Chapter Text
Maekar Targaryen was an omega. It wasn’t something to argue about. It simply was. Would always be. It was a fact.
He wasn’t what some would call a conventional omega. He wasn’t dainty. He wasn’t fragile or submissive. He wasn’t pretty as most omegas were. Of course, he was beautiful. He was a Targaryen, after all. Blonde, almost white hair that shone silver in the moonlight, and those violet eyes that could stop any man in his tracks. But not omega pretty. He was tall, broad, and had scars marring his cheeks.
Maekar presented on a hot summer day at ten and three, a mere few weeks after his mother's passing.
It’s too early, the maesters whispered. He’s too young.
The week of his first heat was pure agony. Maekar screamed and cried, sweat and slick alike coating the sheets. He yelled for his mother. He cursed the seven for making him this way. He wasn’t supposed to present as an omega. He was supposed to be an Alpha, just like his brother, Baelor.
Baelor. His older brother, who had presented as an alpha at ten and five. His brother who was always gentle and patient. His brother who taught him how to wield a blade.
What would he think of him now? Would he scorn him? Mock him? Lock him up like his namesake did to his sisters?
It was said that the prince called out to his brother during his first heat. His cries could be heard all throughout the Red Keep. That is but the whisper of servants, and if Maekar were to hear of any of these words, he’d surely have the tongue of whoever dared to make such claims. Omega or not.
Prince Baelor heard of his brother's presentation the following morning.
When it was over, his chambers did not recover. The air stayed thick, clinging to the stone and tapestries as though unwilling to move on. As though everyone should bear witness to his shame. See it, smell it, hear it.
Maekar woke with his throat raw and body aching in ways he did not wish to describe, emptied out and furious for it. His sheets had been changed, the windows had been opened, the braziers extinguished, but the servants moved differently now. Their eyes lingered too long, then dropped too quickly. Voices softened. Hands hesitated. No one met his gaze for more than a moment. He understood, then, without being told: something irreversible had taken place. The castle knew it, even if it would not say so aloud.
A bath was readied for him.
His handmaiden, Alice, a middle aged beta woman from the stormlands, sat on a stool behind him. The bathwater steamed faintly as she worked oil through his hair, her fingers careful, familiar. Maekar stared down at the surface of the water, watching the ripples settle.
The tub was filled too hot at first, then cooled too late. He had not complained. Complaining felt like giving up, and he has not given up yet. His arms rested crossed at his chest, his shoulders rising and falling with every breath he took.
The scent gathered in the room—not only from the oils Alice used, but from something sharper beneath them. Bright, almost biting, like crushed citrus peel. It cut through the steam, clean and unmistakable. Beneath it lingered smoke, faint but ever-present, the ghost of embers long burned low. It was the smell of old hearths and dragonstone fire pits. A Targaryen scent. One he had always carried.
Only now, it was stronger.
Beyond the chamber doors, life went on. Footsteps echoed down the corridors. Steel scraped against steel. Voices rose and fell. In here, time stalled, heavy and slow. He felt scrubbed raw, not of just sweat and sickness, but of privacy. His body, once his alone, now belonged to custom and to care that was no longer optional.
When Alice pressed the cloth against his shoulder, he flinched before he could stop himself. She froze immediately.
“I’m sorry,” she said, quick and earnest.
Maekar did not look at her. He would not make this easier by pretending it did not hurt.
For a long while, only the sound of water filled the space. Then, quietly he spoke. His voice was hoarse, worn thin from days of crying.
“Do I…,” he began, then stopped. His jaw tightened. When he tried again, his voice was barely above a whisper. “Do I smell different? Is it stronger?”
Alice's hands stilled on his shoulders.
“Yes,” she said gently. “A little.”
The answer sat heavy in his chest. He swallowed. “Is it noticeable?”
She resumed her motions, slower now, as though afraid to startle him. “Only if someone knows to look for it,” she said. “And most don’t. Not yet.”
“That isn’t what I asked.” He muttered, turning his face to the far wall.
Alice sighed, soft and careful. “The smoke has always been there,” she said quietly. “It is only the citrus that is…new.”
For a brief, unguarded moment, he thought of his mother. His sweet sweet mother, the warmth of her smile, the sweetness of her scent.
He inhaled a shuddering breath, a tear slipping freely from his eye. He was quick to wipe it away. He had cried enough. He would not be weak.
When the bath was finished, Alice wrapped him in clean linen instead of letting him dress himself. The gesture was practical, efficient. He allowed it with stiff reluctance, and that somehow made it worse than kindness would have.
“There,” she said softly, stepping back.
Maekar rose from the tub, water trailing from his skin to the stone floor. He stood straighter than he felt, shoulders squared despite the tremor of exhaustion running through him. Whatever the realm thought it understood about him now, he would not make it easy.
Omega or not.
An hour or two passed before his rooms felt habitable again. Maekar was dressed at last, properly this time. In dark wool and soft leather that did not cling to his skin or smell strongly of anything at all. The windows remained open despite the heat. Maekar did not move to shut them.
Food was brought. He ignored most of it.
In the end, he only ate the sweet set aside on a small plate. It was something Dornish, sticky with honey and orange, dusted with fine sugar. It clung to his fingers as he broke it apart, the flavor sharp and bright on his tongue. Familiar. His mother had always favored sweets like this, saying the sourness sharpened the sweetness. He ate slowly, forcing his body to accept it. Refusing would only invite concern, and concern had become another kind of cage.
The room no longer steamed. The scent lingered, faint but undeniable. Citrus mostly, smoke beneath it, as constant as his own pulse. He pretended not to notice when a guard shifted outside his door. Pretended it was a coincidence. Pretended many things.
A knock sounded against the wood.
“My prince,” came the careful voice beyond it, “His Grace requests your presence in his solar.”
Fuck.
His father wanted to see him.
Something dark and unsteady twisted in his chest. Since his mother’s death, it has been as though his father faded into the background of his life. Not gone, not absent, but distant in a way that made him unreachable. Present at the castle, in council, as king, but not as a father.
Daeron had shut himself away behind duty after her passing. It was easier, Maekar thought bitterly, to rule a realm than to face the quiet left behind by her absence.
Anger flared, sudden and hot. Maekar wanted to yell at him. What about me? He wanted to say. What about your children who had just lost their mother? Do we not deserve any comfort? Any love?
It’s not that his father was a bad person, no, quite the opposite. He wasn’t cruel.
King Daeron the Second was a gentle man, thoughtful to a fault, more inclined toward counsel than command. He ruled with patience rather than force, with ink and marriage alliances instead of steel and flame. Maekar knew that his father loved him.
But love, unspoken, unshown, might as well have been absence.
And now, after weeks of silence, after blood and heat and humiliation, Daeron wished to see him.
Maekar wiped his hands carefully, straightened the fall of his tunic, and rose.
Whatever his father wanted to say, Maekar would stand with his head held high.