Chapter Text
The maestor's said that Aerion Targaryen, second son of the fourth son of the King of the Seven Kingdoms, came into the world without crying.
Those around him did. His mother cried, for he was such a beautiful babe, and his father shed a tear for he could already sense the distinction between this son that was born and the one before. He knew how the world would treat them differently.
But Aerion did not cry.
When he was older and his youngest brother Egg irritated him enough to warrant, in his own eyes, the demise of the family cat at his own hands, he did not cry when his father beat him.
No, Aerion did not cry.
When he presented at the ripe age of three and ten only those closest to him wept. Life would be so much harder for the pale haired dragon now. His outbursts made sense, the hysterical nature of an omega could only have fueled his rages, said the Maestor. Though the realm was briefed and hushed words were said in court, the scandal soon passed.
Aerion did not cry.
But at the age of nine and ten, standing before his Uncle, the hand of the King, Aerion did feel the dampness around his eyes, the humiliation rising to his face.
Prior, he had been walking around the tourney grounds that night. The courtyard had smelt of wood smoke and freshly churned earth.
There was a puppet show in one of the larger tents, enrapturing many of the knights and squires to join in the warmth. Inside, puppets danced atop a small, creaking stage, their painted faces grotesque copies of nobles no one dared mock aloud. Aerion’s eyes narrowed as the crowd laughed, the sound sharp and biting to him.
He had stood on the edge of the crowd, chin high, back straight. No one dared make him the target of ridicule. Not him. Not a Targaryen. And yet, the laughter pricked at his pride like needles.
A puppet tumbled from its tiny stage horse, limbs flailing, and the audience erupted. Aerion’s lips pressed into a thin line. He could not tell if it was the ineptitude of the performers or the daring of the caricature that enraged him more.
Then he saw him. Duncan. Taller, awkward, eyes calm in the midst of chaos. Watching. Smiling faintly at the spectacle, unbothered. Even amused. Beside him, because of course he was there, was Aerion’s missing little brother. The one meant to be with Daeron…
Aerion’s chest tightened. How dare he not flinch at the sight before him?
It was in that moment, body ripe with his usual hormonal outbursts, Aerion stepped forward, voice carrying over the laughter. “Hedge Knight. Come here.”
Heads turned. Gasps floated. Some stifled laughter. Aerion ignored them. He was already furious that he would be forced to watch as the oaf’s amusement set a mirror to his own insecurity.
“You mock me,” he said, voice low and sharp. “You laugh at my house. At me.” He was unsure what made him say it next, but the dragon’s blood did boil through him. “What do you say of yourself?”
The taller man opened his mouth agape but before he could say anything, Aerion spoke again. “I challenge you, in a duel.”
The crowd fell quiet, the way it always did when Targaryens raised their voices. Aerion felt a small, bitter thrill. He had said it. He had claimed the moment. Pride surged, a white-hot rush of certainty.
Duncan’s eyes widened slightly, just a flicker. Then the corner of his mouth lifted. Calm, amused. Unafraid. But of what?
Aerion’s lip curled. How can something that big and ugly be so unbothered?
He drew in a breath, preparing to speak again, to assert dominance, to enforce fear, and already, in the back of his mind, he felt the first prickle of the humiliation that would not yet land.
His Uncle Baelor’s voice cut through the tension, sharp as steel. “Aerion! You may not—”
And that was how Aerion found himself where he stood now, hands clasped together in front of him, his Uncle sat at his table, watching him like a hawk. His own father was away handling the two sons he thought were missing.
The fat oaf of a Hedge Knight stood slightly to his left, shifting from foot to foot.
Aerion’s eyes snapped back to his Uncle, refusing to believe the words said to him. “Why can I not fight him? I will have justice. I will not stand here and be mocked!”
His uncle, Hand to the King, not amused by any of the night’s events, sighed, “he cannot fight you, boy.”
Aerion scoffed. So it was a designation thing. His gender meant he would not fight the hulk of a man that stood next to him. He thought at first that the man was a beta. Usually Aerion was able to determine through scent the gender of others but Dunk was hard to sniff out.
But if he was an alpha then so be it. He would have to have someone else fight him instead.
“So have Daeron fight him for me.” Unlikely that his older brother, as drunk as he was, would even wish to fight the 6ft plus hulk beside him. “Or one of the Kingsguard.”
Baelor shook his head at the young prince and Aerion narrowed his eyes. This was taking far too long, there could not possibly be any other reason other than that they wished to embarrass him further.
“He cannot do that, your brother.” Aerion squinted, his violet eyes taking stock of the elder man before him.
“And why is that? Why can my brother, an Alpha in his own rank, not take on this one? It is fair combat, is it not?”
Baelor’s sigh carried the weight of inevitability. “You will not duel him, nor your brother. Not as you imagine.” He then turned to look at Dunk who nodded beside him. Were they conferring? “Aerion, Lord Duncan… He is an omega.”
The word fell like a stone. Aerion’s chest tightened. His voice caught. And the room, the company, the spectacle itself seemed suddenly too small for the fury and disbelief that roared inside him.
Duncan, the calm, the unflinching, the insult wrapped in impassivity… he was an omega.
Aerion opened his mouth to argue. He wanted to scream. To insist. And yet, he already felt it, the first taste of the embarrassment that would follow, as the world would watch him, the little dragon, exposed before his peers.
The duel he had demanded would not happen. And the question that haunted him before even Baelor’s words sank in was simple, bitter, and immediate:
Who will fight for me?
“You have till the morrow, to either squash this or find your champions. Only unclaimed alpha’s will do.” That broke another part of Aerion. If they had to be unclaimed, he could not force his older brother into submission, nor his own father or uncle for that matter. “I wish not to see this happen,” Baelor continued, “but if either of you are claimed, find your alpha and warn them of your folly.” His eyes fell on Aerion’s, “if not. Find one to fight for you now.”
Aerion should not have been walking.
He knew this even as he did it, boots scuffing through the narrow lanes of the camp, cloak drawn tight, temper burning off in sharp, restless bursts. Fires guttered low around him, reduced to coals and smoke. Men slept. Somewhere a horse stamped, annoyed at the world, and Aerion envied it for its simplicity.
He should have been furious in private.
Instead, he rounded a line of wagons and walked straight into a wall.
A human wall.
He stopped short, breath catching despite himself.
His cousin,Valarr, stood there as if he had always been there, tall, broad-shouldered, half-lit by dying embers. His hair was loose, unbound, failing over his mismatched eyes, like his father, one violet, one brown. His sword was unbuckled but close enough to be reached in a heartbeat. He looked entirely at ease, like a man who belonged to the night rather than moving through it.
A true Alpha.
He looked down at Aerion without surprise, like he knew they were to bump into one another. He could probably smell him from across the way.
That irritated the younger prince immediately.
Aerion straightened, chin lifting on instinct. “You walk quietly,” he snapped, because being startled felt like weakness and he refused to own it, especially in front of his cousin.
Valarr’s mouth curved, faint and unreadable. “And you walk loudly, cousin.”
He did not. And what was left and implied curled deep in Aerion’s chest. He had sensed him, his smell, that omega sweetness.
Aerion scoffed and looked past Valarr’s shoulder, anywhere but his face. He knew he would have to start talking. Explain why he, a young, unmated omega prince, was wandering around the tourney grounds without his guards.
He casted a quick look at the taller man, noting how he was watching him, an eyebrow raised, waiting for an explanation.
“They say I’ll need an alpha,” he began, because Valarr already knew. Everyone who mattered already knew.
Whatever passed through Baelor passed through Valarr. Whatever mockery was spoken earlier tonight will have reached him, stripped of courtesy.
Heat crawled up Aerion’s neck. He forced it down.
“That I cannot answer an insult myself,” he continued, words sharpening as his control slipped. “That I must stand aside and wait while someone else bleeds on my behalf. Like property.” Valarr did not interrupt. The silence needled. “They call it protection,” Aerion said bitterly. “As if wrapping me in rules suddenly makes it noble.”
Valarr‘s voice, when it came, was low and steady. “Protection without choice is not protection.”
Aerion looked up sharply. Valarr‘s expression held no pity. “They looked at me,” Aerion said, quieter now despite himself. “As if I were already… lacking.”
The word tasted wrong. Incomplete. Dangerous. He hated the tremor in his voice.
He hated that Valarr heard it.
“Ziry,”Valarr murmured.
Careful.
The word settled over Aerion like a hand at his spine, neither pushing, nor pulling. Just there. It infuriated him that it worked at all.
“You don’t understand,” Aerion snapped, the edge thin now. “You’re an alpha. You’ve never been told you may not answer.”
Valarr stepped closer, not crowding, never crowding, but near enough that Aerion became acutely aware of the height difference, the solid certainty of him. He hated that his body registered it before his pride could object.
“I know exactly what it is,” Valarr said calmly, “to be told restraint is obedience.”
Aerion’s breath stuttered before he could stop it. Looking up, he laughed, brittle and sharp. “And yet you make it look so easy.”
Valarr‘s mouth twitched into not quite a smile. “It isn’t.”
Silence stretched between them, thick and weighted. The fire crackled. Aerion rubbed his thumb against the ring on his finger, grounding himself. “They will choose for me,” he said finally. “If I do not.” He sighed. "Or I will forfeit and look like a fool in front of all of the tourney."
“Yes.”
“And whoever steps forward will think me weak.”
Valarr studied him for a long moment, gaze unflinching. Then he said, deliberately, “Then choose first.”
Aerion bristled. “You speak as if I’m allowed.”
“You are.”
The certainty in Valarr’s voice was infuriating. A silence settled, held, not awkward until Valarr spoke again, slower this time, in High Valyrian. “Zaldrītsos.” Little dragon.
Aerion stiffened.
The name should enrage him. Instead, it landed warm and disorienting, like being seen too clearly after years of sharpening himself into something unapproachable.
“Do not call me that,” he said, but the bite was gone, the heat barely there.
Valarr inclined his head. He did not argue. Rarely did with Aerion. “Go back,” he said simply. “You are tired.” Of course he knew that, and could probably smell the weakness within Aerion, the tiredness of his body.
Aerion hesitated. The night pressed in around them. The camp waited. Tomorrow would come sharp and watching. He exhaled slowly. “You won’t tell anyone.”
“There is nothing to tell.”
That, more than reassurance, steadied him.
Aerion turned to leave. After a few steps, he paused, then spoke without looking back. "If no one steps forward—”
Valarr‘s answer came without hesitation. “Then we will see.”
Aerion walked away steadier than he arrived, embers warming his back, the echo of a single word following him like a held breath.
Choose.
The ground felt uneven beneath Aerion’s boots.
He told himself it was the churned earth of the lists, the press of bodies, the way the crowd had leaned inward as if scenting blood. It was not fear. It was not a weakness. It was the irritation at having to stand still while others decided the shape of his honour.
Baelor’s voice carried, formal and unyielding, laying out the rule as if it were weather rather than judgment. “Omegas may not cross steel with one another. A champion must be named.”
A murmur rippled through the crowd. Anticipation. Relief. The world slotting itself back into its preferred order.
Dunk stood opposite him, awkward and massive and infuriatingly calm.
Aerion kept his spine straight, his expression bored, as if this was an inconvenience rather than a humiliation. His gaze flicked, briefly, to Dunk, standing there with his hands at his sides, looking startled and wrong-footed and entirely too large to be an omega.
Absurd, Aerion thought bitterly. How can something that big be claimed at all?
Before he could dwell on it there was movement.
Lyonel Baratheon stepped forward.
He did not hesitate. Did not look to the crowd for approval. He simply moved until he stood at Dunk’s side, close enough that the meaning was unmistakable.
“I will fight for him,” Lyonel said, no laughter in his voice at this moment, stone cold sober.
A murmur rippled outward, quick and sharp.
Baelor silenced them with a hand, his own brow raised at what stood before him. “You claim this cause?”
“I do,” The Laughing Storm replied evenly. Then, without raising his voice, without spectacle, he placed a hand at Dunk’s back, light, possessive, practiced.
The effect was immediate.
Dunk stiffened, then relaxed, shoulders lowering as if some tension he had been carrying too long had finally been given leave to rest. His head dipped, just slightly, toward Lyonel's shoulder.
The scent hit Aerion a heartbeat later.
Not raw. Not crude.
Bonded. Honey as sweet as could be, wrapped around a musky, earthy scent.
It coiled through the air, alpha certainty wrapped around omega steadiness, quiet and intimate and finished. The kind of thing that had been chosen long before it was displayed.
“Oh,” someone breathed nearby.
Aerion’s stomach dropped.
Baelor nodded slowly. “You are his…?”
“Yes,” Lord Baratheon said. “I have claimed him.” He looked down intensely at his mate. “We are together. Bonded.”
The words landed like a blow.
Aerion stared.
Dunk did not deny it. Did not flinch. He simply stood there, massive and awkward and wanted. His place in the world was suddenly very clear.
Lyonel glanced down at him, voice softening. “Are you well?”
The oaf nodded. “Aye.”
Something ugly twisted in Aerion’s chest. Of course Duncan the Tall had someone. Of course he had been chosen, openly, confidently, without shame. Of course someone stepped forward for him without pause or calculation.
The crowd murmured approval now, interest shifting, satisfaction blooming. This was the shape of things they understood. An omega claimed. An alpha standing for him. Order restored.
Aerion felt suddenly, acutely alone.
Baelor turned back toward him. “And you, Aerion,” his uncle said gently. “Name your champion.”
Aerion lifted his chin. He did not look around yet. He refused to give the moment that satisfaction. “I will,” he said coolly.
Seconds stretched.
He let his gaze flick sideways, just once. No one moved. The contrast burned.
Dunk has his alpha's hand at his back.
Aerion had nothing.
Aerion felt the weight of every eye, every calculation. He felt small and furious and exposed, his pride stretched thin enough to tear.
I am a dragon, he thought desperately. I am a prince.
Aerion barely looked at them. He was watching the space beside himself.
Baelor turned to him again. “Nephew, name your champion.”
The words echoed longer than they should. Aerion lifted his chin even more. He refused to grant the moment that power. Someone will step forward. Someone must. He was a prince of the blood. A dragon. This was a formality, nothing more.
Seconds passed.
He allowed himself to glance sideways again.
Nothing.
Faces blurred together, men he had insulted, men he had ignored, men who had laughed behind their hands and bowed to his face. Alphas shifted their weight. Some looked anywhere but at him. One met his eyes and then, unmistakably, looked away.
Heat crawled up Aerion’s spine. He told himself this was a test. That someone was waiting for the right moment, the most advantageous moment, the moment that will be remembered.
Baelor cleared his throat. “Aerion,” he said, not unkindly. “You must name someone.”
“I am waiting,” Aerion snapped.
The crowd stilled. The silence sharpened, no longer neutral, now it was pointed, evaluative. Aerion felt it pressing against his ribs, against his throat. He tasted copper and fury.
Across the lists, Dunk looked uncomfortable. Not triumphant. Not pleased. That almost made it worse.
No one moved.
The truth arrived not as a blow but as a slow, unbearable understanding: this was not hesitation. This was a decision.
They had chosen not to choose him.
Aerion’s hands curled into fists at his sides. He could feel the eyes on him now, not reverent, not fearful. Curious. Measuring. He had been reduced to a question others were answering without him.
Baelor inhaled, preparing to speak, to end this, to intervene, to make the lesson unmistakable.
Movement. Not from beside him. From behind.
Aerion felt it before he saw it, the subtle shift in the air, the way attention realigned. A presence detaching itself from the crowd with deliberate slowness.
Footsteps.
Measured. Certain.
Aerion did not turn immediately. He was suddenly, painfully aware that if this was pity, if this was obligation, if this was some courtly farce meant to spare him—
He would not survive it.
The footsteps stopped.
The scent hit him hard.
Baelor looked up, surprised. So did Lyonel. A murmur passed through the onlookers, sharper now, edged with recognition.
Aerion turned.
Valarr stood a few paces away, tall and unhurried, helm tucked beneath his arm. His expression gave nothing away, not triumph, not reluctance, not disdain. He looked as he always did: composed, as if the moment had simply arrived at the time he expected.
For one impossible heartbeat, Aerion thought of the firelight. Of embers. Of a voice in the dark telling him to choose.
Valarr stepped forward.
Just one pace.
“I will,” he said.
Two words. No flourish. His scent sweeping over Aerion, filling his nose with that heavy Alpha pine. His father, the hand of the king, blinked. “You will…?”
“Fight,” Valarr finished evenly. He stood there in all his princely valour, as composed as ever. “For Prince Aerion.”
The words hit the crowd like a stone dropped into still water.
Shock first. Then sound.
Whispers rose, layered and fast. Surprise sharpened into speculation. This was not the outcome they had rehearsed.
Aerion’s breath locked in his chest. Valarr did not look at him. Not yet. He faced Baelor, posture impeccable, offering nothing but certainty.
Father studied son for a long moment. “You understand what you offer.”
“Yes.”
“And you do so freely.”
Valarr inclined his head. “I do.” Something inside Aerion fractured, not broken, not yet, but cracked just enough to let air in.
Baelor nodded once. “Then it is accepted.”
The verdict echoed. The world rearranges itself around it.
Valarr finally turned. His gaze met Aerion’s, a hint of something, possession? Steady. As if to say: I am here. Decide what that means.
Aerion’s heart hammered, furious and unsteady, in his chest. He lifted his chin higher, forcing his spine straight, refusing to let the crowd see the tremor that wanted to surface.
Valarr stepped closer, stopping at a respectful distance. Close enough that Aerion could hear him without anyone else needing to.
Quietly, in High Valyrian, “Lykiri, Zaldrītsos.”
Aerion did.
The command, no, the anchor, settled him, pulled him back into his body. He swallowed, then tilted his head, defiance sharpened to a blade’s edge.
“I did not expect you here,” he murmured, lips barely moving.
Valarr‘s reply was just as soft. “It was a choice I had to make.”
Aerion exhaled through his nose, a slow, controlled breath. Then, for the first time since the challenge was issued, he allowed himself to turn outward, to face the crowd not as an exposed omega, not as a prince awaiting rescue, but as someone who had been chosen.