#˚ ༘ ଳ my moots!

[princessbellecerise]

— Jacaerys always claims you curtsy like a young mare, and in response, you tell him he bows stiff as a plank. 

THIS IS SO CUTE SKALALALASSL

— “It is little wonder they should be so interested. It is you,” And his tone, as effortless as the breeze. A leap in your heart. “The true question,” he muses - a distant melody, “is whether any of that interest might be returned.”

he’s so nosey lmaoo. boy just say you wanna marry her

— It seems Jacaerys’s hunger has quelled, half the sandwiches and cakes replaced with staling crumbs.

boy leave some for us 🤺 hungry hungry hippo headed

— His touch is gentle, as it usually is - calloused fingertips from training in the yard, from riding Vermax - soft. He whispers, less than a breath. “Tell me if I hurt you, gevie.”

JFC SKALWLWLWLWL just take me on the table

— “Come now,” He says, voice kind, gentle, “There must be someone interested in the woman behind the name.” 

Stop playing around and ASK jace 🧍🏽‍♀️

— A drop of the letter back beside you, a hand steady upon the back of your chaise, “-Conflict of interest, among other reasons.” 

YESSSSS

— “Skoriot istan ao?” His voice, that smooth caramel; you ignore the heat that licks at such a tone - you’re here to learn, you remind yourself. 

STOP HES TEACHINF HER HIGH VALYRIAN IM DEADDDD THIS IS SO CUTE

— Our Keep. You don’t let yourself think too much on the phrasing, covering your flush by a finger to your lips, pretending to consider his words. 

“Our keep.” Literally just kill me. In Jace’s mind they’re definitely getting married, boy is already planning for the future

— Jacaerys offers no such courtesy; with shock, you regard Jace’s icy gaze, a disposition well prepared to freeze over the Narrow Sea.

Now what—🧍🏽‍♀️

— Ask for my hand, Jacaerys - you bite your lip to quell your foolish mind. Ask for my hand, and I will be yours. 

STOP BEING A COWARD AND ASK BEFORE SOMEONE ELSE WIFES HER UP

— He is sat next to his mother at the large table before the entire procession; barely a moment before his gaze befalls you and your company once more. You lift an inquisitive brow - if you won’t provide me company, your look says, I’ll find it elsewhere. 

HELL YEAH if he won’t then someone else will 💅

— Luke’s eyes flicker between you and Jace, reading whatever either of you refuse to say. A small understanding that lurks within his mirthful gaze, eyeing his older brother, “Oh, I see.” 

Not luke clocking the tea 💀

— And then a slight nod from her, crown glinting in torchlight - some acknowledgement, some permission; with a mixture of nervousness and respect, you return the gesture, your heart pounding as Jacaerys pulls away, resuming a dance with you. Blissfully unaware. 

RHAENYRA APPROVES! she knows she’s about to get a new in-law

— “I would sooner meet the Stranger than let that happen.”  His words are dead-honest. 

and I oop—

— “It drives me mad to see you surrounded by suitors. Truly. I cannot say I find pleasure in watching others vie for your attention.” 

FINALLY HE ADMITS IT! LETS GO JACE

— “A few nights ago, after…seeing you,” He hesitates for a moment; his voice wavering, warm. “I…spoke with my mother. About us.” This, near a whisper. 

oh he’s down bad

— “I want to kiss you.” He admits. 

YESSS

— Jacaerys is to be your husband, after all. 

YESSS LETS GOOO

“M-my chambers are just up the stairs in the royal apartments-”

SAY LESS! THE WEDDINGS ABOUT TO BE IN TWO DAYS

— ugh the tension. the lingering touches. the longing. the writing 💔 humble master ainslee this is literally perfect 🥹

˗ˏˋ i'd go blind (just to see you) ˎˊ˗ Jacaerys Velaryon

jacaerys velaryon x fem!lady!reader words: 10.9k synopsis: It’s always been entertaining, this little dance of teasing words, of stolen glances, of flushed cheeks; Yet now, letters and suitors flood the Keep, eager for your hand - and the game has turned rather bitter in taste. notes: heyyyy sorry this took so long but im back! this fic has made me want to [REDACTED] myself for over a month so here it is i'll never look at it again. i didnt rly edit this sorry but thanks to my perfect princess @softspiderling for beta-ing this warnings: canon-divergent; dance does not happen. characters aged 20+. Rhaenyra is queen. jealousy, best-friends-to-lovers, yearning, mostly lots of fluff, slight rude jace, he has wild older brother vibes, kissing, tipsy jace and reader, allusions to smut. reader is so infatuated with him masterlist

THE SUN IS NEAR UNBEARABLE PAST MIDDAY. 

It bakes you, an oppressor in the sky; your hand, fanning yourself gently as the other drops to lay the parchment aside. A sheepish smile as you watch your handmaids, eyes flickering about the letter with excitement - but you’re rather unwilling to give it further thought for the time being. 

A delicate hand against the rays of the sun, pressing to your brow; a short sigh that escapes when you shift in your dress. The heat has begun to draw sweat upon the soft of your thighs, collecting at the base of your neck - dripping in a lick down gentle ridges of spine; though you are never one to resist such fresh air.  

Tea is poured for you. 

And though you know you will not so much as touch the cup of steaming liquid, a gentle thanks from you to the girl before you. The tree line shimmers in the distance, green points with spinning tops that blow against the blue breeze of day. 

“Another one?” 

A voice, familiar and warm, startles you from your daydream.

Against the glare of the sun, you note your visitor - a grin that stretches over your flushed cheeks and sheened brow; It would be futile to attempt any concealment of your delight.

“My prince,” you rise to curtsy, but make it not even halfway before he’s regarding you with a rather amused glance - you bite back a roll of your own eyes, delivering him a severe look in return. 

 In the earlier days, when your father first joined the Queen’s council, you and Jacaerys adhered quite obediently to the formalities expected of young lords and ladies - but as turns of moon became turns of years, polite conversation became a tight friendship; and with it, you’ve both found much humor in addressing each other so formally. 

Jacaerys always claims you curtsy like a young mare, and in response, you tell him he bows stiff as a plank. 

A lifted brow in jest; regarding you with that warm disposition and crooked smile. 

“Jace,” You relinquish with a smile of your own, hoping your affection doesn’t completely drip through your polite welcome. “Come join me.” 

He does, and with a boyish eagerness that often endears him to you further; Sitting with knees spread and arms draped over the back of the chair rather un-Princely, Jacaerys looks wonderfully at home amidst the half-eaten cakes and teacups. A maid steps forward to pour him a fresh cup of tea, and he returns an effortlessly graceful smile of thanks. 

“This makes the fifth proposal this week.” A gesture downwards to the parchment, its waxy broken seal crumbling below it. 

You smile sheepishly, regretful to admit. “I’m afraid so.” A relief that such scrutiny from the prince is not upon your countenance, but rather focused downwards - subtly reading the gaudy words frilled upon the parchment. 

You tilt your head at his interest, “Though I don’t believe I have been keeping track.” 

He hums, either in response to your observation or perhaps unsatisfied with the pompous letter sent to you - and takes the moment to tilt his face up in relish of the same sun that seems to scorch you. 

His skin has always taken to that kissed-look, for as long as you’ve known him; rosy cheeks so becoming, a charming smatter of freckles, a flush over his cheeks that sprouts after an afternoon sparring - or perhaps riding - and blossoms even in the respite of shade afterwards. 

He’s always enjoyed bathing in the sun, and you’ve always quite enjoyed watching him. 

Though you flush in embarrassment when Jacaerys cracks an eye open, glancing sidelong to catch your stare, he mercifully has the grace to not mention it - and so you look down to your cup of tea, how tendrils of steam climb out and stagger into the molten afternoon air. 

A smattering of petals, torn from the shrub beside your restless hands; blowing in the warm breeze over the discarded parchment. “You're quite popular these days." He says after a moment, his long, dark lashes fluttering shut once more.

“These days?” you chirp, unworried of the playful lilt in your voice, "And here I thought people have always sought my company. What could have possibly changed?” 

A small laugh, though his eyes do not open- unstirred by your attempts to provoke him, shifting in the warmth like a cat in a corner of sun.

A low hum from pink lips, lazy as he grins; Eyelashes fluttering over cheeks. “I wonder if I’ve grown accustomed to being your favorite.” He decides lightly, “Or perhaps I simply enjoy watching you when you can see no one else.” 

A familiar flutter of excitement dances through you, a warmth blooming in your cheeks at such uncomplicated charm. 

And it is the truth - Jacaerys has long past commanded your attention, been the first you seek in any room, no matter how vast; Perhaps there truly is no competition anymore. A glance to the parchment before you - and the returned stare of the word betrothal inscribed in frilly handscript.

“Is that so?” Your voice, mercifully, does not betray your fluster, “Well, poor luck, I suppose. I’m afraid I seek the company of one who appreciates not my countenance, but my presence.” 

Some huff of amusement exhaled sharply from his nose, tilting his head further - a slope against the sun, the expanse of a throat; the bob of an apple. “Then you look in the wrong places, my lady.” He decides, nodding towards the discarded letter, “Tales of beauty are one thing, but I'm afraid mere letters can not do justice your presence.” 

An effortless compliment; one of many shared between your lips and his. He’s right, as he so infuriatingly often is - though it does nothing to quell your reluctance to select a husband. 

In fact, it simply stirs the warmth that lies within your chest; and he, with fluttered lashes, blissfully unaware of how his words stir your heart. You cast your gaze to the letter. 

“It's overwhelming.”

And concern leaking through the opening of an amber gaze as you continue, thumbing the napkin in your lap. 

“I don’t know these suitors. Most of their fathers write to me." You confess, knowing how improper it would be to complain under regular company; but this is Jace. 

He leans forward at this, ever eager to bestow upon you his undivided attention - yet he merely shrugs, as though remarking on the weather, “It is little wonder they should be so interested. It is you,” And his tone, as effortless as the breeze. A leap in your heart. “The true question,” he muses - a distant melody, “is whether any of that interest might be returned.”

You pray your countenance might be enough to save you from the embarrassment of candor; Yet of course he plays the aloof, tilting his head. His hair looks quite full today - swept away from his cheekbones, sharp as the slopes of the Eyrie.

Indeed, you have interest to return - but not for any of those lords, nor their land, nor their riches. 

It seems nearly impossible that Jacaerys might be in any semblance unaware of your affections for him; everyone else has surely taken note, and you’ve hardly gone to great lengths to conceal them - just as you’re certainly aware of his own.

It’s always been entertaining, this little dance of teasing words, of stolen glances, of flushed cheeks; Yet now, letters and suitors flood the Keep, eager for your hand - or your father’s army - and the game has turned rather yearning in taste. 

Some ancient, desperate ache within you - a wish that it were the boy beside you, not these distant lords, who vied for your hand.

“-If you’re asking if I have a particular suitor in mind, then…” Your heart skips a beat at the fleeting spark of interest within an amber stare. A heat, an affection you must not name, blossoms in your chest at his interest; though you lose your confidence just as you get it. “...No.” You say, picking at a loose thread on your fine gown, “None of them.” 

He makes a noncommittal noise, moving to take a bite out of one of the sagecakes, warmed by the sun. The Blackwater glistens in the distance; Jace strikes a relaxed conversation with the handmaids.

A HALF HOUR IS SWALLOWED IN THE SUNSHINE. 

Birds sing - a hummingbird zips by, coaxing a gasp from your lips when it dips into a thatch of flowers before darting away unseen - absently, you’ve busied your hands with a ribbon that refuses to tie properly upon your hair. 

It seems Jacaerys’s hunger has quelled, half the sandwiches and cakes replaced with staling crumbs. A brushing of his fingers, the shift of his chair in the shade. Eyes, warmed pools of honey that begin to drip with quiet amusement as you struggle to untangle the ribbon. 

"Would you care for some help?" His voice is full of quiet mirth, and you, embarrassed by the difficulty, nod with a sheepish glance - “Please.” You agree, shifting closer. 

“-It’s bothered me all day, I can never get it to sit right.” Your voice quiets as you turn slightly away; perhaps it would be more appropriate for one of your maidens to relieve its knot, but Jacaerys has leaned behind you already.

His touch is gentle, as it usually is - calloused fingertips from training in the yard, from riding Vermax - soft. He whispers, less than a breath. “Tell me if I hurt you, gevie.”

You feel the word, whispered under his breath like a secret - perhaps it is, because it is not ever spoken in your common tongue, but in his own ancestral one. 

Deft fingers, warm breath upon your neck; a bee buzzes lazily into the brief shade above you. A spare glance to your handmaids, who hover on the other side of the small canopy and whisper to each other with poorly concealed grins; you’re sure to deal with a barrage of giggles and inquisitive whispers once back within your chambers. The thought lights you with your own giddiness, feeling the brush of fingers against the damp skin of your neck. 

A taught, gentle pull of the ribbon; a small pinch of hair that makes you wince gently.

Jacaerys’ hands still against your head, cupping the base of skull gently - resting for a brief breath - and as the flush creeps across your cheeks, his palms then return to his lap. “There, that should hold.” He murmurs.

A warmth as you whisper in return. “Thank you, Jacaerys.”

His grin is almost shy as he shrugs, cheeks bright pink and eyes squinting lightly against the bright day as he looks off towards the bay; you, too, return your gaze to the wild of the sea, ignoring the crashing of your heart against your chest.

It is quiet for a few minutes save for the birds in the distance, the babbling of a stream round the bend - you’ve taken to examining the bump along the bridge of his nose when he exhales, eyes opening slowly to find yours once more. 

You force your eyes over the row of bumbling hedges, to the small insects that lumber around the prettiest of blooms. The burn of a gaze in your peripheral; slight breeze rustles the ribbon he’d just fastened. 

“You know, it’s quite the thing to be sought after by so many.” 

You truly wish he would let the subject go. 

The parchment on the table - forgotten by only one of you, it seems. A tremble in your cadence gives way your failed efforts to remain nonchalant; worry, that unwelcome friend at the feast within your heart. 

“Yes, but they don’t know me, Jace.” You sigh; what heart palpitations your lord father would find if he heard the tone you take with the Prince of Dragonstone. “They see only what my father can offer to their house.” 

Jacaerys nods, thoughtful as he prods a half-eaten cucumber cake - he too, is of age, more so than you; he surely knows just as well what marriage means. “Come now,” He says, voice kind, gentle, “There must be someone interested in the woman behind the name.” 

A short sigh escapes your pursed lips. “If there is, he must be hiding under some dock, or his raven lost in some storm,” You thumb the teaspoon upon your saucer, “Because I’ve not yet found him.” 

He knows you too well - a smirk growing at your indignant tone; and a crooked grin on your own lips as you shake your head, letting out a soft chuckle that he echoes. 

Heart fluttering, some burst of amusement coaxes you to continue, if just to hear his laugh through practiced diplomacy. 

“Unless there is somebody you have in mind for me, Jacaerys?” Your voice belies all effort to remain less than invested; a desperation that you do not dare admit any further. 

You truly should know better than to act so bold when there are servants and guests walking around the grounds; the walls have eyes in the Keep, but indeed do the garden’s leaves. 

Jacaerys ceases pushing the handle of his teacup round with his pointer finger. "Someone in mind?" He repeats it; tone light, almost teasing. 

The question awaits a response; Heartbeat, soft and insistent, in your ears. Say it, please, your eyes wish. But then his fingers resume to toy with the handle of his teacup, the movement casual, "It would be unseemly for me to play matchmaker, wouldn’t it, my lady?" There is an equally desperate twinge in his own tone, one masked rather gallantly by practiced etiquette. 

Your lip is warm between your teeth - the Prince’s gaze flicks with such movements, of only for a second. 

“You imply I should not trust your opinion, then, my Prince?” You counter with his own title, a jest; he shakes his head with a soft smile, rising to gather himself. Your gaze catches the fluttering wings of another hummingbird just before you, dipping in to collect nectar before you.

 Its feathers, a quick blur, eyes beady against a bright glare. Such a peculiar barrage of colors, flashing - red, some iridescent green…

“In these matters…” A hum as he rises behind you, grasping the letter you’d left before you; you are stuck watching the small creature flutter before you, unaware of his eyes roving with a heat over the words written before him. “-Perhaps not.” 

Though his words are distant as you stare at the little bird; peculiarly, it stares back, its head tilting when your own does.

Your hum is an echo of his own, earlier - noncommittal, far away. The hummingbird sips from bright blossoms of sweet honeysuckle, its tiny eyes flicking to you to perceive any threats. It finds none. 

A drop of the letter back beside you, a hand steady upon the back of your chaise, “-Conflict of interest, among other reasons.” 

His words in your ear, tapping your shoulder lightly; you snap away from your daze at the touch, blinking to see his hand outstretched to you. 

What had he said? Clearing your throat of the butterflies which threaten to escape, you grasp his hand in your own, regretful that you seemed to have missed the opportunity to address the words he’d uttered - afraid to do so, to unturn the raw earth beneath this game you and he play so well. You wonder absently where the hummingbird’s gone off to.  

A murmur of your name as his hands fall to your shoulders, steadying you to take in your flushed face. 

“You’ve caught sun,” He chides, clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth, brushing his finger over the apple of your cheek; A brief touch - and a good-natured roll of your eyes to hide the flutter in your chest.

“Let us get you into the shade, gevie.” He gestures the path upwards to the Keep. 

You knock shoulders into his own, an effort against the upslope - clinking behind you as your maidens begin to tidy your tea spot as you begin the short walk back towards the chalky stone halls. 

“HIDING, ARE WE?”

You hadn’t meant to startle the prince. 

Yet when he jolts slightly from where his head rests upon a sharp jawline, you have to conceal your giggle with a palm. 

A slow blink of sleep from his syrupy dark gaze as he remembers himself, stirring from such a hunched position. 

“Oh, you truly didn’t have to stay up for me, Jacaerys.” You tease, swiping a hand over his sturdy shoulder as you slide onto the bench aside him. 

The library is a wonderfully cool refuge this time of day, and after the heatwave that has welcomed so many lords and ladies to the castle, you are appreciative of such solitude. 

He has the grace to laugh, still blinking sleep from his eyes. “Well, I suppose I tired of waiting to see if you’d show.” A smile so striking upon his lips you have to look away. 

“I am sorry I’ve come late.” you apologize earnestly, taking the leather of the book he’d taken for a pillow, opening it up. 

He hums, watching with his head propped similar to how you’d discovered him moments ago - though now, his eyes burn alight with amusement.  Jacaerys decides to begin your lesson promptly; perhaps making up for lost time. 

“Skoriot istan ao?” His voice, that smooth caramel; you ignore the heat that licks at such a tone - you’re here to learn, you remind yourself. 

You pause, trying your hardest to comprehend the sentence; What…what time is it? With a blink, you lean forwards, squinting in an attempt to gauge the position of the sun through the window’s mottled colors. 

There is indeed no part of you unaware that such a gesture leaves the line of your chest direct with his gaze; nor are you unaware of the eyes that trail down the slope of you; though his eyes are schooled to your visage once more when you return to your sat position, his cheeks pink. 

You return a smile, sweet as can be; hoping he will have mercy upon you today, as you have less than a clue of what he’s asked. 

“M…” You’re unsure, and it shows. He holds back a grin, but you choose to ignore him once more. “Mōris hen tubis?” Your accent is rough, poor; as is your translation. 

You think it is nearing the end of the day - but you also are not sure if that truly is what he asked you at all. The page below you is not helpful; ‘Word Cells in High Valyrian,’ -  written in High Valyrian. 

He shakes his head - that stern, scholared look, the one you’ve grown to cherish. You smile at him, unknowing, hopeful that he’ll take pity on you. 

“No, gevie.” He chides, an amused smile, “Skoriot istan - Where were you?” 

Oh. You bite away your sheepish grin, stretching your arms in a rather unladylike way; Jace watches you with that kind, patient look all the same. 

“Nyke…” You pause, cringing at the pronunciation - a glance shows that Jacaerys does not bat an eye. “...rȳbagon vala ȳdragon…naejot nyke… lēda ñuha muña.” It is a crude sentence, a crude translation - but you believe you’ve done well enough. 

Jace spends a moment deciphering your butchered phrase of his ancient ancestral language - in stride, thankfully - and then frowns. “You were… listening to a man speak?” 

You flush, “I do not know the word for courting, I’m afraid.” 

A minuscule reaction - likely more involuntary - the tighten of a jaw, and a spine growing rigid. 

A moment before he mutters. “Rudhy.”

His words are through clenched teeth; his eyes, alight with something unspoken, some faint irritation or envy. 

You clear your throat, holding his steady gaze; you repeat the word again, though it lacks the melodic quality with which he speaks. “Rudhy.” 

For a moment, he simply holds your gaze; until, as though jolted from a trance, he nods, letting out a soft breath. “Good,” he murmurs, barely audible.

A heat you dare not name, and the clearing of your own throat. “Well, if you must know, it was no one of consequence,” you reply with a sigh, skimming the page before you. 

Your gaze flickers over words: gaomilaksir and rigle - you pay them little mind at the moment. “He was rather brilliant at making grand gestures, but sadly, that is not what I truly desire.” Your words are light, but as clear as you can put it; Though some armor or defense between you both as the crooked grins and wry grins come back. 

Sparse noise - the ruffle of parchment rows away, where a worker returns scrolls. The distant clink of a blacksmith in the distance.  

“Is that not what you want?” Jacaerys quips, a playfulness in his voice; you’ve always so loved when he finds that light, when he forgets about those princely duties, about the crown he will one day wear - when he lets himself laugh and tease and smirk and enjoy his time with you as he pleases. 

His head tilts in that way you adore, “-Am I not making grand enough gestures?” 

A moment in the silence of the library where you grin - you and Jace, and that odd line you so love, straddling truth and tease. And he, cheeks pink; certainly, it was not his intention to come off so coy - but you don’t mind, no, in fact you flourish under his attention. 

You let out a small laugh, eager to soothe his apparent fluster. “You? Oh, you’re quite grand, but not in the way you might think.”

He clutches his heart; he knows how you laugh whenever he does so - always one for the dramatics, he groans in false pain. “You wound me.” 

And he watches for your reaction; your giggle comes muffled by your palm. 

A brief moment where a cloud passes the sun behind your backs, light blotted and red with the stain of glass. Your soft laughs die down together, you and Jace’s breaths drawn together, threaded from the same ancient string. 

His back is straight - a princely figure as his shoulders brush your own. You hide the wash of shivers down your spine at the faint scent of him.

 “Well, do tell, what kind of grand gestures would meet your exacting standards?” He murmurs with a grin. “I should take notes to distribute to all the men lining our Keep, waiting for a lone moment with you.” 

Our Keep. You don’t let yourself think too much on the phrasing, covering your flush by a finger to your lips, pretending to consider his words. 

As if the gesture of teaching you a language you wished to know did not set the very standards he also exceeds every moment you spend in his presence. 

As if the small gifts - a flower plucked from those hidden bushels in the garden, books slipped from the rows and slid under mattresses until the Maester is gone, sips from his own cup of wine when your father deems you’ve had plenty - isn’t enough. 

As if simply spending time with him isn’t enough; As if you would not deny every single gesture in the seven kingdoms, no matter how grand, if he were to simply offer his own hand to you. 

But you wouldn’t dare admit such things, not when his grin is so wide, when his eyes are alight with that joy of jest. 

“Well, it might start with being genuinely interested in who I am, rather than what I might bring to the table.” You mutter, opting for a less revealing honest answer. 

A lithe finger toys with the bands around his others; he pretends to consider such a thought. “Quite a tall order.” He mocks, “I worry if I can do that, gevie.” 

His voice betrays the lie as he says it, and then, as an afterthought: “Besides, you didn’t bring anything to the table today.” He adds, lifting a brow. You roll your eyes; Jacaerys and his ravenous, insatiable appetite. 

“Septa Jaenna took my by ear to kneel before the Seven when she caught me bringing you sagecakes last.” You defend, shaking your head, “I would do many things for you, Jace, but enduring her spittling rants is no longer upon that list, I’m afraid.” 

He shakes his head in mock disappointment, taking it upon himself to flip to the correct page of the book you share between you; his palm, calloused as it brushes your own, though if he notices, he does not mention it, still caught on your words. 

“You, enduring a lesson from Septa Jaenna…” He hums, eyes searching over the Valyrian upon the book, “A gesture too grand for the likes of me. I understand.” He jests, a small smirk growing on his face. “I hope your future husband does not succumb to the same ill fate.” 

His ribbing tease settles something less than pleasant within your stomach though, a cold wash off reality hitting you in the chest. Swallowing, you fight for a weak smile, knocking your shoulder into his. 

The motion, gentle as it was, sets his cloak askew upon the brooch which holds it to his shoulder - it slips off, but he smiles all the same. 

You do your diligence in haste - fingers fastening it properly for him once more, hiding your soft smile and shaking fingers. 

You pretend not to feel his attentive gaze upon you as you do so. 

FOOTSTEPS ECHO IN CORRIDORS; A RHYTHMIC TAP OF BOOTS BESIDE YOU. 

Another blistering day - sweat gathering upon the peak of your hairline, sliding down the skin that welcomes beams of sunlight - a shiftier gown, light and breezy upon your frame. The young lord at your side is amiable enough; his voice smooth, words flowing of his family’s lands, ancient tales of the Riverlands. You, with suppressions of yawns, humming along as you look out to the gardens, a spot you’d much rather be. 

His stories fluctuate - yet your thoughts, leaves caught in a breeze; pulled inexorably towards a head of dark curls, of crooked smiles, of metal rings stamped with signet of dragon and seahorse. 

Your father’s voice echoes in your mind - consider the advantages of such a match - and a well-practiced young maiden you can play, as you smile and nod in all the right places. 

Your heart may not be in it - but your head is, and as you turn a corner, your gaze is drawn from the fluttering of hummingbird wings upon honeysuckle bushes in the near distance. 

A pair, boisterously striding down the corridor opposite you; The Royal Princes. 

Some quiet excitement, a lurch in your heart at the sight of him: Jacaerys, with such proud shoulders - dark hair tousled, cheeks beet and freckled with exertion. 

Beside him, Lucerys - an image of Jacaerys years past - hands, animatedly recounting some tale with a boyish enthusiasm. A flicker of relief at the sight of such familiar frames; you nearly forget yourself in an urge to abandon your unvaried duty and join their sides, to hear the tale from Luke’s lips, to fall into worn chaises in their drawing quarters; to laze with them on fruits and cakes, hiding in the shade before the duties of the afternoon call. 

But Jace’s eyes, sharp as a hawk when your presence is noted - and within a moment, they become rather fixed upon the man beside you.

A drop in your stomach of surprise rather than any kind of true consternation, unused to such blatant show of opposition from him. 

In that impressive way he can, Jace’s visage is quickly schooled into indifference; but you know Jacaerys, you know the tightness in his jaw, recognize the cool in his gaze. A heavy silence falls as you come upon the princes; some levity within your stomach at his gaze, stuck upon your arm in another’s. I do not want this, you hope he hears; I solely want you. 

“My lady,” Luke’s smile is mercifully amiable. “It is good to see you.”

You incline your head in return, your heart pounding beneath your ribs. “And you, Prince Lucerys,” you reply with a practiced smile; memories of youthful jaunts in the outcroppings of court - a boy prone to mischief, whose company you’ve always enjoyed.  

Jacaerys offers no such courtesy; with shock, you regard Jace’s icy gaze, a disposition well prepared to freeze over the Narrow Sea.

A moment before Jace parts his lips - “I don’t believe we’ve met,” he says, his voice low, clipped - any semblance of amiability you’ve grown accustomed to has all but dissipated.  

Lucerys’s eyes meet your own in a quick glance; exasperation must hang upon the downturn of your lips, for he glances sidelong to his elder brother. 

Your suitor, rather taken aback by the chill in Jace’s tone, quickly introduces himself; the prince merely nods, offering no more than that - your jaw clicks shut in disapproval, any amusement you’d drawn at the taste of his envy dissolved with an overhanging dread, some sad misery. 

Ask for my hand, Jacaerys - you bite your lip to quell your foolish mind. Ask for my hand, and I will be yours. 

In some half-decent attempt to bridge the gap of tension that burgeons, you weakly mutter, “Were you sparring in such heat?” 

Jacaerys meets your gaze briefly; seeking something he is too proud to ask for, before a flush of some shame flickers over his countenance. 

“Yes,” he replies curtly, eyes falling to look away, seemingly finding the wall behind your head infinitely more interesting.

A breath, in which the breeze through the windows plaster a new sheen of sweat upon your spine. It’s almost as if some green-eyed beast has taken your friend; no flicker within his eyes, only a sullen gaze leveled down the slope of a regal nose. 

Lucerys seems to take the reins, in a step forward and bright, princely smile. “Jace bested me, as always,” and if you knew him any less, you’d think his laugh was simple, of amiability; though a lilt at the end, some strain to ease the tension of his elder brother’s rather serrating gaze upon the man beside you.

“Perhaps you might join us next time, my lady? I imagine it would be a welcome change from the dullness of court.” His voice, joking; you send him a wry grin imagining yourself attempting to wield a sword - though it falters with unspoken words - the man beside you, stiffer than a board beneath your hand. 

“I would like that,” you reply, though your eyes stray to Jace - he, not daring to spare you a mere glance. Silence, stretching between the four of you tighter than frayed string; And then Jace’s voice, quieter now, almost reluctant.

“Well. I’m sure you have more important matters to attend to,” he decides dismissively; it stings you, brows furrowing. 

Your suitor is rather unaware of the undercurrents - thankfully, he merely delivered an awkward chuckle, suggesting that you continue your walk. It is with force that you nod, following though each step is excruciating. 

You pass Jace with a brief moment of brushing shoulders - a scent of steel, of salt, of citrus; and an immaculate success of personal discipline as you continue forward, head not daring to look back. 

The gaze of Lucerys in the corner of your eye, some small comfort of sympathy and confusion in his stare; your suitor has begun to prattle on inconsequentially once more. 

You wonder if your father would have you hanged, were you to deny the betrothal right there. 

PERHAPS IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN OBVIOUS.

Maybe, it was obvious - it is indeed hard not to notice when eyes pierce you all night. 

A feast, you’re at; a wonderful one, with many lords and ladies and music and laughter. You’ve danced yourself to the edge of the room, yet you can still feel those eyes upon your frame as you converse lightly with a woman you vaguely recognize. 

You’ve quite enjoyed the feast, though you’re afraid Jacaerys has not. 

He’s been stuck to you; eyes, unrelenting, yet neither body nor mouth approaching. You nearly asked him to dance several times, but each attempt to cross the massive room to him resulted in you becoming whisked away for another dance. 

The cups of wine come quite easily; you’ve never been one to shy away from a feast, and the spirits are quite high. A man before you, speaking at you; you don’t find yourself too bothered, enjoying the fuzziness awarded to you by the contents of your cup. The wine on your lips is light, and you give minimal effort to focusing on the man’s words. 

“-Should I be worried?” 

You blink, frowning at the man in front of you - several years your senior, his brow furrows as he glances just over your shoulder, gesturing with a cup of wine. The son of Lord Royce; intelligent, handsome… not any interest of you, however. 

Frowning, you turn slightly; following his gaze. Your stomach flips. Jacaerys, across the way, watches you as a hawk does a mouse; intense, open - sharp. Though at the turn of your head, he has the audacity to look away - pushing the food around in front of him half-heartedly upon the plate. 

He is sat next to his mother at the large table before the entire procession; barely a moment before his gaze befalls you and your company once more. You lift an inquisitive brow - if you won’t provide me company, your look says, I’ll find it elsewhere. 

He simply looks away.

You shake your head, turning back and suppressing the flutter in your heart. “He’s just protective,” You reason, hoping you sound casual. 

The son of the lord lifts a brow. “Protective? The Crown Prince looks ready to challenge me to a duel.”  

But eventually, the son of the lord is replaced with a new one; You enjoy another dance with the young man, who turns red as Highgarden Beets when you accidentally spill a drop of wine upon your chest. 

It is not until you find yourself reposed at a banquet table with his younger brother does Jacaerys finally find his way to you. 

“-and then his foot caught on his cloak and he tossed over,” Lucerys recalls, grin wide. You smirk, amused by his story, sipping on water. “He tried to play it off but, Gods, he looked so pompous-” 

You let out a short laugh, “At least he had a sense of humor about it.” You defend - but Luke’s eyes have fallen behind you, where a shadow appears. 

“Jace!” Luke greets the figure behind you with a friendly grin, his eyes lighting up. Your stomach warms, turning with a lifted brow behind you. Jacaerys’ eyes are already on yours when you turn, and you’re struck by his proximity. 

“Luke,” Jacaerys greets smoothly, nodding to you with a small smile, “My lady.”

You return his smile, feeling a pleasant flutter at his attention. Your mouth opens to greet him - perhaps sneak a comment on his lingering attention this evening, but Luke speaks first. “We were just recalling that boy who made such a spectacle of himself asking for her hand before the festivities,” Lucerys continues, his laughter light.

 He takes your hand in his, playfully mimicking the young lord’s desperate plea as he falls to one knee before you; you laugh in surprise, Luke’s voice high as he mimics, “Please, my Lady, I’d even take your house name—”

You laugh, swatting Luke’s shoulder with a gentle nudge. “Hush!” you say with poorly concealed amusement. “He could be near, Luke.” 

A hand comes to the back of your chair; as you lean back, fingers trail slowly through the strands of your hair, grazing the nape of your neck. A warmth stirs as Jace leans around you, fixing his brother with a look. “Yes, well, Luke.” His voice is rather tight; you can hear the hint of tension. “I think it’s time you bother someone else.”

Alarmed, you send Jacaerys a rather bewildered look - an irritable sentence, never one to be so forward. Lucerys similarly seems to pick up on his brother’s mood, shifting uncomfortably.

 “Oh, come now, Jace,” he says lightly, hoping to ease the tension. It is rare that Jacaerys displays such an attitude towards his brother in your company, nor at all,  “We were just having a bit of fun.” He defends. 

Jacaerys gives a tight nod, his hand unmoving from the back of your chair. “I’m sure you were.”

Luke’s eyes flicker between you and Jace, reading whatever either of you refuse to say. A small understanding that lurks within his mirthful gaze, eyeing his older brother, “Oh, I see.” 

Jacaerys simply tilts his head with a withering look, one that prompts you to hold back a laugh of amusement. 

“Well,” Luke says, standing up with a nod. “I think…” He squints, humming, “Oh, yes- mother’s beckoning me, I see her just- well, I’ll leave you two to it.” He turns to you, bowing with a grin poorly concealed. “My lady.” 

After you’ve bowed back, you resist a sigh - Jacaerys watches Lucerys go, his hand still resting rather possessively on the back of your chair. Half exasperated and half amused, you murmur Jace’s name; his head swivels to you, the scowl melting from his face. “Sit,” You gesture. 

He takes the seat beside you, the bitterness seemingly having worn off, steadfastly avoiding your eyes. “You need not be so discontented, Jacaerys,” you say, leaning in slightly to meet his gaze. “It’s just Luke. He was only providing me company.”

Jacaerys raises an eyebrow, his eyes dark though he tries to conceal it. "Of which you've had no shortage all night," he retorts, his voice low.

You sigh, shaking your head. Jacaerys, by nature, is a friend of great kindness and patience; Yet, of late, he has grown increasingly impatient and possessive, having apparently decided he must vie for your attention with greater urgency than usual. 

It would be both a lie and a sin to deny that you relish such devoted attention from a man like him.

Perhaps this is his way of grappling with the unspoken affection that binds you both—a matter you have both struggled to address openly, and of which you have taken in better stride than he as of late. 

His attentiveness is flattering, though the extent of his possessiveness comes as a surprise; your cheeks grow hot at the look in his eyes.

There is a piece of lint upon the top plane of his shoulder, just near the junction of his neck; you pinch it, ridding him of the slight imperfection with a sigh. Your Jacaerys; so handsome, so chivalrous, so bold - so unwilling to cross certain lines, yet so ready to dive headfirst over others. 

He relaxes under your touch, and you cannot help but speak the truth.

“You look quite handsome this evening,” you murmur softly, observing the blush that creeps up his neck. 

“Thank you,” he accepts, his voice carrying that slight hint of shyness you so adore. Jacaerys is not blind, nor is he a fool; he certainly knows of his looks, though despite this, he so often grows bashful at each compliment you deliver. 

A group of children rush past your table; you watch fondly as the two kids at the front avoid running into the dancing couples. A small laugh from you as the child in the back trips over a gown train.  

“You look quite beautiful, as always.” Jacaerys says; you snap back to him with a small smile. He, too, is no stranger to showering you with praise nor flattering remarks; and you, just as well, always find yourself exceedingly pleased. 

You both sit in a comfortable silence for a moment before he clears his throat. “Would you care to dance?”

A thrill of delight courses through you, though you mask it with a serene smile as you take his offered hand. “And here I thought you quite content to brood in the corner,” you tease gently. 

“I was not brooding,” he retorts, guiding you towards the dance floor with soft hands. “I was merely allowing you to enjoy the company of others.” 

You find his protests endearing, though you say nothing as you follow him gracefully. “You know I prefer your company,” you reply sincerely; he takes your hand and places it on his shoulder - you let your thumb soothe over the muscle, feeling the tension slide away. 

His pleased smile is tilted down at you, and you provide a half shrug as you begin a gentle dance, murmuring, “Besides, you’ve done a splendid job of deterring any potential suitors away from me.”

A hint of satisfaction crosses his face briefly, though he tries valiantly to hide it; a subtle smirk tugging at his lips before he schools his expression. “Have I?” he asks - eyes light with that underlying warmth. You roll your eyes good-naturedly. 

“You have, my prince,” you affirm, leaning in closer as you guide his hands to your waist. Your voice drops to a conspiratorial whisper. “If you continue in this manner, you may well spoil my chances of finding a decent husband of the lot.”

Jacaerys’s smile broadens, and his gaze softens. “I would not dream of it,” he replies with a playful grin, leading you in a gentle dance. You roll your eyes, unable to resist his charm this evening.

“Of course not,” you say with a smile, enjoying the moment.

You find it rather soothing to dance with him; you always have. The lights are dim - music smoother, laughter soft and smiles gentle when he steps on your dress skirt - or you on his toes occasionally. 

Swaying rather gently, you enjoy each other’s company - discussing his training, your academic endeavors, how Vermax is faring after having not flown in a few days. 

Perhaps the wine has helped; the room is amiable, dark - cinnamon, cloves, amber. Jacaerys is warm against you, his own cheeks reddened with the wine coursing through his veins. A giddiness slips into your veins, content with his company. 

And then Jacaerys whispers quietly to you, a teasing joke about the inebriated couple to your left; a laugh that flies out of your lips before you can remember your courtly manners - stark and unladylike, it turns the heads of several couples around you.

In sharp reaction to your disturbance, he tugs you to him tenderly, shushing you only slightly - his own laughter stifled in your hair to save face, concealing both of your giggles in a short embrace.

Laughter from you, trying your hardest to resist - another glance to the man beside you, drunkenly letting the woman dip him low, fumbling with his weight - your hands find their place upon Jace’s neck, fingers grazing the soft fabric of his red cloak as he laughs again, ducking his face into the gentle curve of your shoulder. 

Your gaze lifts at the tailend of your ungraceful bout of amusement with a mindless wander, enjoying the pressing warmth of Jace in your arms - the rest of the evening second to him. 

Your eyes trail up to the dais: catching a penetrating stare that washes you cold. 

In the midst of the entire court, you catch the eyes of his mother, the Queen.

Mid-laugh, your stomach flips as a chill runs through you. The warmth of Jace’s breath does little to nothing for the sudden cold creeping over your face - he, oblivious to his mother’s gaze, pulls you even closer, his laughter a warm breath against the nape of your neck. 

And for a moment, you hold her regal gaze; any urge to step back and maintain a more appropriate distance with her son is suddenly discarded when you find the warmth in the Queen's eyes, the hint of a smile growing upon her expression. 

And then a slight nod from her, crown glinting in torchlight - some acknowledgement, some permission; with a mixture of nervousness and respect, you return the gesture, your heart pounding as Jacaerys pulls away, resuming a dance with you. Blissfully unaware. 

THE NIGHT STRETCHES LANGUIDLY.

Low burnt torches are replaced with fresh flames; you lean into Jacaerys's embrace, lulled into a tranquil haze by the rhythm of his heartbeat beneath your palm, by the melody played in the corner.

“I believe we’ve heard this tune already,” you muse softly, breaking the spell once your heart has calmed from its earlier flutter.

Jacaerys glances toward the quartet in the corner, their music weaving through the evening air. “I had not noticed,” he replies, his gaze lingering on you with a hint of surprise.

A smile dances on your lips with ease—hours have passed since the festivities commenced, yet this is the first time you have seen Jacaerys take to the dance floor. Though princely duties might have called him elsewhere, you are warmed by the knowledge that tonight he chose only to dance with you.

“You know,” you tease, lifting your eyes to his, “if you had asked any lady here to dance, she would surely stumble over her skirts to accept.”

He raises a brow at this; regarding you down the bridge of his nose as his hands squeeze your hips in a slight tease. “You’ve seemed perfectly fine on your two feet, gevie.” 

You shake your head, laughing gently - You have no clue, you fool, your mind sings to him.  “Only because I’ve danced with you countless times before, ñuha darilaros.” You reason. My prince. 

The High Valyrian term rolls off your tongue, and though you stumble over the pronunciation, you catch the glint of satisfaction in his eyes - anything to see that fleck in his eyes, that flash of pride that you so crave. 

“Dārilaros,” he corrects with a lift of his brow, making your heart flutter despite your best efforts to remain composed.

Biting back a grin of your own at his correction, you send him a disappointed look. Always so dutiful - you purse your lips, “Jace, you mustn’t be so harsh on me.” You jest, fingers flexing over the fine material of his doublet. “It’s a feast. Have mercy.” 

He gives you a look, “Is that a pout I see?” He muses, eyes flicking to your lips and back to your gaze, your hands warm as he guides you in a small pattern dance. You simply tilt your head - he shakes his head shortly, though you see the pink upon his cheeks. “If you’re trying to sway me with such a look, you might try a bit harder,” He lifts a brow, “I’ve seen you use such charm on far less deserving targets.”

You bite your lip, a flash of memory at his icy stare, you arm-in-arm with some far-off Riverlord’s son. The dragonclaw clasping his doublet is crooked; you righten it with your thumb and forefinger gently before returning your hand to his shoulder. 

A flash of desire, wishing to provoke him - you crane your neck, pretending to search the crowd.  “Perhaps I should seek out one of these less deserving targets to practice my charms on, then?” You hum, “They’d surely appreciate them more than you do.”

His grip on your waist tightens, and abruptly, he halts in his steps, ceasing your dance. The music continues, yet you stand still amidst the swirling crowd, eyes locked on his in surprise. 

“I would sooner meet the Stranger than let that happen.”  His words are dead-honest. 

 Your heart leaps, mouth drying as you try to find some joke in your mind about his dramatics. 

You open your mouth, but in that peculiar way in which he always seems to read your mind, he insists. “I do not jest.” He adds, shaking his head. 

Your eyes take in his own; warm pools of honey. Some familiar urge - that yearning to pull him down to your height, to kiss him soundly - you toss the thought away, instead licking your bottom lip, heart thundering. 

“Nor do I,” You whisper, searching his eyes, feeling a pull towards him that you cannot resist; anticipation drips from your body as you drift closer, feeling his warmth. 

A shaky sigh from his lips, eyes searching your own. “Then I beg, do not feign ignorance,” he murmurs, his voice low and edged - the music is less than background noise. You are lost in him, just for a moment.

“It drives me mad to see you surrounded by suitors. Truly. I cannot say I find pleasure in watching others vie for your attention.” 

You look up at him, the heat in your cheeks likely quite evident despite your effort to remain nonchalant. You intend to keep the conversation light - though you know such a task would be impossible with how you stand motionless, holding each other in a crowd of swirling bodies. 

Yet before you can respond, an elbow jabs into your back; you gasp and stumble, but Jace’s hands wrap around you, pulling you to him as he avoids the flick of a woman’s hair - his body shielding you from the encroaching crowd of dancing lords and ladies. 

Without another thought, you and Jacaerys resume your dance, slowly swaying, his hands flexing against the fabric at your waist as you bask in the heavy air of his words, your eyes tracing over the gold laced in his doublet.

There are those within earshot; Lucerys and Rhaena dance just aside you now, and you press slightly closer to him, looking up into the freckle that lies just within the ring of his left iris. 

“Jacaerys,” You start, a brief whisper; still warm from his possessive words, “How should I interpret your words?” You ask, breathless, hoping. “You say you do not enjoy seeing others bid for my hand - though you’ve seemed quite absorbed in their efforts as of late.”

He delivers you an incredibly knowing look, one that douses you in warmth.

A long knowledge between you and him - between every being that takes a breath within the walls of the Red Keep.

He lets out a short breath, tugging you into his - as if unable to look you in the eyes as he speaks, your face nestles into the crook of his neck. “Believe me, it is certainly not your allure I dispute. Rather,” He wets his lower lip, “I detest the notion that another dare try to know it as intimately as I. To know you as intimately as I.” He breathes lowly. 

Heat spreads through you at such words; a flattery, yes, but a confession that is much too genuine to be of the aloof coy nature you and Jacaerys often share together. 

Despite the shock of his confession after such a long yearning, you smile against him; a giddiness in you when your warm breath raises goosepimples upon the skin of his throat. 

Gently, you press a light kiss to the space below his ear, feeling his spine shiver under your touch. 

As you pull back, your lips still close to his ear, you whisper softly, “You can become so wonderfully jealous, Jacaerys.”

One hand slides from the nape of his neck to cradle his sharp jaw in palm, watching his face contort in mild irritation at your tease. Your brows lift at his sheepish blush, tilting your head in amusement. “Did you truly believe you were being subtle?” You question, hiding your laugh for the sake of his pride. 

The apple of his cheeks darken, his jaw tight as he presses his lips together, but you soothe his expression with a murmur, “I suppose if you find it so troubling,” your finger soothes over the muscles of his shoulder, swaying along with the dance though the external world is long dissolved, “perhaps you should focus less on guarding me from others and more on ensuring I remain by your side.”

A flicker of hunger; inhaling deeply through his nose, his eyes pin you before him, hands impossibly tight against your dress. You brush against a back in the crowd as Jace spins you slightly - pools of honey do not leave your gaze. 

“I would gladly take every opportunity to ensure such a thing,” he says quietly, his breath mingling with yours as the music begins to change - no longer slow, but a jaunt. He tilts his head down in that way you so love, “Yet to act upon my desires here would be…” He swallows thickly, his throat moving visibly, “...less than appropriate.”

Heat licks through you at the admission, at the candor in his tone. Your voice, no more than a murmur. “I can be a patient woman when I must be.”

His nod; flushed cheeks, darkened eyes - the ghost of a smirk. “Good.” 

You do not trust yourself to speak; a hunger that devours you - so you lean into the music, allowing yourself to enjoy the moment.

Jacaerys, his hands firm upon you, thumb tracing over the fabric of your gown with a heat you’re unable to ignore. 

IT IS NOT SO SOON AFTER THAT YOU TIRE OF WAITING. 

Patience; you must have lied to him, when you’d promised such a thing. His hands, so warm through your dress - his eyes, so affectionate - the gaze of his mother across the hall, returning to you and him every few minutes with a ghost of a smile. 

Your hands have begun to sweat. 

You pull back slightly, meeting his gaze as you sluggishly follow his lead. “Have you tired of dancing?” You wonder, searching his face for any lack of enthusiasm. 

Jacaerys, his eyes filled with adoration, simply brushes a stray flyaway from your cheek. The gentle shake of his head that gifts you the soft smell of amber and soap upon his skin. “Only if you have.” 

Feather-light, a thumb gently caresses your jaw - faint before fleeing, knowing better than to display such actions in the eye of public. 

A warm smile spreads across your face, touched by his consideration, and you bite your lip. “Perhaps a breath of fresh air,” you whisper, your voice soft.

He catches on, as he always does with your veiled words - a slow smile spreading across his face, he nods just as gently. “Lead the way, gevie.” he says; Despite what would be otherwise considered unbefitting of people unwed as yourselves, you take his fingers intertwined with yours, guiding him away from the crowd. 

THE AIR IS COOL AT THIS HOUR. 

The birds have gone to rest; in the twilight of evening, the moon leaks silver onto the balcony, Jacaerys’ palm warm in your own. Your gown, ruffled sleeves from a small breeze - you sigh, letting yourself repose against the stone, looking off towards the gardens. 

His own gaze is directed towards the training yard, upon the other side of view, as if imagining himself below, sword in hand. It is calm, in the silence; a sweet respite, a stark contrast to the intensity of the four walls inside the hall. 

You’ve been out here, on this particular balcony, before - you quite often find yourself leaving the duties of court with Jacaerys, finding forgotten corridors or courtyards to hide in, to study, to enjoy each other’s company. Quiet jokes in the heat of the afternoon, a breath of fresh air when a roll of storm clouds loom in the distance. 

“I realize I have perhaps been a bit overbearing,” his gaze is on the yard below, sighing as if letting you in on a secret. You fight the look of impression upon your face. 

“I regret that I have made things difficult for you.”

You shake your head with a smile; always so polite, even when seeing green - and you, pushing buttons just to shy away from the reaction. 

“Well, I’m relieved you no longer look as though you’re ready to kill any man who looks my way,” You sigh coyly - the dock upon the Blackwater in the distance sways; Jacaerys’ profile illuminates in the silver of the moon. “Though I admit I do not mind your passion.” 

A brief flash of flattery and some mild embarrassment in his expression; his eyes, darting from yours to the stone ramparts that give way to the winding streets below. 

In the distance, the royal fleet rocks gently, flying the flags of his house’s sigil. You watch them with a trancelike interest as you wait patiently, heart in your throat. You know Jacaerys enough to know when he is gathering his thoughts.  

“A few nights ago, after…seeing you,” He hesitates for a moment; his voice wavering, warm. “I…spoke with my mother. About us.” This, near a whisper. 

Oh.  

Red blossoms from his ears, cheeks, neck; a sheepish expression that he schools - and your smile, growing in flattery, touched that he would think so much as to confide in his mother, the Queen, about you. 

He clears his throat. “It seems she has…already been in discussions with your father about a potential betrothal.” A smile, shy - almost sheepish - but your own is warm, elated. You’d wondered if such plans were being discussed. He clears his throat, “It indeed did not take much convincing at all.” 

Your heart warms at the revelation, your cheeks flushing anew. “Oh?” you murmur, unable to keep the bashful relief off your face.

Jacaerys nods, tinged in that regal glow; the same one he shares with his mother, brothers. He nods. “I hope you’re not too upset that we were kept out of the initial discussions.” He looks down to where your hands rest against the stone balcony; he lays his hand upon yours, and a jolt of affection rolls over you. “And…I would not impose upon you an unwanted proposition. If you wish to consider other suitors, you have the freedom to do so.” 

You hold back any playful remark about his valiant effort - casting daggers with his eyes at anyone who dared approach you too closely - but indeed, it matters not to you. As if there was ever any doubt that you would choose Jacaerys over any other.

You opt to brush the hair that blows over his temple in the cool breeze, soothing the tresses until you cup his jaw gently. Jacaerys's breath catches in his throat; a flutter of dark lashes over cheekbones as he swallows. When he opens them again, you whisper. “Jace. There is nothing to fret over.” Your hand slides to smooth over the contours of his cheek, “I hope you know just as everyone else does that I have been yours since the moment I first laid eyes on you.”  

He indeed beams at this - a wide, flattered smile, dimple carved by a kiss from the Maiden as he tilts his head. Hands find your hips again, pulling towards himself as though he cannot help it. “As I have been yours.” He murmurs, pressing a fleeting kiss upon your hairline, letting his forehead meet your own. 

His breathing, soft as yours, though your heart pounds hard in anticipation. 

The faint music from the hall, your breaths. 

The distant crash of waves, your breaths. 

Your heart beating in your chest. His breath, with yours. 

Jace’s voice comes no louder than a whisper, then, “I want…” he seems to retract his thought - you, hopeful, keen into him, “What do you want?” 

He looks at you, and it strikes somewhere deeper than your heart; He shakes his head. “I want to kiss you.” He admits. 

A dip in your stomach at the thought of doing so. 

His lips, trailing ever so closer to your own as he looks down at you, eyes nearly pleading. The line of his jaw is warm under the gentle trace of your fingers; your stomach, fluttering. “You need not ever ask,” you whisper back, your voice tender and reassuring. 

A lift of a brow, his head tilting to you; yours, craning up, his lids low as he considers your words - never one to throw out your thoughts, no matter how inconsequential. 

Fingers, curling around your hips rather possessively, tugging you into the cradle of his embrace. “Not ever?” He muses, and you, intoxicated by the proximity as he leans further, your lips nearly touching. 

His eyes, dark pools against the kiss of night; you whisper, “Never.” 

He seems to enjoy the flush upon your skin, the rapid beating of your heart - as if he himself is not a flustered mess. “Not even in the midst of a feast?” He wonders, eyes amused, “With everyone watching?” 

A flutter as you shake your head gently, words lodged in your throat as your heart pounds. 

The corner of his lips, twitching, torturous - you have half a mind to jump up, press your lips against his; but patience is indeed quite a virtue.  

A mumble from his chest, nose brushing your own, lips faint as he murmurs, “Daor isse Valyrio Eglie?” He wonders; your breath catches. Not in High Valyrian? 

You are much too wound up to consider his tease, nor to worry if you’ve translated his words correctly; with a shaky huff, you murmur, “No…Lo ziry…raqagon ao, ñuha Dārilaros.” You take the time to ensure your pronunciation mimics his own, rolling and smooth: He seems very gratified with your response - unless it… pleases you, my Prince.  

A slight, almost desperate noise from the back of his throat - his hands, around your waist as he pushes you back against the bannister, stone cool through the fabric of your dress, murmuring, “I am going to kiss you.” 

And his cheeks, growing a shade red as he sends you a boyish grin; a reminder of the Jacaerys you know, you’ve known, you will always know. Giddy, you grin back at him, voice coy as you tease him. “Are you? It seems you’d rather talk about it than actually do it-” 

 A flutter of pleasure and relief one and the same when he decides to silence you with his own lips. 

Messy, he presses into you eagerly; your nose upon his own, lips sliding together. Warmth. His hand sliding up your spine, tugging you in a motion against his own chest, a kiss rushed and filled with shy fervor. 

You, tugging at him by the lapels, as if he’d dare step away from you; He tastes of mulled wine, spices, sweet like sagecakes -  the feeling of a smile, shy and still proud, as you lean under him. 

A sudden rush of need overtakes you both. Jacaerys’s lips capture yours in a fervent kiss, one that sends your heart racing, heat tickling your heart. The music drones in the distance; a whisper in your mind - indecency - but who is to care? Jacaerys is to be your husband, after all. 

You gasp as his grasp threads through your hair with a desperate urgency; fingers, tangling in the ribbon of your hair. 

He groans dramatically against your lips, “Gods-” tugging your hair between his fingers, he mumbles against, “damn this ribbon.” 

And without another thought he tugs it free, the sudden release of your hair sending a shiver down your spine; what if someone were to find you and Jace, now? A lick of possession as you see him pocket the strip of ribbon, his hands rising to cup your cheeks as your hair falls more free around you.  

A heat in your stomach as you press up into him again, chasing the dizzying feeling of his sigh against you. “Beautiful,” He all but groans into your mouth, tongue running along the seam of your lips, “You’re so beautiful.” 

Footsteps in the hall just inside the balcony; You snap back to reality, the public setting crashing into your consciousness. 

A flush of embarrassment colors your cheeks, and you pull back slightly, your heart pounding wildly.

Jacaerys's eyes flutter open, his breath ragged and uneven as a freshborn doe. A moment suspended in the air as voices and footfalls rush past; you and your Jacaerys, staring wide-eyed, hungry, your cheeks warm against the fine fabric of his ceremonial doublet. 

And then his voice, rough and low with desire as he mumbles, eyes flickering just inside the hall, “M-my chambers are just up the stairs in the royal apartments-”

It is nearly embarrassing how quick you keen, murmuring eagerly, rushed lips brushing against his chest, “Yes.”

Even in the widening of his eyes, his lips quirk in a grin - his hand, trembling as he grasps your own, guiding you with poorly concealed urgency towards the staircase. 

Soft chuckles when you duck away from sparse guests that linger outside the hall, hand in hand, cheeks flushed. His hand, pressed over your lips as he peers around a corner, waiting for the guards to cross the corridor of his chambers - and you concealing a giggle, pressing your lips gently to his palm as he does so. 

His hand on the small of your back, ushering you into his chambers with a molten gaze. 

The swallow of a groan as you finally press him back against the wood of his door inside, warm with his touch, murmuring husband into the shell of his ear. 

He, as your lips press into the warm skin of his neck, whispering wife in return.

translations - gaomilaksir; duty. rigle; honor. gevie; beautiful.

feedback is appreciated.

tagging my list & loves: @bitchydragonparadisee @lukehughes43 @rhea-ripley @jottositto @chloe-petrichors @elaena-aerrin @smurfelle @greenvita @alyssa-dayne @uhnanix @princessvelaryon @softspiderling @xxselenite @benjinotes @princessbellecerise @bryscorner @v3lary0ns @vee-mage @hxtd @earth4angels @dipperscavern @swordgrace @useralba @mckennah123 @astrxq

[kmigyubs]

— Welcome to KMIGYUBS' haven ! ⋅˚₊‧ ଳ ‧₊˚ ⋅

❔: about kmigyubs —

dell , they/them | 05' <3

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[princessbellecerise]

are you good? 🫶🏻

YES BBY IM ALIVE! just needed a few days to decompress cause life is kicking my ass rn but ty for asking <3🥹

[princessbellecerise]

for the ask game! ♡

12. a trope you’re really into right now

30. share a fic you're especially proud of

12. a trope you’re really into right now

maybe it’s bc i’m getting older lol but for some reason i’m really into domestic/pregnancy/marriage? idk i just think writing little domestic moments is so sweet 💓

30. share a fic you’re especially proud of

i (technically) have two but one is a WIP! the published one is first impressions. idk i was just really proud of it when i wrote it bc it has fluff, smut, and crack. not to sound egotistical but i think its like the perfect combination of all of them

[princessbellecerise]

💕 Send this to ten blogs you think are wonderful. 💕

A little thank you for all your amazing work💞

AHHH TYSM LOVELY! <3 i really appreciate it 💓🫶🏽

[princessbellecerise]

stop this was so sweet ♡

Hello my sweet, sweet babygirl! Your event looks so delicious. ♡

May I order a galaxy mystery sweet with Lucerys Velaryon? You can ignore me if you’d like <3 thank you for all the hard work !!

ೃ��࿐The Green Sea.

´*: ･ﾟ⋆˒ Lucerys Velaryon x Fem!Reader

Bakery Event is closed

╰･ﾟ✧☽ summary: The Prince finally returns from his duties with his grandsire and the green eyed emotion comes for him.

╰･ﾟ✧☽ words: 2.2k

╰･ﾟ✧☽ warnings: Jealousy, Luke Being Jealous, Little Angst, Arguing, Men Being Weird.

The young prince took pride in having his mind leveled when it came to your attention, he knew he needed to share you — as you did with him. It was still early in the betrothal process but long with the years you shared together, the admiration for you wasn’t newly found. At a younger age he struggled with keeping his disappointment of not being the soulful person to have your attention, but he grew. Soon the hidden feelings swept away in empty halls, or the words whispered only for the other becomes nothing to hide, you were his, his betrothed.

This week the air had shifted with more winds, he felt the lonely feeling without you by his side while taking care of his duties. Lucerys took sail with his grandsire to learn how to work the ships, his future men and tasks. Salty sea waves crashed into the side of the boat, he found himself staring down at the endless depths with you in mind. First it was your laugh that rang in his ears and smiling lips in his memory, he loved to make you laugh. Next, was the warmth of you by his side, wether looping your arm with his or cuddling in the privacy of his chambers — everything he loves reappears in his moments away from you.

His grandsire knows the look of his grandson, the longing for something missing and one he knows well, the same he had years ago for his wife. The wind blew the brown curls of his hair and the black and blue cloak from his back, Luke stood near the railing of the ship. Corlys approached the younger man with a limp making his footsteps louder in sound, the vibration ringing throughout the boards below.

“The journey is almost to a end, you’ll get used to the time away from land,” his words of comfort did little as it was not land he missed, “The sea can be huge when trapped away from the ones you love.” Corlys leaned next to Luke, his gaze falling below to the waves.

“Forgive me, I know my duties and will always be grateful for them.” there was a but, though he did not speak it.

“But the sea is not a woman, I understand that well,” corly grew a smile thinking of his younger days, “as I understand your betrothed takes quite a fondness with you, I’ve also seen the looks you give her. She’s a beauty, I can not blame you for missing her company.” Corlys placed his hand upon Luke’s shoulder.

“Learn to love the sea and time flies by, and remember you do this for your family.” with a few pats corlys leaves his grandson to himself and his thoughts.

Lucerys only returned to thinking of you by his side, maybe one day he could bring you along. The future is the both of yours to make.

— ‧₊˚ ࣭˚⊹‧₊˚⋆⁺₊ ࣪✩₊˚.⋆—

As the ship docks his feet move quickly toward the ramp down, ignoring the eyes of the crew and his grandsire. Once on soils ground he makes his way to the carriage awaiting him and climbs in with haste, he needs to see you. The time away was unbearable that his very bones ached to be reunited.

The life at the keep was as it was but more empty without him by your side. Picking up more studies, or chatting with friends — you tried to entertain yourself in his absence. The court was more hungry for your attention as many people gathered for celebrations of the moons to come. As new ladies began to flood in, you welcomed them and gave them friendship, and along was men who gazed upon you. The announcement of your engagement with The Prince was still fresh, men took it as a challenge to gain your affection — seeing as he was not here to say otherwise.

The gardens are the place you go to for silence and peace, also to remember Lucerys. A long time ago you meet here, surrounded by flowers of many kinds — blossoming their beauty. He was everything you wanted in a husband, kind, handsome and charming with a excitement for trouble.

The sound of footsteps made you realize the peaceful moment was over. Turning your heels the figure become clear, your lips curling upwards in a forced smile. A dark headed man, nearly a year older then Lucerys stood before you, his dark house colors proudly displayed on his clothing. He was much taller then you and make you step back at his looming shadow over you.

“Good Morrow, Lord Starrock. I hope all is well this early hour.” it was hard to kept up the acted as he has been forcing himself around you lately, being polite was growing harder to do. Yet he smiled and tugged his hands backwards showing no sigh of leaving.

“The Redkeep has been welcoming, my lady. Yet I was surprised to see you from my chamber window all alone, so I came to keep you company.”

“Yes, well thank for for that.” your nod was quick and your face feel immediately after, you turned to touch the flowers and walk aloud the path. Hoping he would get bored and walk off.

But he was nothing less then determined. “Might I been so bold to speak freely,” he asked and you only hummed in response, rolling your eyes with your head stayed away from him.

“The prince has left for his duties, leaving you here — Alone. I wonder if you are made for that life, to be the wife of a man who spends all of his time away.” he was bold, his words made you boil inside.

Taking a moment to collect your thoughts, you sniff the opened flower and inhaled its scent before turning around to face him. Smiling you walk closer, wondering what it would feel like to strike him without consciousness.

At last you begin to speak your truth, “A life by his side is worth everything. The Prince is the only man for me, the best match to be made. He loves me, as I him. Would you not agree that is the work of the gods, Ser Darick?” watching his face become pale and shameful was entertaining.

He cleared his throat and shifted comfortably, “I meant well, my lady. My concerns come from a place of care,” his nerves smile told everything you needed to know, “a woman such as yourself-”

You raise a brow and scrunch you face, becoming something he’s never seen before, making him sweat, “A woman like me? I do hope you remember your place, Milord. I can handle myself greatly, and I will do my duty to His Grace as it’s intended.” he wanted to apologize to make up some stupid excuse but you walks away with deaf ears of his broken words.

Catching the eyes of your proud maid you rush past her, your dress clinch in your hands before making your way up the steps. There was a smile rested at your lips of the confidence you held. Shutting a man down was intoxicating. Yet you hadn’t realized the eyes spying on your interaction.

Lucerys stood above watching you talk with some man while the words muffled away before hitting his ears. The gardens are his spot to spend time with you, not some cocky taller untitled man who craves your attention. Nonetheless it was the flashing smile in your cheeks that sent unsettling feelings inside his stomach. All he wanted to do was see you, and yet you were with another man instead of welcoming him back — it was gut wrenching.

Straightening his back as you got closer to him, his arm rested on his sword resembling his older brothers temperament. Once your gaze feel on him, your smile becomes teeth wide and your feet lunged towards him. The sounds of your pointed shoes echoed on the stone and laughter emerged from your chest. Soon your arms flew themselves around him and he forgot his anger for a moment to hold you. 

Your head rested beside his neck as you smelled the salt on his clothes and hair, “You’re early, I wasn’t expecting you so soon,” you confessed before pulling away to grabbed ahold of his cheeks, and looking at his features to make sure nothings changed.

“Our journey was quicker then expected,” his hands still rested on your lip and not daring to let them leave, “I was expecting your face when I arrived at the gates.”

“No one informed me, I have been eagerly awaiting your arrival.” you stared at him innocently but the feel returned and made his stomach sick. 

His head leaned towards yours, his lips now in your ear, “Dismiss your maiden,” he demanded. You blushed but looked at him hesitantly, there was something about his tone that sounded laced with anger. But you do as he asked and sent her away with a look before his hands tug at your own as he started to rush through the halls. You could hear his huffs and you tried to question his actions without tripping over yourself.

— ‧₊˚ ࣭˚⊹‧₊˚⋆⁺₊ ࣪✩₊˚.⋆ —

He took you to a room that was unfamiliar and looked forgotten by everyone, surfaces covered in dust and webs on the walls. It was haunting. As you catch your breath he closes the door behind him.

“Might I ask what’s was the reason for that? I nearly fell,” you swallowed to clear the dryness in your throat.

“I’d like to propose a question as well, as I enter back home I find you with another man — In our place. The smiles you threw his way, no need to point out the obvious lust in his eyes while chatting with you.”

Realizing the motivation for his new found annoyance, and rudeness towards yourself, you looked at him surprisingly. “Lord Starrock wasn’t invited by my side, nor welcomed. Perhaps you didn’t see him approaching me,” you cross your arms, “but nonetheless, even if he was, to have you think i would even enjoy is company that way while we are betrothed is- Is,” you struggle to find a word or the emotion to use it with.

“Unbelievable insulting, Your Grace.”

The formal term stung in his chest because it was a phrase lost in time by the two of you, and now a insult you threw at him.

When you notice him going to speak you interrupted, “The conversation between us was that of you, and how I prided myself in being your betrothed. He raised the question if I would be lonely in the marriage because you’re away but I insisted against it.” you spat at him with venom in your tone.

“I don’t know that…” his voice was quite and shameful, and his head lowered itself along with his gaze.

“How could you? Had it occurred to ask me about it before accusing me of something your mind made up. I understood the unset feeling you experienced but you handled it horribly.” you said while calming yourself down from the stress, even running your hands along the fabric of your dress.

The silence was thick in the lonely and gloom room. He wondered if he could apologize for his mistake so you might not hate him forever while you wondered if he was going to at all. You knew him — you knew he would but it was hard to un cloud your judgment.

Lucerys stepped forward, bring his head up to meet your eyes with his, his own filled with sorrow. “I was out of line, I rushed because of this-” his fingers curled, “green monster inside of me. I was familiar with jealousy and thought I was capable of handling it, I apologize. Seeing you with another man was painful but no excuse.” Luke looked back down to the stone flooring.

Sometimes it was annoying how easily it is to forgive him, but he hasn’t acted like this before, so maybe you could let him off easy this time. So you exhale deeply and groan before closing the gap between you and take his lips into yours. You hum and wrap your arm around his shoulders, he is taken aback by the moment but sobers up to kiss you back and take your body back into his arms. Your lips moved slightly opposite but alined with one other, it was heated so you both moved your heads to take different angles, switching from left to right.

His lips pulled away first for air and they were glossy with mixed spit, but he only kept his head slightly away from yours. When you opened your eyes you found his half opened and dazed, and his hair messed up from the hand you ran throughout it. Reaching up from his neck you fixed his out of place curls and cracked a laugh. His chest vibrates with his own laughter, your smiles matching,

“I forgive you, Lucerys. Just don’t make a habit of it, or i wouldn’t be so kind.”

“If I act that way again, I give you my full support on knocking me back down,” he said. You both shared a look before returning your lips again, and pressed your bodies closer together, nearly stumbling to be pressed against the wooden desk.

[princessbellecerise]

thank you thank you 🤍🫶🏽

dad!jace got me like:

Court Shenanigans

Summary ✩ Missing their father, your children decide it’s a good idea to interrupt him in the middle of court

Warnings ✩ Mentions of pregnancy

Authors Notes ✩ Everyday I cry cause this man isn’t real but at least I have fanfic

You tried to stop them, you really did.

But being almost nine moons pregnant and having the most swollen feet known to man, it was almost impossible to chase after and keep up with two rowdy tots.

Usually, their nursemaids would have them by now and would be helping to assist you, but Aliza was sick and Joanna was with her family. Both of them would have scolded you for trying to run when you couldn’t even see your feet, but your kids were a mischievous bunch and you had a sinking feeling on where they were headed.

Aemma, the eldest of the two twins, had been complaining all day about not being able to see her father, as Jace had missed out on breakfast and lunch with her in order to hear a few extra petitions.

It seemed as if the Kingdom was more unruly than usual, and Lords had come from all over the realm to plead their cases.

Wanting to be a good King and make sure that he could adhere to all of his subjects, Jace had opted to spend a little extra time on the throne and a less with his family.

This of course didn’t sit well with Aemma, and as her shadow Jaelin followed right on along with her.

Try as you might have, you weren’t fast enough to catch up to them and your protests for them to stop didn’t do much good, either.

Before you could even blink, your twins were flying past the Kingsguard and bursting into the throne room, with little Aemma’s excited shouting making you want to crawl into a hole right there and then.

“Kepa!”

In no time your baby girl ran across the room, interrupting some poor Lord under a pink banner. You thought that he might’ve been from White Harbor, or maybe he was from Maidenpool.

Whatever it was, you didn’t pay much attention as suddenly, all chatter stopped, and you were the center of attention as you wobbled towards Jacaerys and fixed Aemma with a stern glare.

“Aemma! Come back here!” You shouted after her sternly, and thankfully Jaelin was too afraid of your ‘motherly voice’ to get any closer.

He stopped just short of the Iron Throne, choosing to remain by Ser Darklyn’s side rather than follow his sister up the steps. With horror, you realized that Aemma was headed straight to Jacaerys, exclaiming happily as she threw herself in her father’s open arms.

“Kepa!”

She bounced excitedly as Jace pulled her on his lap, looking amused while you struggled to catch your breath.

Running at your size was no joke, and you ached to sit down somewhere and rest. You couldn’t do that though while your two year old twins were causing mayhem.

It was unbefitting of a Queen, you knew that, but desperation had you hiking up your dress, climbing the the steps, and holding your arms out expectantly while Jace chuckled.

“Aemma. It’s time to say goodbye to Kepa and go back to our chambers. Now,” You told her, but that only resulted in the toddler shaking her head and burying herself even deeper into Jacaerys’ arms.

“No! I want to stay with Kepa!” Her defiant little voice shouted, and you winced as a few murmurs echoed through the court.

You were painfully aware that everybody was staring at the scene, which made it even more embarrassing when you reached out again and failed to grab Aemma.

After about the third attempt to pull her away with no avail, your husband seemed to finally take pity on you and sighed.

“It’s alright my love. She can stay,” Jacaerys said, and upon hearing this Aemma beamed. “It’ll be her seat one day after all. Let her gain some experience; even if it is during the middle of a petition.”

You gave him an apologetic look, and you made a mental note to apologize to Lord…well, whoever you were currently interrupting. You had to admit, the sight of Aemma babbling broken phrases to Jace while she tried to grab his crown was adorable.

You sighed reluctantly.

“Alright,” You said, willing to leave Aemma where she was. At the very least you could persuade Jaelin to follow you and take him away, but as you turned to go back down the stairs you suddenly paused.

Had there always been that many, you wondered?

You hadn’t really paid attention that much, but now that your feet were practically screaming at you to sit down, the idea of going down so many steps didn’t seem so appealing.

Of course, you could’ve just asked one of the Kingsguard to help you down, but you didn’t want to be a bother—as silly as it sounded. You also didn’t want to risk your knees giving out and falling, either.

You were in a dilemma, but before you could even decide, Jace did it for you. Your husband, ever attentive, noticed your hesitation and immediately got up.

“Here, my love. Why don’t you rest and I’ll stand for now,” He suggested.

Even more whispers broke out at this. What Jacaerys was proposing was sweet, but it had never happened before and the idea of the Queen sitting on the throne in the presence of the King was…well it was simply unheard of.

You were sure a few people would call the action scandalous, but at the moment though, you didn’t really care what they thought. Your feet were aching and you needed a place to sit down before your knees decided where for you, so you nodded and accepted his offer.

“Thank you, my love.”

You sighed in relief as you sat on the throne. Albeit, it wasn’t the most comfortable of seats with all the swords and points, and you would’ve much rather been in your cushioned chair in your chambers, but it was better than nothing and the pressure on your feet was gone.

Nodding his head, Jacaerys gave you a small kiss on the side of your head and then he stood with Aemma in his arms, and gestured for Lord whoever to keep speaking.

Had you not been out of breath, you would have laughed at his face and the face of many others as they not only witnessed their King give the most powerful seat in the realm to his pregnant wife, but also witnessed him stand up while bouncing his baby daughter in his arms.

It was an unusual sight, but an adorable one that you cherished.

Motioning to Ser Darklyn to bring Jaelin up so that your family would complete, you smiled in content and Jacaerys once again motioned for the man who had been interrupted to continue his petition.

“Lord Mooton. Please, do continue,” He said with a large smile.

You giggled.

Ah, so that was his name.

[princessbellecerise]

i’m such a sucker for second chance/second love romance 🥹 this was so cute

When the Light Shines Down

Modern Jacaerys Targaryen x fem!reader

(small snippet? football = soccer fo us american out there)

summary — With a recently broken heart, Jace has convinced himself that loving again is a death sentence. Then his mother hires a new babysitter for his little brothers and, bit by but, the light begins to shine for them.

Jacaerys felt like the world sat on his shoulders—both literally and figuratively—as he jammed his key into the lock of his home and made his way inside. His football bag was heavy as he dumped it in the parlor and kicked off his shoes. His mind was a mess as he shuffled into the house with aching muscles and a possibly bruised rib. He tried to wipe the caked-on grime from his hair as he replayed all the ways today went wrong.

He had tried to keep things from blowing up in his face today by keeping his head down and shutting up. He hardly spoke to anyone—completely abnormal, he was a chatterbox on the best of days—and worked to keep his distance from Sara and her band of hooligans. He had just wanted one day where his breakup hadn’t been brought up. One fucking day, but she had searched him out while he was walking to practice and gotten to him like she always did.

He had a weakness for women who had shitty circumstances. She was his best friend's sister, a child of an affair, and he had found himself in a I can fix her mindset before the month was over. He spent almost two years gripping onto a relationship that was built on foundations of sand. She was jealous, controlling, and so good at crying when she wanted people to feel bad for her. He hated that it took him so long to realize their relationship was unhealthy. He hated that he had fallen in love with her before he realized.

Now he was stuck with the aftermath. An ex who was now desperate to get back together with him, bombarding him when he really didn’t need to be thinking about her words. He was upset with himself for thinking so intently about Sara and her desperation to get back together that he had screwed up in practice. His mind had been so consumed with the way she had gripped onto his shirt and kissed him like the world was ending, and the way he had let her, that he had missed a pass and tripped into the stands. Effectively fucking his ribs up. What sort of captain does that?

Gods, he had groaned, why does this have to be so hard?

Cregan had answered in his brusque bass voice with, Because you fell in love and now she misses someone loving her.

Now he was facing the consequences of thinking too hard during practice with the dull pain in his lung everytime he breathed. He turned as a door in the house opened somewhere, the giggling of his little brother catching his ears as he ran around. “Hey!” came a woman’s laugh, and his brow furrowed, it didn’t sound like his mom. “Come back here silly! You forgot your shirt!”

He made his way into the living room to see Joffrey jumping on the couch in his sleep pants, a wicked grin on his chubby cheeks. “You can’t catch me!” He laughs, bouncing from cushion to cushion. His curls were wet and messy and they dropped water on the cushions—he assumed the other two were asleep based on the fact they weren’t chasing Joff around—as he bounced with each giggle. “You can’t catch me miss!”

“You wanna bet, pipsqueak?” The voice was gentle, yet full of happiness and laughter, mirth covered by the boy's giggles. He couldn’t get a glimpse of you before you jump across the living room and almost tackle the little boy into the couch. Joff nearly screams as he laughs, and Jace watches as you begin to mercilessly tickle his brother. “What were you saying? I can't hear you!”

It was a struggle getting the boy into his fire themed sleep shirt but somehow, he watches as you manage to wrangle the most unruly of his brothers. Giggles and laughter chasing you the entire way as you finally lift him off the couch— seemingly much stronger than you look—and spin him in a circle. Eventually setting the boy down from your whirlwind.

Once Joff regains his balance he finally catches sight of his eldest brother. “Jay!” he yells, moving to dart into the older boy's arms. “I missed you!”

Jace hisses in pain for a moment as Joffrey rams his head straight into the rib he had busted. He slaps a smile onto his face instead and bends down to his brother's height. “Hey Joff, having fun?” There was just a small strain of pain in his voice; his brother was too excited to pick up on it.

“Mhm! We played dragons and had a yummy loaded potato soup for dinner, she had us play a cleaning game and gave us yummy food when we did good, and then she let me help her read Aegon and Viserys to sleep!” He grins, pointing over to you with a happy smile on his face. “She’s the coolest babysitter ever!”

With a grin he messed with Joffrey’s hair before looking up at you. He had expected someone… less? Someone who didn’t have pretty eyes and a gentle smile, hair perfectly framing your pretty face while it was disheveled and messy from hours of playing. Somehow, you wore an average shirt and busted up pants so well that he forgot they probably cost less than his shoes. There was no arrogant set to your face that most people around him seemed to have. Just eyes that gave way to a thousand stars and lips pressed with rose petals.

“Hi… you must be Jace.” You speak softly, and even your voice is gentle as a lover's caress. His throat seemed to close and his mouth dried as he looked up at you. Fucking hell, he thinks. His mind flips at the way your words were lilted and breathy, the way you said his name.

Your name came to his mind easily— he had seen you in the halls on campus, but never so close. He regretted never approaching you when he had the chance, now he was seeing you for the first time. While his heart laid amongst the barren wasteland locked up in his chest. The battlefield of his previous attempt at love left scarred across the insides of his ribs, like a beast clawing its way out. Fuck my life, he groans in his mind. “Yeah,” he chokes in a whisper. “That’s me.”

Your answering smile was radiant, blinding him and his gloomy thoughts for a moment. He was like a meteorite caught in your orbit all too quickly. The lonely expanse of space is suddenly lost on him as you sweep him up with your eyes and warm him with your smile. “Captain of the football team.” You say, the fact rolling off your tongue easily. Your eyes trail down to his side, the exact spot he had hurt himself and Joffrey rammed his head into. It was licking flames of pain up his side. “Poli-sci major?”

His lips lift into a small smile. “Are you stalking me?”

You scoff and roll your eyes, crossing your arms and shaking your head with a smile. “You wish, Targaryen. You’re just hard to miss.”

I WILL CRY IF THIS SUCKS PLEASE DONT BE MEAN !!

[princessbellecerise]

SORRY BBY IVE BEEN HARD AT WORK BUT AHHH IM SAT! IM SO EXCITEDDDDD

𝐎’ 𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐫.

𝐣𝐚𝐜𝐚𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐬 𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐠𝐚𝐫𝐲𝐞𝐧 𝐱 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

warnings: character deaths, gore, horror, smut, substance use, heavy cursing, gates of hell mentioned, as well as the horrors there, violence, forbidden lovers, evil vs good, slow burn — fallen angel au.

synopsis: When Jacaerys fell, he saw the sun and the way it bid him a final farewell but at the moment of torture he felt free. He was reborn and he was a god whether or not his brothers told him otherwise. Jacaerys only knew evil, and he was going to build an empire on earth against his brothers. A war between the gods was unstoppable and nothing could stop it until you came along — The Angel of Light.

! nattie speaks: welcome to my first october fest’ — this is mostly jacaerys centered but i will be uploading other one shots for other characters in the month of october. this series i spent three weeks researching and trying to form a plot. some of these chapters i will be uploading with its titles and schedules, be patient with me as im still working through them as i go. thank you for the love, the respect and just gah, the support i see you, and i love you more than the word expresses. jace nation this is for you.

— Chapter Index and their Respective Schedules.

Alpha: Did You See the Sky Bleed? (M)

: September 30th, October Eve.

Dýo: The Gods Called, They Said Go Fuck Yourself (M)

: October 6th, Happy October Week!

+ more to be listed.

[princessbellecerise]

I already knew I would come out of here crying but this…

He was so close man. Five miles away from the rest of his life. I’m literally sobbing. And Rio?! He knew. He knew they were there and he was right! He traveled across the country for them and he couldn’t even meet their baby :( I’m literally so devastated for Jace, for Baela and their baby, for Rio, for Aemond. I wanted them all to make it man and they deserved it. But this was such an amazing series! The writing, the metaphors, the descriptions, was just MWAH! I absolutely loved it sm and I can’t wait to read more of your works!

Where Will All The Martyrs Go [Chapter 13: The Regrets Are Useless] [Series Finale]

A/N: Below are your final predictions. Let's see how you did... 🥰

Series summary: In the midst of the zombie apocalypse, both you and Aemond (and your respective travel companions) find yourselves headed for the West Coast. It’s the 2024 version of the Oregon Trail, but with less dysentery and more undead antagonists. Watch out for snakes! 😉🐍

Series warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), violence, bodily injury, med school Aemond, character deaths, nature, drinking, smoking, drugs, Adventures With Aegon™️, pregnancy and childbirth, the U.S. Navy, road trip vibes.

Series title is a lyric from: “Letterbomb” by Green Day.

Chapter title is a lyric from: “Whatsername” by Green Day.

Word count: 6.1k

💜 All my writing can be found HERE! 💜

Rain pours outside the cabin, mist-shrouded pine trees and still dark water, a place in southern Oregon called Lake of the Woods. The twin-sized bed with a thin foam mattress was once used by kids attending summer camp, capture the flag and s’mores, hikes and scary stories, but now the children are ghosts and the monsters are real, stumbling down streets and lurking in dark places, licking blood from what’s left of their lips.

Aemond is here but he’s also not, a castaway on an island where the world never ended, his hands in your hair as you straddle him, your hips moving tentatively, his lips and teeth at your throat, the sharp points of his canines like fangs.

“Am I doing this right?” you murmur doubtfully. “I feel like I’m definitely not doing this right…”

“Shh, you’re great, you’re incredible.”

“I’m sorry I don’t know how to do everything already, I’m sorry you have to teach me—”

“Stop,” Aemond commands, a sharp sigh through your hair. “I love this. I love you. I want to teach you things until the day I die.”

The nervous tension in your muscles unravels—peddles thrown into water, campfire smoke vanishing into indigo night—and now his hands are on your hips, steadying you, guiding you. You link your fingers around the back of his neck and try to find a cadence that isn’t uncomfortable, ungainly, effortful. You wanted to try this. You want to experience everything with him.

“Take your time,” Aemond is saying like it’s difficult for him to keep a train of thought, his eye closed, his cheeks flushed, blood-colored blooms like a dusk sky. “I’m fine down here, don’t worry about me…”

Rain drums against the windows; lightning flashes in the sky and thunder growls. From the front porch of one of the other cabins, you can hear the indistinct droning of conversations and Aegon strumming the acoustic guitar he brought from the beach house. It’s something you’ve overheard him singing before, one of his strange midcentury darlings, a song that should be too old for him to know the words to.

“All you big and burly men who roll the trucks along

Better listen, you’ll be thankful when you hear my song

You have really got it made if you’re haulin’ goods

Any place on earth but those Haynesville Woods…”

Your skin gleams with a cool sheen of sweat; there is a draft through the cabin walls that makes you shiver as you cling to Aemond. You roll your hips a certain way and he moans—suddenly, involuntarily—and you know you’ve found the right rhythm.

“It’s a stretch of road up north in Maine

That’s never ever ever seen a smile

If they’d buried all them truckers lost in them woods

There’d be a tombstone every mile

Count ‘em off, there’d be a tombstone every mile…”

Aemond is kissing you deeply, desperately, trembling hands and gasping shallow breaths. And there is not just euphoria written into the lines of his face; there is disorientation, there is wonder. He barely manages: “Alright…um…if you want me to last longer than about thirty more seconds, you should probably slow down…”

“No,” you tease, grinning as you bite at his full lips.

“When you’re loaded with potatoes and you’re headed down

You’ve got to drive the woods to get to Boston town

When it’s winter up in Maine, better check it over twice

That Haynesville road is just a ribbon of ice…”

Aemond cries out, louder than you’ve ever heard him before—you’ve never had privacy, you’ve never truly been alone—and then again, a helpless ecstatic sound, pleasure so overwhelming it almost starts to feel like pain.

“Quiet!” you whisper, giggling, touching two fingers to his mouth. “Everyone’s going to hear you.”

“Oh my God,” Aemond says. He falls back onto the mattress and brings you with him, his arms wrapped around you, kissing your cheeks and your forehead as the two of you lie there panting and entangled, his blue eye astonished. “Okay, okay, I need a minute. I think I just burst an aneurysm.”

“I killed you?” you purr with feigned distress, basking in your conquest.

“You can kill me whenever you want. You can kill me five times a day.”

“When you’re talking to a trucker that’s been haulin’ goods

Down that stretch of road in Maine they call the Haynesville Woods

He’ll tell you that dying and going down below

Won’t be half as bad as driving on that road of ice and snow…”

Aemond stares up at the ceiling—a steep gable roof, a motionless fan—and now you can tell he’s thinking about his family again, discorporate screams, misplaced trust. Otto Hightower’s bones were found in the shower, meaning he likely died before or not long after their power failed and water would have run out in the municipal system. They were probably killed before you and Aemond ever met, distant galaxies lightyears away, remote long-dead stars. And so all the blood you paid to get to California was wasted.

“Do you ever think about the people you have saved?” you ask gently as your fingertips trace the ridge of his scar. “You stitched yourself back together. You healed Aegon’s burns. You sutured Cregan’s arm. You got me and Rio down from that transmission tower.”

“I guess I did,” Aemond says, but his voice is ambivalent, as if none of these things count. He has not found someplace safe for you yet. His job is not finished; his triumphs may only be temporary.

“Aemond…back in Pennsylvania…why did you decide to help us?”

“Luke spotted you guys, and we all talked it over. If it had just been Rio, honestly, I wouldn’t have taken the chance. A man his size, and possibly armed…could be trouble, you know? But I figured since he was traveling with a woman and you seemed to be with him by choice, he was probably okay. And then when we first met, he was so protective of you…didn’t want me touching you, didn’t leave you alone…I realized he had to be a good guy.”

“He was,” you say solemnly. I was supposed to remind him about the racks. I was supposed to warn him. But you didn’t warn Rio about what was waiting to kill him in that sand-swept grocery store in Winnemucca, just like you didn’t warn Jace about radiation or Baela about the way the rungs of the ladder that ran up the side of the grain bin were rusted and creaking, and maybe there is more than enough blame to go around.

“And then after Battle Mountain, as soon as we found the gasoline and ammo, I knew we had to go back for you. It hit me all at once. I couldn’t protect you by leaving you with Rio and Cregan. And I couldn’t let you go. I’ve never had something like this before. I didn’t know it existed. I told the others we were turning around, and Aegon said: Thank fucking God. Rhaena took off sprinting towards the car.” Then Aemond kisses you again, but tenderly this time, slowly, like you’ll have forever and there’s no need to rush. “I’m going to get you to Odessa. I’m going to take you somewhere safe.”

The rain is stopping; there are still a few hours of daylight left.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Hey, Chip Skylark. Check it out,” Aegon says, grinning at you from where he’s sprawled on the wet dock and smoking a cigarette, wearing his neon green plastic sunglasses, his left leg finally freed from its bandages and on full display. You’re all wearing the same things, stolen t-shirts and shorts, sweatshirts at night when it gets cold, sneakers you can walk hundreds of miles in; but Aegon won’t give up his Sperry Bahamas. “It’s nature’s tattoo.”

You sit down beside him and admire the scar tissue, red knots and white cords, jagged terrain like a mountain range, organic highways and bridges and trails. “It’s a roadmap.”

“That’s appropriate.”

You’ve been traveling on foot for two weeks since Criston’s white Tahoe ran out of gas and was abandoned in the town of Mad River, California. Now you are only about ten miles from Odessa, close enough to reach in half a day but too far to get into town before nightfall. This time tomorrow you’ll be there, and it will either be a haven or a wasteland, and if Rio’s parents’ community in Odessa has disappeared then so has your last idea for where to go. Absentmindedly, you skate your fingerprints over the bumps and grooves of Aegon’s leg like a blind man reading braille. He shifts and clears his throat; you’ve made him uncomfortable somehow. You lift your hand away.

“I’m sorry, does that hurt?”

“Nah. I can’t really feel anything besides pressure. The nerve endings got fried.”

“Oh.” But now you don’t know what you did to upset him. Aegon doesn’t provide an explanation. Down the dock a ways towards the shore, Rhaena is reading The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and listening to the pink Sony Walkman formerly owned by a little girl named Ava. Inside whirls Green Day’s 2004 album American Idiot, which Aegon took from his bedroom at the beach house to add to his CD collection, a cultural archive, a gift for posterity. Cregan is teaching Daeron to fish with poles he found in one of the cabins; Helaena is bringing them worms. Aemond and Luke are gathering things dry enough to burn—books and wooden chairs from inside the cabins—and piling them up so Cregan can cook dinner once it’s caught.

“So,” Aegon says, changing the subject, scrutinizing you as he puffs on a Marlboro Gold. “Everything going okay?”

You know what he means; he must have heard Aemond earlier. “Yup.”

“Got it all figured out?”

“Sure did.”

“Great. I’m happy for you,” Aegon says, and yet there’s a twinge of melancholy he’s trying to hide. It must be hard for him; he and Daeron are the only single ones.

“We’ll find you some suitable candidates for your harem when we get to Odessa.”

He chuckles. “Oh, come on.”

“Guys, girls? Do you have a preference?”

He’s smiling wistfully down into the water, a dark rippling mirror. “I have too specific a preference, that’s the problem.”

“Yacht girls in bikinis. Golf cheerleaders.”

“There are no cheerleaders in golf, you yokel.”

“Okay, well…I’m sure you’ll be very popular with the lonely, traumatized, widowed women of the apocalypse.”

Aegon gazes morosely out over the lake. He pitches the end of his cigarette into the water, and your eyes catch briefly on the black ink of the tattoo on his forearm: It’s not over ‘til you’re underground. “I don’t know. I’ve been sober for two weeks and now everything is annoyingly clear.”

“What’s bothering you?”

He waits a while before he answers, evasive. “I’ve never been good at anything.”

“Everyone feels that way sometimes. Luke thinks he’s not good at anything either.”

“But Luke’s nice. I’m a rat bastard.”

You laugh. “You’re kind of nice, Aegon.”

“Yeah right.”

“No, seriously. I like being around you. You make me feel better. You’re like…” You ponder how to word it. “I feel like I could tell you whatever and not worry about being judged for it.”

He snorts. “As if you’ve ever done anything judgeable.”

You shrug, peering out over the lake. “I abandoned my family. I stopped sending them money, I stopped calling. And when everything happened…the zombies, the world ending…I didn’t even consider going back to Kentucky to try to help them. I went west with Rio instead. And now they’re probably all dead and it’s my fault. That’s evil. I couldn’t have gotten away with that level of betrayal. I must be cursed.”

Aegon is watching you, eyebrows raised. He has never heard this before. “But your family sucked, right?”

“Yeah,” you admit. “I think it would be hard to argue they didn’t.”

“So fuck ‘em,” Aegon says simply.

You smile at him, touched, grateful. “Okay. Fuck ‘em.”

“I’m relieved my family’s gone,” Aegon confesses, something so brutal he’d never tell anyone else. “I mean…I feel kind of bad about my mom and Criston. But as long as they were alive, I’d always be the person they raised. And if I could bring someone back, it wouldn’t be any of them. I’d pick Rio.”

“I would too,” you say softly, staring down at the faint burn marks on your palms from when you were stranded on that transmission tower with him, talking him out of suicide, so adamant that both of you were going to make it to Oregon. And you were wrong.

“So if you’re cursed, Pita Chips, sign me up because I’m right there with you.”

Rhaena pulls out an earbud and says to Aegon: “I don’t get this album.”

“What?!” he exclaims.

“It’s so good!” you concur. On the shore, Cregan is spearing several gutted rainbow trout on sticks so they can be roasted over the fire. Ice is gleefully gulping down fish organs.

Aegon continues: “Whatsername! St. Jimmy! Jesus of Suburbia!”

Rhaena blinks, glancing between you and Aegon. “But neither of you grew up in the suburbs.”

“It’s not about the suburbs, Rhaena!” Aegon replies with frenetic hand gestures. “It’s about being disillusioned and angry and failed by all the adults in your life, and self-medicating, and losing love every time you get a taste of it, and wanting to burn everything down and start over. It’s about hating the world and the world hating you back.”

“Okay, sure. I still don’t get it.”

You say: “You might have had too happy a childhood.” And you and Aegon burst out laughing.

“You guys are so weird,” Rhaena says, but she’s smiling. She stands up, gives Aegon back his Walkman, and walks to the end of the dock where Cregan is cooking the rainbow trout. Aemond and Daeron are gathering up the aluminum buckets found at the campground and set outside earlier today to collect rainwater. There is one five-pound bag of trail mix left to share, and then all the food is gone. If Cregan doesn’t kill something, you won’t eat.

“We should go help them with dinner,” you tell Aegon.

He groans. “Should we really?”

“Yeah. We should.”

“Fine.” He takes your hand when you offer it and struggles to his feet. Then you inhale a lungful of the scent of roasting trout, and startlingly powerful nausea punches through your stomach, so repellant you have to clamp a hand over your mouth to stop yourself from retching.

There has to be something wrong with the fish. It’s never smelled like that before.

Aegon seems baffled. “What? What’s wrong?”

“Does the trout smell right to you?”

Aegon sniffs the air like a labrador. “I guess…? I barely smell anything.”

“Well you probably destroyed your nose cells with all the coke.”

“That’s discriminatory. Addiction is a disease.” But his brow is furrowed with concern. “Seriously, are you okay? You look awful. Not like that. You know what I mean.”

“I’m fine.” You don’t feel fine; but everyone down by the fire is chatting and joking around nonchalantly, and surely if there actually was something wrong they would have noticed. “I’ll be back in a second.”

“Sure,” Aegon says, perplexed.

You hurry past the others and take refuge in the cabin you’re sharing with Aemond. Inside the trout smell isn’t so strong. You sit at the edge of the bed and suck in several deep breaths, trying to calm down, willing the confounding wave of nausea to pass.

Did I eat something bad, did I get bit by a spider or something…?

You are checking your arms and legs for little raised bitemarks when Helaena enters the cabin and shuts the door behind her. When she opens her burlap messenger bag to root around inside, you glimpse photographs she must have taken from the beach house, the frames left empty on the mantle of the fireplace. Then Helaena pulls out a pregnancy test, just one, Clearblue.

You gawk at it. “What are you doing?”

“You look sick,” Helaena says matter-of-factly.

“Yeah, but I don’t think it’s that.”

She is puzzled, wide innocent blue eyes. “Why not?”

“Well…I mean…that would be freakishly quick, wouldn’t it? Like…quick as in immediately. People can’t get pregnant the first time they have sex, right?”

“Huh. They really don’t have sex ed in Kentucky,” Helaena says, and leaves you alone with your pregnancy test. You don’t feel so nauseous anymore, but you sneak around the back of the cabin to take it anyway, because now you’re thinking about the possibility with a vividness you’ve never experienced before: a round blossoming belly and tiny handprints and Aemond cradling his child in his arms. And by the time you get the result, you aren’t even shocked. It feels like something that’s supposed to happen.

You and Aemond don’t have a moment alone together until after dark, sitting on the porch swing outside your cabin for first watch, everyone else asleep, Ice dozing serenely by your feet. The only sounds are the breeze through the pine trees, cool and damp, and the hoots of owls, and the chirping of crickets and cicadas.

“So guess what,” you say casually as moonbeams float rippling and fractured on the surface of the black-glass lake.

Aemond smiles drowsily, not expecting anything. “What?”

“In approximately eight months, I might be having your baby.”

At first, he doesn’t speak; he only studies the test when you hand it to him, and then looks at you like he’s not convinced you aren’t angry, like he can’t quite bring himself to believe that you’d want this with someone like him. “Are you afraid?”

“No,” you answer honestly. Maybe you should be, but you aren’t. “I’m hopeful. I feel like as soon as I realized it, everything got brighter. And now I’m thinking about the future instead of the past.” They’re not going to grow up like I did. They’re never going to think they aren’t loved. “What should we name it?”

“Not Otter.”

You laugh, trying to muffle it so you don’t wake anyone. Ice lifts her head and stares at you curiously, her shaggy grey ears straight up.

“I don’t know, I’m terrible with names,” Aemond says; and now he’s smiling again, a wide radiant smile, and you know he’s thinking about the future too. “Hope or Peace or something. Something happy. Something about starting over.”

You take his hand. “I can’t wait to start over with you.”

“Just one more day,” Aemond says.

One more day.

~~~~~~~~~~

“So what am I going to do in Odessa?” Luke asks as the eight of you—nine, if you count Ice—trek eastbound on Route 140. You are about five miles from Lake of the Woods and halfway to your destination. It’s only 80 degrees and overcast, good walking weather, although there is a looming threat of rain, occasional rogue drops and far-off rumbles of thunder. “Everyone has valuable skills except me. Chips has great aim and can build things, Daeron has his compound bow, Aemond is basically a doctor, Rhaena is learning how to shoot guns and treat injuries…”

“Aegon has skills?” Cregan jokes, casting him a good-natured grin. Aegon acts like he’s going to whack Cregan with his golf club, which he’s spinning around haphazardly. Both his Marlin .22 and acoustic guitar are slung across his back. There aren’t many bullets left, but everyone has a few.

“Aegon can navigate,” Luke says. “And probably impregnate ten women a day. Very useful during a population crisis.”

“We don’t need that in the gene pool,” Rhaena notes.

“You wrote stories in college, right?” you ask Luke.

“Screenplays, yeah,” he says hesitantly. “But I wouldn’t say I was super talented or anything.”

Aegon claps him on the shoulder “Well I’ve got good news for you, kid. A big chunk of the world’s screenwriters are probably dead now. So you’ll look so much better in comparison!”

“Thanks…?” Luke says.

“What I mean is,” you continue. “You could write books for people to read, since there aren’t really libraries or Barnes & Nobles anymore. And you could interview people to get their life stories and then record them so they aren’t lost forever. The next generation should know what the world was like before the zombies.”

“Yeah,” Aegon says as he pets Ice. “Someone has to tell them about blue raspberry Icees, right Blue Raspberry Icee?”

“Maybe,” Luke says thoughtfully, and you notice that he’s smiling a little.

Ice begins whining, and there is a rustling in the woods to the north, low-hanging branches of bigleaf maple and dogwood and Douglas fir trees being forced aside. “Zombie!” Aegon announces, pointing. Immediately, Daeron nocks an arrow and then releases it, and the figure draped in the shifting shadows of foliage drops to the ground.

“Hey Aegon,” Daeron says after a few seconds.

“Yeah?”

“That was actually a zombie, right?”

“Totally,” Aegon replies, but he doesn’t sound certain.

Aemond turns to his older brother accusingly. “How sure are you?”

“Like…50%.”

“Aegon!” Rhaena cries, petrified, and everyone rushes off the road to investigate.

Blessedly, the felled creature is long-dead, a former park ranger whose tan uniform hangs in gore-stained tatters. The nametag reads: Underwood. The arrow pierced its soft rotting skull and remains lodged there until Daeron pulls it out to be used again, giving Aegon an impatient scowl as he does.

“Close call,” Aegon tells him. “Think they would have charged you as an adult?”

“Lord almighty, that gave me a scare,” Cregan says, chuckling. Helaena spies a blackberry bush and begins picking a handful, and Cregan goes over to join her. Rhaena and Luke are telling Aegon that he needs to be more responsible and should have waited for Luke to confirm it was a zombie with his binoculars. You exchange a glance with Aegon: he rolls his eyes, you offer a smirk of commiseration. Ice is already trotting back towards Oregon Route 140.

You haven’t told anyone else that you’re pregnant yet, but eventually they’re going to notice that Aemond won’t leave your side. He sighs and asks you: “Have you had enough of this little field trip?”

“Definitely.” You head for the road. Aemond walks with you, placing you not on his left side but on his right where he can see you. You ask, smiling: “You don’t trust me to watch your blind side anymore, huh?”

“I prefer the view the way it is.”

You are only a few steps from the black artery of pavement that cuts through the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, a 114,000-acre preserve of wilderness that somehow—although it is 2,500 miles away—reminds you a bit of eastern Kentucky, endless emerald forests, the omnipotent shadows of mountains. And because you are on Aemond’s right side, he can look down and see something just in front of you on the earth strewn with knobby roots and pine needles and dead leaves.

“Don’t!” he shouts, snatching your forearm and yanking you backwards, and he’s never touched you like this before—so forcefully, so violently—and you stumble and almost fall, and your arm burns and aches where he grabbed you, and people are asking what’s going on, and you peer up at Aemond with confusion, fear, mistrust.

“Why…?”

And then you hear it rustling from the same place where you were standing a moment ago. The others yelp and dash out of the way as the snake escapes into the woods, a drab spotted olive green, a rattling tail, an angular skull like an arrowhead.

“Aemond?” you say, because he hasn’t moved, hasn’t made a sound. He looks down, and your gaze follows his. On his right calf, just a few inches above his ankle, are two small puncture wounds from the snake’s fangs, each dribbling a thin river of blood.

“Northern Pacific rattlesnake,” Helaena says, her voice shaking, tears welling up in her horrified eyes. “Venomous.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Aemond has one arm draped across Cregan’s shoulders, the other over Aegon’s. He’s moving slower, or is that just your imagination? His steps are less steady, his breathing more labored. His leg is swelling, a deep blue phantom of a bruise spreading beneath his skin, so tight it looks like it might split open.

“We’re almost there,” you say; you keep saying it, because hopefully that will make it true. “We’re only a few miles from Odessa, and we’ll find people who can help us.”

“Aemond, you’re a doctor,” Luke says.

Aemond’s voice is weak, pained, hazy. “I’m not a doctor.”

“You know what I mean!” Luke yells, frantic. “How do we fix you? What can we do?”

“Nothing,” Aemond says listlessly. “There’s nothing you can do without a hospital. I’ll either get better or I won’t.”

“People in Odessa will know how to help,” you insist. “They’re outside all the time, they hike, they hunt, they fish, they’ve seen snakebites before. They must have. They’ll have treatments.”

“Aemond,” Rhaena breathes, and you turn to see there is blood running from his nostrils. You scream, and Aemond touches his fingers to his face and then watches as they come away bloody.

“Put me down,” he tells Cregan and Aegon.

“No—” you begin, but then his knees buckle and he’s on the pavement anyway, blood pouring from his nose and his lips, blood filling up his right eye. Cregan walks to the shoulder of the highway, his head in his hands. Aegon stays beside Aemond, and you’re kneeling there with him, both of you using anything you have to clean the blood from Aemond’s face: the corners of your shirts, your bare hands.

He’s covered in blood, you think. Just like Jace, Baela, Rio.

“Can’t clot,” Aemond is murmuring. “The venom causes coagulotoxicity. Internal bleeding too. I feel like…like there’s all this pressure inside…”

Rhaena is taking Aemond’s pulse like he taught her to, fingers on the underside of his wrist. “It’s really faint,” she says quietly.

You grab a plastic Gatorade bottle filled with rainwater out of your backpack and tilt it against Aemond’s crimson-stained lips. He manages to swallow some of it. “Aemond, listen to me,” you say as calmly as you can. “You’re so close. We’re almost there. I need you to hang on a little longer.”

He shakes his head, slow dizzy motions. “It doesn’t matter.”

“They might have doctors in Odessa.” This is a fantasy, but you can’t resist it.

“Even if they do, there won’t be any antivenom. And it’s too late anyway.”

“No,” you say savagely, a sob ripping through your throat. “We didn’t cross 3,000 miles so you could die here. I won’t let you. It doesn’t make any sense. It’s not fair.”

“Aegon,” Aemond says, reaching for him, drained and fumbling.

Aegon catches his hand. “I’m here.”

His eye—crystalline blue corrupted with red, blood in clear water—drifts to his brother. “You have to get her to Odessa. You have to help take care of everyone.”

Aegon is weeping. “Man, it’s supposed to be you. How can I still be here if you aren’t?”

“You can do this,” Aemond says.

“I’ll try.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, Aemond,” Aegon says, then crawls away on his hands and knees and collapses on the pavement, gutted, inconsolable, hemorrhaging grief instead of gore.

Everyone is crying and touching Aemond—his face, his hands—saying goodbye, accepting tasks, and they come away stained with red, and rain has begun to fall from a dark sky growling with thunder. Rhaena takes his medical kit. Helaena takes his Glock and stows it away in her messenger mag. Then Aemond looks for you, and now you are alone with him here in the middle of the highway, two golden lines on black asphalt, and with your thumbprint you whisk away the rivulet of blood that is spilling from his eye.

“You’re going to be okay,” he whispers as his heart fails, as his lungs fill with blood instead of air, as his pores leak rust and ruin. “Odessa will be everything we hoped for. I just won’t be there with you.”

“You can’t leave me,” you’re saying as rain patters against the road. I left my family and now my family is leaving me.

“Love,” he sighs, almost too softly to hear. “I don’t want to.”

You lie down on the pavement with him and rest your head on his chest, feel it rise and fall beneath you as the rain descends in sheets. And then Aemond exhales, deep and rattling, and he never tastes oxygen again, never speaks, never touches you. You don’t move from where you’re lying. You’re there until you’re drenched to the bones with rain and the world is a cold mist of pine trees, of wilderness, and you can never go back to any of the places you’ve been before, you can never get back the people you’ve left there.

Aegon is shaking you. “We have to keep moving,” he chokes out through tears.

You reply without looking at him. “I’m giving up now.”

“No you’re fucking not. We have to walk to Odessa.”

“Everyone’s dead in Odessa. Everyone’s dead everywhere. I don’t want to be here anymore. I don’t want to stay in a world like this.”

On the periphery of your vision, you can see Aegon glancing at the others, standing just off the highway and under the canopy of the pine trees. He seems defeated, he seems lost.

Then suddenly Aegon turns back to you. “Hey!” he screams, so loudly you jolt upright, your palms on wet pavement, rain dripping from your hair. “I’m still alive. You’re still alive. This isn’t over yet. I said I would get you to Odessa, so that’s where we’re going. Stand up. Right now.”

Aegon holds out his hand. Thunder booms, lightning strobes, and then you take it. He pulls you to your feet and hesitates, as if he didn’t think he would get this far. Then he throws his arms around you, a crushing desperate embrace, a wordless devotion, a silent vow, sobbing into the curve of your neck, tasting the copper and iron of his brother’s blood on your skin.

“We have to keep moving,” he says again, like an apology, like he understands how impossible it feels. “The storm’s getting worse. It’ll be too dark to see soon.”

“We can’t leave him alone like this.”

“That’s not Aemond anymore,” Aegon pleads. “Aemond’s gone. And he would want us to live.”

Now the others are here on the road too: Daeron, Helaena, Cregan, Rhaena, Luke, Ice whimpering and licking scarlet stains of blood off your hands. You’re all holding each other; you’re all any of you have left. Cregan carries Aemond off the pavement and on a patch of grass alongside Route 140, the seven of you cover his body with branches of pine needles and white petals from dogwood trees. Rhaena is the first person to begin walking again, heading east. One by one you follow her. The downpour is torrential; if you are attacked now, you are nearly blind. Aegon stays beside you no matter how slow your steps are. You think if he disappears, you will too; the strings that tie you to the earth will fray and unweave and your bones will turn to mist, your voice will only be the wind howling down mountainsides. You have no way of knowing how long you’ve been walking or how many miles are left. You wonder what will happen to Aemond’s child if there is nothing for you in Odessa.

The rain is stopping. Now you can hear crows, woodpeckers, formations of geese honking in a foggy sky and squirrels scrabbling up tree trunks. Falcons perch watchfully on dead power lines. Rare aisles of sunlight are breaking through dissipating clouds.

They rise up out of the verdant jungle, a tangle of Pacific ninebark and blue elderberry: four figures in green camouflage, two men and two women, all wearing tactical sunglasses and wielding assault rifles, M16s you’re fairly sure, automatic and with 20-round magazines. Daeron moves to nock an arrow and then stops when he sees you’ve put up your hands. The others follow your lead: palms empty, willingly surrendering.

It’s them, you think dazedly. The people in Odessa. They’re alive, they’re real.

“Please cooperate and hand over all your weapons,” one of the women says, fifties, muscular, alert hawkish eyes.

No one moves. Then you unholster your Beretta M9—received from the U.S. Navy almost exactly five years ago, a different lifetime, a different world—and hold it out to the woman in your open palm. And now everybody else is giving their weapons over too: Aegon and Luke’s .22s, Rhaena’s Ruger, the spare Ruger and Aemond’s Glock hidden in Helaena’s burlap messenger bag, Daeron’s compound bow, Cregan’s axe. Ice peers up at Cregan anxiously, her yellowish eyes wide, but she wags her tail when he runs one of his large, calloused hands over her rain-soaked fur.

Aegon is still clutching his golf club. One of the men stares at him, incredulous. “You can keep that, son,” he says.

The woman nods to the men. “Nick and Glen will escort you five miles up the road, and then return your weapons. We ask that you keep moving and do not turn around. We don’t want trouble, but we can defend ourselves. Don’t think you can double back tomorrow and try to loot us or anything. This is your only warning. Do you understand?”

Aegon nudges your hand with his knuckles, then taps you harder when at first you’re too shellshocked to notice. You have to explain. You have to tell them why you’re here.

“I…I…” You begin, unable to make the words leave your lips, rats from a sinking ship, plummeting bodies from a burning building. Here you stand on a precipice, and with so many other people to save. “I served in the Navy with Bryan Osorio. We left Saratoga Springs together. He told me it would be safe here.”

Now they are interested. Slowly, the woman lowers her M16. “You know the Osorios?”

“I do.” I’ve known them for half a decade.

“Could any of them identify you and verify what you’re saying?”

“His wife, Sophie. She’s blonde, and she likes elephants, and she had a baby recently.”

The woman is scanning the faces behind you. “And where’s Bryan?”

“He’s not here anymore,” you say, and now you’re sobbing again. Aegon is squeezing your shoulder, his head bowed. “I’m sorry. I wanted to help him get home. I was supposed to warn him, I was supposed to stop it from biting him, but I didn’t and now he’s gone—”

“Okay, okay.” The woman motions for you to calm down, but her voice is kind. “Who are these guys? Your colleagues, your friends?”

“They’re my family.”

“You can vouch for them?”

“Yes.”

“You’ll all submit to searches for bitemarks?”

“Yes.”

The woman turns to the men she called Nick and Glen. “Take them inside, will you? Get the ID verified and then we’ll process everyone.”

“Got it,” the older man says. And then, to you and your companions: “Follow me.”

Nick and Glen lead you into the forest, the canopy of pine needles so thick the daylight turns to dusk, and you think of lightning bugs, of firelight, of drinking Guinness on the beach with Rio on Diego Garcia. There are several patrols, groups of four or five, that approach to stop you until they see Nick and Glen and wave you through. Then the trees open into a meadow of buttercups and daisies and pink fawn lilies, and beyond that an immense village, some houses decades old, others currently being constructed with logs from pine trees. There are hundreds of people tending to livestock, hanging up laundry to dry on clotheslines, digging in gardens, making candles and soap and butter. There are children playing without fear, giggling as they chase after scampering dogs, challenging each other to games of kickball and Uno.

In front of one of the houses that predates the apocalypse, brick with a screened-in porch, there is a small blonde woman standing in a garden, smiling and chatting with a middle-aged couple. The baby she carries against her chest in a blue sling has dark curly hair like Rio’s.

Sophie and the baby are here. They’ve been alive the whole time.

You rest a palm on your belly without realizing you’re doing it. “What happens now?” you ask Aegon.

“The rest of our lives.”

It is unimaginable, it is impossible, it is so full of luminous potential you feel like the light will spill out of your pores like blood, it’s an oasis, it’s a second chance, it’s an island in the vast lethal untamed blue of the Indian Ocean.

“Let’s go,” Aegon says softly, taking your hand and leading you across the field of wildflowers, kaleidoscopic blooms in the last days of summer.

[princessbellecerise]

jacaela fics 💓

✨my fics✨

Sharing Series (Jacaela)

Sharing Water - AO3

After Luke's funeral, Jace and Baela share a bath.

Sharing Warmth - AO3

Baela's POV, the morning after the wedding

Sharing Family - AO3

Jace’s POV, directly follows Sharing Warmth. Incomplete: 1/2 chapters

As Targaryens Do Series (Jacaela)

Just You - AO3

“Prove it then.” In the palm of her hand lay a piece of dragonglass, shining in the light from the fire, “If you’re truly a Targaryen, then let us do as Targaryens do.”

Like Invoking the Name of a God - AO3

Baela's POV following the events of Just You

More Jacaela

Summer Snows - AO3

During their daughter’s wedding to Cregan Stark’s son, Baela reveals a secret to Jace in the godswood.

Alyssa - AO3

There was something intoxicating about it, the thought of a person who was not only half himself but half Baela.

[princessbellecerise]

right like just because you think a character acts a certain way doesn’t mean we have to write them like that…there’s plenty of room for authors to interpret characters the way they want and explore them. writing them the same way every fic gets repetitive

“i don’t like the way you write (insert character)”

ok die then how about that

[princessbellecerise]

LET HIM LICK A LIL COOCHIE I SAY 🗣️

hot take: experienced jace >>> virgin jace

[princessbellecerise]

this! like yall please just write what you want and don’t let anyone persuade you to do anything different!! if you spend your whole life trying to please people you’ll never find out what you like

I just feel like loving virgin Jace is controversial now lol like no one will like my virgin Jace fic cause the tide is turned and everyone likes experienced Jace now, know what I mean?

everyone likes everything. the narrative isn't ANTI anything in specific. it's PRO writers who write what they're interested in. people aren't going to dislike your virgin jace fic, just like people won't dislike an experienced jace.

we're emphasizing the importance of supporting writing instead of forcing certain narratives as the only possibility, if that makes sense.

[princessbellecerise]

trying to limit a very talent author to writing only the things you want to see is insane. like nattie said, writers are constantly changing and adapting their work. it’s like acting — and absolutely no one wants to be “type casted” or constantly stuck writing the same thing over and over. it is the quickest way to make your favorite author despise writing and lose their passion. as writers we want to challenge ourselves and GROW, that’s what makes us love it so much. with words, there are SO many different worlds and scenarios we can create and enjoy, so how are we supposed to do that when people try and force us to write the same scenarios over and over again? and as a reader, i would think reading jace the same way in every fic would get boring would it not?

like don’t get me wrong — we as writers appreciate our beautiful readers so so much! we literally love everyone in the HOTD fandom and in jace nation that supports our work. ours blogs would be nothing without our readers, but messages like these are not support. they are toxic and honestly they are extremely discouraging.

so once again, thank you to the beautiful readers who are nothing short of amazing and supportive and sane. we see you, honestly, and we fucking love you <3 but to people who send messages like this — please just stop. please just respect our growth as writers.

Literally last week you said Jace only makes love and now you’re saying he fucks his wife

I feel like you really changed lately

take my hand and take a walk with me. what i’m about to say could truly blow your mind baby

fucking is not bad, whenever a writer writes “and they fucked in ___” it doesn’t automatically mean oh A is raping B! A is abusing B!!!

when sex is consensual it can be in quick rounds or long hours of sex.

another thing, i have said im growing as an author, im going to write gore, horror, angst, death, highlight mental trauma, anxiety, im going to touch some things that could be a trigger. i’m currently writing for the batman and peeta, these two have dark themes and if you guys can’t take this small difference then.. i truly don’t know what to tell you guys — jace we know nothing of, he’s a dead character. he didn’t last long in westeros — all we know is that he was dedicated to bringing his mom her throne and he was a man who was educated — from that we know nothing more