Chapter Text
A quiet morning in Summerhall…
The sun already beat full against the white stone cornices of the castle, filtering thick golden light through the stained-glass windows of the royal bedchamber. For the south of Westeros, winter stubbornly refused to leave, lingering in a subtle chill that made the velvet blankets and bear furs strewn across the bed seem like the only sensible refuge in all the realm. That, and the enormous body of a husband who occupied three quarters of the mattress with his natural, blazing warmth.
Aerion shifted lazily beneath the sheets. The night before had been exhausting business; a ceremonial dinner held to welcome the heir prince, Valarr, alongside his spouse and children. The procession had demanded the last drop of his strength: overseeing the logistics behind it all, answering to his father’s endless protocol demands, arranging every tiny detail—not to please his cousin and brother, but to earn his father’s favor once he discovered what had happened to his favorite cloak and why it was now little more than the ruined remains of the sumptuous fabric it once had been, tossed about in the stables and chewed on by every pony that crossed its path; that, and keeping the children from starting a food war in the middle of supper… it had all been a parade of protocol and reproach. Strong Reach wine had accompanied the extravagance of the feast—of which he had eaten little to nothing—and watered wine had stretched the conversations, loud laughter, and family diplomacy long into the early hours of the morning.
That was why they had risen so late. But in the universe Dunk and Aerion had built together, royal hierarchies ended at the doors of the Great Hall.
When they had returned to Summerhall, the knight had imposed one undeniable condition: there would be no nursemaids, no wet nurses, no retinue of royal servants raising their pups.
“Either that, or I take them across the Seven Kingdoms as squires” Dunk had warned him with that quiet alpha firmness that allowed no argument.
And the prince, horrified by the thought of his children covered in mud along the kingsroad, had relented. So, although the children were princes of the blood of the dragon, it was the two of them who dealt with dirty noses, nappies, scraped knees, and torn shirts. And Aerion would rather die than admit how deeply he loved every part of it. Few could say with certainty how loved they were by their parents; Dunk and Aerion made certain their children knew it from the very first moment of every morning—in their own way, of course.
Dunk lay on his side, his imposing alpha frame blocking every draft of cold air. His scent of damp earth, oakwood, and the faint lingering trace of smoke wrapped around the room like a safety net. Seeing Aerion blink awake slowly, the knight stretched out one giant arm, circling his waist beneath the silk shirt and pulling him against his warm chest.
“The corridor’s still quiet,” Dunk murmured in his considerably rougher morning voice, brushing his lips against the silver nape of his omega near his scent gland, inhaling Aerion’s aroma which, almost imperceptibly, was beginning to take on a sweeter edge, sending a full shiver through his body.
Aerion let out a soft sigh, allowing himself to melt into the embrace. He turned within Dunk’s arms, pale hands settling against the alpha’s broad shoulders. The physical closeness, coupled with the lingering haze of the feast and the hours they had shared, sparked that volatile passion so characteristic of them both, something they had spent days trying to suppress.
Dunk lowered his head to find his lips, welcomed without hesitation, beginning a slow, heavy kiss charged with the kind of intimacy they could only ever steal in those fleeting hours before disaster struck. His enormous hands slid down the prince’s back, rough and calloused from labor and years of wielding weapons, stark against the prince’s smooth skin as he pressed him firmly closer. Aerion answered with a low moan against his mouth, tangling his fingers into the knight’s reddish hair in an attempt to deepen the war unfolding between their lips.
In immediate response, the alpha released a wave of territorial pheromones on pure instinct, surrounding his omega in a vague attempt to claim that brief sliver of time for the two of them alone.
That biological truce, however, died without mercy beneath the yoke of childish screams echoing up from the training yard…several feet below the window, shattering the atmosphere completely.
“Give it back!”
“I found it first!”
“Rhaenyra, that’s not a dragon, that’s a goose!”
Aerion broke the kiss at once, pressing his forehead against Dunk’s shoulder as a sudden wave of nausea twisted through his stomach. He had to be hungry. He swallowed with difficulty, violet eyes burning with pure frustration.
“I’m going to kill someone,” the prince hissed against the knight’s freckled skin.
“They haven’t had breakfast yet. Give it another hour,” Dunk replied without releasing him, though his own gaze had already drifted toward the window.
Down in the courtyard, the crash of shattered pottery was followed by the frantic pounding of several pairs of small boots fleeing at full speed toward the stables. A moment later, the loud and deeply offended honking of a furious goose confirmed that the couple’s only daughter had already begun her morning campaign.
Before Aerion could produce an insult in High Valyrian, a series of quick, timid knocks sounded low against the wooden door. The door opened barely a handspan, and Maekar’s small pale face appeared through the gap.
At six years old, the boy carried an oversized book of chronicles in his thin arms—a gift from his uncle Aemon on his last nameday—and wore a gray wool blanket draped over his shoulders, seeking the warmth his fragile little body always seemed to crave.
“Papa? Daddy?” the child called softly, his voice gentle and melancholy as he blinked, adjusting to the dimness broken only by the threatening sunlight pouring through the window.
Dunk immediately loosened his hold and straightened against the tall carved headboard; two intertwined dragons etched into the wood behind him. With one hand, he pulled back the blankets, patting the feather mattress in the space between them.
“Come here, Mae-Mae,” the knight said with unwavering tenderness.
The little boy did not hesitate. He hurried forward on bare feet, climbing onto the tall bed with the help of Dunk’s enormous hand. He slipped directly between both parents, sinking into the warmth between Dunk’s chest and Aerion’s body, instinctively seeking the nest of heat and the mingled scent of his parents to shield himself from the morning cold.
Aerion slowly sat upright against the headboard, mirroring Dunk as he brushed silver strands away from the boy’s forehead, noticing his cheeks were slightly cold despite still being flushed pink.
“What are you doing awake so early, my darling?” Aerion asked, and all the theatrical sharpness vanished from his voice, turning impossibly soft, almost a coo. “You should still be in bed. Is your brother already awake? Why are you barefoot? You’ll freeze…”
Both of them fussed over the child at once—Aerion smoothing down his peculiar haircut, chosen at his grandfather’s insistence, while Dunk rubbed warmth back into the boy’s icy feet beneath the blankets, moving the enormous book out of the way.
“Rhaenyra brought the kitchen goose into the great hall,” Maekar explained, curling closer against Dunk’s chest while the knight rubbed his back to warm him. “And Grandfather is very angry. He said, ‘If that girl brings another animal inside, I’ll send her to Oldtown with the maesters.’”
He tried to imitate the older man’s deep, sternly irritated tone, making Dunk suppress a laugh.
“Let him try,” Aerion replied automatically, puffing out his chest with arrogance.
“He also said…” the boy continued with a shy blink, “that Moloso ate all the roses in his private garden when the stableboy took him out for a walk this morning.”
And as though fate itself wished to seal the child’s complaint, the furious voice of Prince Maekar thundered up from the lower courtyards, shrill enough to nearly rattle the stained-glass windows of the royal chamber with its deafening echo:
“That horse from the Seven Hells! Duncan! Get that monster out of my gardens—!”
Dunk let out a heavy sigh, dragging one hand down his face, fully aware that the enormous chestnut draft horse possessed an incurable weakness for tender sprouts. Maekar giggled softly, hiding his nose against his papa’s tunic, while Aerion allowed himself a slow, genuine smile, rich with perverse delight at his father’s misfortune.
The movement of his laughter, however, made the prince’s utterly empty stomach growl with an insistence that caught him off guard. The morning nausea began to recede, displaced instead by a sudden and absolute sensory fixation. He became painfully aware of every smell around him; he did not want the eggs the kitchens were preparing downstairs for the visiting princes, nor the buttered bread whose toasted scent drifted through the halls, nor the sweet mint tea burning unpleasantly in his nose.
Then, without warning, an image formed in his mind with startling clarity, bringing with it a rush of saliva into his mouth. He saw dark, dense meat roasting over pinewood embers; a greasy, wild cut dripping juices onto the coals and feeding the flames. He could almost smell damp earth, blood, and the musk of wild animal hide. The craving struck him like lightning, unleashing a fierce, nearly feral urgency that completely altered his pheromones.
Aerion licked his lips, violet eyes widening. He looked at Dunk over Maekar’s head, utterly ignoring the fascinating conversation they had been having about the little Knight of Flowers figurine that had been tragically decapitated during its latest tournament, and how Dunk, being a proper craftsman, now had to glue the tiny wooden head back into place.
“Duncan,” the prince said, and his tone no longer carried any of its earlier lightness but instead a blind, unwavering insistence that made the alpha tense immediately. “I do not want to see a single scrambled egg from that kitchen.”
Dunk arched one eyebrow as red as the rest of his hair, studying the stiffness in his omega’s shoulders, searching the air for some clue as to what breakfast he wanted. It hardly mattered, though. Even if he tried, he could never compete with the sharp sense of smell of someone whose nose had not been broken once, twice, or countless times as his had.
“Then what exactly are you supposed to eat, Aerion?”
“I want boar,” the prince declared, stretching out long fingers to clutch at Dunk’s tunic over the body of their youngest son. “A boar from the Kingswood. Huge and juicy, roasted out in the open, dripping with fat, covered in spices, with wild apples—the sour kind—and… I want it now, Duncan. Let’s prepare everything and go.”
Duncan made a tremendous effort not to laugh at how desperately his omega seemed to need it that morning.
“Your brother is visiting, remember? And the children adore playing with their cousins…”
To emphasize the point, Maekar—still nestled between them and listening attentively—nodded enthusiastically. The elder prince had to recalculate mentally.
“Fine. Then we leave as soon as they’re gone.”
Aerion rose from the bed, a streak of crimson silk moving gracefully as he searched for his clothes. Meanwhile, Dunk watched him in complete, analytical silence, mentally tallying up the dizziness of the past few weeks, the rejection of wine at the previous evening’s feast, and the sweetness lingering in the air of the bedchamber. But even if he suspected it, he said nothing.
Meanwhile, below them, the goose began honking once more while the children still ran wild through the sprawling gardens, and the enormous knight realized that the peace of Summerhall had officially come to an end—and that a family journey was about to begin at the whim of his omega’s sweetest, most chaotic, and most instinctive craving.
The castle gardens were an explosion of blazing sunlight, warming the white stone and every patch of ground it touched.
The deafening noise of nearly a dozen Targaryen children racing between the myrtle hedges and fruit trees filled the air with laughter, improvised battle cries, and the scent of dry earth kicked up beneath small boots. The older cousins and younger uncles had marked out the grounds with fallen branches, declaring the main clearing to be the grand field of the “Tournament of Summerhall.”
Up in the high courtyard, beneath the shade of a pillared gallery, Dunk and Aerion watched the spectacle from a stone bench. The alpha rested one arm along the backrest, allowing his steady scent of wood and earth to linger like a protective presence. Beside him, Aerion wore a dark tunic of reinforced fabric, subtly taut around his stomach beneath a narrow belt set with metal inlays, a goblet of chilled herbal infusion held between pale fingers. The morning cold had slowly given way to the harsh warmth radiating from the afternoon sun.
He had eaten breakfast reluctantly and consumed the seasoned red meat and roasted vegetables at lunch with even less enthusiasm, and now his violet gaze remained fixed on the silver-haired whirlwind unfolding below.
Because what had begun as a simple jousting tournament had somehow transformed into a fierce battle between two rival bands of knights.
“For the blood of the dragon!” roared one of the older cousins, Vaemon, the firstborn son of his brother and Valarr, brandishing a long wooden sword as he leapt atop a low stone wall, flanked by Maegor in shield and sword alike.
Amid the chaos, Rhaenyra led her own faction.
At only eight years old, the girl roared with a ferocity rivaled only by the one who had birthed her. Her cheeks were flushed from exertion and her silver hair entirely disheveled; the braids so carefully woven during breakfast now held leaves and twigs instead, replacing the pearl nets Aerion attempted—and consistently failed—to impose upon her every morning. In her left hand she carried a wooden sword noticeably shorter than those of her opponents, one that could pass for a spear, if necessary, while with her right she dragged little Maekar along behind her.
The boy stumbled every so often over roots breaking through the grass in his effort to keep pace, his cloak billowing around him, nearly dragging against the ground. His pale face showed a mixture of breathless agitation and deep concentration as he struggled to match his sister’s relentless speed without dropping the small wicker shield, he had crafted one afternoon with his brothers.
The moment Aerion saw the girl yank Maekar’s arm with her usual untamable force in order to cross a stretch of gravel—and saw the boy, unable to keep up, fall hard onto his hands and knees—the prince’s instincts ignited immediately.
The bitter feeling in his chest made him rise at once, setting his goblet down on the stone bench with a sharp crack.
“Rhaenyra!” Aerion called, his voice cutting clean through the chaos of the garden with effortless authority. “Careful with your brother!”
Dunk caught him gently by the arm, guiding him back into place, though fully prepared to intervene if the prince’s temper escalated. He knew that tone well, as well as the dense scent threatening to pour from his husband’s smaller frame.
Far below, Rhaenyra stopped short, digging her heels into the dirt and releasing her grip the moment she felt her little brother stumble trying to regain his footing. Maekar took advantage of the pause to catch his breath, hands braced against his knees as he dusted himself off, breathing slightly uneven but with his eyes fixed stubbornly on the wooded grove opposite their parents. Even without seeing him clearly, Dunk knew his cheeks had to be furiously pink with embarrassment.
Rhaenyra, meanwhile, turned toward the upper courtyard, arching her brows and crossing her arms in the exact same posture of wounded pride she copied from Aerion whenever she was offended.
“Why, Papa?” the girl protested loudly. “We’re about to attack the bastards’ fort behind the stables!”
“Rhae, language…” Dunk warned beside him.
“They’re taking our ground!”
“I do not care. The ground is full of loose stones and exposed roots, and your brother cannot go running around like that,” Aerion replied, stepping toward the railing again as his pheromones thickened further. “He’s going to fall, scrape his knees, or start coughing from the dust. Let him come sit here with us. Maekar, come upstairs.”
Ignoring the groans and disappointed sighs from the other children when they realized their enemies would never reach the gates of the fort, Maekar lowered his head, shame coloring his features as he was reminded once more that the rules of the world were different for him. He made a motion to set down his wicker shield and obey his papa’s order.
Dunk was already devising ways to contradict his omega while saving the boy’s dignity—perhaps suggesting they move the battle to steadier ground…
Rhaenyra, however, did not let go of him.
She stepped forward, placing herself between Maekar and Aerion’s gaze, and raised her wooden sword with absolute seriousness, pointing it directly at Aerion’s offended face at the sheer insolence of it, which nearly made Dunk smile.
“I can’t leave him behind, Papa,” the little girl declared firmly, narrowing her violet eyes as she tossed her battered braids back over her shoulders. “I’m going to challenge cousin Vaemon to a trial by combat if he doesn’t surrender the fort and Princess Vaella alive. And I can’t be a knight without a squire to guard my back in the mud.”
She said it as though it were the most obvious truth in the world, gripping tightly onto the boy who was nearly her height despite being couple of years younger. She hauled him upright beside her, scowling as though daring anyone to contradict her.
And all of it was Aerion’s fault and his terrible habit of indulging every dramatic impulse the girl possessed under the excuse that she was adorable.
For a moment, the garden seemed to fall silent save for the distant laughter of the twins, Baelor and Arlan, racing between the trees alongside little Duncan, blissfully unaware of the battle.
Aerion went speechless.
The sharp retort waiting on the tip of his tongue vanished completely beneath the merciless logic of his daughter’s argument. He looked at Rhaenyra—straight-backed and defiant—before shifting his gaze toward Maekar.
The boy was no longer staring at the ground. His head had lifted, and in his large, melancholy eyes a spark of gratitude now shone brightly. Rhaenyra was not leaving him behind; she was naming him her guardian, her indispensable piece in battle. And Dunk, more than anyone, understood how lonely the little boy looked whenever he was left aside.
Dunk stretched out one enormous hand from the bench and gently touched Aerion’s wrist, breaking through the tension coiled through his omega, using his pheromones to soothe the protective temper surrounding the slender prince like mist.
“He’s her squire, Aerion,” the knight murmured, his deep voice softened by fond amusement. “Let them go. Maegor and Vaemon will be keeping an eye on them. They won’t be alone.”
Aerion let out a long breath, his shoulders finally sagging as the stiffness drained from his posture. He shot Dunk a sidelong look, feigning irritation that his sweetened pheromones utterly failed to support, before turning his gaze back toward the gardens.
“Fine,” the prince relented, pointing accusingly at Rhaenyra. “But if that wicker shield comes back broken, or if your squire returns with a single speck of mud on his face that cannot be removed with warm water, you will personally be cleaning the pony stables for a week. Understood?”
“Understood, Lord Papa!” the girl shouted, snapping into an exaggerated bow with a victorious grin brightening her entire face.
She turned toward her younger brother, gave him an energetic slap on the shoulder that nearly shook him sideways, and raised her sword, ready to charge once more.
“Come on, Maekar! Hold that shield properly! Dragons wait for no one!”
“I’m coming, Rhae!” the little boy answered, his voice clearer and happier than Dunk had heard it in weeks.
Aerion returned to the stone bench and finally allowed himself to collapse against Dunk’s side with docile exhaustion, his state of alert slowly fading. He rested his head against the alpha’s broad shoulder, watching the two silver-haired children disappear among the hedges, the younger brother running with all his strength beneath the protective shadow of his sister.
“They’re unbearable, Duncan,” Aerion murmured, closing his eyes as he searched for the knight’s giant hand, intertwining their fingers and absently playing with the golden circle gleaming around the alpha’s ring finger. “Absolutely unbearable. Just like you.”
“I know, my prince,” Dunk smiled, tightening his fingers around his omega’s, his chest filled with a quiet warmth.