Chapter Text
- alicent.
Your love is an idiot.
Rhaenyra purports herself to be a sly toothed beast kept in line by the thinnest veils of propriety and cunning, but the truth of it is—she’s an idiot.
Her plans are well crafted, to a point, and tumble apart when no one else minds the end game—she learned all her posturing from her uncle, and her silver tongue from her husband, but beneath all that is a gap-toothed girl with grand dreams of tourney victories and swooning damsels.
Luckily, she has you and Laenor.
She’s clever, no question of that, and can suss out an untruth with a startling ease, but there’s a bone deep befuddlement that exists in her that always makes you smile when she turns those liquid gem eyes toward you with peaked brows and a sheepish expression. All Awh shucks and what now mixed adorably on her face.
Baelon has inherited the same sheepish half-smile from his sister, that golden little grin that’s too precious to be mad at, and you know it has gotten the royal siblings out of trouble many times—the elder more than the younger.
These are the parts of Rhaenyra you cherish, the fool who rides out with a clever half-plan and good intentions. Who is the knight she wished to be, and the mother she feared, and the partner in all facets of life. Someone considerate, and kind, and good-humored. You still shake your head when hedge knights and little lordlings alike grin and bow their heads to Lady Stone, the comeliest bloke in the seven kingdoms.
However, there’s aspects of Rhaenyra that you aren’t familiar with, the edges of her that she tucks deep down into the dark parts of her chest—behind her lungs, and far away from her heart—that might be a beast. It’s the snarling part of your princess that wakes her in the dead of night, sweat soaked and panting, her pupils pinpricks even in the dark. She doesn’t always recognize you, not at first, but you speak to her slowly and calmly—let her breathing even out and her heart slow.
“You’re home, my love,” you say, voice trying its damnedest not to tremble. She’ll stare at you, lip bloody from where she bit it unintentionally, white teeth smeared red in the half snarl of an animal’s curled lip—before she catches the scent of you, the familiar tone of your voice, the shape of your midnight silhouette.
“M’sorry,” she’ll mumble into your clavicles when you coax her into your arms. Brushing back sweaty curls of her silver hair, tracing the straight line of her nose. She’ll burrow, folding herself into you until there’s little hope of seeing where you end and she begins. Hiding away from nightmares she’ll never speak of, even during the hottest parts of summer when they seemed to accost her nightly—when the pale skin beneath her eyes is bruised, and the whites of her pretty eyes burn red.
Rhaenyra grins away the concern with smiles not as bright as they ought to be, and you’ll accept them. Because you have so much of her, nearly everything that she is, but there are some things you can’t understand. Not fully, not without reproach. You know she’s done things she’s afraid to tell you, done things that make her a beast in her own eyes, but you wished she would tell you. That she would confide in you, because you’d absolve her—you’d love her still, not only because the bones of you know nothing else, but because she’s good. In the way few people are, in a way few people are capable of.
But this forgivable inability of yours is safe in another’s hands—hands you trust fully with your princess. On the darkest nights, when her eyes are unable to settle, and her nightmares spill into the dark edges of reality, there’s Laenor. He’s gentle, and kind, and whispers sweet promises in Valyrian that pull her back; when the reality of war and safety are too incongruent to breach. When she sees you and worries you’ve somehow found yourself in her hell. It’s the same kindness she offers her lord husband; even though Ser Joffrey is often times enough. As you usually are.
Except those nights when your love is more dragon than mortal.
Love makes a beast of man, and those within the house of the dragon are not above that. As far back as the Dragon’s Wroth it has been known that to kill what a Targaryen loves is to forfeit peace, forfeit safety. And you have no doubt what Rhaenyra is capable of—if anything should ever happen to her family. You know the tender part of her heart bleeds for you, her son, and her brother, who is her son in everything but name.
You know what would happen.
You know the flint bright snap longing to spark behind soft heather field eyes. The sharp edges folded beneath the tempting curves that spill tastefully into the harder plains of muscles well deserved. She is no sly toothed beast, prowling the far lines of politics with witticisms and snark, but she is the proverbial fox in the chicken coop. Daemon is too known in his violence, he wears his sneering aggression like a cloak about his shoulders, blood spattered and bright. His teeth need never be sharper than his retorts because at his waist is Dark Sister, a bloodthirsty blade waiting for his next chosen conflict.
Known aggression can be planned for. His riotous anger, his large swings of ego, his snarling words meant to hurt—your father has been pivoting around Daemon for decades. Provokes, and delights, and humbly gives the King his opinion on how to deal with the Prince’s most recent transgression. You would easily stay half the Keep away from Daemon if you were able, but that was because of the scandalous smirk he always wears in your presence. Like you’re partaking in his lascivious lifestyle, his amoral romps through Flea Bottom.
But he is Rhaenyra’s beloved uncle, and you submit to those very same endearing purple eyes that he does.
It leaves you here—sitting up above the training yard with Jace perched on your lap. He’s grown plump in record time, a rotund little imp that gums the sweetest smiles at you, making your heart flutter. You’d plucked him from the wet nurse and decided it was too nice a day to stay inside—down below Rhaenyra and Laenor spar, their dull steel training swords clashing together, a spark or two spitting from a particularly artful drag of steel on steel.
The married couple is as they always are, a performance always being made. You’d made eye contact with Ser Joffrey at the beginning, and he’d only rolled his eyes affectionately. Laenor looks lovely in the darkest gray and red, the color bringing out his Valyrian features, the cheekbones given to him from his mother, the perfectly arched brows from her too. His dragon blood might not be enough to proclaim him royal, but it was enough to see when he decided to flaunt it—notwithstanding the silver dragon he laid claim to.
As either his mount, or his spouse.
Rhaenyra looks soft in the seafoam green and silver of her Lord Husband’s house. The artful crests of waves look almost like clouds across the well tucked and silken shirt. The dark blue embroidery is far too intricate for typical training attire; but again, this is a performance. They’re beautiful, and skilled, and devilishly aware of it—the cousins are often insufferable after one of their performative promenades through the gardens or into the city. Grinning from around corners as they listen to the chittering gossip making its way through every lord’s household.
This is a different kind of theater, this isn’t flaunting wealth, or title, or money—this is displayed power. This is a reminder that the bridge between the two most influential houses in Westeros are two battle-tested dragonriders; that their tongues might be silver, and their pockets lined in gold, but that they speak just as readily with steel as they do honeyed words in perfumed chambers.
It’s a beautiful dance—Laenor has power, but he’s not so large that it’s insurmountable. Rhaenyra has speed, but years of battle and dragon riding have given her definition. The sliing clash of swords is almost rhythmic, a beat that you follow unknowingly until a few minutes have passed. You see their lips moving, and you’re just close enough to be able to hear them through the chatter and awe surrounding you.
“A daughter, husband,” Rhaenyra says, lifting her blade to slide along Laenor’s until it fell wide of her body. The silk is dampening with sweat, and you can’t ignore the way it plasters to the sinewy muscle along her shoulders and upper arms. The definition makes your mouth water, the flex is all raw power as she slopes to the side to dodge an overhead swing that chews noisily into the dirt.
“An interesting boon, wife mine,” Laenor laughs, delighted, as he raises his curved sailor’s blade to swat Rhaenyra’s thrust to the side. They’re quiet for a time, dodging and clashing; you can’t unsee the muscle in Rhaenyra’s forearms, or the spry way she dances out of Leanor’s reach. Soft boots kicking up dirt, sword sparking, you understand the beauty of a fight well fought. Maybe only at this moment, sure that neither fighter wishes to do any harm to the other.
“One only you can give me,” Rhaenyra cheeks, grinning slyly at her husband, dipping away just in time to be missed by his blunted steel. They hedge about terms, laughing all the while, swaying and clashing. Rhaenyra gets that promise that Laenor will do his husbandly best to give her a daughter, whatever that means, if she can put him on his back. It’s all in jest, you can tell, but the promise changes something in them.
Like dry wood sitting too close to an open flame, it takes only a moment before the blaze has lost all control.
They speed up—their bodies lithe and sharp and dangerously precise, dipping and curling away whenever blunted steel comes too close. The playful performance has drained away, the easy pace and almost languid strikes have melted into this—an even sharper bang chiiing of weapons vicious in their meeting. Of bodies honed for violence even though they looked oh so pretty while delivering said brutality.
The audible gasp from the gaggle of ladies pooling to stand near your shoulder makes you smile as you watch Laenor feigning low and then gracefully pivoting to saw through the air downward to the crown of his wife’s silver head. Rhaenyra guffaws—a sharp bark of joy—as she digs the side of her soft sole into heavily tread dirt and throws her weight in the opposite direction; rolling smoothly over one shoulder and popping back to her feet at Laenor’s side. Sword already singing toward his over-extended flank.
A well-trained pivot and pure instinct leaves him with only a glancing blow to his side, but it’s enough to earn a wince. He dances back a step or two while Rhaenyra serves a feral grin—all sharp white teeth.
“To touch?” You hear a young squire ask, unsure if the fight was over.
“They’re dragonriders,” an older, brasher, boy interjects. “To the ground.”
They must be used to Daemon, that’s the only explanation you have, because you know husband and wife don’t make a show of themselves like this often. This was proof of prowess after the birth of their first child, a reminder that Rhaenyra was no wilting flower—no hollow boned bird, (like her mother, you heard whispered), and that Laenor was no walk away father, no absent husband. Rumors be damned, this was his family, his blood—which applied even to his wife—and he was no slouch.
Rhaenyra wipes sweat from the blade of her cheek and your mouth goes just a bit drier. She’s glistening, her silks plastered to corded muscle and sumptuous curves. The line of her stomach to the swell of her hips was enough to give your heart reason to race. The ladies doddering about seem unsure which Valyrian to swoon over, which brought a burning type of delight to you. Rhaenyra tosses her braids over her shoulder and rights her blade, eyebrow cocked.
It lasts only a few minutes longer, which still seems ages longer than other skirmishes, but eventually Laenor forgets how small and fast his wife is and she slips under and into his defense. Shoulder a sharp press to his sternum, her free arm tossing his sword arm out and away while she tucked her leg behind his and brought him crashing to the ground. Sword spinning off to the side, Rhaenyra sat astride his chest, shins bracketing his arms to the ground, blunted steel resting lovingly against his throat.
“What damsel hath I come across, so lovely and in need of rescue,” she croons, batting her lashes down at Laenor who rolls his eyes.
“Rescue from a most ornery dragon, it seems,” he laughs when Rhaenyra smacks a kiss to his cheek and stands up. A foot on either side of his chest, her practice sword resting on her shoulder. Gallant, a little silly, and beautiful—the romance novel heroes you read of could add nothing to the soft light hitting the edges of her, turning eyes to gems and curling grins to slashes of sunlight.
“This dragon was promised a boon. A daughter, husband,” she declares, “chop chop.” And then walks to the rack and deposited her sword and up the stairs she climbs to your side. Dropping gracelessly into the chair beside you, hands plucking Jace from your arms with a manic little giggle. Laenor groans and gripes down below, allowing Ser Joffrey to drag him to his feet. Another knight tries to jest about him losing to his lady wife, but Laenor just laughs.
“You wouldn’t speak such nonsense if you fought in the war that earned her that driftwood crown,” patting the stunned man amicably on the chest and walking off—wincing all the while. Rhaenyra grins and brushes careful fingers through Jace’s thickening curls.
“Any particular reason Ser Laenor deserved such trouncing?” You ask, trying not to grin. You could only imagine the nonsense that caused them to dress and drag themselves down to the training ring.
“Sons and daughters, my lady. My good-father made mention of his house’s need of a spare, and I felt inclined to remind my lord husband I was promised a daughter.” You know Rhaenyra’s burn for a daughter, it made her desire for a sister pale in comparison.
“Princess,” you sigh, shaking your head and offering up a finger for Jace to grab when he tilts in your direction. “That isn’t how the making of progeny works.”
Rhaenyra snorts.
“If men can do all manner of idiotic things in hopes of a son, I can beat my husband silly and demand a daughter.” She’s resplendent in her idiocy sometimes, especially when you know it’s all for jest. Those brilliant eyes hold you, matched perfectly with the mirror of them in her son’s gaze—there’s so much Velaryon in him, but he’s Rhaenyra come again.
A delicate, wonderful boy.
“Is that what you wish to aspire to? The cunning of a man?” You ask, quiet enough that it is only her that turns a smile toward you. Jace’s face is being smooshed against hers, his little hands tangled already in her loosened braids. She never shooes him away like any noble lady should, letting him tug and coo for long enough until she sets about trying to distract him. You consider yourself lucky your lovely fool doesn’t seem to think the dagger at her waist a suitable distraction, and instead reaches for a juicy fruit to distract the troublesome boy.
“We’ve all not been gifted the wisdom of the ages, my lady. Us folk of lesser capacity must make do with lesser cunning.” She’s drawling and deadpan, and you can only roll your eyes because she’ll never budge from this hill of her own making—that you and Baelon were somehow superior intellectually. You think she just refuses to apply herself to things she wasn’t immediately good at—she detested outright failure, and was adroit in enough skills that she did not often branch out and was not asked to do so.
“You jest.”
“Almost always,” she replies blithely and blows a kiss against her son’s cheek and is rewarded for her treatory with a wet red mess of fruit dropped down the gaping front of her tunic. “Ah! Ja—!” The boy giggles loud, and Rhaenyra fills her cheeks with air. They’re a mess, adorable and foolish, and your heart aches for them.
“Come now, children, let’s get you both cleaned up.” You pluck Jace from her arms once more, cherishing the squeal of joy and roll your eyes as the slouching put-upon face of your royal paramour. The ladies off to your side try to hide their giggles behind fans, but all present knows that everyone is watching the princess. She rewards her audience with that golden little grin, and you practically hear the soft little sighs from the gaggle—so many probably not even realizing what that ‘twix in their stomach is from.
“Coming, my lady. Might we sup together tonight? Mine husband gets a bit techty when he’s tronced so publically.”
What a mouthy rascal you have.
And oh, how you’ll have her.
.
You don’t understand the foundation of these rendezvous.
Rhaenyra was not jesting in her desire for a daughter, nor her good-father’s demand for a spare. You’d been able to think very little of how Jace came into existence with parents that had no desire to couple with each other—you’d been told that it involved too much bad wine, adrenaline from battle, and a dirty kind of low cunning. Laenor had giggled through the explanation, head tucked comically into his much shorter wife’s neck, while his paramour rubbed laboriously at the bridge of his nose. Rhaenyra looked like a spooked horse, eyes a little too wide, cheeks just a hint of pink.
You’d asked no more questions, of course.
But now you are blind; wandering through passages with only a small wall torch, squinting at stone like it might give you the explanation you wished you’d asked for before. Rhaenyra asked if you wished to be present for the attempts, cheeks pink again, and you’d thought her charming in her own bashful way and had agreed with little more that a bat of heather field eyes. Properly wooed to her cause, she’d tugged you into the spill of her sheets and set upon you with a mouth most insistent. You’d been too boneless and exhausted come the morning to remember to ask for clarification…
Which leaves you here. Skimming your fingers over the almost too smooth stone, looking for the proper one to depress. You miss it three times, chip a nail in the process, and finally shove it open gracelessly with a ragged oof. The tail end of chatter stops as you shove harder and the secret passage scrapes open; inside are two very intoxicated Valyrians, and an exasperated paramour. Laenor and Rhaenyra are cuddled up on the settee like two children who refused to sit properly. Draped on each other with all the infuriating grace that seems innate to their molten dragon blood.
“Finally,” Ser Joffrey says, “another adult!”
Laenor giggles and Rhaenyra toasts his exclamation with a large swig of sweet smelling wine. Her pupils spill wide and glassy, her grin lopsided and loose. She makes a high pitch whine and grabs in your direction with one floppy elegant hand. You smile softly and step within her reach, catching her wrist and pressing her knuckles to your lips which only makes her grin dopily at you.
She’s lovely as she is, draped in scarlet silk, her upper chest warming to the sweetest pink. You could spend your night suckling on the curve of her throat, curling your tongue into the divots of her collarbones until she shuddered and fell. You knew her body, even with those stolen years, you know Rhaenyra.
Know the way she likes to be teased, the softest drag of finger nails at the edges of her nipples, just the promise of your teeth on her inner thigh. She whines so beautifully for you when she’s sunk deep in that special place she sometimes tumbles—Rhaenyra Targaryen is a force of nature, honed sweet aggression that has no problem holding you down and wringing every ounce of pleasure from your body until you’re spent and sobbing.
But sometimes, she gives. She looks up at you with hopelessly wanting eyes, giving eyes, and she sets herself between your hands. Gives wherever you press, does as she’s asked so very sweetly; suckles at your thumb while you fill her cunt with four fingers, the high whine in her throat desperate and wanting. You know when it’s happened when her eyes go soft and glassy, when she looks at you like there’s nothing else in existence but the heat of your hands and the words you say. A precious thing to be held, trusting you to keep her safe—the sweetest of promises.
“My love,” Rhaenyra murmurs, her lips finding the delicate bone of your wrist, teething at it like an untrained pup. Eyes bright and mirthful, she’s warm and already igniting that flickering burn in your stomach. “The boys have been so mean to me.” She bats those pretty eyes and presses her cheek to the backs of your fingers, nuzzling at you still like a precious pet. You smother the need to smile, keeping your face bland and unassuming, though you can’t help the pop of your brows.
“Lying cad!” Laenor declares, pushing at Rhaenyra’s legs that are draped over his lap, which in turn makes your dragon thrash and pivot until she can wedge a heel into Laenor’s hip and smack away his reaching hands. They’re children. Genuine children. And you can see that Ser Joffrey is exasperated, but smiling, the affection in his eyes swelling the longer the cousins scuffle. They eventually overbalance to one side and tip off the couch, tumbling in a mess of silk and silver to the floor.
“Have they been like this long?” You ask, watching the cousins push at each other before they collapse together in a graceless spill of limbs. Rhaenyra blinks up at you, her fingers reaching out to trail along your ankle bone, seeming to go as high on your calf as she could reach with needy little fingertips.
“Long enough,” he hedges, taking a much smaller sip of his wine. His ruddy cheeks are beginning to flush, but his eyes are gentle and clear. You know Laenor’s paramour is a kind man, a truly good one, and it’s this knowledge that unsticks your tongue. Let’s you ask the question that’s been heavy on your mind since the much too distant offer to join.
“How does…,” you gesture to the Valyrians who have begun rolling around the floor. They’re wrestling, or tangled, but their little huffs of exertion are proof that whatever they are doing is very straining. Even if you don’t think they’re accomplishing anything. “…this work?”
“Oh, well,” he scratches at the promise of beard along his jaw, mouth parting like he’s about to say something and then hesitates.
“No need to mince words, Ser,” you promise.
Joffrey laughs.
“First rule is no titles,” that gentle smile, and he takes another sip before blowing out a full lungful of air out his nose. “Me and Lae…—you know, get him in the mood, and Rhaenyra—does her own…mood making.” He’s gesturing, and grimacing, and offering up embarrassed smiles before finishing with a shrug. “And then we just kind of push them together.”
It’s graceless, tactless, and all around amazing to have worked once. Squeezing the bridge of your nose to focus on something other than the hot burn in your cheeks, you focus instead on your Valyrian. She’s huffing and sprawled on her back, robe threatening to come undone, but her eyes are on you. They’re dark and foggy, threatening to crack open and spill out all those deep water thought that have her licking the full curve of her bottom lip and pitching the corner with a sharp little tooth.
Nodding once to Joffrey, you step around the pile of pretty cousins and sit primly on the settee a few feet away, toes curling into the fur of some soft creature you couldn’t rightly name from pattern alone. Rhaenyra watches you move away from her with large watchful eyes, so purple and so focused, you don’t even have to beckon her closer. No, as soon as you're seated she rolls belly down and begins the purposeful crawl toward you. Silk spilling off her shoulder, hair a tangled beautiful mess around her flushed face.
She nestles her cheek against your thigh, blinking doe-eyed up at you with her lip caught between her sharp little teeth. You run your fingers through her hair, untangling strands here or there, and when she’s all but purring you catch her chin between your thumb and forefinger. She goes eagerly, happily compliant, as you pull her up high enough to kiss her. She’s the sloppy side of drunk, and pawing at your clothes insistently enough that you’re worried she’ll tear them.
Usually, Rhaenyra is the one whispering filthy things in your ear, but you can see that tonight she’s not in that headspace—she’s yours, eagerly and completely.
“What do you need?” You ask, softer than soft, the moment your lips part.
“You,” she breathes, straining to lean forward and kiss you again, but settling for sucking on the tip of your thumb when you don’t let her.
“Oh?” You suck in a breath at the hot wetness of her mouth, the suction as she dragged her teeth against the pad of your thumb. “Show me.”
It’s easy enough to coax her up and onto the luxurious bed, having her sprawl across cream colored silk. Her bright red robe a splash of vitality to all the calming accoutrement, you couldn’t move your eyes from her if you wanted to. And by the gods, you didn’t.
“Go ahead, pretty girl.” She watches you with cloudy eyes, faraway eyes, like she’s depths below and all she can hear—all she can understand—is your voice. It doesn’t take her long to listen, blinking sluggishly until her hands are moving and her body follows suit.
Rhaenyra has her eyes closed, head tipped back into the pillows, her hand dragging her nails hard enough across her collarbones that there are red marks in their wake. She moans, stuttering and quiet, as her hand drags the silk of her robe to the side until it’s caught on a hard pink nipple. Her breasts have gotten larger, enough to spill out of your hands and gowns alike, when they had at once been a tidy handful. You love them, you love pressing them together and burying your face in the soft pale flesh.
Lost in the scent of her, the taste.
When her robe parts fully, you try swallowing away the dryness in your mouth—she’s exquisite. There’s a layer of softness over the muscles you’ve always cherished, a widening of hips that had always been on the narrow side—when those eyes open to stare up at you in hesitant question, those hands pausing where they press against the faint marks on her stomach from bearing a child, you have no answer in your heart but what you say.
“Beautiful,” you need to go to her, need to feel her—so you do. Pulling up the hem of your gown, you crawl up between legs that instinctively part for you and you can smell how wet she is. The tang heady and bright on your tongue, and it’s an effort to not simply dive in. One hand threaded between hers on her stomach, pressing lovingly to those marks, while your other hand cups her cheek, you kiss her. It’s wet, and rushed, and you don’t even flinch when your teeth knock.
You just need her.
“So gods blessedly beautiful,” you whisper, kissing her once more, as your hand drags lower and you are pressing both her palm and yours firmly enough that you can feel the tight muscle beneath that mouth water layer of softness. The wire brush of silver curls, and the silky wetness between her thighs—she whimpers into your mouth when you do little more than trace the seam of her cunt. Light brushes of your fingers, and you place her hand back on her stomach when she goes to touch herself to find relief.
“Not yet, not yet,” slipping your fingers through her wetness, you can’t help echoing her moan. She feels so good; hot, wet, pulsing when you press just the tip of your finger inside her. Her cunt grips at you, aching to be filled, and you need to oblige—pulling out, you pause until she mewls then thrust two fingers into her and she howls. Head thrown back, hands pawing roughly at her breast until there’s a pearly bead of milk blooming at the tip of her pink nipples.
You’re parched.
Mouth dry in need of something, you cover her body with yours and take that wet nipple into your mouth as if you’re a suckling babe yourself. It’s sweet, coating your tongue as you lave and suck. You’re making noises at the back of your throat that would make you burn red if you were any less consumed in the taste of Rhaenyra Targaryen. She’s keening and scratching through your auburn curls, clutching you to her chest.
Gods, she was made to sin for.
Mouth full of her, the taste of her milk on your tongue, you lean back, drunk on her essence—fuckdrunk, you hear Rhaenyra laugh in your mind—and watch the color shift in her eyes. That heather field eyes so dark they speak of twilights and ocean depths, you wished there was some artistic bone in your body because you’d paint her. Stitch her into one of those lewd tapestries that hand on the halls of the Red Keep, so generations could pass and all would still know her beauty.
“Alicent? Rhae?” It’s Ser Joffrey, still across the room, an equally fuckdrunk Valyrian in his lap and you know the night must move forward. Rhaenyra’s wiggling out of her robe, sitting up to kiss you fiercely, her tongue trust into your mouth and searching. She’s everywhere, practically licking the back of your teeth before you realize she’s rolled on top of you. Her cunt makes a wet spot on the silk of your gown, one that grows as she grinds against you.
She’s pushing you down, nipping at your jaw and murmuring your name in husky rolling syllables—Al-ih-cent, Al-ih, Ali—and whatever you thought prior, you can’t imagine being anywhere else as this happens. Seeing the way Rhaenyra sits shameless and beautiful upon you and beckons the boys closer. She’s still rolling her hips against your stomach, your hands hold her balanced and eyes unable to look away.
She’s every beautiful song you've heard, every poem that’s made you cry—art in motion. You obviously can’t keep the awe from your face because she’s leaning forward and grinning crookedly at you. A lazy curl of the lips that makes you smile in return; and then she goes doe-eyed and slack, her arms near buckling and her weight pressing into you. You see the hazy shape of Laenor behind her, but your eyes can’t look away from the pink cheeked splendor of your love.
Rhaenyra kisses you hard, her mouth panting and open, mewling almost pitifully as you brace her shuddering body against yours. Her hands claw into your hair and drag at the silk drape of your slip. You try to focus only on her, the graceful curve of her back when she slides down enough to bite and kiss at your collarbones. You curl your fist into the curls of her hair, tugging enough to draw those glassy purple eyes to look up at you desperately. She’s a bridge of sensation, a connection between you and everything else happening around you.
Pushing her hair away from her face, she catches your thumb in her mouth and sucks, hollowing her cheeks indecently and you moan. She nibbles on your fingertip, twirling the tip of her tongue around it, before sucking your whole thumb into her mouth. The rest of your fingers splayed against her jaw, holding her head up as she seems so close to boneless; there’s a particularly rough thrust, and you can’t help how your eyes lift. Laenor is leaning back against Joffrey, one hand raised to tangle in dark curls, the other making marks on Rhaenyra’s hip.
They’re kissing, open mouthed and passionately, their cheeks flushed and lips wet. They’re beautiful. The pale bronze of Laenor’s skin, ancestral skin that’s smooth and flawless—except in the places where he has scars, much like Rhaenyra. His skin is shades darker than Rhaenyra, who wore the color of the moon without exception, but still somehow equally as ethereal. That queer Valyrian blood.
Joffrey’s tan is mismatching and darker in spots, gaining color only in places that see the sun regularly. His ruddy cheeks, the bridge of his nose, the little divot between his collarbones where his armor gapes. Joffrey’s hand presses into Laenor’s stomach, nails digging, and it must feel good because Laenor’s hips jerk quickly, and Rhaenyra mewls once more against your chest, her lips having found the curve of your breast though you remain primarily covered.
“That’s it, love,” Joffrey coaxes, lips shifting to find Laenor’s ear, a hand lifting to tweak a dark nipple to make Laenor moan. “You’re close. You’ll come for me, won’t you?” Joffrey meets your eye and grins, a wicked little smile, before he turns his head back and sucks a dark mark against his lover’s jaw. “Come for me.”
You blush—blush more, if you’re being honest—and look down at your sweet Rhaenyra, she’s glass-eyed and panting, a streak of saliva along her cheek from where your thumb slipped from her mouth. You shuffle just enough down so that you can catch her lips in a kiss, reaching low to find her wet and wanting, always wanting, though you make sure to stay clear of Laenor—any part of him. Rubbing gentle circles over the little pearl that you know makes her lose herself in moments, you feel the first signs that she’s about to crash back to earth. The little scratches, the sharp high whines, and finally, the involuntary shudder that begins in her stomach and radiates outward.
“Oh, look at you,” you breathe, in awe, “so good for me.” Rhaenyra looks at you through barely open eyes, her face slackening with pleasure, her body rigid as she shakes. She’s nodding, leaning forward now to mouth at your collarbones, dragging sharp little teeth against the divots and bumps of your chest. She’s keening, and sags against you when Laenor pulls away and collapses into his lover.
You don’t know what possesses you, what grinning little edge of madness bloomed beneath your own breast, but you cup Rhaenyra, making sure all Laenor’s seed stays inside. She whines, a pitiful little noise and grinds her tender cunt against the heel of your hand.
“Can’t let this go to waste,” your voice is rough, straining, and you nip at her ear. Enjoying the way she bucks and rides your hand between her thighs. “You promised me a daughter.” Jace isn’t yours, not really, but in all the places that matter—your heart, Rhaenyra’s, even Laenor’s—he is. You’ll raise him like your own, keep him safe, happy; away from the lurking evils of court.
After it’s done, the four of you lay side, by side, by side, by side. Well, almost side by side. Rhaenyra curls up against your side, face tucked into the crook of your neck, mouthing soundless words into your skin. It takes too long for you to realize she’s tracing I love you into the skin of your chest beneath your silk robe. Her breathing is soft and slow, but you know she’s awake.
The awkwardness has bled away, leaving in its wake a burn that surprises you and a warmth that seems all consuming. But you stay, carding fingers through her messy hair. This isn’t the life you imagined, it isn’t perfect, and it can only get harder, but it’s yours and it’s beautiful and it’s so full of love.
You’ll protect this life, keep those you hold precious close and keep them from the vipers that lurk. It’ll get harder, it will, but it’ll be worth it to see Jace grow up—to see Baelon become the king he was meant to be. To see Rhaenyra be the guiding light for all Seven kingdoms like she has been for you.
It’ll get harder, but it’ll be worth it.
.
Three more half-drunken rendezvous in the bitter broken hours of the morning, proceeded by giggling laughter and spirits, and concluding in berry sweet panted breaths and hopes for the future.
Three, and it isn’t until you realize whole moons have passed and you’ve lost track of time. Of what that time means.
Rhaenyra smiles so beautifully when she tells you she’s missed her moonblood. Twice.
.
“Do you ever feel like our lives have already happened?” You ask, staring off at a sky soft and spilling full of color—purple, and orange, and pink. A messy splash of nature thrown up into the heavens for everyone to see. A picnic far away from prying eyes; honey cakes and the setting sun.
“Hm?” Rhaenyra hums, looking up from where she’s dozing in your lap. Her eyes are sleepy and half-open. She grins at you lazily, all loose joy and love, and you wonder why you were granted the right to see this most precious side of this particular dragonlord.
“Our lives. Do you ever feel like we’re the middle chapters in some book already written—that everything we know is just something that has to happen to see the real ending.” It creeps up on you in the middle of the night, a worry that some misstep might change things that have already happened. That you might do something to make the entirety of all things collapse in on itself.
Rhaenyra stares, blinking slowly like the dragon she is, and huffs. Turning to nuzzle into the folds of your gown covered thighs. Forget dragon, she’s a cat trying to find that single stretch of sunlight to lounge in. She goes still again, breathing slow and deep, and she stays that way so long that it startles you when her hand finds yours and she squeezes.
“Sometimes I dream of a girl.” The words are soft. “She’s mine, I can’t say how I know—but I do. She’s mine. I can’t remember much come morning, but she changes—and I can’t say why. Like something I’ve done has changed her. Her eyes, I think. Her eyes change the most.” You wonder about this girl—is it a daughter Rhaenyra is to have? A figment of a wandering mind.
“What about her eyes?” You ask, because in your mind they’re soft purple like your love’s eyes. Gemstone bright and able to flicker with that edge that all dragonlords seem to have. That certain something that coaxed people to come closer, even as the heat began to rise, as the hair on the back of their neck prickled and warned. Here be dragons, the warning said, and something about those eyes—and those sharp edged smiles—it said; but, come just a step closer.
“She seems less sad,” your love murmurs, turning to gaze up with those aforementioned eyes. You watch them chase the clouds, flicking this way and that, before they settle on your face. “Like, once she was all alone in the world, and now—now she isn’t.”
“I’m glad,” glad this imaginary girl isn’t alone, because what a terrible thing to be. You’ve been many things, but since Rhaenyra, you’ve never been alone. Even when she was away at war, you had Baelon, you had sweet letters and soft dreams. She filled so many cracks in your mind, even away, that you could never be alone. You fear the day you are alone, and pray to the Old gods and the New that you never will be.
.
- interlude.
Just outside the doorway of a crumbling shack in the darkest corner of Fleabottom shakes a woman; pretty, maybe beautiful once but poverty and time have ravished what little health she might’ve once had. Straw pale hair and muddy blue eyes, she tries to look everywhere but the man cloaked before her. She knows him, seen him standing guard beside the Royal carriage house, and at the bottom of the dias that the Iron Throne sits on the one time she’d been allowed in with the masses for a public audience.
“His Grace is generous, m’lady,” voice rough, hands rougher still when he shoves a chittering bag into her shaking hands. The metal within too loud of the silence of the night around them. “Take this, and your whelps, and never return to King’s Landing.”
She nods, a thousand and one times, because what can she do—she’s afraid for her sons. The man sees the bags on the ground behind her and nods, before spinning and leaving—there was no need to say what would happen if she stayed.
“Mama?” Behind her shuffles the unsteady feet of a tired child, loud and uncaring, and when she feels the searching grip of her eldest, she pulls him tight against her side. Myle—after her father—is tall for his age of six, reaching nearly to the middle of her chest, all leg and arm, he is. She ran her fingers over his shaved head, just able to make out the silver stubble that glinted even as short as it was in the moonlight—her youngest was even harder to hide, which is probably how the King found out.
She hadn’t the heart to shave her daughter’s head, but head scarfs are difficult on young children and hers had slipped a few times while out. They both had those damn dragon eyes, and her daughter had silver curls to rival the Realm’s Delight—but so many people were too busy to notice. Until now.
“Go wake your sister, Myle,” she says, voice stronger but somehow still softer, “We must find a ship before dawn that’ll take us wherever they’re going.”
“Mama?”
“New start, alright? Jus’ like I promised.” The promise had been a lie then, but now it was a forced truth. They’d go to the Free Cities, silver hair was nothing special there. They’d be one in a thousand, no need to fear someone catching their eyes in just the right light.
.
The board may have changed, but the pieces will always move.