The Dragons' Rebirth | By : StarLightMassacre Category: A through F > A Song of Ice and Fire Views: 40827 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1 |
Disclaimer: I do not own anything from Harry Potter or A Song of Ice and Fire; all rights go to J. K. Rowling and to George R.R. Martin respectfully. I make no money for this piece of fictional writing and never will. |
Last Time
Harry took his own horse, a beautiful, well-bred palfrey that he’d had for years, and he rode out of Kings Landing and he knew that he would not be back for years to come. The hardest part about riding off was leaving his beautiful Rhaegar behind, but out of the two of them, Rhaegar was like to survive the madness of the King. He, with his hair as dark as a moonless night and his eyes like summer grass, was more likely to be cut down or burned alive by the mad King’s cruelty and shattered sanity. The hints were coming thicker and faster, the barbs crueller and more hostile and Harry had been living in fear of his life, that fear was only growing with each new morning. He couldn’t live like that any longer, so he was leaving for Oldtown. With any luck, and the will of the Seven, his Father would be dead by the time that he was ready to return.
Chapter Two – 279AC
Ser Barristan Selmy had taken the disappearance of Prince Haradarian very hard. With the disappearance of the second Prince, the laughter had gone, the smiles had gone, all joy had been stripped from the Red Keep and Prince Rhaegar had been so filled with wroth at his brother’s disappearance that he had sailed immediately for Dragonstone and he rarely came back to the mainland to visit. Instead he sulked on Dragonstone and allegedly he prayed in the Sept every morn before he broke his fast that his brother returned soon and he begged for the Seven to protect the young Prince, who had vanished, with none of his armour or weapons and only his horse. He had gone in the twilit dusk before the gates to the city had been closed for the night, slipping unnoticed past the gold cloaks on duty, just a week after his uncelebrated thirteenth name day. He had been found missing the next morning, after he didn’t show to break his fast.
They had panicked, the Kingsguard that was, and the seven of them had been determined to ride out and track down the missing Prince, insistent that he couldn’t have gone far in just a single night, but they had been forbidden from any action by King Aerys. That had angered Barristan more than anything else, that this mad man, this King, had driven away his own newly turned thirteen year old son, who was now out in the Seven Kingdoms alone and undefended. Haradarian the Heart. The sweetest boy that Barristan had yet met, with his soft smiles and sweet songs, his easy giggles and high laughs.
The mad King had oppressed the boy so much in the last few weeks since the end of the Defiance of Duskendale, had tried to crush him so thoroughly, that those smiles and giggles had all but vanished and Prince Haradarian had become miserable, turning as melancholic as Rhaegar had been in his youth, yet Rhaegar had become so full of wroth that he was all but unapproachable, yet his protectiveness of his two brothers had grown tenfold.
The pinnacle moment had been Harry’s thirteenth name day, the day that no one had been allowed to celebrate. He had seen how upset it had made the young boy and it had almost killed him inside to follow that order, to ignore the boy stood in front of him, trying to talk to him and to his sworn brothers, but they had been forbidden to acknowledge him and all of them, all seven of them, had followed that order and it had broken all of their hearts to do so. They had kept to their oaths and had instead followed their orders and they had ignored the small boy in front of them, who had been almost beseeching them to please just speak with him, to please just look at him, but they had carried on looking ahead, over Haradarian’s head as they’d been ordered to do and it had hurt the boy very deeply. The boy who was just very lonely, lost and distressed as he had been forbidden from being near his own family on his own name day and thus he had turned to them, as the only other constant in his life. Haradarian had almost been driven to tears by their actions of ignoring him and acting as if they couldn’t see or hear him and it had taken all of his strength of will to stop himself from falling to his knees and embracing the small boy before him.
Just a week later, a week in which everyone in the Red Keep, even the servants, had been forbidden from talking or being near Haradarian, which included ignoring all of his orders and requests, even those for food, and the Prince was discovered missing the morning after being told cruelly by the King that he wasn’t allowed to eat from the table with his silent family and that he had to eat leftover scraps from the floor in the kitchens. The boy had run from the solar in much distress, crying floods of tears from those beautiful green eyes and he had left behind broken hearts and bitter regrets within all of them for choosing to follow the order to ignore him as if he weren’t there. Perhaps if they had broken that order then the Prince would still be safe within the Red Keep and under their protection, for though they had been ordered to leave him to his death if such a situation arose, Barristan knew that he himself would never have been able to live with himself if ever he had been forced to stand and watch his boy being killed in front of him. He knew that he would never have followed that particular order and he’d like to think that his sworn brothers wouldn’t have been able to watch such an act or follow such an order either.
Perhaps he should never have offered to steal into Duskendale to save the King in the first place, but his honour had had him speaking out. He was sworn to protect his King, to obey his commands and to keep his secrets. He was sworn into the Kingsguard for the rest of his life and if he could have saved his King, he had had to try and now, because of that action on his part, he had lost another member of the royal family. His favourite member if he were brutally honest with himself.
Haradarian had become like a son to him, a son he had sworn to never father. He was always easy to smile, he always toddled over to say good morning to them when he had been a boy, though in his younger years they did not realise that ‘morning’ was what the young Prince had believed Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning, had been named. He remembered fondly the day that they had finally realised that their Prince did actually know the phases of the day and that he believed that Ser Arthur was actually named Morning.
‘Morning!’ The young Prince called out, hurrying over on unsteady feet that had more than a few of them loosening their arms to catch him if he fell onto the hard stone floor.
‘It is the afternoon, my Prince.’ Ser Gerold Hightower, the Lord Commander, had told the tiny boy kindly.
Prince Haradarian had blinked huge, confused eyes at them. He looked down with a wide grin before he held out a small bug that was crawling over his hand with that smile. The smile that he would never forget.
‘Look, Morning!’ The Prince had exclaimed again, thrusting the bug at Ser Arthur.
It had been Prince Lewyn who had laughed and nudged his younger sworn brother. ‘Our Prince thinks that your name is Morning!’ He chuckled happily.
‘He does not.’ Ser Arthur had denied.
‘My Prince, what is my name?’ He remembered asking the young Prince with amusement.
‘Bastan.’
‘And mine, my Prince?’ Lewyn had asked with a chuckle.
‘Lewyn.’ The Prince nodded.
‘What is my name, my Prince?’ Arthur had asked kindly.
‘Morning.’ The Prince had replied confidently, much to the amusement of all of them.
‘See! He does think that your name is Morning!’ Lewyn had laughed.
It had taken three turns to convince the young Prince that ‘Morning’ was actually part of a title used by Ser Arthur and they’d needed the help of Prince Rhaegar to finally convince him to start saying Ser Arthur, though he had still slipped for a while afterwards, particularly when excited.
Barristan smiled sadly at his nostalgic thoughts and he sighed. The thirteen year old Prince was gone, the boy he had known was gone, he would be fifteen now wherever he was, almost a man grown. None of them knew where he was and there had been no whisper of him in the last two years, nothing to hint at his whereabouts or wellbeing, only harsh tales and nasty gossip that he certainly didn’t believe in the least, and if Prince Rhaegar knew where his brother was then he said nothing on the rare occasions that he came to visit Kings Landing from Dragonstone. The longest he had stayed away from his little island was for the tourney at Storm’s End in honour of the late Lord Steffon Baratheon’s death.
Barristan had won that tourney, despite his advancing age and being pitted against much younger knights. He had won the last tilt against Prince Rhaegar, who had trained and practiced fiercely to defeat Ser Arthur Dayne to compensate for his loss at the tourney of Lannisport, he had not counted on Barristan unhorsing him in the final tilt. It was a fond memory for him.
It had been two years since the young Prince had vanished and there was no word, not even a hint of him throughout the Seven Kingdoms and many had given him up for dead, killed by a bandit or an outlaw for his horse and clothes most like. Barristan didn’t like thinking of such things, not of the boy he saw as close to his son as he was ever going to get.
The King liked to sit in Haradarian’s bed chamber, in a chair by his bed, silently, and it made Barristan, and his sworn brothers, very angry, though they wisely held their tongues. King Aerys had been the very reason that the Prince had run, he was the reason that Haradarian was not safely here in the Red Keep, he was the reason that Haradarian was lost in the Seven Kingdoms, exposed to numerous dangers that he was too young to deal with and he was the reason that Rhaegar had stole away to Dragonstone in isolation and now he was despairing their loss as if they had done him some great personal disservice. The mad King was the cause of the Princes running away and he acted as if they had been taken from him.
He was becoming more erratic and his obsession with fire was a telling sign of all the foolish and mad Targaryens before him, much like Aerion Targaryen who had drunk a cup of wildfire believing that it would make him a real dragon. No good ever came of a Targaryen’s obsessive fascination with fire in any form.
But then, late in the year 279 after Aegon’s Conquering, the Prince Haradarian stole back into the Red Keep, into Maegor’s Holdfast, as stealthy and as silently as he had left it two years before. One day they had still been despairing of his loss, two and a half years since he had left, wondering where he was and praying to the Seven that he was still alive and well. The very next morn, he was sat there, in the royal solar, his younger brother Viserys perched on his lap as he sung his sweet songs, a new note of steel to his voice that hadn’t been there two years previous. He was no longer a little boy, he was growing into a man at five-and-ten. Once he had finished his song and King Aerys had clapped along with Viserys, he had turned to face them and those huge green eyes looked back at him, that smile on his face, the smile that he had feared had been lost forever or permanently stamped out. Haradarian had come back home and he had brought his smiles and his laughter with him. That beautiful, wonderful, special boy.
279AC
Two and a half years of study at the Citadel in Oldtown had led to Prince Haradarian the Heart Targaryen to forging his own Maester’s chain. It was not wrapped around his throat like a choker, how the Maester’s wore their chains, as he had taken no oaths and he was no Maester. He had gone to Oldtown purely to learn and his links had been forged and they had been chained together in a continuous loop that hung almost down to his waist. Among them were a half dozen silver links for his prowess with medicine and healing, almost a half dozen of platinum links for herblore, one golden link for economics, (which had been the most boring study he’d taken up, testament to the fact was that he only had the one yellow gold link and he’d barely earned that), and a single lead link for poisons. He had three of iron for Warcraft and four of Valyrian steel, for magic. He had a few others, from when he had been very bored and had picked a new subject to study almost at random. But his main focus had been healing and medicine and Warcraft, of which he had excelled at both due to his passion and dedication to learning the arts, after he’d earned his first links, the subsequent links in each subject had come easier to him until he’d been earning a link every few turns as he’d done little else other than study and work towards his links in his two and a half years at the Citadel.
He was fifteen now, eight full turns from his sixteenth name day, and he had declared it time to go back to Kings Landing as he had learned all that he had wanted to from the Maesters at the Citadel. He had been corresponding with Rhaegar as often as he could since he’d left so suddenly. Rhaegar had written to him that he had sailed for Dragonstone the day after Harry had left and he rarely returned to Kings Landing.
He’d written to Rhaegar to tell him that he was coming home and Rhaegar had written back to him and sworn to meet him as soon as he arrived. The smallfolk were still clinging to his return, Rhaegar told him. The people still loved Haradarian the Heart, the Prince who had listened attentively and had ruled them justly, even for a mere half year while King Aerys had been imprisoned at Duskendale. Rhaegar told him that the smallfolk missed him and that he was a very attractive ruler in the face of King Aerys, the mad tyrant who had progressed to burning people alive on a whim, but no one knew where he’d gone. Even the Kingsguard had been panicked, or so Rhaegar told him, most particularly Ser Arthur Dayne, Ser Barristan Selmy and Prince Lewyn Martell. The Kingsguard had wanted to come looking for him, Rhaegar told him, they took it as a personal slight that they had lost a member of the royal family while on duty, but the King had forbade it. Harry had been expecting no different.
He rode alone along the Roseroad on his beloved palfrey. He had been hiding himself on the ride down to Oldtown, as he hadn’t wanted anyone to know who he was or where he was going, just in case he was dragged back to Kings Landing before he was ready to go back, but on the way back, he allowed his Princely demeanour to show through, though as he had on the journey down, he did not wear his house sigil or any noticeable jewellery as it was too dangerous and it would have been a beacon to every outlaw and cutthroat along the road, not to mention that his family had quite a few enemies, more now than they had had when he’d rode down this way two years previous.
He stopped at every town and major city on his way back, letting the smallfolk and nobles alike see him and know that he wasn’t dead and rotting in a ditch or hedge along the road. The most prestigious of his stops was, of course, Highgarden, the seat of house Tyrell, where upon he was welcomed like a long lost son.
Lord Mace Tyrell treated him like a brother, Alerie, his wife, could barely string a sentence together in his presence, much to the contempt of her good-mother, Olenna Tyrell of house Redwyne. Harry really liked the Lady Redwyne as she preferred to be called and he spent most of his time sitting with her and laughing over her ‘oaf’ of a son. Her own words, not Harry’s. He tried to be more diplomatic than name calling, but it was hard to hide his amusement at times. He was still rather young.
Though of course, he was surrounded by boys as he did speak with her as a four year old Willas sat right beside him, chatting at a mile a minute as Harry sat the newest Tyrell boy, Garlan, on his lap. Garlan was only two, but he was the sweetest little thing that Harry had ever seen. Even sweeter than Viserys and that had been quite hard for him to believe as no one had been sweeter than Viserys in his opinion two years ago.
He stayed at Highgarden for a week, finding himself unable to leave as he played with Willas, a tiny Garlan toddling after them both. But on the day that he had announced that he was leaving, Lord Mace insisted on sending an honour guard with him down the Roseroad. Harry refused graciously.
“I travelled to Oldtown alone, I will arrive back alone.” He said with a smile. “Though I thank you for the honour. You must come and see me soon. I would be delighted.”
Lord Tyrell puffed himself up and Harry heard Lady Olenna snort and Harry had to bite his tongue to stop himself from laughing as he handed little Garlan back to his Mother and patted Willas on the head.
“We will come and visit you at Kings Landing.” Alerie managed to say, her cheeks a bright red.
“Once it’s safer.” Lady Olenna cut in.
“Mother!” Alerie chastised.
“I am not your Mother!” Lady Olenna sniffed. “If I’d given birth to you, I’m sure I would remember it.”
“I agree with Lady Olenna, my Lady.” Harry said. “Come only when it’s safe.”
“Surely we’ll be safe with your protection.” Alerie Tyrell told him with big, doe eyes. Harry despaired that anyone could be her age of two-and-twenty and still be so naïve.
Harry shook his head, his fingers finding his Maester’s chain and he playing with it in a nervous habit that he’d picked up in Oldtown. “When I left two years ago King Aerys was threatening to burn me alive, my Lady. I have no idea of the reception that I’ll receive when I go back. I’m not going to be safe, so I can’t offer any protection to others. It’s better to wait until it’s assuredly safe.”
“You could stay here.” Lady Olenna offered. “No one knows where you are and you could stay hidden here until it is safer for you. We would love for you to stay until it’s safe for you in Kings Landing.”
Harry was already shaking his head. “Thank you very much for the offer, my Lady Olenna, but I couldn’t accept. I have been away for too long already. I do not fear for myself, I am but one person after all, not even a man yet. I fear for the realm and the Seven Kingdoms, having to live through this oppression, this tyranny and instability. I ran to Oldtown, Rhaegar to Dragonstone. What is the realm to do when its two Princes are running away when most do not have the means to escape? The time for running is over. The time for hiding is over. Rhaegar and I have to do our duty to the realm because the King will not.”
Harry left Highgarden alone, with a very well fed, fattened palfrey under him. He was sad to say goodbye to Highgarden, and to his friends, the Tyrells. He’d very much enjoyed the week that he had spent here, but he was missing Rhaegar more and more, his heart was aching under the pain and sadness of being separated from him for so long and he needed to see him and touch that beautiful face again.
Harry travelled as long as he could during the day and then he stayed at the closest inn at night. He made no secret of who he was and most of the smallfolk he met were overjoyed to see him and to know that he was in actual fact safe and well. One tavern owner even tried to give him his food and board for free, but Harry had steadfastly refused as he paid his tab happily with the small amount of coin he’d earned for himself while at the Citadel, drinking and laughing with several strangers as he bought them meat and mead. He did the same all the way up the Roseroad.
He was slightly afraid of running into an outlaw group or any brigands, but he wouldn’t let that fear rule him, the Roseroad was one of the most heavily travelled roads in Westeros because of its link to Oldtown and the Citadel, thus it was one of the safest roads to travel by, but one could never be too careful when travelling alone. He was five-and-ten now and he’d only been three-and-ten when he’d come down this road two and half years previous. He’d looked after himself then, he could do better now that he was older.
Of course he made sure to make friends along the way. He helped some young boys to track down an errant sibling who had fallen asleep in a bush, he’d helped an elderly woman patch up a cut hand and he’d even stopped to help a farmer and his little sons to replace the axle on his cart when it had snapped after he’d hit a pothole. The man had been struck speechless when he had asked for his name to thank him properly and Harry had responded with Haradarian Targaryen. Harry had left the farmer and his two young sons with a newly replaced cart axle and a wave as he rode off on his palfrey towards Kings Landing.
His arrival in Kings Landing was the same as his departure, quiet and stealthy. He had ridden long into the night, bedded down just off of the Kingswood road, hidden by the trees as he slept under his cloak for only a few hours and he’d woken up very early, before dawn, to finish off the last part of his journey. He had arrived back home just as day was breaking.
The bridge into Maegor’s Holdfast was empty and the doors were open. The King was already up and about and he had the whole of the Kingsguard with him, if Harry had to guess then he would say that his Father was praying in the Sept before he broke his fast, but taking every member of the Kingsguard with him was new, he hadn’t even left one member behind to patrol the drawbridge into Maegor’s Holdfast. He hadn’t left even one member to protect his wife or son. It seemed to Harry that the King was even more paranoid than when he’d left two years before. It wasn’t a good sign and he was very nervous about what sort of reception he would receive, but he couldn’t let that fear rule him. Not anymore. He couldn’t remain an outcast from his own home until his Father died, it just wasn’t feasible and he couldn’t stay away any longer, he missed Rhaegar far too much and he needed for the smallfolk to remember him, if he was out of sight and out of mind, that couldn’t happen.
Harry found his three year old brother Viserys breaking his fast with a servant watching over him. A servant who pulled out a dagger as soon as he walked into the room in a clear, wordless threat to do him harm if he came any closer. Harry’s hand flexed towards his own dagger in automatic reflex, but he ignored the urge to draw the blade. Violence would get him nowhere here.
“Hello, Viserys. Do you remember me?” He asked softly, ignoring the servant with the dagger as much as was wise.
Viserys looked up at the sound of his voice, his big purple eyes scrutinising him. The boy shook his head.
“I’m Haradarian. Your brother.”
“Oh!” Viserys exclaimed, leaping up and he ran to him, the servant was stunned stupid as she finally recognised him and Harry picked up Viserys and held him close, inhaling deeply the smell of his baby brother.
“Oh, how I’ve missed you.” Harry exclaimed.
“Where did you go?” Viserys asked. “Mother and Rhaegar tell me about you.”
“I was in Oldtown, Viserys, at the Citadel. Look, I’ve got a Maester’s chain.” Harry told him, plucking out the links from under his plain jerkin.
Viserys took them and played them over in his little hands.
“Are you a Maester now?” Viserys asked curiously. “Like Pycelle?”
Harry laughed. “No, little dragon. I never swore any oaths, I just went there to learn.”
Harry sat down smoothly and put Viserys on his knee, holding him tightly in his lap, much like he’d done to Garlan Tyrell a week before and he happily helped Viserys to eat, tearing up bread and bits of fruit for him and eating bits and pieces himself. He was missing Rhaegar so much now that he was here. He just wanted Rhaegar, he wanted to know what his strong, beautiful brother looked like now that he was twenty years old.
“You used to sing to me.” Viserys said suddenly. “I remember Mother saying.”
Harry smiled and kissed Viserys’ silver crown of hair. “I did. I would sing you to sleep on most nights while Rhaegar played a tune on his harp for you.”
“Sing to me now.” Viserys demanded.
Harry laughed. “Well you are certainly used to getting your own way. My voice has changed now, I can’t do all those soft voices I used to, my voice is deeper and harder, but I have some new songs that fit my new voice better, would you like to hear them?”
“Sing. Sing!” Viserys told him excitedly and Harry grinned.
He started singing. He could still sing softly, but not as soft as his eleven or twelve year old voice had been able to accomplish. His voice had a hint of steel to it now as he got older and he could make it deeper more than he could make it higher as he’d been able to do in his youth.
He didn’t notice that anyone had walked in on them until he’d finished his last song and Viserys had clapped his hands, joined in by someone else.
Harry snapped his head around with a smile to look behind him and he almost recoiled in horror at the sight of King Aerys, his Father, he managed to just hold his smile in place by sheer force of will. The King was sunken and saggy, his nails were very, very overgrown, thick and yellow like the talons on a hawk, his hair and beard were down to his waist and were both matted, tangled, unwashed and uncombed.
He was surrounded by the surprised Kingsguard and Harry was happy to see them unchanged, even if Ser Harlan Grandison was looking more ancient than the withered King.
“My son, you have come home.” King Aerys said happily and Harry was confused to see tears in the old man’s eyes. The last he’d heard his Father was going to burn him on public display, but then the old man was crazed and ruled by madness, such men were not the most reasonable or rational.
King Aerys hobbled over to embrace him and Harry’s eyes widened and his gorge rose immediately as he gagged visibly at the smell that Viserys, sat on his lap, seemed to not smell. Harry controlled himself as his Father embraced him, though the suppressed dry heaving caused tears to well in his own eyes and the entire Kingsguard could see him fighting not to vomit, but he didn’t care as he patted his Father gently and shivered in revulsion as he was finally released from such a torturous embrace.
“Where have you been, Haradarian? I have had no word of you for two years, or is it three?”
“Two and a half, Father.” Harry said, trying not to breathe through his nose, but his Father’s unwashed body and hair made such a smell that it actually had a taste behind it. “I’ve been in Oldtown, as I had planned a year in advance before I finally left.”
“Haradarian’s a Maester!” Viserys pipped up, tugging at Harry’s chain of many metals.
Harry laughed. “Not exactly. I’ve forged over twenty links, but I swore no oaths. I went to learn. Not to become a Maester.”
“There are so many links of silver and iron.” The King said, stroking his chain with his gnarled hands.
“Half a dozen of silver for medicine and healing, three of iron for Warcraft. There are several odd links at the back from when I got bored and picked something at random to study. Economics was particularly tedious.” Harry laughed, pulling his chain around to show the single yellow gold link and several other odd metals, such as the single bronze link for Astronomy and the single link of pale steel for smithing. “But herblore was almost too easy, I earned five platinum links before I decided to switch my studies to something else.”
“This is Valyrian steel.” His Father said, touching the four links grouped together. “You studied magics.”
“I did. It was entirely ridiculous, but I stuck to it as it was my hope at the time that I could get enough links to melt them down and forge a Valyrian steel blade. The subject got much too boring and far too illogical for me to continue. Though I’d considered stealing the ring, rod and mask of Archmaester Marwyn to melt those down too, but ultimately decided that it was a very bad decision and gave up the hope of bringing a Valyrian steel sword back to the Targaryen family. I earned all four links at the same time that I earned this one for smithing and this one for astronomy.” He said, pointing out the pale steel link and the bronze one. “I studied for most of my links at the same time, and at one time I was studying four different subjects simultaneously. I don’t think I ate or slept right for those four turns.
“No matter. I’m happy to have you home. Now if only Rhaegar would come home too.”
“I am home.” A strong voice said from the doorway and Harry looked up quickly to see that devastatingly handsome face, the long silver hair in a small braid, some shorter strands were free and Harry was pleased to see that Rhaegar had a bit of a fringe that was swept back over the top of his head, held in place, no doubt, by the salt spray from the ocean.
“When did you arrive?” King Aerys asked, looking at his tall, strong oldest son with yet more tears that completely confused Harry.
“Not half an hour ago. I came straight from Blackwater Bay when my ship docked.” Rhaegar said as he moved closer. He allowed their Father to embrace him, as Harry had, but he controlled his expression a lot better than Harry had, but then Rhaegar was twenty now, his twenty-first name day was in another six turns.
When King Aerys let him go, Rhaegar came to Harry and embraced him tightly, Viserys with them as Harry was still holding the three year old.
“I missed you so much.” Rhaegar whispered to him.
“I missed you more.” Harry insisted.
“I missed you both.” Viserys pipped up and Rhaegar took their little brother from Harry and kissed his cheek, settling him in his own large, muscular arms.
Harry appreciated Rhaegar’s hard work and musculature. He shivered, much more tuned in to such sexual feelings at fifteen than he had been when he was younger. He licked his lips and took a deep breath.
“I’m back for good. I’ve studied all I want to.”
“I am glad that you’re back.” Rhaegar told him.
“It’s good to be back, we have a lot to catch up on.”
“Of course. Do you want to spar first?” His older brother asked him.
Harry pulled a face and he bit his lip, looking at Rhaegar guiltily.
“I left my sword here when I went to the Citadel and I haven’t touched one since. I’m going to be a little…rusty.”
“We can’t have that.” Ser Arthur Dayne said firmly. “Have you eaten?”
Harry nodded. “Yes, Ser.”
“Then in the courtyard, now.”
Harry sighed, almost groaned.
“Are you coming to watch, Viserys?” Rhaegar asked him, still in his arms.
The three year old nodded happily and Harry went to get dressed properly, travelling the familiar path to his rooms. They were untouched, but he could tell that someone had been sitting in his chair as the fabric had been worn down and the padding was less plump that it had been before he’d left. Someone had been sitting in it a lot.
He changed into the bits of padded armour that still fit him. He left off all of his old breeches as they were too short in the leg, but most of his doublets and tunics still fit him as he had not gotten much broader in the shoulder or any thicker in the chest or stomach. He would still need some new clothes made for him though.
He picked up his sword and shield, both untouched. He came back down the stairs and through the corridor. He hurried his steps when he saw a woman with two septas beside her walking in front of him, and knowing who it was from the long, curled silver hair, he passed his sword into the hand holding his shield and then grabbed her around the waist with his free hand and then he laughed as she screamed.
She turned and Harry saw her beautiful purple eyes widen, before they filled with tears of delight.
“Oh, my son. My sweet Haradarian, you’re home! You’re safe!” She cried as she all but fell onto him to hug him.
“Hello, Mother.”
“Where have you been?!” She raged at him. “No letters, no raven! I thought that you were dead.” She sobbed.
“I’ve been in Oldtown, look.” He said proudly, holding out his Maester’s chain.
“Oh, you wonderful, clever boy. I’m so proud of you.” She said as she played with the chain, much like Viserys had. “Medicine and healing? I’d had no idea that you had such a passion for it.”
Harry nodded. “It was very important to me to learn medicine and healing. I just have a feeling that I’ll have need of it one day, I didn’t question the feeling as I got it in the Sept, I’m sure that the Seven themselves willed it of me. I have five links for herblore too, to supplement my silver links.”
“I’m so happy that you’re home. Look how you’ve grown! I’ll send for a tailor so that you can be measured and fitted for new clothes. My wonderful, beautiful boy, how I’ve missed you. Rhaegar visits now and again, but I have had no word from you in two and a half years, Haradarian.”
“Rhaegar’s home too.” Harry told her. “We’re going into the courtyard to spar with Ser Arthur Dayne.”
He rather thought that his beautiful Mother was going to burst out crying as she hurried her steps to the solar where they always broke their fast.
“Rhaegar.” She called out happily as she threw her arms around her oldest son and held him tightly.
“Mother. You’re looking very well.” Rhaegar told her.
“Look how tall and handsome you are.” She fawned. “I haven’t seen you in half a year and already you’ve grown another several inches.”
“I’m sorry for that, Mother.”
Harry was pulled into the embrace of brothers by his Mother, so all three of them were being touched by their Mother at the same time.
“My three boys, all back at last.” She sniffled slightly. “Now go, go and do whatever you were doing, I need to break my fast. Viserys, have you eaten, darling?”
“Yes, Mother.” The three year old replied. “I’m going to watch Rhaegar and Haradarian spar!” He declared.
“Oh, well do be careful, dear, stay close to the Kingsguard and to your brothers.”
Viserys, still in Rhaegar’s arms, nodded his head and Harry gave his Mother one last hug, tried to ignore his Father’s stench from where he was breaking his own fast, glad that he had already eaten as the King was touching everything with his unwashed, ungroomed hands, and he hurried out into the training courtyard of the Red Keep with three members of the Kingsguard, Ser Arthur, Ser Barristan and Prince Lewyn.
“Hand that sword here.” Ser Arthur Dayne told him sternly. “You haven’t touched a sword in two years, you will have a wooden one.”
“He’s a Prince!” Viserys cried out in all his three year old disbelief. “You can’t take his sword!”
“Viserys.” Harry laughed. “When a knight of the Kingsguard tells you that you aren’t good enough for a sword, you listen.” He insisted. “I haven’t touched a sword in two years, it’s dangerous. I will not accept this sword back until I have earned it back through hard work and training.”
Harry handed his sheathed sword over to Ser Arthur Dayne, who handed it off to Barristan Selmy. Harry was handed a heavy, wooden training sword instead and then he paid for his two year absence. He paid for it with pain as he proved exactly how inept he had become with a sword.
“Gods be damned, boy! Have you forgotten everything that I taught you?” Ser Arthur burst out as Harry was disarmed easily yet again.
“I told you I’d be rusty!” Harry complained.
“There’s rusty and then there’s abysmal!” Prince Lewyn laughed. “You are easily categorised as the latter.”
Harry frowned. “I was at the Citadel, I didn’t exactly have anyone to spar with! They’re all old men with their noses buried in a book! Half of the boys my own age had never even seen a real sword, let alone held one! I got into a few fights though.” He admitted.
“Hand to hand combat?” Prince Lewyn asked, grinning. “How very lowbrow for a Prince.”
“You would know.” Harry said tartily, referring to the many times that Prince Lewyn Martell had used his fists in a fight. “Oberyn has told me all the stories about your antics.”
“Come on then, show me what you can do, my Prince.”
Harry kicked away his already dropped wooden sword from where Ser Arthur Dayne had disarmed him and he rolled his shoulders. He crouched down to show that he was ready and he allowed Prince Lewyn to jab at him, dodging without retaliating until a particularly vicious swing gave him the opening that he was looking for and he took savage advantage of it. He kicked out the back of a knee with a short, but vicious kick with the top of his foot before putting his own knee up into tender ribs with the same leg and then using his own body weight to get Lewyn to the floor, where he wrapped his legs around the other man’s throat, sat up straight on his knees and grabbed both wrists and pulled them back. Prince Lewyn could no longer move or get himself to his feet and he was slowly being choked by the pressure of Harry’s body and legs around his neck.
“Very impressive.” Ser Barristan told him and Harry grinned, letting go of the wrists he held and then slowly, carefully unwinding his legs. He helped the coughing Prince Lewyn back to his feet.
“You weren’t kidding, you really did get into a few fights.” The man told him as he massaged his throat.
Viserys was cheering for him and Harry gestured him over.
“Come here, Viserys. Ser, on your knees.” He directed to Lewyn Martell.
“I’m going to regret this.” The man grumbled, but he did as he’d been told.
“Viserys, listen up. Rhaegar, you too.” Harry called out. “When earning my silver links, I learnt extensively about the human body. I know exactly where to hit to incapacitate a person with a single blow. Viserys, you’re too young for swords as of yet, but there’s no reason that you can’t help yourself a bit. Here.”
Harry pressed into Viserys’ chest with a finger. Viserys giggled.
“Now, you feel this bone here.” Harry said, picking up his brother’s hand and dragging Viserys’ own finger down his breastbone. His three year old brother nodded. “You feel where it ends here.” Again Viserys nodded. “Use the side of your fist, like this, and smash the spot where it ends.”
Harry helped Viserys do just that and Lewyn Martell went down on his hands, gasping for the breath that had been knocked out of him by a three year old. Viserys laughed loudly and happily at what he’d done and Harry patted his head.
“You must only use this for defence, Viserys.” Harry said sternly. “If I hear that you’ve done this to anyone who didn’t deserve it, I will punish you myself, am I clear?”
“Yes, Haradarian.” Viserys said happily.
“How do you do it?” Rhaegar asked interestedly.
Harry stood and smiled at the few Kingsguard members who had come out to oversee his sparring. It looked like they were regretting that decision right now. “Who wants to go down next?” He asked cheerily.
Ser Barristan sighed and stepped forward.
“Thank you, Ser.” Harry said genuinely. “Rhaegar, you can use your fist, not the side of it like Viserys, you’ll get more power behind a punch. You want to hit right here.”
Harry took great pleasure in running his fingers down Rhaegar’s breastbone, teasing his older brother through his belted tunic and giving him a sly, sultry smile.
“This spot here, where the breastbone ends. Punch right here. As hard as you can against an enemy, not too hard on poor Ser Barristan as if you hit hard enough, it can kill.” Harry explained.
Harry stood behind his much taller brother and he kicked Rhaegar’s feet into position, he stood behind Rhaegar and placed his hands on his waist and he turned, moving Rhaegar’s arm.
“Bend at the elbow, Rhaegar.” He instructed. “Pull all the way back and then throw forward with all of your weight. Act as if you’re going to punch right through your enemy.”
Rhaegar threw forward and almost toppled as he wasn’t aiming to hit anything with this punch.
“Well done. A hit like that will kill if you get the right spot and the right amount of force.” Harry said happily. “Now do the same, but don’t throw all of your weight behind it this time.”
Harry again helped Rhaegar set his body up, more for an excuse to touch him, and Ser Barristan stepped forward, within reach, to be Rhaegar’s target.
Rhaegar just punched outward this time, without twisting and throwing forward, but still Ser Barristan went down to his knees, unable to catch his breath, gasping urgently for air. Harry knelt down to help him, coaching him through the pain and panic of being unable to breathe until he could take in deep, desperate gasps.
“Of course as soon as they’re down and incapacitated, you can hack their head off.” He said matter-of-factly as he stood again as soon as Ser Barristan was breathing more normally. “It just means less sword play and a bit more using your fists. Naturally, if you’re wearing a mailed fist or a gauntlet it’ll be easier to kill your opponent, but it won’t work if they’re wearing a good quality breastplate. If they’re wearing just a breastplate, feign high with your sword to remove the shield, then kick out the back of the knee. If they’re in full scale or plate armour, run.”
“Run?” Rhaegar turned to look at him in shock at his perceived cowardice.
Harry laughed at the stunned look being sent his way. “Not away!” He insisted sternly. “In a circle if you must. Full armour is heavy!” He emphasised. “You’re more like to win if you tire them out a bit beforehand. It gives you a bigger advantage.”
“What if you’re in full armour too?” Ser Arthur asked him, his eyes narrowed. Harry got the feeling that he was being tested. It was like he was back in the Citadel earning his iron links all over again.
“Dodge.” Harry answered immediately. “You let them swing as wildly as they like, just keep them moving while merely dodging yourself. They’ll tire more before you will and thus you keep the advantage.”
“I’m impressed.”
“You shouldn’t be. I do have three links for Warcraft.” Harry grinned. “Coupled with what I learnt for medicine and healing, I can combine the two to deadly effect.”
“It is an…odd combination, I grant you. Warcraft and healing don’t exactly come together easily, one creates pain and injury, the other removes it.”
“On the contrary, I use the knowledge that I learnt in healing to better incapacitate my enemies as I know where to strike to kill or to cause the most pain.”
“Now we just need to get you used to a sword again and you’ll be a very formidable warrior.”
“Shield too.” Harry grinned. “Not to mention lance.”
The Kingsguard members shoulders all slumped at near enough the same time. Harry couldn’t help laughing.
“Let’s get down to business then.” Ser Arthur Dayne said firmly. “We have a lot of ground to cover.”
Harry picked up his wooden sword again and his actual shield with the Targaryen sigil painted onto it and he tried to get his body to form the right positions that he did remember but his muscles just could no longer conform to as they hadn’t been used in such a way in such a long time.
The Kingsguard kept him practising for hours and in the end even Rhaegar went to attend to other matters, leaving Harry pouring with sweat and panting in exhaustion by the time that Ser Arthur was content to let him go and bathe.
Harry was exhausted, but he still had ten serving girls draw him a hot bath, pouring large, heavy kettles of boiled water straight into a wooden tub to keep it hotter for longer. Harry liked his baths scalding hot, as did Rhaegar. They were the blood of the dragon and heat didn’t bother them as much.
“Would you like me to stay and welcome you home properly, my Prince?” One bold, buxom girl of seven-and-ten asked him breathily.
“No.” Harry said simply. “I wish to bathe alone. All of you, leave me.”
Of course he knew what she had meant, he had practiced a bit with others while in Oldtown, but mostly because he had been lonely and sometimes drunk on the very rare and sparse occasions that he had taken away from his studies. He was too exhausted anyway, even if he had felt the mood for such things, of which he didn’t. He had had his practice, now he was to be married and he would not disrespect Rhaegar in such a manner by engaging in such activities in Kings Landing.
He had practiced with a few boys too, but he had never, ever allowed them to penetrate him. That honour was for Rhaegar, and Rhaegar alone, and now that he was home, he was not going to play or practice with anyone else. He wouldn’t disrespect his love in such a way, he swore it.
He sunk into the scalding hot water with a blissful sigh, his skin not even turning pink. He liked the heat of the water, he could even touch hot coals or sun baked metals. He was by no means impervious to fire, however. He was not so crazed as Aerion Targaryen, who had drunk a cup of wildfire in the misguided belief that it would make him into a real dragon. He still had a healthy respect for fire and there was no way that he would ever touch it or play with it, he had no desire to be labelled as mad like his Father or like Aerion before him, who had died screaming. But an extra hot bath didn’t do him, or his reputation, any harm.
After the royal family had supped and had then retired for the evening, Harry stayed in his bed chambers, waiting, until in the dead of the night, he slipped out of his room, padded silently down the dark hall and into Rhaegar’s room. He saw the lump in the bed that was his brother and Harry’s heart started beating faster. He closed Rhaegar’s door and he slid the deadbolt across before he padded quietly to Rhaegar’s bed and slid in with him. He was grinning when a sleeping Rhaegar became aware that he was no longer alone in his own bed as Rhaegar had slipped his arms around Harry’s waist and snuggled in before his face creased in confusion, his sleepy mind telling him that no one should be in the bed with him.
Those purple eyes blinked open and looked at him for a moment before Rhaegar actually saw him properly and he sat himself up and rolled over on top of him. Harry’s heart did a back flip and his breath caught in his throat.
“I’d hoped that you’d come, I must have fallen asleep waiting for you.” Rhaegar said huskily. “It was a long, hard sail from Dragonstone, the waters were a bit choppy.”
“I was going to come sooner, but Ser Gerold was patrolling the corridor relentlessly. I think he is worried that we might run off again.” Harry said, looking up into Rhaegar’s devastatingly beautiful face.
He found that he couldn’t help himself as he pushed himself upwards and he kissed Rhaegar on the mouth. Their first proper kiss and after a moment’s shocked pause, Rhaegar cupped either side of his head and kissed him back, hard. He forced his tongue into Harry’s mouth and his larger body framed Harry’s easily. As soon as their passions had been unleashed, it was impossible to cage them back in, that one kiss had broken the sibling bond between them and opened them to more carnal desires. That one kiss had been the push over the edge, the permission that had been needed and now…now there was no stopping them. Rhaegar was ready, Harry was more than ready and he was now old enough for such things. He wouldn’t be a man for another year, but that didn’t matter. He was old enough for marriage and sex and he would be having both with Rhaegar very soon now that he was back home.
“You’ve kissed someone before.” Rhaegar told him, panting, breathing heavily.
“I got in some practice while I was in Oldtown. I was very lonely.” Harry told him truthfully. “I never let anyone take me, however. That honour was always reserved for you. For our wedding night.”
“I’ve dreamt of this for so long. I prayed to the Seven for forgiveness for thinking of you that way so young, but you have always been dear to me.”
“I don’t want to wait any longer, Rhaegar. I want to be married to you. I want to have children…your children.”
Rhaegar looked at Harry’s serious face and he nodded. He smiled and then kissed him again, hard, but briefly.
“It will be done. I’ll immediately prepare the ceremony. I’ve been thinking almost of nothing else ever since you left for Oldtown and I believe that the only way to do it is as quietly as possible. We’ll have to do it in the godswood, by the tradition of the old gods in front of the great oak heart tree. It’s too dangerous to do it in a Sept. We only need a few witnesses for a marriage in front of the old gods. We can have a marriage in the Faith of the Seven if you want one once we have the Iron Throne, as soon as Father passes.”
“Who would we ask to witness?” Harry worried.
“Jon.” Rhaegar said immediately. “He would never tell a living soul. I was thinking of Ser Arthur Dayne too.”
“Rhaegar, I know he’s your oldest, closest friend, but Ser Arthur is sworn to report to the King.”
“Only if the King asks him.” Rhaegar insisted. “Why would Father ask him if we had married each other?”
Harry swallowed and he took a leap of trust. “Okay, those two and Lewyn Martell, no more.”
Rhaegar nodded in agreement.
“Are you sure Jon will do it?”
“Yes, Arthur and Jon are my oldest, closest friends, Haradarian. Don’t forget, we’ll be Kings soon, no one would dare to upset us. Father doesn’t have long left, I fear. His madness is eating away at him.”
“I saw it too. He smells awful, but under that stench of an unwashed body is the smell of sickness. I know it well from my time in the Citadel studying for my silver links.”
“Things will work out. I told you in my letters that he sent Lord Steffon Baratheon to Essos to find me a wife. But when Lord Baratheon came back, not only had he failed, but his ship went down in his own waters with his Wife aboard, in front of their two sons, the now Lord Robert Baratheon and his younger brother, Stannis. They’d just had another son the year before as well, little Renly. Of course, Father blamed Tywin Lannister. Apparently the man is conspiring with the gods now, or perhaps sea monsters that drag ships under water, who knows.”
Harry considered that. “I actually like the name Renly…Prince Renly Targaryen. I like it.”
Rhaegar laughed and kissed him again. “The point is I am still unmarried, still not betrothed and Father’s plans to find me a wife have failed.”
Harry smiled in satisfaction. “No one will be as good for you as I am.” He declared.
“It seems even the gods know it too. Why else would Lord Baratheon fail to find a suitable wife for me in Essos despite the blood of old Valyria still being strong over in Volantis? The gods conspire against them and in our favour. We will usher in a new age of the dragon, Haradarian, I am more certain than ever that the prophecy refers to us both. Even the gods are on our side.”
Harry pulled Rhaegar’s head back down and kissed him, playing his tongue along his brother’s and teasing his hair with his fingers.
“I’ve waited so long for this. For you.” Rhaegar declared when they next broke apart for air. Harry was too breathless to reply, which didn’t get any better when Rhaegar pushed up his sleeping tunic and kissed his belly. “I love you.”
“Love you.” Harry managed to force out as his body was assaulted by hormones and the pleasure of having Rhaegar’s lips on his skin.
“How much practice did you have?” Rhaegar asked him seriously.
“Not much.” Harry admitted. “A couple of girls and I did take a boy or two, but I wouldn’t let anyone take me. I think I hurt those boys more than anything else.”
“Did the boys or any of the girls suck you?”
“Wh…what?” Harry asked confusedly. “Suck me? Suck me where?”
Rhaegar grinned and he rolled over to his bedside table and he took the candle burning there and lit several more on either side of his bed.
“I want to see you properly when I do this.” He declared as he came back, pushing Harry’s tunic right up to his chest and removing his smallclothes. “You’re so beautiful.”
“Not as beautiful as you are.”
Rhaegar laughed. “No one in the Seven Kingdoms or beyond could compare to your beauty, Harry. Not even me. Half the Lords and their sons want you as a lover, with your midnight hair and large, emerald eyes, not to mention this slim, supple body of yours. I’m too bulky and muscular for most of their tastes.”
“How do you know that?” Harry demanded angrily, smarting from the disrespect shown to him that he would be a mere lover of anyone when he was a Prince.
“I’ve heard some of them muttering at tourneys, the muttering only got worse when you vanished as no one knew where you were, there were even rumours going around that some Lord had had you kidnapped to be his paramour. Of course, they all pray that I haven’t heard them when they spot me, but I have heard them, though I act like I haven’t. That was the hardest part of hearing them speaking of you like that when you’re to be my married Husband. They will learn soon enough. I remember every single one of them and I will not favour them easily when we have the Iron Throne.”
Harry frowned, not sure how to take the news that people were seeing him as a mere catamite, a paramour for others to use as they saw fit. He needed to start making a better name for himself. He refused to be remembered in history as just someone that somebody else wanted to fuck.
“Do not look so angry, brother. They will never be able to have you.” Rhaegar comforted him. “You’re all mine.”
Harry’s thought process was cut off when Rhaegar kissed at his inside thighs, causing him to make a soft ‘oh’ of sighed pleasure. Rhaegar smiled into his leg at the sound as he kissed down to his knee and then back up, right to the very sensitive spot high up his thigh.
“Ser Arthur Dayne has said that you can squire for him.” Rhaegar told him. “He’s already training you, why not squire for him too. That is if you still wish to be knighted.”
“Uh?” Harry grunted, confused.
Rhaegar laughed. “Perhaps this isn’t the best time to engage your brain. Just lay back and relax for me, Harry.”
Harry lay back down on the soft, goose down feather pillows and he let Rhaegar kiss up and down his inside thighs, switching legs and nibbling at irregular intervals. When Harry was fully hard, Rhaegar sat up and went digging through his things again. He came back with a small jar of animal fat in his hand.
“What’s that for?” Harry asked lazily.
“You didn’t use fat when you took the boys in Oldtown? No wonder they were pained.” Rhaegar told him.
“I used bath oil.” Harry said with narrowed eyes. “I thought we were waiting for our wedding night for that, though. But if you want to push that ahead of schedule and take me now, I am not complaining, I hardly have a maidenhead to lose.”
Rhaegar gave him a lusty look, but shook his head. “No. We will wait for our wedding night, but I want to suck you.”
“With animal fat?” Harry asked sceptically.
“It’ll help.” Rhaegar said confidently. “And it’ll taste much better for me than bath oil.”
Harry nodded and he didn’t argue with his brother. If Rhaegar thought that animal fat would help, it likely would. Rhaegar had been preparing for their wedding night for years, practising and learning to make sure that he was getting it right and that he would never harm him. Rhaegar knew more about these things than he himself did.
Of course Harry couldn’t help the noises he made or how his hips bucked when Rhaegar held the fat in his hand until it softened and melted a little before he smeared it on Harry’s cock, all the way from base to tip.
Panting a little, he looked down his body at Rhaegar, who was watching him closely with a possessive smile on his face. Harry was watching as Rhaegar lowered his head to his cock and he bit into his own hand to prevent the scream as the hot, tight mouth of Rhaegar slipped easily down his cock and swallowed around him.
His free hand clenched the bed sheets below him, his heels dug into his feather mattress and he wriggled and writhed, making soft, muffled noises as his teeth bit into the skin of his hand. Rhaegar slipped down lower and Harry clenched his teeth harder as he screamed as quietly as he could as his body was wracked with a pleasure that was unrivalled in all of his, admittedly limited, experiences.
Rhaegar’s throat was soft and hot as he moved his mouth over him and the pressure when he sucked or swallowed had Harry shivering or bucking with soft little moans and groans. He was aware of Rhaegar watching him, but he didn’t care, he couldn’t control himself even if he had cared about what he looked like to his older brother, he was far too overwhelmed and the sensations were unlike anything he’d ever felt before and his reactions were completely uncontrollable.
Rhaegar started touching his inside thighs again, stroking and trailing his fingertips over the sensitive skin gently, teasingly, and Harry cried out, removing his hand and biting his bottom lip instead as he realised that he was getting louder the more that Rhaegar sucked. He covered his mouth with his bitten hand and clenched his other hand tighter in the sheets until his knuckles whitened and his fingers mottled.
“Rhaegar!” He cried out after a very hard, very pleasurable suck caused him to buck his hips reflexively.
He moved both hands to grip Rhaegar’s unbound, silver hair, tugging and panting quickly, barely getting any air, but he didn’t care, he never wanted the sensation of Rhaegar’s mouth on him to end.
He curled up over Rhaegar’s head, panting and mewling as Rhaegar sucked him closer and closer to completion. He wrapped his legs around Rhaegar’s chest and pulled his knees up under his brother’s armpits and he squeezed them with the next wail.
His orgasm hit him suddenly and with almost no warning at all as his entire body spasmed and he yelled out his brother’s name, tugging Rhaegar’s hair hard. He shivered and shook as he emptied himself into Rhaegar’s mouth before falling back, boneless and completely sated. Rhaegar had pleasured him so much more than any of the paid girls or boys he’d had in Oldtown and it hadn’t even been full sex. He couldn’t wait for their wedding night now. If it was even half as good as he’d experienced here tonight then he was not going to be moving from this bed.
Rhaegar curled up next to him and smoothed his hair away from his sweaty face, looking down at him adoringly.
“I just knew that I’d get addicted to watching you like that.” Rhaegar told him, touching his hip with one hand and his belly gently with the other.
Harry yawned, very tired now all of a sudden and he hummed sleepily, contentedly.
“I can’t wait until we’re married.” He said happily.
Rhaegar laughed gruffly, his throat raw. “Neither can I. Nor for when we have the Iron Throne. You’d be able to stay in my bed and no one could say a thing about it. I would be able to touch you publically, I’d be able to kiss you and fuck you whenever the mood struck us. I will approach Jon, Lewyn and Arthur and I will get them to act as our witnesses and as soon as they do, we’ll be married as soon as I’m able to manage it. I have a marriage cloak already, Mother gave it to me last year, just before Steffon sailed for Essos, likely in the hopes of pushing me along to find a wife sooner, but I think your old cloak will suffice. It’s more important that you wear my cloak at the end of the ceremony.”
“We’re swapping Targaryen for Targaryen anyway, it’s not as if the symbolism will matter much, it’s the same house.” Harry yawned wider. “But your cloak will be bigger and warmer. I want to keep it always.”
Rhaegar smiled happily and bent down to kiss him properly, on the mouth. Harry sighed happily.
“I suppose I better go before I fall asleep here with you.”
“I don’t want you to go.” Rhaegar groaned before he sat up. He bent over him again and kissed him before pulling down his sleeping tunic and sliding his smallclothes back onto him.
“I’ll see you on the morrow.” Harry sighed, even as he didn’t move a muscle.
Rhaegar kissed him again. “Go on, before the Kingsguard start another shift patrolling the corridors.”
Harry groaned pathetically but he sat up and swung himself over the side of the bed.
“We better be married before the end of this turn or I’m not going to be able to help myself.” He told Rhaegar as he stood, hissing as his bare feet touched cold stone.
Rhaegar cupped his hand around Harry’s bum and squeezed.
“Don’t fret so, brother. I’ll be sure to marry us together by the end of the week after tonight.” He laughed.
Harry chuckled too before he bent back over the bed and kissed Rhaegar passionately and lingeringly. He pulled the top sheet over Rhaegar and tucked him in.
“Go back to sleep now.” Harry told him.
“I wish you were staying here.”
“I wish that too, but it’s too dangerous while Father is still King. Just get some more rest and I’ll see you tomorrow, my love.”
Harry padded back to his own room and snuggled under the sheets, wriggling about to warm himself up. He smiled to himself in the darkness and he sighed happily. He’d be married to Rhaegar very soon and after tonight, he was certain that Rhaegar would definitely be able to please him, he just hoped that he could please Rhaegar in return. He fell asleep and he dreamed of Rhaegar’s mouth on him again, he had very pleasant dreams that night.
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Over the next week, Harry got more and more excited, he didn’t know exactly when it had started, but very suddenly one day he noticed that Ser Arthur and Prince Lewyn were always near him, and they were always watching him closely. It had clicked that Rhaegar had spoken to them, that he had told them of their plan to marry, and they had not gone immediately running to King Aerys. They could trust the both of them and that was the greatest feeling in the world.
He tried to carry on as normal, keeping to his usual routine and performing his regular duties as a Prince, but it was difficult knowing that his wedding was coming up and later that same day, after they’d supped with the three other members of their family, Rhaegar followed him out of the royal solar and led him far away from their family and the on duty Kingsguard, to a small room that he locked after himself. Inside the room were Ser Arthur Dayne, Prince Lewyn Martell and Lord Jon Connington.
“Are you serious about going through with this?” Ser Arthur demanded as soon as the door was closed.
“Yes.” Rhaegar answered.
“Begging your pardon, my Prince, I wasn’t speaking to you.” Dayne said staring at Harry.
Harry blinked. “It was my idea.” Harry said confusedly before turning to Rhaegar. “Didn’t you mention that I was the one pushing you for marriage?”
“You’re not pushing for marriage. I want it as much as you do.”
“This isn’t a jape?” Jon Connington asked, looking shocked and…oddly crushed.
“No.” Rhaegar said seriously. “The three of you are here because Haradarian and I have spoken about it and we have decided that you three are the only ones that we can absolutely trust with this delicate matter.”
“You’re both men!” Ser Arthur raged. “You’re Princes! You have a duty to the realm to provide heirs for the royal line!”
“Don’t you think that we’ve thought of all of this and more over the last four years?!” Harry demanded. “Of course we have and we’ve tried, but we love one another! I will not be parted from Rhaegar and we’ll be having this wedding with or without you!”
“Tonight.” Rhaegar added firmly.
“Tonight?” Harry asked, turning to look at him happily with a grin.
Rhaegar nodded. “Tonight, we’ll be married in the godswood. A marriage by the heart tree means that strictly, we don’t even need witnesses, but due to the nature of our marriage, it’ll be smoother if we do have witnesses to our union.”
“I can’t believe that you’re even considering this!” Dayne carried on, going red faced. “What about children?”
“We have Viserys.” Harry said, mentioning nothing of the prophecy that said he and Rhaegar would be able to have their own children. He wouldn’t mention that until he absolutely had to.
“The Targaryen line is suffering, Aerys had three sons, you can’t deprive him of two of them by marrying one another!” Jon burst out furiously.
“Watch us!” Harry hissed back. “The Targaryen line has been suffering for decades. The Blackfyre rebellion, the Dance of the Dragons, the Spring Sickness, the tragedy of Summerhall. The Targaryen line was failing long before Rhaegar and I were even born! So what if I want to marry the man I love instead of some stupid, insipid girl that I’ll barely tolerate, let alone love?”
“So you’ll leave the weight of the entire Targaryen line on Viserys’ young shoulders?” Arthur asked them.
Harry sighed. “We were thinking of adopting Viserys as our own son. He’s still young enough.”
“Do you plan to assassinate the King? Your own Father.” Lewyn spoke up for the first time.
“No!” Harry burst out, aghast at the very thought of killing his own Father.
“With the way he’s carrying on, we won’t need to.” Rhaegar added more calmly. “He’s sick and he’s completely mad. He’s killing himself by not accepting medicine or even bathing. He’s becoming more frail by the day and there is nothing that we can do, we’re watching him die before our eyes and he is refusing our help.”
“I’m not even going to try anymore.” Harry sighed. “I offered to make him some medicine for his cough, but he accused me of trying to poison him and threatened to have me burnt alive if I mentioned it again.”
“He’s gone back to threatening your life?” Rhaegar asked angrily.
Harry nodded. “I guess two and a half years away in Oldtown only warranted a little over a week of being pleased that I was back. I was only trying to help, Rhaegar. I know I have a lead link, but I’d never poison him. I only studied poisons in the first place to try and find remedies to the more common poisons, just in case. I was just curious about it.”
“You don’t have to explain yourself or your decision to study for your lead link! Just because you’ve learnt about poisons and how to make them does not make you a common murderer, Haradarian and I won’t have him threatening your life as if you were one. We’re going to Dragonstone.” Rhaegar said firmly. “We leave on the morrow, at first light.”
“Unless he forbids it again.” Harry sighed.
“I don’t give a fuck if he does forbid it, tonight you will become my Husband. We sail for Dragonstone on the morrow.” Rhaegar said, his voice rising slightly in his anger.
Harry nodded and he turned to hug Rhaegar around the middle, he sighed and rested his head against Rhaegar’s chest.
“I love you.”
“I love you too. But we got off track.” Rhaegar sighed before turning to the three other men. “The issue here is not why we’re marrying and you can’t stop us. One way or another we will be married tonight. The issue is if you will witness for us or not.”
“He is a boy of fifteen, he’s not yet a man!” Jon said harshly. “If you want a man to marry, then find an actual man, Rhaegar.”
“It’s not just any man I want, Jon.” Rhaegar said calmly, trying to swallow back his anger. “I only want Harry. Man or woman, it wouldn’t matter. Harry is the only one who can turn my head and keep my interest. It’s him or no one in my opinion and as I’m expected to marry, and soon, it has to be Harry.”
“Have you even been with another man?” Ser Arthur demanded of Harry.
“Yes. Women too, in Oldtown. The women were…unpleasant.” Harry said with a scrunched up face while Rhaegar snorted behind him and tried to cover it up, Harry still turned and frowned at him before turning back. “I don’t think the boys I had liked me very much either. I hate whores, all they want is money and they offer no real practice or pleasure. It’s hard to take someone, or learn from them, when you know they don’t actually like you and only want your coin.”
“You don’t need any whores now.” Rhaegar told him.
“No.” Harry smiled and turned back around in Rhaegar’s arms to look at the three angry men. “We’re not asking you to like or even accept what we’re doing. We know our family’s culture and traditions sicken most other people in the Seven Kingdoms, particularly the Faith, and Rhaegar and I being together probably twice as much. We’re just asking for your trust and your help, please. We trust the three of you more than anyone else, we class you as our friends and we’re asking for your help. You only need to witness our marriage, nothing more.”
“Damn you both to the seven hells.” Lewyn cursed before thrusting a hand through his hair. “Alright, I’ll help, but only because I love you, my little friend.” He directed at Harry.
Harry grinned the sun shaming smile that hurt his face and he rushed over to hug Lewyn Martell happily.
“Thank you! I appreciate this so much.”
“Just…just promise me that this is what you truly want. That no one has pushed you into this and that you’re happy.”
“No one has forced me into this, especially not Rhaegar. He had to keep reminding me that we had to wait. If you want to ask if anyone has pushed the other into this, you want to ask Rhaegar.” Harry laughed.
“You were too young.” Rhaegar said sternly. “You were eleven!”
“I just didn’t want to be apart from you. I had to run to Oldtown to make myself behave.”
“I thought you left because…” Arthur trailed off before he spoke treason.
“Because Father was threatening to burn me alive on public display because I’m a false Targaryen?” Harry asked, his voice trembling only slightly with suppressed emotion, but still Prince Lewyn’s arms tightened comfortingly around him. “I did. But I was planning to leave for Oldtown before Duskendale, remember? I announced my intentions at the tourney at Lannisport celebrating Viserys’ birth, but I wanted to wait until after my twelfth name day, but it took so long for Father to agree to let me travel to Oldtown. Then Duskendale happened and I felt that I couldn’t leave, but then Father came back and started threatening my life, so I sort of had to go, but I was productive about it.” He explained, fingering the twenty odd links of the chain around his neck in a nervous gesture.
Ser Arthur sighed. “Fine, I’ll help, but I don’t approve of this. Two men have absolutely no business being married together.”
Harry went to him next and hugged him, accepting an awkward pat to the head.
“You don’t have to accept it or approve of it, I’ve said. You just have to help us. We want to be married to one another. The Targaryen’s are over.” He said sadly. “I don’t like it, but it’s the truth. There are five of us left alive. Five from a whole family. Even if Rhaegar and I do marry women and have a few children each, we’re only delaying the inevitable. Our family line has ended and it ended as soon as our ancestors turned against one another and fought each other into depletion. How many dragons died in the Dance of Dragons? Two years of Targaryen against Targaryen and sixteen dragons dead. Our line started dying when the dragons did. We are of dragon blood and we have no dragons. The winters are longer and colder since the last dragon died and the Targaryens have been in decline ever since. Rhaegar and I would need twenty sons each and we’d need to take over more land than our family currently holds for them to own in order to bring our line back into prominence. Our time is over.”
“He’s right.” Rhaegar interrupted the long, dead silence that followed. “Our family is at an end, we have no bastards, no out branches of the family, no cadet lines, no lesser houses, there is just us two, Viserys, a mad old man and a down beaten woman who has had more stillbirths and miscarriages than any woman should be forced to live with. We’re at an end. Why shouldn’t Harry and I be happy? We can’t do anything to help our line, our ancestors have destroyed it irreparably by warring with one another. We want to marry and be happy and no one would ever make me happier than Harry.”
“He’s your brother.” Jon tried.
Rhaegar actually glared at him. “Are you insinuating that I’m simple minded, Jon?” He growled.
“Of course not, Rhaegar, but he is!” Jon said, almost a little too fervently and Harry wondered then and there if Jon actually loved his brother a little bit too. That made the hideous jealousy that he carried around with him flare, as it always did when he thought that someone might try to seduce Rhaegar away from him, and he strode to his brother and hugged him tight in a show of possession. Rhaegar hugged him back just as tightly, bending slightly to kiss his head.
“I know that he’s my brother, the Seven damn you, Jon! Don’t you think I’ve tried to talk myself out of it over these last four years? That I haven’t tried to ignore my feelings and let him have a normal life? He doesn’t want that and neither do I and neither of us can help how we feel about one another, Jon! I love him and for some reason I have yet to find, he loves me too.”
“Don’t sell yourself so short, Rhaegar! You’re a beautiful, talented, intelligent man, of course I love you. We may not have planned for this, but it has happened.” Harry said to his brother before turning to the others in the room. “We couldn’t have planned for it to happen, of course not, but we’ve always been very close and along the way, we fell in love. You’re either with us, or you’re going to sell us out to our Father, in which case we’re likely to be executed, so either way house Targaryen will lose two sons, at least this way, our way, we get to live and be happy with one another.”
“Your father is looking for a wife for both of you.” Ser Arthur told them. “He rants about it daily.”
“We know that, but he’s never going to find one in the Seven Kingdoms and Steffon Baratheon couldn’t find one in the free cities, what can he do? He’s never going to settle for second best for either of us, so unless he and Mother actually do have a daughter, it’s of little consequence now.”
“And if they do have a daughter?” Lewyn asked seriously.
“We’ll be married tonight. It’s too late.” Harry said. “Even if they announced, by some miracle, that they were having another child tomorrow, it’ll be fourteen or fifteen years before she’s a flowered woman of child bearing age and that’s only if they have a daughter at all and not another son. By then Rhaegar will be five-and-thirty and I’ll be thirty. We’ll be too old and she much too young.”
“We’ve made up our minds. We will be married.” Rhaegar said firmly. “We’ll meet you in the godswood at the second hour of the morning. I’ve prepared everything and the ceremony will take half an hour at the most. Tomorrow we’ll sail for Dragonstone as I will not risk Harry’s life with that mad man. It is unlikely that we will be coming back before he is dead.”
“I can’t believe we’re going to be a part of this.” Ser Arthur raged, stomping a few paces forward, turning and then stomping back, his enamelled white scale armour clanking with every step. “A part of the downfall of the Targaryen line.”
“The Targaryen line started dying when our dragons did.” Harry reiterated firmly. “Our fate was tied to theirs. Our lives have always been tied to them! Strange isn’t it that our family only really started failing after the last dragon died?”
“There must be some wild dragons left, beyond Asshai in the shadows of Stygai or even in the wilds of Sothoryos.” Lewyn said. “We can save you if we find some dragons!”
“Isn’t there a horde of dragon eggs on Dragonstone?” Ser Arthur asked, catching on.
“The rumours are greatly exaggerated, there are only three.” Rhaegar sighed. “They’re eons old and fossilised to stone. Even if the knowledge on hatching dragons wasn’t lost to us and we did know how to hatch them, they likely never would.”
“They’re beautiful.” Harry sighed. “Green and bronze, white and gold and black and red. They’re always hot to the touch, but Rhaegar’s right, they’re stone and unlike to hatch even if we knew what to do with them. They’re kept in the vault on Dragonstone and only a Targaryen knows how to open it.”
“There have to be living dragons somewhere still.” Lewyn said desperately. “I’ll sail out tomorrow and go all the way to Asshai. I’ll find a live dragon for you!”
“What will you tell Father?” Rhaegar asked pointedly.
Harry snorted. “He’ll be gone for two days and Father won’t even remember who he is.” He scoffed.
“It’s a suicide venture.” Rhaegar sighed. “I’ve accepted that my family has come to its end, I just want to be happy for the remainder of it.”
“Me too. Now, I am going to go and bathe, you had better too. I’m not marrying a peasant farmer so I don’t want you to smell like one.”
Rhaegar smiled at him and Harry flitted past him, calling a dozen serving girls to fill a bath for him as soon as he made it to his bed chamber. He laid out his very best, and favourite, silk doublet. It was his most expensive too being inlaid with over two hundred rubies of varying sizes to shape out the Targaryen three headed dragon sigil, some as big as his knuckle, others as small as a droplet.
His best breeches were also black silk and of course he was going to wear his favourite black leather, ruby studded, ankle boots. He had yet to grow out of them, but they were becoming a little tarnished and ragged, he would need new ones soon enough. He was going to have them made exactly the same, he was even thinking of having the rubies taken from his old boots to use on his new ones, to give them a sense of sentimentality. It seemed ridiculous, but he was very attached to these boots.
“You.” He pointed at one of the serving girls filling the wooden tub as he walked into the bathing chamber. She almost swooned and passed out onto the floor. “I want my hair cut once I’m finished bathing, get someone for that.”
Harry stripped off, ignoring the eyes of the serving girls on him as he slipped into the boiling hot water. He was too nervous, too excited to care if they were seeing him. He was getting married tonight and he wanted to be extra clean and well dressed.
The girls flitted around him, finding excuses to stay in the room and Harry didn’t care enough to send them away as he got one of them to sponge off his back and another to wash his hair for him.
He sighed happily as the boiling water warmed him from the inside and he was pampered by numerous small, soft hands.
He still didn’t know how the whole pregnancy was going to work, or how in the hell he was going to bring back the dragons with Rhaegar, but at least he was doing it with his brother. If things all went badly, and the prophecy wasn’t actually about them after all, then at least they truly loved one another and it wouldn’t matter so much, but they’d lied pretty badly to the three other men who were involved in this little ceremony. They hadn’t given up on their family at all, just the opposite in fact, but they could have hardly told them about Harry potentially being able to carry and birth a baby with his own body, especially not when they had no idea how it was to work or even what the prophecy had meant and could not answer any questions about it. They would have believed, wrongly, that the madness of Aerys had been passed down to his two older sons also.
After his bath, Harry wrapped up in a sheet of linen to dry himself off and he sat on a stool as a grizzled old man cut his hair for him while a serving girl held a mirror up so that Harry could see what was being done. Once he was happy with his cut, he thanked the man, pressed a silver coin into his hand for a job well done and then dismissed him.
He got the girls to sweep up the cut hair and brush his body of stray strands before he dismissed them too so that he could dress. They left giggling and chatting happily and excitedly. He sighed, they were probably going to go and tell all the other servants of what he looked like without his clothes. Serving girls never changed.
He dressed in never before worn smallclothes before pulling on his brand new silk breeches. The silk doublet went on easily and Harry took several deep breaths. He smiled as he smoothed down his doublet and laid his Maester’s chain over the top. He was marrying Rhaegar tonight, in just a few short hours.
He went back to his rooms and he stayed in them, waiting, trying to distract himself as the sky got darker outside his window. He read several passages from an old scroll about medicine and child birth while he played with his chain anxiously as he waited. He already had all the potions and medicines that he needed for child birth ready. Or at least the ones used when a woman was pregnant. He’d made several additional potions and pastes that he thought that he might need and he made sure to pack them all into the solid wooden chest that he was going to take tomorrow, when he and Rhaegar went to Dragonstone.
All too soon, Prince Lewyn Martell walked into his room unannounced and gestured for him to follow him. Harry stood up, swung his cloak around his shoulders and he hurried excitedly to the side of his friend.
They made it out of Maegor’s Holdfast easily enough, but Harry’s heart was in his throat as they had to pass White Sword Tower. The tower where all the members of the Kingsguard slept when they weren’t on duty and there would be a few of them in that Tower right now and it faced out into the courtyard, the yard that also contained the entrance to Maegor’s Holdfast. If any one of them looked out of their windows, he would be seen and they would possibly raise the alarm.
“My Prince, quickly.” Lewyn chided him.
Harry followed the Kingsguard quickly to the serpentine steps. He stuck close to Prince Lewyn and together they avoided the city gold cloaks on patrol around the curtain wall battlements of the Red Keep. They made it to the godswood with no issue and it was eerily silent and still in the dead of night.
It was an acre of black cottonwood, alder and elm trees, all close together and it felt oppressive and magical here. Harry loved it in the godswood and when Rhaegar went on one of his trips to the ruins of Summerhall and didn’t want Harry to be with him, Harry came here and he spent the night looking up at the same stars that Rhaegar was looking up at, letting himself float and bob on the magical energy that surrounded him only ever in the godswood. It always helped him believe that he was closer to Rhaegar when he did so.
He saw Rhaegar standing at the heart tree and he ran the last few feet to him, wrapping his arms around him tightly, smiling up at him. Rhaegar cupped his face and smiled just as happily down at him. They turned to face the great oak, covered in smokeberry vines, the base of the tree obscured by the beautiful red dragon’s breath flowers that Harry adored. He kept a vase of the fresh cut flowers in his bed chamber at all times, they were exchanged for fresh flowers weekly.
Ser Arthur Dayne was acting as their officiator and Lewyn Martell was acting as if he were Harry’s Father while Jon stood to the side of Rhaegar with a face like thunder.
“Are you both sure of this?” Ser Arthur asked.
“I am.” Harry answered.
“Yes, please do this for us.” Rhaegar said softly. “We’ve been waiting for this for years, please, do not deny us now that we are here, so close to being bonded together.”
“We really do want this.” Harry said as the godswood remained silent. “We love one another. Please, if you can’t do this for us, then leave. We will not hold it against you, we know that we ask a lot of you, but please, if you cannot be here, keep our secret as if it were your own, I beg you.”
There was a deep, oppressive silence in which no one moved and no one dared to speak. Then Ser Arthur shifted and faced more centrally, his back to the great oak heart tree.
“Who comes before the Old Gods this night?” Ser Arthur asked tonelessly, starting the marriage ritual.
“Prince Haradarian, of house Targaryen, he comes here to be wed. He comes to beg the blessing of the Gods. Who comes to claim him?” Lewyn replied and Harry could have wept in joy as he realised that they really were going to marry him and Rhaegar together.
“Rhaegar, of house Targaryen, Prince of Dragonstone, Heir to Kings Landing and the Iron Throne. Who gives him?” Rhaegar answered strong and firm.
“Prince Lewyn, of house Martell.”
“Prince Haradarian, will you take this man as your Husband?”
“I take this man.” Harry said happily with no hesitancy.
Rhaegar smiled at him and held out his hand. Harry took his hand and squeezed it. They knelt before the great oak and they both bowed their heads in silent reflection and prayer for several long, silent minutes. Harry begged that the old gods accept them, that they blessed their union and that he fell pregnant soon with Rhaegar’s child. He begged them not to sully their love just because they were both men. He asked for their blessing and their protection in the years to come, for himself, for Rhaegar, for their three witnesses and their future children too and finally he begged that King Aerys never, ever found out so that he would never have the chance to null their marriage and ruin their lives completely.
He felt a slight tingling in his fingers, the sign he always took to mean that the old gods had heard his prayers, that they had heard him and had blessed him. His breathing came faster, the thick air hard for him to breathe as the magic here concentrated in the very air. Rhaegar, just beside him, their hands linked, seemed to not even feel the magic that he did, he was breathing normally, easily, as were the three other men with them. It was only him that was affected by the swell of magic, the air that felt too thick for him to breathe as he listened to the whispers of the trees around him, as if the old gods themselves were speaking to him.
He sat back, almost gasping with no sound, and Rhaegar followed him, his older brother stood, pulling him to his feet easily and with one fluid motion, Rhaegar tugged off Harry’s cloak, letting it drop to the leaf strewn ground, and then he swung his own heavy, beautiful cloak around his shoulders, tying it at his throat and wrapping Harry in it to make him warmer in the cool night air, but Harry had not shivered from the breeze, but from the thickening air, the whispers in his ears and the growing tingling in his fingers as the magic swirled around him like a tangible force.
“I love you, Harry.” Rhaegar told him softly, breaking the silence of the godswood and bringing Harry from his thoughts and back into the real world.
“I love you…Husband.” Harry replied and he delighted in seeing Rhaegar’s dark purple eyes gleam with lust and pleasure at that announcement.
Rhaegar bent his head and kissed him. Only a short, hard pressure of lips, but still it discomforted the three men watching them. Again Rhaegar seemed to not feel the build-up of magic within him as their lips touched, he had no reaction while Harry felt as if he had been hit by lightning. Another sign that the old gods accepted their marriage, their bond.
“We need to be ready to leave for Dragonstone, are you packed?” Rhaegar asked him, ignoring the three others and that Harry himself was slightly dazed.
Harry nodded slowly. “I packed everything that I need to take.”
“Are…are you going to have a bedding?” Jon asked.
“We’re going to consummate, of course, but no feast and no bedding for obvious reasons.” Rhaegar answered. “This needs to be kept as secret as we can possibly make it. You tell no one, you don’t even speak aloud of this matter to yourself, or you’ll face me.”
Harry, still hand in hand with Rhaegar, waved bemusedly to the three men as he was pulled away by Rhaegar. As soon as they were out of the godswood, he could breathe again, pulling in the air deeply and easily, the tingling in his fingers easing off and the whispering from the trees cut out as soon as he was away from the acre of ancient trees. He said nothing, recovering from his trip to the godswood, as he was pulled back over the serpentine steps, hurriedly past White Sword Tower and they stole back into Maegor’s Holdfast. He was so excited that he could have bounced back to Rhaegar’s bedchamber. He wasn’t nervous exactly, but he was a little apprehensive as Rhaegar shut the door to his bed chamber and bolted it.
“Are you alright? You look worried.” Rhaegar said softly.
“I’m okay, you know how the godswood affects me. I am worried about our night a little bit.” Harry replied. “I’m fine, though, truly. I’ve bedded others, but I’ve never been bedded myself, so there is that anticipation in finding out exactly what it’s like.”
Rhaegar smiled and picked him up, much to Harry’s surprise as he gasped audibly.
“You’re getting taller.” Rhaegar told him. “But you’re still so tiny in my arms, you’re still so beautiful.”
Harry grinned happily at the compliment. “I might be as tall and as beautiful as you one day, once I’ve grown some more.”
“We’ve been through this, my love. You are much more beautiful than I am, though you’ll never be taller.” Rhaegar told him as he sat himself on his bed, Harry straddling his lap.
“I might be! You don’t know that.” Harry protested with a wide, teasing smile.
“It’s no matter if you do grow taller than me.” Rhaegar told him kindly before twisting and putting Harry’s back to the downy feather mattress. “I’ll still love you.”
Harry smiled and looped his arms around Rhaegar’s neck. He kissed Rhaegar and with that one move, their simmering passions were ignited and started boiling over.
Rhaegar easily took over and Harry allowed him, resting against the pillows and he let Rhaegar kiss him furiously, barely able to take a breath before Rhaegar was kissing him again.
The cloak came off first, Rhaegar treated it gently after Harry protested his rough treatment of it. His boots were treated the same, he’d worn them to death and Rhaegar knew that they were his favourites, and so too was his Maester’s chain, which was pooled carefully onto the table beside the bed. His doublet was eased off carefully, Rhaegar making absolutely sure that none of the large rubies caught his face or tangled in his hair, but his brand new silk breeches were all but torn off of his body and the new smallclothes that he’d chosen to wear were cut off with a simple swipe of Rhaegar’s favourite dagger.
When he was completely bare, Rhaegar just sat back and looked at him, his eyes tracing every line and dip of his body. After a full, silent minute of this, Harry squirmed and tried to cover himself.
“Stop it.” He complained, his cheeks reddening.
Rhaegar grinned and gripped his wrists and pulled them away, pinning them up by his head.
“You’re absolutely beautiful. Don’t cover yourself in my bed, Harry. You’re so slender and willowy, more for speed than strength, you’d be formidable in light, swift armour.”
“I haven’t seen you fully bare yet, I want to see my Husband.” Harry complained. Rhaegar laughed.
“Harry, you’ve seen me bare more times than you’ve seen me dressed.” His brother wildly exaggerated. “You’ve even washed my hair and back for me while I’ve been bathing.”
“The water obscured my view and every time I’ve seen you undressed, you’ve still had your smallclothes on.”
Rhaegar shook his head with a chuckle, but he let go of his wrists and he undressed slowly.
“You’re teasing me.” Harry protested, even as he licked his lips as Rhaegar’s doublet came off and bared his glorious, muscled chest.
Harry reached out and touched it, playing his fingers over the muscles that danced under Rhaegar’s skin.
“It’s no wonder that the serving girls fight each other every time you call for a bath.” Harry said. “You know that young one almost died from her injuries. You’re a hazard.”
Rhaegar laughed deeply, his voice already gone husky. “Are you not going to mention the poor tailor’s apprentice who was forced to touch you as you were measured for your new garb when you came home from the Citadel?”
“I didn’t like him. He touched me much more than was strictly necessary.” Harry complained.
“He was telling all the other little apprentice boys and the serving girls how soft and smooth you were. I told him that if he said one more word then I’d have his tongue ripped out. Poor thing, he almost wet himself in fear.”
“The tailor wasn’t much better. I want a new one.”
“I’m afraid you are just too irresistible, my love. I’m afraid that all tailors and their little apprentice boys will react the same to you.”
Harry sighed. “There’s only one thing for it, Rhaegar. You’ll have to train to become a tailor so that I can have you fit me for new clothes.”
Rhaegar smiled down on him and cupped his face with both hands. He bent down and kissed him soundly.
“I’d do anything for you, Harry. Anything.” He swore.
“I don’t expect you to become a tailor, though perhaps the next time I need new clothes you could sit in the room with me. Your sharp tongue and furious glares might dissuade anyone from touching me more than is needed.”
“Of course, you only need to ask and whatever it is, it’s yours.”
Harry nodded. “Then fuck me, brother. Let us consummate our marriage and make me your Husband truly.”
Rhaegar’s eyes were dark and heated as he bent his head to kiss him again. He tore off his own smallclothes and Harry saw his brother completely bare for the first time. He swallowed hard. His mouth dry as he stared at that glorious muscled body in its entirety.
“Now who’s staring, brother?” Rhaegar chuckled after a moment of silence.
Harry couldn’t answer, instead he reached out a small hand to touch that proud, jutting cock and he licked his lips subconsciously as he touched it gently, stroking his fingers over it and the silky, silver hair that grew around it. Rhaegar groaned at the touch and clamped Harry’s hand with his own, making him squeeze tighter. Rhaegar moved his hand on himself and it was Harry whimpering, as if Rhaegar were touching and stroking him in such a manner.
“Do you like that?” Rhaegar asked.
“It feels different touching yours to touching my own.” Harry said. “I do like it.”
He hadn’t really touched the boys in Oldtown either. He’d had a bit of a feel, but he’d been rough and uncaring, more curious about it than aroused so he had been a little heavy handed. Rhaegar was different, he touched him gently, reverently, as he stroked the silky soft skin of Rhaegar’s cock and he was very, very, painfully aroused while he did so.
Rhaegar groaned as Harry slid his hand all the way up and squeezed at the very tip of him, rolling the red head of him between his fingers and palm. He rubbed the head with his thumb, rolling it around just to hear Rhaegar’s husky voice catch in his throat as he threw his head back with pleasure.
Harry slid his hand back down, enjoying playing with Rhaegar this way. He had often fantasised and dreamed of how their wedding night would proceed…it was living up to his very high expectations thus far.
“Can I…can I lick it?” He asked tentatively.
Rhaegar’s eyes snapped open and Harry watched his throat bob as he swallowed. “Yes.” He replied so gruffly that it didn’t seem to be Rhaegar’s own voice.
Harry slid down to his belly and put his face on eye level with Rhaegar and he stared at it curiously, just looking at what another man’s cock looked like for several long moments. He played like a child finding a new toy as he pulled the skin all the way back to expose the head of Rhaegar and then he licked it. Tentatively at first, exploring, tasting. Rhaegar tasted musky, but clean. He smelt of the bath oil he’d used, the same one that Harry used himself, lemon oil imported from Dorne.
Harry licked with the tip of his tongue at first, then he used the flat of it and licked in long, broad strokes of his tongue. He turned his head and almost kissed Rhaegar, but instead he was just opening his mouth and running it up and down the length of Rhaegar’s cock, touching with his lips and his tongue too as he pushed it forward until it touched Rhaegar as he slid his open mouth up and down.
Rhaegar groaned and his large hands slid through Harry’s hair and held him still. Harry explored more, flicking his tongue over the head of Rhaegar, the tip catching the slit at the top of Rhaegar and his brother grunted and threw his head back. Harry couldn’t help himself, he did it again, then again and again until Rhaegar was making harsh, deep grunts in the back of his throat and his hips were moving subconsciously.
“Enough.” Rhaegar commanded as he pulled Harry away by his hair, moving him, rolling him right over onto his back and then Rhaegar’s mouth was on his, his tongue forcing its way into his mouth as his body covered his, pressing down heavily and Harry opened to Rhaegar like a bloom in the sun.
Harry could barely breathe as Rhaegar refused to let him catch his breath as they both panted, their chests heaving. Rhaegar was kissing him again before Harry could pull his ragged thoughts back into line and before he could suck in enough air.
Rhaegar pulled away from him and reached for his bedside table. He snatched back the jar of animal fat and a small vial of something else. It was the jar of fat he opened first and once again, he coated Harry with the partially melted fat. He brought his face down and Harry’s heart beat faster and faster as Rhaegar slid his mouth over him and Harry was taken over by the pleasures and tightness of Rhaegar’s hot mouth.
“Oh!” He groaned happily as Rhaegar slid easily to the base of him and then just as quickly, slid back up.
Rhaegar distracted him by sucking him as he opened the other vial and the smell of lemons reached him. Bath oil. His gut clenched tight as he knew what was going to happen and he moaned helplessly as Rhaegar’s fingers, two of them, rubbed and stroked over the entrance to his body gently, spreading the lemon oil all over him while his brother still sucked him.
“Rhaegar.” He breathed, not sure if he was begging for more or complaining at the overwhelming dual sensations of pleasure.
It was torturous as he bucked and writhed on the bed under the slow, painfully slow, preparations from Rhaegar. His brother continued to suck and tease him, but his finger was busy, dipping into him slightly before backing off and it was driving Harry mad.
When that single finger finally pushed into him, Harry was more than ready to accept it and he made a soft sound of pleasure as it sunk into him, stroking across his inner walls and touching places that had never, ever been touched before. He shivered from the sensations of it before a whimpering mewl was pulled from his throat by a particularly strong suck from Rhaegar which had been followed by a hard swallow.
Rhaegar’s finger had pulled out before, after a small pause, two of them pushed back into him. Harry gasped and he thrust his hips down onto those fingers to get them deeper as Rhaegar simultaneously sucked hard at the tip of him.
He rolled his hips so uncontrollably that he slipped free from Rhaegar’s mouth and he bemoaned the loss of that hot, wet suction, but the fingers more than made up for it as Rhaegar sat up, pinned his hip down and pushed his fingers into him harder, more firmly, and they touched something deep inside of him that had Harry rushing to clamp a hand over his own mouth to prevent the uncontrollable scream from bringing everyone in Maegor’s Holdfast running, particularly the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, Ser Gerold Hightower, who was on watch of the Holdfast tonight, taking over from Ser Arthur, who had abandoned his post for an hour to marry them in the godswood.
“You like that?” Rhaegar asked him, looking down on him with burning purple eyes. “You look so, so beautiful.”
“Please hurry, I don’t know how long I’ll last.” Harry whimpered, his body shivering again in pleasure as those fingers spread out inside him, stretching him.
Rhaegar grinned at him, all male pride and smugness and Harry threw his head back, Rhaegar’s enjoyment arousing him as much as the fingers stretching him open.
Those two fingers slid free of him and Harry forced his eyes to open and he watched Rhaegar splash more lemon oil over his hand and then he pressed them back to his entrance, this time three fingers pushed into him and he made soft noises as he kicked his heels out as he threw his head back with a deep groan.
His hands fisted the sheets and tugged at them hard, breathless pants falling from his mouth as he was stretched by three fingers that touched and stroked his insides and made him squirm in pleasure.
“Oh.” He panted, softly. “Rhaegar.”
Rhaegar bent down and kissed him, hard. He pushed his tongue into Harry’s mouth and Harry pushed his own tongue up and into Rhaegar’s, battling almost as they did with swords, but there was no shield that Harry could use to protect himself from these feelings. He was completely open to them and those feelings and sensations became too much and he broke the kiss by throwing his head back with a garbled scream that he tried to muffle with his own fist.
“I can’t wait until I can hear you scream unimpeded.” Rhaegar told him in that new, rough voice that Harry was coming to realise showed just how much Rhaegar was aroused.
Those three fingers pulled free suddenly and Harry clenched tightly, trying futilely to keep them inside of his body, to keep those amazing, very pleasurable feelings, but Rhaegar was already moving up and over him, kissing him hard, laying on him heavily. Harry shivered as he wrapped his arms around Rhaegar’s neck, fingers clutching his head and pulling on his silver hair, as he kissed Rhaegar back. Their tongues slid everywhere, their lips were everywhere and the wet noises were almost obscene, but they enflamed Harry, ramping his passions higher as he twisted and squirmed up into Rhaegar’s body, trying to touch as much of him as he possibly could, kissing faster and harder, twisting his head to get a better angle to accept Rhaegar’s tongue into his mouth and he let out soft, uncontrollable noises, little moans, small gasps, as his pleasure only grew.
Rhaegar ripped himself back from his mouth and he panted as if he were drowning, as if he would never get his breath back and he touched himself as Harry watched, stroking and pulling. Rhaegar found the vial of lemon oil with his other hand and he tipped it over himself, rubbing the oil in with his hand that was still stroking.
He dropped the vial and then he dropped himself back over Harry and he knew what was coming and he didn’t feel the slightest flicker of fear. Only anticipation, impatience and overwhelming pleasure that was so strong that he tried to urge Rhaegar to hurry up.
Harry felt Rhaegar touch the entrance to his body and he whimpered softly, too eager to join them together, to consummate their marriage, to wait much longer.
“I love you.” Rhaegar told him, staring right at him. “You’re beautiful like this, all flushed and glassy eyed.”
“Please.” Harry groaned and he barely recognised his own voice.
Rhaegar shifted his hips and the pressure increased and increased until Harry’s body gave way and Rhaegar just slid into him easily and without resistance.
The sharp pain was something that Harry had not been expecting and he cried out loudly, flinching and closing his eyes. Rhaegar’s fingers had been so pleasurable, but this was painful and he didn’t know if he could continue with it, but he was going to grit his teeth and endure it. He wanted to be married to Rhaegar and through consummation, no one could claim that their marriage was a farce. Only their Father could annul their marriage, it’s why they needed to keep it a secret until he was dead, but this pain was very sharp and it wiped away all pleasure from his mind as he softened almost instantly.
“The worst is over.” Rhaegar said softly and it was then that Harry realised that he was keeping still, that he wasn’t moving within him. “The first penetration is always the worst, just keep breathing, my love, it will pass, I swear.”
Rhaegar rubbed his belly gently before moving his hand to Harry’s now flaccid cock and he rubbed slowly and gently. Harry moaned softly as a small sliver of pleasure creeped back into his mind.
Rhaegar stayed still within him, rubbing him gently with increasing pressure and speed. Harry was fully hard again within minutes and he was the one moving now, rolling his hips and pushing himself back onto Rhaegar with loud gasps and a gut clenching spike of pleasure.
“There you go.” Rhaegar said softly, moving his own hips minimally and when Harry made only pleasured little sounds, he moved more firmly, pulled out a little more before pushing back in and Harry moaned loudly.
Rhaegar built up slowly and carefully to full thrusting and by that time, Harry felt only pleasure again as he rocked himself up into Rhaegar, finding a rhythm together so that they worked with one another to bring the maximum pleasure to each other, the pain of only a few minutes before was completely gone, replaced with the pleasure that Rhaegar was giving to him and the knowledge that they were married together now, by faith and by body.
Rhaegar stayed low over his body so that they could kiss and Harry knew that his brother was by no means using his full force or abilities. He would get a harder, deeper thrust if he sat up, but Rhaegar wanted to keep kissing him and the low angle was much more intimate.
For all the build-up and preparation, the actual act lasted a surprisingly short amount of time and though he was gasping, panting and covered in sweat, all too soon a white hot burst of absolute pleasure stole through him and he couldn’t even make a noise as his vision whited out and he went boneless as he orgasmed, clenching tight around Rhaegar, still buried deeply in his body.
He was aware that Rhaegar was holding him, was still moving within him, but he didn’t care. He was so very blissful that he just laid there, smiling slightly, watching Rhaegar’s face twist with pleasure, his mouth parted on his own moans and grunts, those purple eyes looking down at him sometimes, other times they were closed as Rhaegar groaned as he thrust into him, holding his hips or his waist tightly.
A hot wetness spilled inside him and Rhaegar grunted several times, holding himself very still, before he fell down on top of him and he laid still, his chest heaving as he gulped in air, his face speckled with droplets of sweat.
Harry wrapped his arms around him and he snuggled his face into Rhaegar’s neck. He yawned and settled down, resting as his heartbeat returned to a more normal level. He was asleep, cuddled up with Rhaegar, within mere minutes.
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When Harry slowly woke up again, taking his time to come around in the warm, soft bed, it was already morning and Rhaegar was still fast asleep. His brother-husband had moved off of the top of him and was instead sleeping beside him, their bodies curved together perfectly as Rhaegar held him around his waist.
Harry moved gently and he groaned as a dull ache made itself known in his lower back. He sat himself up and Rhaegar stirred beside him.
“We fell asleep.” Harry said roughly, his voice raw.
Rhaegar’s eyes opened and Harry saw exactly when he realised that it was already morning. He sat up and cursed.
“What time is it?”
“No idea, but if the sunlight is that bright from the back windows, then it’s closer to noon than daybreak.”
Rhaegar cursed again.
“I told you that it was too late to go to the library last night.” Harry said loudly.
Rhaegar looked at him and Harry winked. His brother laughed and hugged him tightly, finding his lips and kissing him soundly.
“I love you, Haradarian. My Husband.”
“I love you too, Rhaegar. Now, let’s go down and try to explain away our very late night as studying theories on dragon eggs. We have done that often enough in the past for it to be deemed an acceptable excuse.”
Harry got up and he cleaned himself off with a rag and a bowl of water before dressing himself in the clean clothes that he’d left in Rhaegar’s room for this very purpose.
He went down first and Rhaegar was going to follow him later. He was a little stiff, a bit pained, but he was so happy, so overjoyed, that he put it from his mind. It was sinking in that he was now married to Rhaegar, his love. They had consummated their marriage and now, no one could tear them apart, not unless somehow, their Father found out, but he was never going to, Harry was adamant about that.
He and Rhaegar trusted the three people who had been in on their marriage and he knew that not one of them would ever tell their Father on them. They just needed to hold out now until King Aerys died. In his professional, medical opinion, it would not be very long now. Aerys was becoming more and more unstable, he was getting sicker, he was getting more and more suspicious of Rhaegar which was straining their relationship and he had gone back to threatening Harry’s life, which caused Rhaegar’s relationship with their Father to break down even further.
Harry made it to the royal solar, where the noon meal was being served, they really had slept in late. Viserys immediately jumped up and ran to him. Harry picked him up with a contorted scowl and a hiss of pain, but he bit it back and he forced his scowl into a smile instead. It likely came out as more of a grimace, but he tried his best.
“You were not in your rooms this morning. The servants believed you to be gone again.” His Mother told him, visibly relieved to see that he was still here.
“I was in Rhaegar’s room.” Harry said easily, with not even a hint that what he had done was anything wrong. “He decided that it was a good idea to start looking into the legends of Valyria and we went to the library to study a theory that he had thought of, we took those scrolls back to Rhaegar’s room and we just fell asleep there very late. His theory fell through.”
“It could have worked!” Rhaegar said, striding into the room and acting as though he knew what was going on even though he’d likely been listening at the door.
“It didn’t, a whole night wasted.” Harry groaned.
“What theory did you investigate?” Their Father asked.
“Dragon eggs.” They said together before looking to one another and laughing.
“Turns out that the theory had already been practised.” Rhaegar sighed unhappily.
“At least we know that now, but I am not working on any more theories with you so late at night. I’m exhausted.”
Harry saw Ser Arthur and Prince Lewyn shift uncomfortably, but he ignored them. They alone in this room knew that he and Rhaegar were not studying any theories late last night and they knew, or could at least imagine, the real reason why they were both so exhausted still.
Rhaegar tore some bread and meat apart and Harry snatched some of the pieces and fed them to the three year old Viserys, still in his lap, who was very happy with the attention from his two big brothers.
Harry took his own dagger to a roasted carrot and he held it up to Viserys, who pushed it away with a frown.
“Eat your carrot.” Harry said sternly.
“I don’t want to.”
“Viserys.” Rhaegar said just as sternly, his voice deeper and more authoritative.
Viserys slumped and he opened his mouth for Harry to pop the piece of carrot in. Harry ate himself, but he and Rhaegar kept feeding Viserys between them.
Harry picked at the food, Rhaegar ate enough to feed an army and Viserys tried to get out of eating any carrots or mashed turnips while Harry forced him to eat them.
Harry ate an apricot, fed some grapes to Viserys and then he excused himself, passing Viserys to Rhaegar, who was still eating, and he went to put his things into Rhaegar’s room. They had decided that to remove any suspicions, Rhaegar would pack his ship up with all of their things while Harry played with Viserys and made himself seen so that no one could guess what they were doing. When the ship was ready, then Rhaegar would come back to collect him and they would leave quickly and quietly. They didn’t plan to come back for a few years.
He took his bags and the one single chest to Rhaegar’s room and he made absolutely sure that he’d packed everything that he wanted and needed to take before he went back to the royal solar and he touched his brother’s shoulder and gave him a small nod to show him that he’d done his part, it was now Rhaegar’s turn to do his part and load their things onto his ship.
“Viserys, do you want to play?” He asked his brother with a smile.
His brother nodded happily and Harry hefted him up and kissed his cheek. “Come on then.”
Harry took him out into the courtyard and he was aware of Ser Oswell Whent following them out and watching over them. Harry set Viserys to running, training up his speed and stamina, but making it a fun game so that Viserys didn’t really notice as Harry chased him. When he caught Viserys, he pretended to bite his neck like a rabid beast, making his brother screech with laughter before Harry let him go again, pretending that Viserys had managed to wriggle free of the beast’s grip, and let him run for a bit, then he’d start running after him again.
He noticed with pride that Viserys got faster with each catch and release and he started dodging and ducking to avoid Harry grabbing him. It didn’t help Harry that his lower back was so stiff and uncomfortable either, or he probably would have been doing better, but he didn’t mind. Viserys was happy and this was the last time that he’d be seeing or playing with Viserys for some years.
He wished again that they could take Viserys with them, but despite being their younger brother, they would be charged with the abduction of a royal Prince if their Father had the mind to claim as such and Harry wouldn’t put it past him to do so, not anymore…using it as a flimsy, meagre excuse to finally get his way to burn him alive and disinherit Rhaegar in favour of Viserys.
Their Mother came to collect Viserys for his lessons with Maester Mellciter with Ser Jon Darry escorting her. Harry hugged Viserys and gave him a kiss and he did the same to his Mother.
He stretched himself and sighed, looking at his own guard for the day, Ser Oswell.
“What do you think, Ser, where shall we go now?”
“That is up to you, my Prince. Where you go, I will follow.”
Harry hummed, thinking as he played with his Maester’s chain, considering his options. He needed to be seen, so he had to stay where others could easily see him, and it wouldn’t hurt to interact with the smallfolk a little before he left, so they wouldn’t forget him or his good deeds. He hummed to himself, his mind made up. “Perhaps out into the city then. I haven’t been out there in a while.”
Ser Oswell looked horrified at the mere thought of Harry wandering around Kings Landing, mingling with the smallfolk with only himself as protection. If any trouble kicked off, it would be his sole responsibility to protect him and get him back into the protection of the Red Keep and if anything at all went wrong or Harry was hurt in any way, then he alone would be held responsible for it as his personal guard for the day.
Harry made his way down to the huge bronze gates of the Red Keep and he walked through them with Ser Oswell under the watchful eyes of the city gold cloaks. Harry had his purse on him and he was going to make sure that these smallfolk remembered him and Rhaegar in their absence. They’d be gone for years, he wanted them to remember him and Rhaegar fondly, with love, as he was sure that in the coming years King Aerys would make them hate all Targaryens and forget that he and Rhaegar were decent, loving men who cared for the smallfolk.
He wandered around and he showed interest and enthusiasm in the daily lives of the smallfolk. Of course they were visibly surprised to see him. As of late it was very rare to see a member of the royal family out and about…only a handful of the smallfolk had ever laid eyes upon the three year old Prince Viserys and even then it was only a glancing view from a distance.
He bought an apple, worth only three pennies, with a copper star, waving away the change of five pennies from the vendor. He bought some bits of tat here or there from different people and he pressed copper stars into the hands of every beggar that he saw. It was the children that tugged at his heart the most however, with their rags and their bare, dirty feet, too long, tangled hair and their bloated, starving bellies.
“I want all the pastries that you have.” Harry ordered from a bakers, flashing two gold dragons at the wide eyed man, his equally shocked wife almost falling over a stool to start handing Harry the baked pastries. “Some tarts too if you have them.”
“Of course, my Prince. Of course!” The baker replied happily. A gold dragon would be more than he made in a year and a half, two of them together would mean that he could take his sickly daughter to a good woods witch and get her the medicine that she needed.
Harry handed over the two gold coins and he crouched down and handed the hot pastries and fruit tarts to the hungry children, touching their faces gently. The one needed medicine, he could feel the fever, the sickness ravaging him with his bare hands.
“Drink this, sweet one. It’ll make you feel better.” He told the little boy, who couldn’t have been older than seven, taking a bottle of liquid from his top pocket of his tunic.
He watched the boy drink the liquid and he took back the glass vial. He handed him another tart to get rid of the taste.
“You…you know medicines, my Prince?” The baker’s wife, helping him hand out the pastries and tarts, asked him.
“Yes, my good woman. I learnt healing and medicine in the Citadel at Oldtown when forging my Maester’s chain.”
Harry pulled the chain from under his shirt and showed off the half a dozen silver links. The woman looked to be warring with herself, making soft noises of uncertainty.
“Whatever it is, you may ask.” He insisted with a kind smile.
“Our Prince has just given us two gold dragons, Margram. We can get our daughter to a good woods witch with that.” The baker interrupted, wary of asking too much of his Prince who had just paid so very much for just a few tarts and pastries for orphaned street urchins.
Harry frowned. Woods witches were sometimes farces who took people’s hard earned coin and gave them fake potions and cures, or even just false hope, while taking every penny that the desperate people who came to them had. He didn’t hold much stock to many woods witches.
“If it’s all the same to you both, I would rather see to your daughter myself. I am a trained Maester with six silver links. A woods witch has none and perhaps only a fraction of the herblore that I’ve also trained for. I have five platinum links for herblore on top of my silver links for medicine.”
“Oh, would you?” The woman pleaded with tears glistening in her wide, hopeful eyes.
“It would be no trouble.” Harry insisted.
“Thank you, my Prince.” The woman, Margram, said softly, dabbing at her eyes. “Our daughter got sick a turn ago, we’ve been trying to save for a woods witch as it’s all we can afford, but she’s only getting worse and we haven’t got enough coin to have her seen to.”
Harry followed the woman into her home with Ser Oswell following behind silently, his hand on the pommel of his sword, ready and alert for any hint of an attack. He was not happy at all, Harry could tell.
He was led through the bakery, up the rickety stairs to the ramshackle home above. In one bedroom, three battered beds stood, all with old, lumpy straw mattresses. On one, a small, pale girl lay still.
Harry immediately went to her and touched her head, before peeling an eyelid back to peer into the brown eye below.
“How long has she been this still and quiet?” He asked sternly.
“Only a few days, my Prince.” The baker insisted.
Harry nodded as he checked what few medicines he had on him and weighed up what he needed.
“When did she go cold?” He asked seriously as he touched the girl’s hands and feet and found them icy.
“Cold?” The woman asked in panic as she seized her daughter’s hands herself. “She’s not dead, is she? I checked her not half an hour ago.”
“No, but its close.” Harry said as he unstoppered a vial and dribbled it slowly into the girl’s mouth, helping her to swallow by massaging her throat.
He did this with two other vials, from the one he tipped just a single drop into her mouth before recorking the vial and putting it back into a cloth pouch on his belt. He placed his hand back on her head before he bit his lip.
“Take this.” He said to the baker, handing over a few copper stars. “I need ginger and mint, as fresh as you can find.” He insisted.
The baker nodded and recited the two items under his breath repeatedly as he ran back through his house.
Harry turned to the woman. “Boiled water and a clean rag.” He said, aware that perhaps she might not have a clean linen cloth.
The woman nodded and hurried into a different room to gather what he had asked for.
“Perhaps you shouldn’t be touching the sick, my Prince.” Ser Oswell warned him when they were alone.
“She’s a little girl, Ser. I will not leave her to die in such a manner. It is beyond cruel when she has such a treatable sickness. If this sickness of hers is not contained and cut off at the source it will spread through the entire of Kings Landing like wildfire, putting all of the smallfolk at risk. It particularly affects young children, so Viserys would be at risk too if this contagion is allowed spread. I cannot allow that to happen.”
The woman hurried back to him with a bowl of clean, boiled water and a cleaner rag than Harry had been expecting.
“A cup, please, good woman.” He said as he picked up the rag and started folding it over.
The woman hurried off again and came back quickly with a clean, clay cup. Harry dipped it into the boiled water and put it to the side. He dipped the rag, wrung it out and he laid it over the girl’s throat. The baker came back all too soon with a piece of ginger and a bundle of several stalks of mint. Harry was pleased to see that there were several large, mature leaves on each stalk.
Harry took them and he used his own silver dagger to slice up the ginger and he added it to the cup of boiled water before tearing up a few mint leaves and adding them as well. He used his dagger to carefully stir the stewing mixture, aware that silver also had healing properties.
He checked on the girl, re-dipping the rag and applying it back to her throat before he went back to the mixture. He checked the temperature with the back of his knuckle and then he carefully removed the bits of ginger and mint and then he helped the girl drink it by slowly dribbling it down her throat a bit at a time so that she didn’t choke. As soon as the drink was finished, Harry checked the girl’s hands and feet again and he nodded. They felt warmer than they had when he’d arrived.
“She’s going to be fine.” He said calmly. “Keep her in bed for the next few days, she should have only water and a thin broth. In two, maybe three days, then try her on something more substantial and she can try walking, but not too far. After a week she should be back to her active, happy self.”
Harry stood, trying to ignore the woman sobbing gratefully onto her Husband. He was about to turn away when brown eyes blinked open. He smiled and ignored the red blush that turned those pale cheeks feverish.
“Hello there. I wasn’t expecting you to wake for another day at least. You are a very strong young lady.”
“H…hello.” The girl stammered.
“Oh…oh sweet girl. I was so worried.” The woman, Margram, insisted as she fussed about her daughter.
“I shall take my leave. Remember to keep her resting for a few days, plenty of water and broth.”
“Thank you, my Prince.” The baker said almost tearfully. “Allow me to see you out.”
Harry and Ser Oswell took their leave of the bakers and they found that the little street urchins had eaten their pastries and tarts and had vanished. Harry breathed in the fresh air, even if the smell of shit and urine was strong down here in the city proper of Kings Landing.
He carried on his walk, handing out more coins and buying more rubbish that he didn’t actually want, but it was making the smallfolk remember him, from the bakers and food vendors, to the market sellers, right down to the street orphans. He was making friends and he hoped that no matter what his Father did in the next few years, that the smallfolk remembered this day when thinking of him and of the time when he had ruled the Seven Kingdoms while the King was a hostage for half a year. He hoped that they remembered that they had named him Haradarian the Heart, because if they didn’t remember, then the Targaryen family was done. If all they remembered was the mad king, then it wouldn’t matter what he and Rhaegar did, the Targaryens would be over.
He sighed and made his way back into the Red Keep, his purse now considerably lighter, and he made his way to the royal solar where he supped with his family, Rhaegar sat beside him, looking very pleased with himself. Obviously he had accomplished all that he had needed to. As soon as the meal was done, they both said their goodnights to Viserys and their Mother, and out of courtesy their Father too, before they left the royal solar.
They did not go to their rooms however, instead they stole out of Maegor’s Holdfast, avoided White Sword Tower and then they snuck out of the Red Keep, keeping to the shadows and out of view of the patrolling Gold Cloaks, making it all the way down to Blackwater Bay where Rhaegar’s crew were preparing his ship to leave for Dragonstone.
Rhaegar escorted him onto the ship and got him settled in his personal cabin while he oversaw the preparations to launch the ship and within fifteen minutes they were sailing to Dragonstone and Rhaegar joined him in the cabin. It wasn’t a very long journey to Dragonstone, but still, the both of them found a very pleasurable way to pass the time until they docked again. Harry barely noticed the sailing as he laid in Rhaegar’s arms, his body slick with sweat and his lips bruised from Rhaegar’s impassioned kisses.
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A/N: I am so overwhelmed by the response this fic has had, for such a taboo subject too, but thank you all. I’ve loved hearing your thoughts on this fic and your excitement for the following chapters is infectious! I couldn’t wait to finalise this chapter so that I could post it up for you all.
Chapter three is, of course finished, and will be starting when Harry and Rhaegar sail back to Kings Landing from Dragonstone a year after they left…the chapter is a MASSIVE 46,000 words currently, so that is going to take me a while to get through, I might even have to split the read through into three days just to get it done properly, and I’m back in work this week too, so it’s going to take a while to get that one done. It is the biggest chapter for this fic, as the main bulk of the plot happens in chapter three, and thus I found it hard to skim it down anymore (I already split it in half and created another chapter when the word count surpassed 65,000 as this fic was only supposed to be four chapters and an epilogue, so we have an added chapter from that.)
But the next chapter will be up as soon as I can bring it to you now, I hope that you continue to love it as you loved the first chapter and I can’t wait to hear your thoughts on this chapter now, thank you for reading,
StarLight Massacre. X
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