Arthur sat on a stone wall at the edge of the training yard with his tunic soaked through, his breathing still settling from the last bout. Sunset was balanced across his thighs while Llewyn dropped onto the wall beside him and let his own sword clatter onto the flagstones between his boots. The Dornish prince tilted his head back and stared up at the sky with the look of a man who had been thoroughly and repeatedly humiliated over the course of the past two hours.
"I remember a time," Llewyn said to the clouds above him, "when I could kick your arse up and down this yard and still have energy left over for supper. That was, what, a year ago? Not even a full year. And now I cannot land a single clean hit on you in ten consecutive rounds. Not one. I am beginning to take it personally."
Arthur chuckled and wiped the sweat from his forehead with the hem of his tunic.
"Then you somehow grew into a giant," Llewyn continued, waving one hand vaguely at Arthur's torso, "and became what I can only describe as a once in a generation prodigy with a sword. Which is tremendously inconvenient for me. I used to be rather good, and now I feel like a boy of twelve swinging a stick at a castle wall."
"It is possible," Arthur said mildly, "that you were simply never any good."
Llewyn's elbow caught him in the ribs, just above the healing line where the wyvern's tail had landed, and Arthur hissed through his teeth but the smile stayed on his face.
They sat there for a while without speaking.
The yard was empty around them as the afternoon sun had driven most of the household inside, and the few squires who might have been using the practice dummies had cleared out the moment Arthur and Llewyn had started sparring, which Arthur suspected had less to do with courtesy and more to do with not wanting to be anywhere near Sunset when it was in motion.
Llewyn broke the silence first.
"The Red Keep is going to feel like an empty place without you, Arthur."
Arthur looked at him and saw the Dornish prince was still staring up at the sky, but his jaw had tightened slightly, and his hands were clasped together between his knees.
Arthur reached over and put a hand on his shoulder. "I will miss you too, Llewyn, you made me feel more welcome than I thought possible when I first came here. You are welcome at Brightwater any time you wish to come. Any time at all."
"It would have to be soon," Llewyn said, and the grin came back. "I doubt many Kingsguard get the chance to go wandering off on their own for a holiday on some lord's island. Gerold would probably hunt me down himself and drag me back by the ear."
Arthur laughed softly at that. Then he turned slightly on the wall to face the prince properly. "How do you feel about it, truly. The Kingsguard. Your squirehood is ending soon. A few more months and you will take the white cloak and swear the vows and stand beside your brothers until death."
Llewyn went quiet, and he stayed quiet for long enough that Arthur began to wonder whether he was going to answer at all. The Dornish prince's dark eyes had moved from the sky to the ground between his boots, and his expression had shifted into something more complicated than the grin he usually wore. "When I was younger it was the only thing I wanted," Llewyn said at last. "I dreamed about it. I practised my vows in front of a looking glass when no one was watching. I carved a wooden sword when I was seven and told my mother I was going to be the greatest Kingsguard in the history of the realm." He paused. "But meeting you has made me wonder if I truly do want it."
"What do you mean."
"It has made me wonder if I want to give up ever having a family of my own." Llewyn said quietly. "I see you with Mira and Cassie and the children, Arthur. I see the way they look at you. And I wonder what it would feel like to have that. And then I wonder whether I could live my whole life knowing I chose to give it up."
Arthur nodded slowly and gave him a sympathetic smile. "The only advice I can give you," Arthur said, "is to not do anything you would spend your life regretting. The white cloak is a honourable thing, Llewyn. It is an honour that most men would cut off their own hand for. But if you put it on and spend every night lying in your chamber in the White Sword Tower wishing you had a wife beside you and a child in the next room, then the honour will taste like ashes in your mouth. Take the time to be certain. That is all I would ask."
Llewyn turned the words over behind his eyes for a moment.
Arthur then pushed himself up off the wall and stretched the stiffness out of his back, his joints popping softly as he rolled his shoulders. He looked down at the Dornish prince with a grin. "Cheer up. We are going to the tavern later, and perhaps there you will meet a woman who makes the choice easy."
Llewyn's laugh rang out across the yard and the doubt left his face. "Now that is advice I can follow. Let us pray she is tall and Dornish and has terrible taste in men."
Arthur clapped him on the back and turned toward the stable yard. Arthur walked along the row of stalls until he reached the one at the very end, the one that the stablehands had learned to give the widest possible berth, where Quiet stood in the shadows with her eyes fixed on him from the moment he appeared at the entrance.
The pale horse did not move as Arthur let himself into the stall, simply watched him. He set his hand against her neck and felt the coldness of her coat beneath his palm, and Quiet lowered her great head slightly in the closest thing to affection that she ever offered.
"Hello, girl," he murmured.
He spent the next quarter of an hour grooming her, working the brush along her flanks and her withers. He checked her hooves, ran his fingers along the length of her legs to feel for any heat or swelling, cleaned the corners of her eyes with a damp cloth. She did not need any of it. Quiet did not get dirty the way other horses got dirty, and her hooves never seemed to chip or crack, and Arthur had never once found a stone lodged in one of her shoes. But he felt it wrong to neglect her like that, she seemed to enjoy being groomed so he made sure to spend a little time everyday doing it.
He reached into the pouch at his belt and pulled out an apple that he had saved from breakfast. Quiet took it from his palm almost taking a few fingers too and then fixed him with an expression that clearly communicated she expected another.
"One is all you get. You are spoiled enough."
*SCREECH*
Arthur looked up just in time to see Horus come swooping through the open window at the top of the stable wall, the falcon's dark wings flaring wide as he banked hard and landed on the edge of the wooden partition. The bird settled his feathers with a quick shake and then turned his head to fix Arthur with those cold blue eyes.
Arthur laughed. "Don't worry, I didn't forget about you."
He reached into the pouch again and pulled out several strips of dried meat that he had been keeping wrapped in cloth, and held the first one out on the flat of his palm. Horus regarded the offering for a moment, as though he were considering whether this particular piece of meat met his standards, before he snapped it up with a jerk of his beak and swallowed it in one piece. Arthur offered the second strip, and the third, and Horus ate each one with the same haughty expression while Arthur reached up and stroked the sleek feathers along the top of the falcon's head.
"I think you will be happier in Brightwater, Horus. Open sky. Sea birds. Fish. All the hunting you could want and no stone walls to pen you in."
The falcon screeched which Arthur chose to interpret as enthusiasm.
He knew the bird would be happy there. Horus had been cooped up in the Red Keep for weeks now, making increasingly aggressive dives from the tower windows that had terrified several of the household staff and prompted one formal complaint from a visiting lord whose hat the falcon had took a dump in.
Brightwater would be better for all of them.
Arthur gave Horus one final strip of meat, received one final contemptuous glare in return, and left the stable with a smile still on his face.
The smile faded somewhat when he reached his chambers and found the stack of correspondence that had been left on the table beside his door.
The pile was larger than yesterday's.
The letters had been trickling in ever since the knighting and the subsequent announcement of his marriage to Cassie, or Cassandra Targaryen. But the trickle had become a flood the moment the King had formally announced his elevation to Lord of Brightwater Isle. A lord tied to House Targaryen through marriage, the father of three children who carried Pendragon and one who carried Targaryen blood, the man who had killed a wyvern on a beach in front of the entire city.
Every house in the Crownlands wanted to know who he was. Every ambitious lord in the Reach and the Stormlands wanted to know whether his children might be available for future betrothals. Every merchant with a ship wanted to know whether the new Lord of Brightwater would be interested in establishing trade agreements.
Most of the letters were formal recognitions and polite greetings, the kind of routine correspondence that lords sent to other lords when a new name appeared on the map. But Arthur could already feel the undertone shifting in some of the more recent ones, the questions growing slightly more personal, the invitations slightly more insistent. He did not need to read between the lines to know what was coming. Feasts. Tourneys. Visits. All of it designed to get him and his children into a room where some lord's daughter could be presented and a conversation about marriage could be steered in the right direction.
He did not want to deal with any of it. But he was a lord now, and lords could not simply ignore their correspondence and hope it went away.
He gathered the stack under one arm and headed for Rhaella's chambers.
She had been helping him with the letters ever since the first batch had arrived and he had sat staring at them with the bewildered expression of a man who had been handed a snake and told to make it dance. Rhaella had taken one look at his face, sat down beside him, and proceeded to sort the entire pile into three categories. She could tell at a glance which letters were genuine courtesies and which were fishing expeditions, which houses were important enough to warrant a personal reply and which were minor enough that a polite form response would suffice, and which ones were being too forward in their suggestions about his children's futures and needed to be answered with the kind of cold reoly that only a princess of the blood could properly compose.
He reached the corridor outside her chambers and his mouth curved into a smile when he saw the familiar enormous figure standing guard beside the door.
Ser Duncan the Tall looked at him and inclined his head. "Lord Pendragon."
"Arthur."
"Lord Arthur."
"Arthur." He pushed the big knight's shoulder with his free hand, the stack of letters balanced in the crook of his other arm. "I will not have it. Not from you. You knew me before I had a last name, let alone a lordship, and I will not have you standing there Milording me or anything. You will call me Arthur and you will not argue about it."
The big knight held the formality for one more second before a broad grin split his weathered face. "If you insist, Arthur."
"I do. Now tell me, is Rhaella in her chambers. I have another pile of these wretched letters and I need her to tell me which ones I can safely set on fire."
Ser Duncan's grin faded, the warmth did not leave his eyes entirely, but something else settled behind it, and the big knight's mouth pressed into a straight line. "She is inside, yes. But she is... not at her best today, Arthur. She has had some news, and she is not taking it well."
Arthur frowned. "What kind of news."
"It is not my place to say. You would need to hear it from her."
"Has she asked for no visitors."
"She told the servants she did not wish to be disturbed." Ser Duncan paused. "But I think she would make an exception for you."
Arthur set the stack of letters down on the small table beside the door. "Thank you," he said as he opened the door gently and stepped inside.
The chamber was dark despite it being daytime. The curtains across the windows had been drawn, which was unusual for Rhaella, who normally kept them open to let in as much natural light as the Red Keep's architecture would allow. The fire in the hearth had burned down to embers that gave off a faint orange glow but not much else. Arthur looked around and saw the chairs by the hearth were empty, as was the vanity.
Then he saw the shape on the balcony.
Rhaella was sitting on the stone bench that overlooked the courtyard below, her knees drawn up beneath the hem of her gown and her arms wrapped around them. Her silver-gold hair hung loose around her shoulders instead of being braided in the way she usually kept it. She was looking out at nothing in particular, and even from across the room Arthur could see the way her shoulders were shaking.
She was crying.
He crossed the chamber quietly and stepped through the balcony doors, the afternoon air hitting his face as he moved from the room to the open sky above the keep. Rhaella heard him before she saw him. She turned her head quickly and her hands came up to her face, her fingers pressing hard against her cheeks to wipe away the tears, and by the time she had turned fully to face him she had assembled a smile that was almost convincing.
"Arthur." She cleared her throat. "Is that, goodness, is that more letters than last time. I thought I told those Stormlords that a polite no was sufficient, they really are the most persistent people in the—"
"Rhaella."
Her smile cracked.
"What happened." He came closer and lowered himself onto the bench beside her. "Tell me. I have never seen you this upset before. Is it because Mira and Cassie are leaving. Is that what this is."
She let out a breath that was something between a laugh and a sob. "I am very sad that all of you are leaving. Yes. I have been thinking about it for days. Mira and Cassie and the babies and you, all of you going off to some island in the bay while I stay here in this keep with my own family who can barely stand to be in the same room as one another. Yes, Arthur. That is part of it. That is a very large part of it."
"At least Mira and Cassie will be staying here a while longer," Arthur said gently. "I am heading out first, alone, to build somewhere liveable for them. It could be weeks, maybe a month or two, before they follow. So at least you will have them until then."
"That is good, I suppose."
But it was not what was making her cry. He could see that much in the way she would not meet his eyes, in the way her fingers kept plucking at the fabric of her gown, in the way her jaw trembled when she stopped talking long enough for whatever she was holding back to push against the surface.
Arthur reached out and laid his hand over hers where it gripped her knee.
"Tell me, Rhaella."
She looked down at his hand on hers and looked at it for a long time before she broke down. "My mother and father have decided to push the marriage. Between myself and Aerys... they want it done by the end of the year. The betrothal announcement will be made formally within the month and the wedding itself will take place just after."
Arthur's eyes widened. "That's only four months from now. Why so fast."
"I do not know." Her voice cracked on the last word and she pressed her free hand to her mouth. "They did not explain. My mother came to me this morning and told me, as though she were telling me what dress to wear to supper, and when I told her I didn't want to, she simply ignored me and said she expected me to present a united front. As if marrying me to my own brother were simply a matter of politics and public relations. As if my entire future were a message to be sent to the lords of the realm."
The tears were falling freely now and she wasn't even bothering to wipe them away anymore. She sat there on the bench with her hands clenched in the fabric of her gown and let them fall. "I do not want to, Arthur." Her voice broke completely and she turned toward him her hands came up and found the front of his tunic and she pressed her face against his chest. "I cannot stand the idea. I cannot bear it. He is my brother and I do love him, but I'll never love him that way... I know he does not either, but he won't go against our father. So now I'm doomed to a life of misery, where my brother will likely blame me for—"
Arthur wrapped his arms around her and held her. He held her with both arms and his chin resting on the top of her head and his hands pressed against her back. Rhaella shook against him while the tears soaked through the front of his tunic.
A notification chimed softly inside his head.
────────────────────
[QUEST ACQUIRED]
────────────────────
A PRINCESS IN CHAINS
────────────────────
Description:
Princess Rhaella Targaryen has been betrothed to Prince Aerys against her will. The union will bind her to a man she does not love and whose temperament may one day bring ruin to the realm. You have the power to intervene, but doing so will place you in direct opposition to her father's wishes and the established order of the royal family.
────────────────────
Path A — Intervene
Objectives:
• Prevent the marriage by any means
Rewards:
• +5,000 XP
• Rhaella's eternal loyalty
• Legendary Trait
• ???
Consequences:
• Potential conflict with the Crown
• Increased political danger for your family
• Unknown ripple effects on the future
────────────────────
Path B — Leave it be
Objectives:
• Do not interfere with the betrothal
Rewards:
• +2,000 XP
• Political safety for your family
• Continued good standing with the Crown
Consequences:
• Rhaella marries Aerys
• Unknown consequences begin to unfold
────────────────────
Arthur closed his eyes.
The rewards for Path A were enormous. The legendary trait alone would have been worth more than most things the system had ever offered him, and the question marks at the bottom of the reward list suggested there was something even larger waiting behind the curtain.
The system was practically begging him to intervene.
But.
He had three children. He had two wives. He had a keep to build and a family to protect and a war coming in two years that he had already agreed to fight. Every ounce of political capital he had earned over the past months had been spent on keeping his family safe, and a direct confrontation with the Targaryens over the betrothal of Rhaella would burn through whatever remained in a single afternoon.
The pale man in the darkness was still out there. The black-flagged ships were still out there. Dragonstone was still in enemy hands.
Sadly... he could not fight every battle.
Rhaella was still pressed against his chest. He could feel the heat of her tears through his tunic and the rapid beat of her heart against his ribs. He held her a little tighter and then he drew a slow breath and spoke. "Rhaella. Listen to me."
She sniffled against him but did not pull away.
"You need to speak with the King. Your grandfather. Not your mother. Not your father. The King himself. Aegon loves you, Rhaella wnd he doesn't agree with marrying into the family. If there is anyone in this kingdom who would listen to you, truly listen, it is him. Go to him. Tell him what you have told me. Tell him that you do not want this. Tell him that you deserve to choose your own future."
Rhaella pulled back slightly and looked up at him. Her violet eyes were red and swollen and her lashes were wet and clumped together. "You are right, Arthur. You are probably right." She wiped her eyes again. "I am sorry for looking such a state. This is not how I wanted you to see me before you left."
"You are beautiful as always, Rhaella."
Her eyes filled again at the words, though this time the tears were different. She blinked them back hard and pressed her lips together and looked away toward the sky above the keep for a moment.
"When do you leave."
"A few days. Three, perhaps four. Whenever the boat is ready."
She nodded slowly with her hand still resting against the front of his tunic where she had clutched it earlier, her fingers curled loosely in the fabric. She did not seem to be in any hurry to move it. "I will miss you, Arthur." Her voice was very quiet. "Perhaps just as much as Mira and Cassie will miss you. Perhaps more since there's is only a temporary separation. I know I should not say that, and I know what it sounds like, and I know that it is not my place, but I will miss you."
Arthur swallowed.
"I will miss you too, Rhaella." The moment the hose words left his mouth, the air between them changed.
She was still looking at him.
He was still looking at her.
Her hand was still on his chest.
Neither of them moved for a long stretch in which Arthur could hear his own heartbeat.
Rhaella rose slightly on the bench.
Her hand slid up from his chest to the side of his neck.
She kissed him.
Her lips were warm and salt-damp from the tears, they pressed against his with a passion that told him she had been holding this back for a very long time. Arthur's hand came up to the back of her head on instinct, his fingers sliding into the loose silver-gold hair, and the months and months of distance and formal politeness and the aching weight of every look they had shared across the hall and every touch that had lasted a heartbeat too long all broke at once and he kissed her back.
They came together as though something had been holding them apart and had simply been erased.
Rhaella's arms went around his neck and she pressed herself against him, her mouth opened against his with a soft sound that he felt in his chest. Arthur's arms tightened around her waist and he pulled her closer, she shifted on the bench until she was practically in his lap, her knees on either side of his thighs, her hands gripping the back of his neck while she kissed him as hard as she could. He could feel her pulse hammering against the inside of her wrists where they pressed against his skin, and her breath came in short gasps between kisses.
She moaned against his mouth, the sound did something to the inside of his skull that made every rational thought he had ever possessed evaporate. He lifted her fully onto his lap and her thighs settled on either side of his hips, her gown bunching around her knees as she pulled herself tight against him, her fingers raking through his hair while his hands spread across her lower back. She broke the kiss long enough to gasp for air, her forehead pressed against his, her violet eyes half-lidded and burning, and then she kissed him again, harder, deeper, with the kind of fierce aching need that had been building between them since the night they had danced at the feast.
*Knock*
*Knock*
*Knock*
Ser Duncan's voice came through the door. "Princess. Your mother and father are here to see you."
Rhaella's eyes flew wide open.
She scrambled off his lap so fast that she nearly fell off the bench entirely, catching herself on the stone railing with one hand while her other hand flew to her hair. Arthur was on his feet in the same instant, his heart slamming against his ribs, his hands dropping uselessly to his sides.
"The tunnel," Rhaella hissed. Her face was flushed crimson from her hairline to her collarbone, her lips were swollen and her hair was a tangled disaster. She was already moving across the chamber toward the door while she smoothed her gown with frantic hands. "Arthur, the passage behind the wardrobe, go, go now, go quickly."
Arthur crossed the chamber quickly and reached the secret door and squeezed himself through. He turned back once, just for a moment, and looked at her across the room, then he turned and disappeared into the passage.
He was halfway down the corridor before the full weight of what he had just done landed on him.
He stopped walking.
He pressed both hands against the stone wall beside him and leaned his forehead against the surface and closed his eyes. "What was I thinking," he whispered.
He should not have kissed her.
He should not have let her kiss him.
He should not have pulled her onto his lap and pressed his mouth against hers.
She was a princess of the blood, betrothed to the future king, the granddaughter of the man who had just offered him a lordship and a home, and he was a married man with two wives and three children and a future that depended entirely on staying in the good graces of the people who could very easily ruin him.
He had put all of it at risk for a kiss on a balcony.
He let out a long breath through his teeth.
He could not see her before he left. If he saw her again, alone, with the taste of her still sitting on his lips, his heart would be swayed. He knew it. He knew himself well enough by now to understand that his will was not infinite and that Rhaella Targaryen was the precise shape of its breaking point.
He pushed himself off the wall and walked away.
...
The days that followed were busy enough to keep his mind occupied, if not entirely quiet. He spent his mornings with Mira and Cassie and the children, holding the babies and helping with the feeding and talking with his wives about what was to come. They went over the plans for Brightwater together, the kind of keep he would build, the layout of the harbour, the supplies he would need to take on the first crossing. Mira had a small map of the island from the library.
In the afternoons he trained with Llewyn or worked on his Hamon in the Godswood. In the evenings he sat with the children and read to them from the books Rhaella had left in his chambers, though he did not seek out new ones.
He did not go to her chambers again.
He did not see her alone.
Soon the morning of his departure arrived and Arthur was down at the docks. He had asked that no formal send-off be arranged, and his wishes had been respected, which meant that the small group gathered on the wooden pier beside the modest trading cog that would carry him to Brightwater consisted only of the people who actually mattered.
Mira was there with Mordred and Morgana in her arms, the twins both asleep against her chest. Cassie stood beside her with Percival cradled against her shoulder. Llewyn leaned against a wooden pole with his arms crossed, trying to school his features. Ser Gerold stood at attention in his white armour. Ser Duncan the Tall loomed behind Mira. Prince Duncan stood apart from the others with his hands clasped behind his back.
And Rhaella.
She stood at the edge of the group, slightly apart from the others, in a gown of pale blue. Her hair had been braided properly today, pinned up in the Valyrian style with gold thread.
Arthur went to Mira first.
He took her face in both hands and kissed her slowly, lingering against her lips for a moment while the twins stirred softly between them. He rested his forehead against hers.
"A month," he said. "Two at the most. I will send word the moment it is ready for you."
"We will be waiting, my love," Mira said with a smilet. "Build us something beautiful."
"I will."
She laughed softly and kissed him again, and then stepped back to let him reach Cassie.
Cassie was already crying, which she had clearly expected to do because she had a cloth tucked into her sleeve and was using it before he even reached her. He kissed her forehead and then her lips and then Percival's tiny silver crown, and Cassie gripped the front of his tunic with her free hand and held on. "Call for us as soon as possible, Arthur Pendragon."
"I am going to build a keep on an island, Cassie. Not slay another wyvern."
"With you I can never be certain."
He laughed and held her until she let go on her own.
Llewyn clasped his forearm in the warrior's grip and held it. "Do not get soft out there on that island, Arthur. You wouldn't want me to embarrass you in front of your wives."
"I wouldn't give you the satisfaction," Arthur said with a grin.
"Bastard."
They grinned at one another and the grip held for a moment before they released.
Ser Gerold offered a formal nod that somehow contained more respect than most men's speeches. "Safe travels, Lord Arthur, I hope you find the peace you desire on Brightwater."
"I'm sure I will Ser Gerold."
Arthur then turned towards Duncan and smiled.
Ser Duncan clapped his shoulder with one enormous hand. "I am proud of you, lad. I have said it before and I will say it again. Take care of yourself out there."
Prince Duncan then stepped forward and clasped both of Arthur's shoulders. "You have given my family more than we deserved, my friend. I will look after Mira and Cassie and the children until they join you. You have my word on that."
"Thank you Duncan."
Then there was only Rhaella.
She stepped forward from the edge of the group and stopped at arm's length from him, her hands still folded in front of her in that perfectly composed pose. Her violet eyes met his though there was a faint tremor at the corners of her mouth that she could not quite suppress.
"Arthur," she said in a composed tone. "I wish you fair winds and safe harbour."
"Thank you, Your Grace."
They looked at each other.
The silence stretched for a moment too long and Rhaella's composure flickered. Her lower lip caught between her teeth for a fraction of a second and her eyes shone with something she was working very hard not to let fall, and then she extended her hand in the formal manner.
Arthur took her hand and bowed over it then pressed his lips to her knuckles in the courtly way, and held them there for one heartbeat longer than was strictly necessary.
When he straightened, her fingers tightened on his for just a moment, a squeeze so brief that no one watching would have noticed it, and then she released him and stepped back.
"Safe travels," she said again, barely being able to stop her voice from breaking.
Arthur schooled his features and turned and walked up the gangplank. The crew cast off the mooring lines, the cog's sails caught the morning wind, and the ship began to pull away from the pier. Arthur stood at the rail and watched the small group on the dock growing smaller as the water widened between them.
High above, Horus screeched and banked hard across the bow, his m wings cutting through the air as he flew out over the open water ahead of the ship. Arthur watched the falcon climb until the bird was a dark speck against the overcast sky.
Then he turned to face the open bay.
Two years.
The clock had started.
(AN: It wouldn't have made much sense for Arthur to bring his wife and children there when there is no place for them to live. So Arthur will be going there and getting started on building, which one be difficult considering he has a good grasp of alchemy. Anyway hope you enjoyed.)
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