his body follow that burning instinct of his heart to slip into the water after her, her hand slips from his own to disappear into the water. 

The pearl lies in his own palm; He watches her once more leave him. 

“Wait,” his voice tapers, though his disconcertion grows so completely that he remains frozen upon the rock, watching as the sea carries her not away this time, but instead towards the shore. 

It is only once she reaches the sand, long taloned things grasping in wounds through the dark, that the prince snaps upwards, heartbeat thundering upon his throat. A grieving veil, the dark water shifts and folds along her body, so unwilling to surrender what it has kept for longer than most men have had names for their gods; glassy folds climb her skin and slip over the silvering scales which remain among her sun-breathed skin. 

The unnatural grace begins in a wail of tide; a large crash of seafoam submerges Jace, his lungs filled once more with burning salt and unforgiving sting; when he surges to, upon his knees against sharp rock, he hears it: a wailing horror, splintered as shards of bone snap against echoing cave walls. His siren screams. 

Salt slides in drips from his vision, though still he finds the horror, a darkened sea of shimmering deep – no color of mortal blood, but perhaps an open vein in the ocean itself which spills a piece of its darkness upon the sand. 

The stories return once more of the she-creatures coming to land to nest; and, for the first time, the sound that leaver her is not some haunting sweetness meant to lure men closer. 

It is sheer agony, and it jolts him to action quicker than any war bell. 

Screams echo through the cavern, horrible and dragging; and hands catch the sharp of rock as Jacaerys descends, a scrambling desperation of fear as his knees strike the cold sand and stumble twice. The strength that has carried this far was never his own; it has always belonged to her and the breath she gave him, the kindness of a creature he once feared. Now, he spends what remains of it reaching her. 

He rears the largest rock just as the last of the blooded dark water retreats; waking itself only in foam and silver upon the shore. 

And just there: His siren lies still upon the sand. 

Upon reaching her, he falls to his knees. He finds, in trembling breaths, the sea’s remains upon her: laces of that old magic, shimmering scales along her skin; a strange elegance to her form, a brightness reflecting in her gaze, so akin to mother-of-pearl. 

She is no ordinary woman, but his woman.  

A trembling palm rises to brush away the remnants of foam and weeded sea, clinging to her as a dying man might his lover; and she only meets his own watery gaze, a small puff of air passing her lips. “I told you, I wished for you to come in.” 

The words undo him, loosing a laugh helpless in its wonder and grief, watery in bewilderment. Glossed lips curl, that same old glimmer in her eyes as she whispers next: “I suppose I once again had to come to you instead.”  

A hitch of his breath, swallowed in a rush of thrill as a palm comes to cup his own jaw, soothing as fingers spread along the curve of his cheek. “My prince of the sky,” she chides, her eyes carrying pools of the very same, that broke-open expanse of light high above the cavernous dark. Fingers brush away his salt-laced curls. 

He gathers her to him wholly, and she comes so very willingly, no longer divided by anything so  distant and unknowable as the sea.

A simple miracle; for she is warming, a living thing against him, breath trembling and falling in ripples of warmth along the bare of his shouldered back. Here she is, in his arms. 

Jacaerys presses his face against damp tresses and closes his eyes, overcome by the strangeness of the world having allowed such a thing to happen; and she in turn tightens her grasp round him in a gesture so truly human that it nearly brings the sting of tears to eye. The cove roars louder now, perhaps distraught with its loss; the water thunders along their bared legs, and at length, Jacaerys slowly pulls back. 

Slow, his gaze drops to her legs – the unfamiliar grace of twitching tissue and flesh and muscle and bone beneath the morning light; concern touches his heart and perhaps, too, his visage.

“Do they hurt?” he asks softly, tipping his head to catch her eyes. “Your legs.”

She looks down as though considering a question yet to be occurred within her mind; and then at length, she lifts one supple foot and nudges his side with a shy, almost playful firmness. A gesture moves through him, lips curling in a gentle affection at her nudge. 

“I have had them before,” she reminds him then, in hint of faint pride and amusement. He only smiles, no longer afraid of what she has been before him, what she is. For she is his, too – and he, hers. 

“Does it feel the same?” he wonders, gaze lingering over each sweet part of her, so real upon the shore. 

For the first time since she came ashore, she falters nearly unconfident; a startling transformation which renders Jacaerys marveled at such bashfulness. Her gaze slips away from his, and when she answers, her voice is barely above the whisper of the tide.

“No,” she hums, a small thing; and her fingers tighten faintly against his bared shoulder, nails blunt but sharp still. He can see how warmth touches her cheeks, how her lip catches upon sharp teeth. “This… feels far better.”

Jacaerys smiles then, a hand falling tenderly upon her face. A thumb brushes the dampness at her cheekbone, the silver traces still glimmering there like moonlight caught so stark against the real nature of her skin. 

And then he kisses her, slow as fate; a warmed mouth lingers against hers, patient and gentle, her hands rise to his back solidly to grasp at his warm flesh; the sea groans behind them, and the wind howls through the bones along the shore. 

Her breath catches when his hand slides to the sides of her – and he feels the shiver that passes through her then, not of fear but of sensation, an old recognition of something newly awakened. It answers in him at once, too, so low and bright and aching.

She leans closer once more, and he meets her there. 

The kiss deepens unhurried and tender; fingers curl in the muscle of his back, his own palm reaching the strange, living warmth of her skin, the quickening pulse there, the breath of her body now made real in his world. When she makes a small sound against his mouth, soft and startled by her own response, he draws back only enough to look at her. Her eyes are wide in a dawning tide of astonishment, swimming with the same heated thing that kisses across that sweet skin which once never knew the true touch of warmth. 

Jacaerys rests his forehead against hers and smiles, his own breath uneven now, his heart no calmer than her own within their beating cages. “Are you alright?” he murmurs.

Her answer is to kiss him first. Jacaerys makes a low sound against her mouth and gathers her closer once more, one hand at the nape of her neck, the other spreading along her waist, feeling the tremor there as though her body is remembering itself once more upon land. It is a sweet thing, a tangle of tongues languid, enough to perhaps remind her that tenderness can be just as fierce as hunger.

She moves against him with a wonder that undoes him; She has known desire, he can see that in the way she breathes, in the way her fingers tighten at his shoulders, in the bright, startled heat of her gaze, the memory of muscles when he shifts to press himself hard along the line of her own wanting body. Indeed, she is not one who hesitates; She knows the language of wanting better than he does, and he is not ashamed to learn from her now. 

When he draws away only enough to look at her, her lips are parted, her eyes dark with a confusion that is almost pain. 

“Tell me if you want me to stop,” he says softly, the words trembling with nerves that guide her closer to him still. “T-tell me if you do not want this, please.”

Her hand rises to his face, and the touch warms across him, spreading down trembling throat and quivering chest, far lower, igniting some spark within him. 

Her thumb brushes his mouth, and there is a smile which graces across her own. “I want,” she says, and the ocean crashes itself against their shore, folding over their hips as though it, too, wants.

He swallows, his body already hard with his own wanting; his voice comes lower, hungry for the sweet softness beneath his palms. “What do you want?” 

Her gaze holds his. “You,” she says, helpless to the unnatural flow of tresses which still seem to float gently round her beauty even left of the tide. “Only you, Jacaerys.”

Eyes shut for a heartbeat, if only in effort to steady himself; and when they open she still watches him in that patient, unsettling way.  

“Please, let me be careful with you,” he whispers, nearly desperate. She only nods, so ethereal under the breath of faraway sunlight, and her words come in the same tremble of needed breath. “Let us learn of each other.” 

And so he leads her from the waterline of the softer black sand and up where the dawn has begun to warm the flatter, kinder stones. And there, beneath the pale opening sky, he eases the salt and cold from them both. 

Fabric, fear, distance - one by one they fall away from their entwined forms until there is nothing left between them but breath and the bright, trembling ache of wanting. He lays her down with care, and when he follows her onto the sand, his mouth finds her throat first, then the hollow beneath her ear, then the place where her pulse leaps beneath the skin. She arches into him at once, a soft gasp breaking from her when his hand slides over her waist, then lower, learning her with a cruel patience.

“Jacaerys,” she breathes, a plea, a praise which makes him shudder. He answers only by kissing her harder, one hand threading through her hair, the other braced beside her head as he lowers himself over her. Her fingers clutch at his shoulders, then rake along his back, unsure whether to pull him closer or hold herself steady; He gives her both – indeed, he gives her everything he can. 

His mouth moves over hers, then down again, tasting salt and warmth and the faint sweetness of her breath, ghosting over the tantalizing flush of skin upon her breast, teeth scraping only softly. When she trembles, he stills at once, looking upon her with salt-kissed lashes. “Too much?” he inquires gently.

Her eyes are dark, her lips swollen from his kisses, and she looks nearly frenzied at the though of ceasing. 

“No.” The answer is breathlessly hungry and he smiles against her skin, slower now only because he wants her to feel every stroke of his hands, every tendered bite of teeth, every careful press of his body against hers. Her hips lift to meet him; it sends a sharp pulse of heat through him which coaxes a soft groan, lost to the plush of her skin, and she startles – perhaps at the effect she has on him. 

“Again,” he begs, guiding her with his hands though his lips leave their marks upon silver flakes along her skin. 

She moves once more; the black sand clings to their skin and the morning wind cools the sweat at their backs. 

And when he finally joins her, it is with a groan that feels torn from somewhere deep in his chest; she tightens around him in a surprised thing, melting into wanting, then wholly his in that moment. He pauses only long enough to look at her, to make sure she is with him; and when she nods, brow knit with a pleasured desperation, with her fingers digging into his shoulders and drawing half-moons of red, he presses into her warmth nearer to worship than any prayer that’s ever left his lips. 

First, with the wash of waves, it is a slow thing of breaths and shaking laughter and trembling moans – though it grows deeper, growing a heat that builds and builds until the air between them seems to crackle with it, until his pleasure rolls over him in heavy immense pressure, until her own gasps sharpen and their fingers fall, entwined together, to find the spot upon her which coaxes her eyes back in ecstasy. 

Her head falls back against the sand and lips part upon a sound that is half-gasp, half-plea. He drinks the song, kisses the line of her throat, the curve of her breast; finger turn, pressing gently in a caress along the trembling place where her body meets his, and each touch draws another shiver from her. She is beautiful like this, so flushed and undone by pleasure and trust alike; the sight of her makes him impossibly harder still, makes him want to give her everything, makes him want to keep her here in this moment forever or keep her upon a throne or wherever she might wish to be. 

“Look at me,” he begs, a broken sound.

And the sight of her eyes on his, dark and dazed and full of him, is enough to make him lose the last of his restraint. He moves with a steadier rhythm then, one hand at her hip, the other braced beside her head, grasping along the smooth rock, his mouth returning to hers whenever he can bear to leave her skin. She meets him with such growing fervor, hands roaming, learning the planes of his muscled back, the line of his jaw, the taper of his hips, the damp hair at his temples. 

Pleasure gathers tighter and tighter between them; The sea roars in the sonorous echo of two exiles making a home of one another. It is only then, as she pulls his chest upon hers and lets out a soft tremble of sigh, that they find the peak of their ecstasy in harmony. 

It rolls within him as tide turns stones upon the shore – sun-drenches and ebbing, his pleasure tumbles, his groan falls into a taper of her name, or that which his tongue can form; and she, in turn, with trembling legs and wettened eyes, smiling at the bewilderment of such earthly delights. When he comes to lie beside her, when their sweat and sand-laced skin sticks gently to one another in a lazy, sweet whispering sigh of exhaustion, her eyes meet his once more. 

A shared laugh, one of relief and bubbled affection, curls around their small cove. It is not untouched by grief, nor lacking in the gods’ cruelty – though it drifts out still across the water, and echoes only in sweetness as their foreheads press.  

And when at last he draws her down with him, when the last of the morning light spills over them and the cove becomes all hush and salt and the soft ruin of restraint, it is not hunger that remains between them but love – deep, astonished, and newly named. 

For some time, the waves come and go. 

It is when the sun fully glints through the clear tidepools that his siren rises, and offers her palm. When they gather themselves from the rocks and sand, pearl stowed within the pocket of battered sunbleached riding leathers, Jacaerys finds pieces of old silks among the bones; he wraps her in them, a first garment for a woman who crossed from one world to another. 

She laughs when he fusses over the tie of her new dressing, attempting in gentle adjustments to ensure it bothers not the scars which still stretch across her shoulder; the sound of her laughter follows them as they move away from the shore. 

The path upward out of the cove is narrow and ancient, carved through stone by years of rain and wind and the endless pummel of waves. They walk slowly, dually unsteady beneath the unfamiliar weight of land, rendering both their bodies unsure; for once, neither belonging to this world but both traversing it, sharing in stumbles and laughs and small conversation. 

At the top of the path sunlight finds their skin, and the world opens; horizon stretches wide before them so endless. In the breath of the world once more around him, grief and death melt; water dries upon warm skin and his siren lets out a breath of shock, of wonder. Jacaerys holds her palm as her other runs over the tall wildgrass swaying around them in a tide of seabreeze, holds her tightly as she throws her arms round him with bubbling laughter. 

It is only then that the shadow passes in the distance. His breath catches, her own coming only a moment later; For far along the coast, beyond the cliffs and the rolling sea mist, something enormous moves through the sky, massed and raining shadow upon the earth. Even at a distance, even as only a shape against the morning for, he knows. 

He remembers the curve of the wings and the weathered roar even before it meets their ears; knows the glint of faint gold and rubied heart along the breast of the great beast as he knows the back of his palm.

His mother’s dragon.

And so together, with splintered breaths and wettened eyes, hand in hand, Jacaerys and the siren run toward the shadows in the distance, unaware of the rising smoke and distant screams beneath it.

whew! that was long requests open. starting new taglist; pls lmk if you'd like to be on it. masterlist

[entitled-fangirl]

Chosen. P2.

Valarr Targaryen x dragon hybrid!reader

Summary: Now chosen, Valarr has to navigate the struggles of making a dragon happy. With no word from the prince, Baelor sends Aerion to ensure Valarr is alright.

Based on this post and this beautiful artwork I saw. I'm so thankful for people that share their talents.

Masterlist

Part 1

...............................................................................

For a week, Valarr did not leave her nest. 

She had chosen him, and she had bonded so strongly that she pouted every time he started to leave.

He was unable to write to his father and tell him what had happened. 

She had brought him fish. The first few times, she'd dropped it at his feet and shifted back to her human form. Her big eyes would simply stare, not understanding why he would not take her offering. She was trying to take care of him. Why was he not accepting it?

Valarr looked back and forth from her to the fish. "Kirimvose (Thank you)." He tried to smile. 

"Gaomā daor hae ziry (You do not like it)," she whined. 

"Gaoman. Nyke kivio gaoman. Issa mērī (I do. I promise I do. It is only….)"

"Issa mērī…(It is only...)" she echoes and steps closer.

"Nyke daor ipradagon ziry (I cannot eat it…)," He thought for a moment of the right Valaryian word but couldn't. "…raw."

"Raw?" She asks, lips wrapping oddly around the common tongue.

"Istin bāneves ziry isse perzys (I must heat it in fire)," he explains. 

That explanation cheered her up. Her love wants to put his meal in fire. That, she knew very well. 

She moved closer and wrapped her arms around him. Her nose nuzzled into his neck, as it often did, and she purred gently. 

His own arms found their way around her. She smelled of dragon, like iron and ash. 

Her lips began to trail across his skin. She did not kiss, only trailed in a way that made him shiver. 

Then suddenly, she bit him.

It was a hot, searing pain that made him yelp and push her away instinctively. 

She fell to the ground, a bit of blood across her lips. 

Valarr was shocked. He reached up to his neck and drew his hand away to find the same blood on his fingers. When he looked back at her, he was angry. "Skoro syt gaomagon ao ōdrikagon nyke? (Why do you hurt me?)"

Her eyes welled up with tears. "Gaoman daor ōdrikagon ao. Iksan biare. Nyke tymagon (I do not hurt you. I am happy. I play)."

But the pain was still making him blind to her sadness. "Konir sagon daor skorkydoso ao tymagon (That is not how you play)!" His voice came out in a low growl, one much unlike Valarr. "Ao ōdrikagon nyke (You hurt me)."

Her tears fell one after the other. Dragons were sensitive creatures, after all. Especially one that did not interact with humans in all her years of living. 

So she did the only thing she knew to do. She left. 

She stood and ran off. She left the nest, and she left Valarr. 

It would take a while for Valarr to calm down and realize how poorly he handled that. 

How do you earn the forgiveness of a dragon?

…

Almost ten days since Valarr's last letter.

Baelor was beginning to fear the worst. The last he had heard from his son, there was a dragon on Dragonstone. 

Perhaps sending his boy was a bad idea.

Every dinner, Aerion would ask for updates. And Baelor would have nothing to give him. The family could see his growing worry, even as he tried to hide it. 

Maekar was the one to finally address it. "Send Aerion."

The entire table froze.

"Do It. Send Aerion. He knows more about dragons than the rest of us combined. He also is well trained with the sword. He can slay the thing if it will not be tamed."

"We cannot have the last living dragon slain," Baelor sighed.

"What if it killed your son?"

He pauses. "Valarr is quick. And he has blood of the dragon within him."

"Send Aerion," Maekar insists again. "So we can all get this over with."

Aerion was practically vibrating in his chair.

Daeron slurred out something, but no one listened. 

"I… I suppose I could send him, but there are rules."

Aerion's eyes were wide, almost crazed with excitement. 

Baelor took a sip of his drink before continuing. "I don't want it slain. If it cannot be tamed, so be it. But ensure my castle properly feeds it to keep it from feeding more ashore. I don't want the Ghost getting ideas."

"Done," the second son grins. 

"And listen to Valarr, should you find him. He is still the leader in this."

That annoyed him, but he didn't pause on it. "And if I cannot find Valarr?"

Baelor's eyes saddened. "Pray to the Seven that you do."

…

Valarr had not left the nest, though the dragon had been gone for a long time. 

He beat himself up about how foolish he was. She just wanted to play. She was showing affection. 

He needs to calmly teach her human affection. Not yell at her when she makes a mistake. 

But she hadn't returned. And Valarr was beginning to grow hungry. She didn't seem to want to return either. As much as it hurt, he understood. 

So he trailed down the mountain with a plan.

The servants believed him to be crazy, but would go along with his plan. 

He wanted a day's worth of caught fish to be taken to her as a peace offering. No doubt she was struggling to catch fish as much as the fishermen were. And giving her favorite food in such an amount would show that he was both listening and able to provide for her. 

The fish were delivered to up the Dragonmont to her nest and left there. 

Valarr was going to let her discover it in her own time without him there to scare her off or pressure her. She would smell his scent and understand it was from him.

"Aerion?"

The silver headed Brightflame grinned. "Cousin. I was sent to ensure your safety."

"I am perfectly safe, thank you." He shoved past him and continued moving through the castle. 

"Gods, you reek," he huffed, following behind. "Have you lost all princely duties in your haste to impress your father?"

Valarr spun around. "It is the smell of dragon, idiot."

Aerion never imagined a dragon would smell so awful. He imagined a masculine, more rich smell. Not charred meat and musk. "You've gotten close, then?"

"Something like that." He didn't need Aerion interfering with the poor girl.

"What are you doing here then? Go, take me to it!"

"Aerion, this is sensitive. I cannot tell you all of it and I cannot make you understand what I now know. I just need time."

"Time," Aerion reasoned. "I will make time for you. But I want to see it. I want to touch it."

"Soon enough."

His lips pulled in a line but he accepted that and walked off.

…

The Grey Ghost had indeed accepted Valarr's apology. 

And he only knew so because she practically pounced on him when he arrived at her nest. 

He caught her with a grunt, smiling that he finally had her back. 

She sniffed and nuzzled him again, then paused. "Ao yknagon hae rūkluni (You smell like flowers)." She sniffed his hair. "Ao gōntan daor yknagon hae rūkluni gō (You did not smell like flowers before)."

"Bona would sagon ñuha cousin (That would be my cousin)."

"Gaoman daor hae ziry.  Jaelan naejot jiōragon rid hen ziry (I do not like it. I want to get rid of it)."

He let her preen him and rub her scent into his skin. The bath he'd taken in the stream was in vain, and Aerion's perfume was soon gone from his senses. 

"Gaoman daor jaelagon naejot ōdrikagon ao.  Yn jaelan naejot tymagon (I do not want to hurt you. But I want to play)," she tried this time when she began nuzzling at his neck like before. 

"Nyke gīmigon.  Sagon gīda (I know. Be calm.)" 

Something settled deeply within her. She purred low, deep from her chest. 

"Konīr iksis mirros lovers gaomagon. Skori jaelzi naejot mate.  Lo jaelā bona lēda nyke (There is something lovers do. When they want to mate. If you want that with me)," Valarr whispered against her temple. "Se kessa daor ōdrikagon nyke (And it will not hurt me)."

She pulled away to look into his eyes. "Nyke gīmigon skorkydoso naejot mate (I know how to mate)."

"Daor, ñuha jorrāelagon (No, my love)," he flushed. "Humans gūrogon longer naejot mate.  Gaomis tolie ra ēlī (Humans take longer to mate. They do other things first)."

She studied his face. His two mismatched eyes. His freckled cheeks. "Bodmagho nyke (Teach me)."

"Jurnegon rȳ ñuha laesi (Look at my eyes)," he began, ignoring the heat rising in his gut. "Olvie sȳz (Very good)." 

She obeyed him without fuss. That was not something dragons were known for. He wouldn't take her trust for granted. 

"Iksā iā olvie gevie riña. Iā gevie zaldrīzes (You are a very beautiful girl. My beautiful dragon)."

She purred again. 

"Kostagon nyke vūjigon ao (May I kiss you)?"

She did not understand what a kiss was, nor what it meant, but she hummed.

When he began to lean it, she took it as a sign of affection as dragons do. And she tried to tuck herself into his neck once more. 

He cupped her cheeks with both hands. "Daor, ñuha jorrāelagon.  Ivestragī nyke jemagon.  Kesā shifang aderī (No, my love. Let me lead. You will understand soon)."

And thus he leaned in again, and she held still. 

His eyes closed, but she did not close hers. 

His lips met hers. His were soft and chilled, while hers were warm and chapped. 

She did not move for fear of messing it up. Human rituals were odd. 

So Valarr pulled away. "Gōntan ao daor hae ziry (Did you not like it)?"

"Gaoman daor gīmigon (I do not know)."

He smiled and brushed his thumb over her cheekbone. "Skoro syt ȳdra daor ao sylugon naejot vūjigon nyke (Why don't you try to kiss me)?"

Eager to please him, she took initiative, copying him exactly. She cupped his face and leaned in, though a bit more hasty than he had. 

It felt better the second time. And when his lips moved against hers, she pulled away. 

His smile only grew. "Iksā getting sȳrkta. Gaomagon ao hae ziry (You are getting better. Do you like it?)?"

"Kessa (Yes)," she answered immediately. 

"Bisa iksis mirros rȳ lovers.  Gaomā daor vūjigon tolie.  Iksis bona alright (This is something between lovers. You do not kiss others. Is that alright?)?"

"Jaelan naejot vūjigon ao tolī (I want to kiss you more)."

"Kosti gaomagon bona (We can do that)," he laughed. "Mirre tubis lo ao jaelagon (All day if you wish)."

She quickly learned the art of a peckish kiss. And she learned how Valarr responds to kissing so easily. "Kesi vūjigon tolī (We will kiss more)." Kiss. "Pār kesi jikagon fishing (Then we will go fishing)." Kiss. "Pār kesi mate syt hours isse se moonlight (Then we will mate for hours in the moonlight)."

When she moved to kiss again, he intercepted with a flush. "Kesi daor mate yet.  Daor ēva iksā ñuha ābrazȳrys (We will not mate yet. Not until you are my wife)."

"ābrazȳrys," she whispers to herself. "Skorkydoso gaomagon nyke prove kostan sagon ābrazȳrys (How do I prove I can be wife)?"

"Gaomā daor prove. Ao become. Lēda human rituals (You do not prove. You become. With human rituals)."

She leans in again and he decides he would be a fool to stop her. She kisses deeply, experimentally. And this time, she nips (albeit much softer than the one against his neck) at his bottom lip. Valarr groans from a place in himself he didn't know he had. It makes her shudder. 

"Jaelan naejot sagon ābrazȳrys naejot ao.  Naejot ñuha Valarr (I want to be wife to you. To my Valarr)."

"You cunning little rat!"

She jumps away at the sound. 

Aerion stands feet away, so angry a vein in his neck bulges. "You lie to all of us! You lied that a dragon was here, so what? You could be with a whore without others knowing?"

"Aerion—"

The woman looks between her Valarr and the threat against him. The Grey Ghost was known for running from danger. But now she had to protect him. 

She stepped forward, but Valarr quickly wrapped an arm around her. "Daor, henujagon zirȳla.  Issa mērī angry.  Kessa rēbagon skori ziry understands (No, leave him. He is only angry. It will pass when he understands)."

She snorts, low and angry like he'd seen her dragon form do.

"And where did you get this thing?" Aerion sneers. "Your father will be so disappointed to know his heir was so desperate for a warm cunt that he made up these lies just to keep up the facade of the perfect son—"

"You're standing in a dragon nest, cousin," Valarr defended. "Look around you. A dragon lives here."

Aerion frowned but did so. It did smell of dragon here. This was indeed where the Grey Ghost was known to hide away. "Where is he, then?"

"He?" Valarr scoffed. "It seems I know more about dragons than you finally."

"What are—" He looked to the girl and back to Valarr. To the girl and back to Valarr. "No."

"I didn't believe it myself at first. Hybrids were fables septas tell children before they go to sleep. But—"

"And it picked you? Of all the dragon blood, it picked you?"

"She," Valarr corrected. 

"She," Aerion huffed with his hands up in mock forgiveness. He stepped closer to the pair and tried to speak to her. "My name is Aerion Brightflame. I have blood of the dragon."

The woman blinked. 

"She only speaks High Valaryian."

"Right, of course. Konīr issi tolie naejot bond naejot lo gaomā daor hae ñuha cousin (There are others to bond to if you do not like my cousin)." 

She snarled at him, making him jump. 

"Are there others then?" He asked Valarr. "Other dragons?"

The thought of Aerion actually getting a dragon made Valarr's head swim. "I do not know. I have not asked her yet. She's still getting used to trusting humans."

"The Grey Ghost is a recluse. I'm surprised you were chosen at all."

"I as well." He leaned into her. "Kessa jā naejot ñuha sombāzmion? naejot ñuha nest? (Will you go to my castle? To my nest?)?"

Though she was still glaring at Aerion, she answered a soft, "Kessa (yes)."

She still had a lot to learn about human interaction before he could take her to the Red Keep. Time in the Dragonstone castle would be good for her. 

He moved to pull her along, but she rushed forward to kiss him again as she had before they were interrupted. 

Valarr had to pull her off. His cheeks were bright pink. 

He also needed to teach her not to do such things in the company of others. 

Aerion watched, more like glared at his cousin. That should be him. Was he not also blood of the dragon? Was he not just as worthy, if not more, of a dragon's affection? He had the Targaryen features to prove it. He did not look like Valarr with his father's Dornish features and his mother's pale skin. No, Aerion was a dragon, through and through.

And one dragon in human form should belong to another. 

.......................................................................................

Taglist: @noone1233nobody, @haydee5010, @thorins-queen-of-erebor, @knightowlscribbles

[verouys]

— OAT MILK? ... Kat Taylor x Reader blurb (modern!au)

SUMMARY — where the prettiest girl you’ve ever seen comes into the matcha shop you work at, and you have no other choice but to tell her you love her.

NOTES — sorry guys, i love a little modern!au. this was lowkey a whole lot of nothing whoops. I haven’t written in years please forgive me. extremely california-coded, sjsu mention lmao. entirely self-indulgent, hello to me and the other 5 kat fans !!

no ai was used for this. fuck gen ai.

"If I have to tell another customer 'i love you' after handing them their fucking drink, I'm going to have a conniption." Your coworker grumbles from behind you, whisking aggressively as the last customer slips out of the door.

Shaking your head, you wipe down the counter, dusting off stray matcha powder from the marble. "Well, that’s the entire gimmick. Besides, we need to spread more love in the world." You add with a faux wistful tone.

She shoots you a playful glare and pours out her drink, "Bullshit. It's just Greg trying to establish a brand for this place. Couldn’t we just get a cute cup design or something?" At her words, you immediately think of your absent manager in fondness, remembering the first team meeting he held to establish the policy.

Leaning against the counter, she turns to look at you. "You're taking the next customer, I'm going to try and find some pink whitney to mix in with this."

… A joke. Hopefully.

Right on cue, you hear the sound of the outside traffic diffuse into the open space before being muffled again, the movement of the glass door casting a glare across the wall.

"Welcome in!" You call out instinctively, glancing back to see your coworker had already disappeared without a trace, leaving behind only the sway of the curtains leading into the employee break room.

Suppressing a roll of your eyes, you turn around fully and approach the counter, straightening up as you see the prettiest girl you've ever laid your eyes upon. Her short hair is tucked back behind her ears, her arms crossed as she rests her weight on one foot.

She's looking up at the menu board with a small frown, but it falls away when she glances back down at you. "Hi." She greets you with a pleasant smile, "may I get a blueberry matcha with oat milk?"

"Oat milk?" You mumble and blink a few times before clearing your throat and smiling. "Uhm, yeah, sure thing. That'll be $7.49. Could I get a name for the drink?"

Her eyes linger on yours for a second as she nods, "Kat."

“Got it.” You mumble, lips pursed as you suddenly feel a bit bashful standing so close to her.

After tapping her card to pay, she retreats to a small table to wait. You steal a few glances as you whisk up her drink, making note of the shirt she was wearing, her name tag pinned to it. You could faintly make out the words printed on the back of the tan material.

Cap'n Clark's Ottoman Empire

It was just across the plaza. You could even vaguely recall your coworker joking about the place.

"It's definitely a money laundering front. Do you think they stuff cash into the walls of their basement or something?"

Maybe you could convince your coworker to go with you one day, if not to see Kat again, at least to confirm her wild theories about the place.

After putting a lid on the drink, you approach the pick-up counter and place the drink down, mind blanking as you watch her get up. "Uhm, have a good day… i love you." You say, feeling your ears get warm as she pauses to stare at you in confusion.

"Thank you?" She answers, tone lilting in question before she smiles in amusement. The interaction only lasts a few moments as she quickly begins her retreat from the store, unperturbed by whatever you’ve just thrown at her.

As she disappears out of sight, you deflate with a soft sigh, slumping down and resting your elbows on the counter so you could hide your face in your arms.

"Bad news, no alcohol." Your coworker jokes as she walks back out, her voice cutting through the silence that had enveloped the store. You can hear her stop in her tracks as she takes in your sagged form. "Are you okay?"

You can only muster up a pained mumble in response, voice muffled. "I think we should kill Greg."

The next time you see Kat, you're busy mixing drinks during a rush hour, gaggles of local college students filing in to claim tables and steal your store's wifi. The only warning you had gotten that morning was a giddy 'finals week' text from Greg in the work groupchat.

Your coworker has her customer service face and voice activated to it’s maximum power as she taps away at the register screen, sliding order receipt after order receipt toward you.

During a flow of pouring out four drinks, your coworker slides up to you and bumps your hip with hers. "Your crush just walked in— whoa, don't look yet!" She hisses out softly when you go to whip your head around. "Go take her order. But don't gawk for too long, I think an eight-person study group just pulled up. Shoo, shoo!”

You almost regret having told her of your embarrassment from that day. As you're effectively booted from your station, you have no other choice but to man the register.

"Hi, welcome back." You greet softly, tapping your fingers against the counter as Kat directs her full attention to you.

"Hey, pretty busy today." She says casually, eyes taking in your features.

You nod and look down at her outfit, smiling at how stylish she was. "You don’t have work today?"

Congrats, stalker. You wince internally.

If she's surprised by your words, she doesn't show it, instead giving a shrug and smiling back at you. "Day off. I liked the drink I got last time, so I decided to come by again before class.”

“Oh, I’m glad.” You respond, looking down at the tablet in front of you. “Blueberry matcha with oat milk then?”

She chuckles a bit and nods. “Uhm yeah, I’m surprised you remember.” Her head is slightly tilted in interest as she watches your face, seemingly committing the interaction to memory.

“Oh, just… perks of the job.” You say lamely as you punch the order in. “So, you’re a college student?”

“Yeah. Starting my last year at San Jose State in the Fall.” She says as she pays, eyes glimmering under the hanging lights.

You nod and smile brightly. “That’s exciting… Hopefully you enjoy the rest of this semester. Thanks for stopping by again, Kat.”

Stepping aside, she shoots you a sweet smile, eyes momentarily darting to the little name tag on your apron. “Thanks.”

After surviving the train of orders and subsequent drink modifications being directed at you by the remaining customers behind her, you manage to get a moment to catch your breath.

You glance up just in time to see Kat pushing the glass door open, shooting a look over her shoulder and catching your gaze. She smiles shyly at you, a playful look in her eyes as she turns away to leave.

A sense of déjà vu washes over you as you watch her disappear into the parking lot.

Next time, you’d hope you could sneak in a little more than just 20 seconds of conversation.

Of course, your moment of reprieve can only last so long.

“Special delivery.” Your coworker singsongs lightly as she walks towards you, waving a small napkin in her hand as she grins at you teasingly.

A small huff escapes you. “Oh gosh, what now?”

You grab it slowly and furrow your eyebrows as you read the scribbling of black ink on it— your name doodled at the very top with a small smiley face.

Unfolding the napkin completely, your mind grows completely silent as everything seems to fade into the background.

too early to say ‘I love you’ back, but let’s get dinner sometime? - kat. 408-xxx-xxxx