Did you hear about the girl who lives in delusion? @xinyourdreamsx - Tumblr Blog

Jun 25

"i'll never be yours" | maekar targaryen x reader

PLOT! the five times Egg realizes his father was in love with his aunt and the one time he realized how truly doomed they were.

pairing: maekar targaryen x reader

word count: around 5.4k

a/n: NO TARGCEST. this is the first time i wrote in a while, so might not be my best (i also wrote the first part and the ending first and then got lazy writing the middle)

SOME LOVES ARE LOUD ENOUGH TO SHAKE KINGDOMS. Others live and die in stolen glances, in half-finished sentences, in the spaces between what is felt and what is never allowed to be spoken.

The first time Egg realized his father was in love with his aunt, it came to him as most truths did in his childhood: carelessly and from the mouth of someone who should have known better.

The afternoon was hot, with the sun beating down hard on Egg's back, slicking it with hot droplets of sweat. It felt unbearable. Dust was also clinging to the air, to his skin and to the back of his throat.

He thought that squiring would be something finer than this. Something worthy of the stories and songs. Instead it was just weight. It was sweat. It was the sour, lingering scent of wine that followed Daeron everywhere he went.

"Seven save me," Daeron muttered, swaying as Egg struggled with the fastening at his shoulder. "Did they give me a squire or a stableboy?"

"I can do it," Egg said eagerly.

"You always can," Daeron replied, listing his cup. "And yet..."

He did not finish his thought. Egg bit down on his tongue and tried again. His fingers slipped. Until by chance or pure stubbornness, the buckle caught.

Egg stepped back and looked up at his perfect work, waiting for some well deserved praise. But recieved nothing. Egg groaned and looked up ready to complain to Daeron but the older boy was no longer looking at him.

His gaze had gone elsewhere, beyond the yard, beyond the garden hedges, fixed on something Egg could not yet see.

"What is it?" Egg asked, rising onto his toes, as though the height might grant him some assistance with the high hedge. It did not.

Daeron did not answer at once. He drank what remained in his cup, slow and unhurried.

"Have you ever noticed the way Father behaves around her?"

Egg frowned. "Around who?" (the boy was now jumping up and down to try and gain some view beyond the hedges).

"Our aunt. (Y/N)"

Egg blinked. "No?"

Daeron hummed softly. "It's nothing. Less than nothing."

Egg wracked his brain trying to come up with some possible answer to what Daeron was insinuating. "Does Father have some problem with her?"

Egg was worried then because you as well as your family were meant to come to Summerhall before coming with them to Ashford for a tourney.

"Quite the opposite." Daeron turned to Egg and wiggled his brows. Egg frowned, knowing what that meant. "That doesn't mean anything."

"No, it doesn't."

"She's married. To Prince Baelor."

Daeron hummed.

"Father wouldn't-" Egg stopped, the rest of the thought refusing to settle into something. "He loved Mother."

At that, something in Daeron's experession shifted.

"He did."

The words hung there, unfinished. Egg waited for more but none came. "She's our aunt."

"And he's our father."

Egg shook his head. "You're wrong."

"Perhaps." Daeron set his empty cup aside and crouched slightly, bringing himself nearer to Egg's height. "Just watch him. You'll see it, or maybe you won't. These sort of things aren't meant to be seen at all."

He straightened, clapping a hand against Egg's shoulder. "Come on. I'll need another drink before I pretened to be a knight again."

Egg followed, though more slowly. He told himself there was nothing. Daeron was just drunk and imagining things.

The second time Egg noticed, no one said a word at all.

It happened in the Great Hall, in the lull between courses, when the noise softened just enough to hear the quieter things. The scrapes of a cup against the table, the half whispers of conversations and all that. The portion of the night where everyone was relaxed.

Egg had not meant to watch. He told himself he wasn't. But Daeron's voice had settled somewhere in the back of his mind and it was impossible to ignore it. So he took Daeron's words to heart. Watch him.

So he did. Egg watched his father from his place at the dinner table next to Aemon (who had his head buried in some large textbook. Egg was slightly concered over his brother's potential future neck problems).

His father sat at the end of the high table by his brother and Egg's uncle. His posture was straight and his expression was carved hard. He spoke when spoken to, nodded whe required and drank very little. There was little to nothing strange about it.

Until, his Aunt (Y/N) laughed.

It was not loud, nothing that would turn heads or draw attention to it. (Y/N)'s laugh was a lovely one and a familiar one to Egg. (The laugh came from a joke that Matarys told her but Egg did not hear what it was. From what he knew of his cousin, Egg didn't think it was a funny joke and his aunt was just being polite).

But Egg saw it. The way his father had stilled. Not entirely or in a dramatic way. But it was as if the statue had been shooken. A breath that was being held onto for a second too long.

Egg frowned. His father did not turn, did not look, his gaze remained fix on Baelor as the two were in a conversation. Maekar did not speak right away. Baelor carried on, asking a question that was answered by some lesser lord sitting next to Maekar. His paused moment slipped past, unoticed by all except for Egg.

It meant nothing, Egg told himself. Less than nothing.

People paused all the time. People lost their places. It was not uncommon. Afterall some people just get lost in their thoughts. It was not-

His father's hand tightened slightly around his cup. So slight it might have been imagined. Egg watched however, as he took a measured drink and set it back down with too much attention than it required.

Still, he did not look. Not at you. Egg found his gaze looking upon you instead. Looking radiant in the red silks that were probably made in Dorne. You had now reached your hand over to your husbands to get his attention, and leaned in to speak with a soft smile.

Prince Baelor and Princess (Y/N). Future King and Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. They looked right. They looked happy. The very pitcture of what Egg thought a loving marriage would look lile. As though the world had placed them exactly where they were meant to be. Egg was content knowing they loved each other.

So Egg went back to his food and started to shift his peas from his plate to Aemon's instead. Content to pretend that he was overanalyzing his father's behaviour.

The third time Egg noticed, it was close enough to touch.

It happened in the gardens, where the air was softer and world felt far away from the Seven Kingdoms. Egg had not meant to follow. At the time it had felt like nothing at all. He was just wandering paths he knew well, doing his best to avoid the maesters and his lessons.

That was until he saw them. He stopped before he could be seen and hid behind a tree.

They stood beneath the shade of an overgrown arbor, where the light filtered through in fragments painting them in gold. It was rather close. Not close enough to be indecent or improper. Just, closer than what was necessary.

(Y/N) was speaking, though it was too soft that the words could not reach Egg. Instead he had to settle on watching the shape of them. As (Y/N) was speaking his father did not interrupt, did not look away. Just gazed at your face.

From the looks of it, you had finished speaking and there was a moment of silence between the two of you. Then, your hand had lifted.

It wasn't anything dramatic. Just brushing your hand against his sleeve. It should have been nothing because it was nothing. But again, his father had stilled. The way his breath seemed to catch, the way his hand at his side tightened just slightly.

He did not pull away, did not reach back, did not move at all. The two of you stood there, closer than what one would expect, with your hand on his arm. To Egg, it looked like a different sort of painting. One he had not seen at the dinner the other night.

Then you stepped back and distance returned. Whatever had just been there, slipped neatly back into place.

His father inclined his said, said something Egg could not hear but it was probably something drab (his father was a rather blunt speaker). Whatever it was, it resulted in a smiling (Y/N). Your smile was smaller and softer and gone quicker than normal.

And then it was all over again.

Egg did not move from where he stood, though he knew he should. He felt as if he was intruding on something. His thoughts felt tangled. Nothing had occured.

With that, he took a step back and starting walking back into the castle.

The fourth time Egg noticed, it nearly did not remain theirs alone.

It was not meant to be a moment at all. That was what made it dangerous.

The corridors were quieter at that hour, the castle settling into itself as the evening wore on. Voices dulled behind closed doors. Footsteps softened. Even the torches seemed to burn lower, their light unsteady against the stone. Everyone was preparing for bed.

Egg had been sent on some errand he no longer remembered.

It did not matter. He would forget it entirely, later.

What he would remember, what would stay, was this:

The turn of a corner. The sound of a voice, too low to make out. And the way he stopped before he understood why.

This time, from behind a corridor, Egg saw them at the far end of the passage, half-shadowed, as though the castle itself meant to keep their secret.

They were close. Too close. Much closer than before in the garden.

Once again you were speaking. Or not. Even in the dimmed hallway, Egg could see you were loosing your composure. The normal picture perfect you seemed frazzle in the dark corridor. Words were spilling out quick but quietly. As if it was something that had been held back for too long.

Egg could not hear them, only feel the shape of them in the air, sharp and unsteady. (He was thinking to himself that he should really work on his sneaking abilities so he could somehow find himself closer so he could properly eavesdrop).

His father said nothing. He only watched you. Not as a prince might. Not as a brother should. As though the rest of the world had fallen away.

Egg’s breath caught, though he did not know why. He should not have been there. He knew that. And yet he did not move.

You stopped speaking. The silence that followed was not empty. It pressed in, taut, waiting.

His father took a step forward. It was small, measured and hesitant. Enough to close what little distance remained between you.

Egg felt it then, that strange, tightening awareness, like a thread pulled too thin. Something was about to happen. Something that could not be undone.

Your hand lifted, hesitant, uncertain, as though you had not meant to do it at all. His father’s followed. Not touching. Never touching.

But close enough that the space between them felt like something real. Something fragile. Something one breath away from breaking.

And for a moment, the two of you didn't move.

Footsteps echoed from the far end of the corridor. And the spell shattered. Your hand dropped at once. His father stepped back just as quickly, the distance snapping into place as though it had never been crossed at all.

By the time the servants turned the corner, there was nothing to see.

It was just a prince standing where he ought to stand. A lady composed, untouched. Silence, neat and proper, where something else had been moments before.

Egg pressed himself back against the wall, heart beating too fast for something he did not understand.

No one noticed. No one said a word. And yet, Egg knew.

That it had almost—

He swallowed, the thought slipping from him before it could take shape.

It had been nothing.

A step taken. A hand lifted. A moment that came too close to becoming something more.

The fifth time Egg noticed, nothing threatened to happen at all.

There was no interruption waiting in the wings. No footsteps. No tension poised to break. Only certainty.

It happened in a corridor (the same one as before) and he was not meant to linger in, though he had long since stopped believing that mattered. The castle had begun to feel less like a place one moved through, and more like something that simply contained him.

He heard your voice first. And then his father’s.

Egg stopped before he saw you.

You stood facing one another, not hidden, not secret, simply… there. As though there had never been anything to conceal.

Your hands were folded neatly before you, composed and contorlled. The opposite of what you looked like the previous night he had seen the pair of you.

“I leave with Baelor at first light,” you said. Your voice did not tremble. It did not need to.

His father nodded once. “I know.”

No hesitation. No question. Only acknowledgment.

Egg watched the way you held his gaze for a moment longer than was necessary. Not lingering. Not resisting. Just, steady.

“As it should be,” you added quietly.

It was not said like a comfort. It was said like a truth that had already been lived. His father’s expression did not change. But something in him did.

Not outward. Not visible in any way that would matter to anyone else. Only Egg saw it.

The smallest tightening at the corner of his mouth. The faintest pause in his breathing. As though something had been set down carefully, something heavy, something once held too close.

“You will be well,” he said. It was not a wish. It was a fact he had chosen to believe.

You gave a small nod. “As will you.”

And that was all.

No step forward. No reach. No fracture in the space between you. Only distance, held deliberately in place. As if it had always belonged there.

You turned first.

Not away from him in avoidance, but toward what was waiting for you beyond the corridor. Beyond the castle. Beyond this moment entirely.

Duty, already ahead of you.

His father did not watch you leave. Not when it mattered. Not when it might have changed anything.

He simply stood there until your footsteps faded completely, until even the echo had gone soft enough to disappear.

Then he turned away as well.

Egg remained where he was. Not because he was unseen. But because there was nothing left to witness.

Only something he finally understood in full:

Not all loves ended in ruin. Some ended in choice. And in that choice, quiet, certain, unspoken they had already lost each other long before either of them ever reached for anything at all.

The one and probably last time Egg understood how truly doomed they were, it was at Ashford Meadow.

Some loves are loud enough to shake kingdoms. Others live and die in stolen glances, in half-finished sentences, in the spaces between what is felt and what is never allowed to be spoken.

The tourney had turned the world bright again.

Colour returned in banners and gowns, in the gleam of armor beneath the sun, in laughter that carried too far across the fields as though nothing in the world had ever been wrong.

For a moment, Egg believed in that brightness.

He had never seen so much life. Never felt so far from the boy he was meant to be. He had lost Daeron somewhere in a tavern’s chaos and shaved his head in reckless relief, as though shedding identity might make him freer. He had even met a hedge knight, Ser Duncan, before the crowd swallowed him whole.

Then the royal family arrived. And everything began, quietly, to fall into place.

Egg hid among skirts and passing legs as he watched them take their places. His aunt stood near the pavilion.

The wind caught at her dress, lifting it in soft, unsteady motion, and for a moment she looked less like a princess and more like something imagined, something almost too gentle for the weight of her name.

She smiled more easily now. Baelor lived. And so she could, too.

He stood beside her with easy warmth, speaking to those who approached them, his hand resting at the small of her back as though it had always belonged there.

She laughed at something he said, turning toward him, bright and unburdened.

It should have been enough. It was enough.

And still... Egg knew, somewhere deep and unspoken, that in another life, in another shape of the world, it might have been his father standing there instead.

Behind them, Maekar stood at a careful distance, speaking with a lord he was not truly listening to. His attention kept returning, again and again, to where it should not.

There was no grief in it. No rupture. No visible wound.

Only something quieter. Something held too tightly to be named.

Their eyes met once. His father’s. Hers.

It lasted no more than a heartbeat. And yet Egg felt it as something entire. A silence stretched between them, thin, precise, almost reverent.

Until Baelor spoke her name.

She turned. And the moment was gone. The world continued exactly as it should have. But Egg did not move. He watched.

Later, Baelor was called away. And Maekar stepped into his place beside her. It looked like nothing. It was nothing.

A conversation between in-laws. A passing exchange. A courtesy sustained by courtly habit.

But Egg saw too closely now. The ease that should not have been ease. The closeness that should not have existed at all. A handmaiden passed. Words were spoken too quietly to catch.

And then, Maekar offered his arm. She took it with no hesitation. It was a simple thing.

And yet the way her fingers settled there, the way his arm did not move away, the way neither of them corrected the distance. It felt like recognition. Like something remembered instead of chosen.

Too familiar to be coincidence. Too natural to be allowed. A blush rose faintly at his father’s neck. Gone as quickly as it came.

And for a moment, it felt almost right.

Until Valarr came running, bright and alive, breaking everything open again. The spell did not shatter. It simply… dispersed. Like smoke.

The world ended at Ashford Meadow.

It did not, of course.

The sun still rose over Ashford, pale and indifferent. The wind still moved through the fields, stirring banners that now hung heavy and dark. People still spoke, still walked, still breathed.

But something had ended all the same.

Baelor died.

The bells had tolled for what felt like hours, their sound low and unrelenting, echoing through the castle and out across the tourney grounds. Even now, standing among his family, Egg swore he could still hear them, like something lodged deep inside his chest.

They had chosen to burn him at Ashford. Egg wasn’t sure why that made it worse, but it did.

This place had been bright, only days ago. Full of laughter and colour and life. He could still remember it, the banners snapping in the wind, the roar of the crowd, the way everything had seemed so large and full of promise.

Now everything felt hollow.

Egg stood stiffly beside his father, his hands clasped too tightly in front of him. He didn’t move. Didn’t speak. He wasn’t sure he could.

His thoughts wouldn’t stop circling back. If only he hadn’t left Daeron. If only he had stayed. If only—The pyre crackled. Egg forced himself to look.

Flames climbed steadily, consuming what remained of Baelor’s body. The heat pressed against his face, sharp and unbearable, and still he couldn’t look away.

His gaze shifted. His aunt stood closest to the fire. She did not weep. She did not speak.

She stood as though carved from stone, her face pale, her expression empty in a way that frightened him more than tears ever could.

Valarr stood before her, shaking. Egg could see it even from where he stood. The way his cousin’s shoulders trembled, the way his head bowed forward as though the weight of it all might crush him.

Her hand rested gently in his hair. Not moving. Just there.

Behind them, Kiera stood still and silent, her presence quiet, almost ghostlike.

Egg swallowed hard. He had heard what happened. Everyone had.

Whispers had spread quickly, slipping through corridors and between servants like smoke.

They said she had been the first to reach him. That she hadn’t believed it. That she had demanded a maester, again and again, as though saying it enough times might undo what had already been done.

They said she had knelt beside his body, hands pressed to him, begging the Seven to give him back.

That she hadn’t seemed to notice the blood. That it had soaked into her sleeves, her hands, her skin.

Egg squeezed his eyes shut briefly.

They said Ser Duncan had tried to pull her away. That she had fought him. That she had screamed. Not words, just sound. Raw and broken.

And then his father came.

Maekar had been the one to pull her back. They said she had struck him. That her fists had hit his chest, over and over, as though he were something she could break. That she had cried into him like the world was ending.

Egg opened his eyes. He looked up at his father now.

Maekar stood beside him, unmoving. Rigid. Every line of him held tight, controlled, as though he had locked something inside himself and thrown away the key. Every line of him held tight, controlled, as though he had locked something inside himself and thrown away the key.

Egg wanted to say something. Go to her.

He didn’t know if he would have said the words aloud or not. He only knew the thought pressed against his throat, desperate and insistent.

Go to her. She shouldn’t be alone. Not now. Not like this.

But Maekar did not move.

He stood where he was meant to stand. He did what was expected of him. Nothing more.

Egg felt something twist inside him.

But he had learned, by now, where to look.

So he looked closer.

He saw the way his father’s hands were clenched at his sides, knuckles pale beneath the skin. He saw the tension in his shoulders, in his jaw, in the stillness that was not calm but restraint stretched too thin.

And then it happened. Briefly.

So brief Egg might have missed it, if he hadn’t been watching.

His aunt lifted her head, just slightly. As though something had pulled her attention away from the flames. Her gaze crossed the distance between them. And found his father.

Maekar looked at her. Not as a prince. Not as a brother. Just as a man.

Everything was there. Egg felt it, even from where he stood.

Grief, sharp and consuming.

Longing, familiar, aching, unrelenting.

Regret, heavy, suffocating, endless.

All of it, laid bare in a single look that lasted no more than a heartbeat. It was too much. Too intimate.

Her gaze dropped. Maekar’s jaw tightened. And just like that… It was gone.

The fire crackled. The wind shifted. The world went on.

And whatever might have been… didn’t.

Egg shouldn’t have followed her. He knew that.

Even so, he slipped from the hall, keeping to the edges where torchlight thinned and attention softened. He was careful, quiet and was left unseen.

He told himself he would stop at the doorway. He didn’t.

The hall was dim when she entered, curtains drawn heavy against the day. It felt smaller than it had before. Quieter in a way that pressed at the ribs.

She moved slowly, like each step had to be chosen in advance. Egg lingered just beyond the threshold, half-hidden in the corridor’s shadow.

She crossed to the high table to Baelor’s seat and sat down. For a long moment she did nothing at all. Then, carefully, she lifted her hands. Baelor’s rings caught what little light remained.

Egg’s throat tightened before he could name why. She turned one of them between her fingers. Over and over. Not fidgeting, holding on.

As though stillness might undo something. The door opened again. Egg went rigid. His father stepped inside.

There was a pause in him that Egg did not recognize. Not fear, exactly. Not hesitation either. Something closer to awareness. As though the room had become uncertain ground.

As though he was not sure he was allowed to cross it.

She did not look up. Did not acknowledge him. Did not move. For a moment, he only stood there. Then he crossed the room and sat beside her. Not close. Never close.

Silence gathered between them, dense and unyielding.

“I do not know where to begin,” Maekar said at last.

His voice was quieter than Egg had ever heard it.

She let out a breath that almost broke on its way out. “I do not know either.”

“I’m sorry.”

The words felt too small the moment they left him.

They stayed anyway. Unanswered.

“You know,” she said after a while, still looking at the ring, “my mother once told me not to love anyone more than my children.”

Maekar did not speak.

“I loved my children,” she continued. “And I loved my husband.”

Something in him shifted at that, barely visible, but real.

“And I loved you.”

The silence that followed did not feel empty. It felt held.

Carefully. Like something fragile that neither of them trusted to fall.

“(Y/N),” Maekar said at last, roughened, “there are no words—”

“You know,” she cut in, not unkindly, but with something steadier beneath it, “in a way, I wish you had meant to kill him.”

The air changed.

Maekar’s head turned slightly, as if the words had weight enough to move him. “How could you say that?”

“It would make things simpler,” she said. “For me. As selfish as that sounds.”

He did not answer. There was nothing to answer. A long pause. Then—

“Do you remember,” she asked, quieter now, “when Baelor and I were betrothed?”

A breath left Maekar that might once have been laughter. It wasn’t now. “Of course I do.”

A faint sound from her. Almost agreement. Almost nothing.

“You said you would burn your entire house down before you let it happen.”

His mouth tightened at the memory, something old and unguarded passing through him and gone again before it could settle.

“I was young,” he said.

“We were all young,” she replied.

Silence returned, softer this time. Less sharp. No less heavy.

Then she moved.

Slowly, she took one of the rings from her hand. Turned it once between her fingers. Twice.

And placed it in his palm.

“Here.”

Maekar looked down at it.

“I cannot take this,” he said. “He was your husband.”

“And he was your brother.”

That landed cleanly. Without argument. Maekar closed his fingers around the ring anyway. Not tightly.

Egg stepped back before either of them could notice him there, retreating into the corridor as quietly as he had come. He did not run. He did not linger.

Some things, he understood, were not meant to be seen all at once. Or spoken.

He understood then that some things were never meant to be spoken. Just simply known and lived with.

caitlynluna

Poor Maekar in love with Baelor wife and egg just watching them not being able to be together

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