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Wakefulness came to you in waves. First, it was the ruffle of the sheets next to you and the dip of the mattress, then the absence of heat, and the sound of frantic footsteps on the stone floor. The hearth gave a gentle crack, soft yellow flames still burning the wood, and then a whimper broke the air, making your heart jump in your throat.
“Daeron?” you called. Only another whimper answered you. “Daeron? Husband, what is it?”
Any remnant of sleep was shaken from your eyes as you finally noticed your husband’s frame in a corner of the room, standing behind a settee, gripping the backrest. Slipping out of bed and pulling on a robe over your nightgown, you walked to him slowly.
The young prince looked as though he was lost in the throes of panic, sweat pearling at his forehead, his eyes were wide and dark, rimmed with red. “—night,” he stammered.
“Yes, it is night, come back to bed,” you encouraged him, reaching for his shoulder.
Daeron startled and finally turned to you, but his eyes were almost empty, as though they were gazing right through you. “No, there is a knight!” he cried out.
Incomprehension gripped your heart and you looked frantically around your chambers. “There’s no one in the room,” you tried to placate, but he would not hear it.
“The dragon died,” he lamented, digging the heel of his palm into his eye. Then, a sharp hit to his own forehead. “The dragon is dead!”
“Alright, I hear you, but please do not hurt yourself,” you pleaded, gripping his wrists and pulling them away from his face. “It is only a nightmare, please wake up! Come back to me.”
“The dragon is dead,” he wailed anew, his handsome face contorted in anguish.
With trembling hands, you reached under his shirt to find his back, pressing your palms to it, holding him too tightly. “Come back to me, I beseech you!” you cried, pressing desperate kisses to his hair, his face.
Finally, he fell to his knees, and you followed him to the floor, collapsing with his face buried between your breasts. His forehead was hot against your throat, his wails shaking your very bones as you held him tightly, resorting to rake your nails across his back gently, attempting to ground him.
You understood now, why he was so adamant on never sharing your bed at night, insisting on returning to his own chambers after sharing a moment with you. Since your wedding a few months prior, Daeron had kept you at arm’s length, never quite allowing you to see you below the surface. While aware that he was troubled, and drank more than was reasonable, you had never understood what ailed him.
Every evening he spent in your chambers always ended in the same way, with him gathering his clothes despite your pleas, and nothing could convince him to stay, not even the promise of more intimacy later on in the night. He insisted that he slept alone, with a sort of resigned sadness that had made you wonder if it was not hiding anything. Now you suspected you knew.
Daeron could eventually be convinced to return to your bed, and fell into an agitated slumber, much as you did after watching over him for as long as you could stay awake, your hands carding through his hair while pondering the situation.
Dawn brought sun in through the curtains, and with it the shame of what had occurred in the night. Much as he remembered his nightmares vividly, Daeron recalled exactly how he had broken down in your arms, sobbing into your chest like a child in their mother’s arms. That his own wife had to see him in such a state made bile rise in his throat, embarrassment and self-loathing burning sharply behind his breastbone.
However, there was no trace of any sort of emotion on your face, save for a gentle smile and honest eyes, and the easy acceptance you displayed made him want to fold into you again. He swallowed the urge down.
Instead he sat up in bed, kicking the sheets from his legs and rehearsing an apology in his head, but you spoke before he could. “These nightmares, do they happen often?” you asked, but it seemed you already knew the answer.
“Enough to plague me,” he still replied.
No one had ever seen him in such a state save the servants and his father once or twice, when he had been called by a panicked maid. This always resulted in him calling for the Maester. The man thought him unstable and recommended frequent leeches. After a while, wishing to be forgotten about, he had pretended the cure had worked. Now he drank enough to put himself into a stupor. The dreams were hazier this way and faded quicker.
“It did seem frightening,” you said softly, running your hand down his spine, the warmth of your palm seeping through his shirt. Daeron swallowed, shameful tears rising to his eyes. He closed them, hanging his head between his shoulders, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees.
You made a gentle, soothing sound and leaned against him, your head on his shoulder. “At first I thought I would not be able to bring you out of it,” you remarked.
“Whatever you did, it helped,” Daeron admitted. He could still remember your hands on his face, your voice pulling him out of his stupor, anchoring him. Suddenly the words were at his lips and he could not stop them despite his better judgement. “They are not simple dreams. They come true.”
For a moment he feared you would laugh, call him insane, but your hand remained a solid press at his back, grounding him as you had done in the night. “Whatever is it you mean?” you asked without a trace of judgment.
Daeron shook his head, regretting he had spoken, but you did not allow him to escape the conversation. Instead, your hand slid from his back to the nape of his neck and pulled him to the side. He let himself be tipped into you, making a surprised sound when it became obvious you meant for him to rest his head on your lap. You shifted, pushing the sheets aside until he was laying between your parted knees, his temple resting on the inside of your thigh.
The intimacy of the embrace made him close his eyes against rising tears, but your gentle hand carding through his long hair settled him and more words came pouring out. “I dreamed of my mother’s death, before it came to pass. I dreamed of a sea of blood, of her floating on top of it,” he confessed.
It was commonly known that Lady Dyanna had died in childbirth, giving birth to her last daughter, but the image spoken in such a way by Daeron made your blood run cold. “Sometimes our fears do come true,” you offered, and Daeron shook his head again.
“It is not that. It is a curse,” he whispered. “Ancient Valyria called them dragon dreams.”
The hand in his hair stopped while you pondered what he had just said. “Oh,” you answered, but you were not as surprised as you could have been.
You knew of Daenys, whom they called the Dreamer, and how she had predicted the doom of Valyria. Something cold curled around your heart, and you thought it a curse indeed, to dream of the downfall of others. “We will find a way to take this burden from you, together. Do you trust me?”
Eventually the two of you rose, and you noticed how easily, akin to second nature, Daeron reached for the pitcher of wine that was left on the table in your supper area, but you immediately came to his side and put a hand flat on the goblet he was about to pour in.
“No,” you said, such a simple word, but your tone left no room for protesting. Daeron froze, his eyes wide, waiting for what you would say next—he expected a lecture, as he had heard many times before, but instead your eyes were gentle.
For a long moment you were silent, the two of you still as stone, waiting for the other. In your mind, images for the night before conjured an idea, one that you could hardly put into words—you remembered the way his body had fallen into yours, his face hidden in your breasts, his terrible vision subsiding until he was able to fall back into a peaceful slumber.
“I will not allow you to drink yourself into an early death,” you explained, and the look on your face was serious but not harsh, and he shivered. You took the cup away and then the pitcher, slowly but firmly, and for some reason, Daeron let you, watching your every move with bated breath.
“I need it to stay sane,” he pleaded.
The next words out of your mouth made his stomach plummet to the depth of his body, hard and heavy with excruciating longing. “I will keep you sane,” you asserted. “From now on, whenever the urge to drink arises, you will come to me. Whenever a vision plagues you, you will come to me, and I shall give you whatever you require.”
Daeron shivered as the true meaning of your words registered. No one had ever cared about him in the way you did, without judgement or anger, and it made him want to surrender the entire world to your mercy. “It might be several times a day,” he protested weakly.
“Then I shall deal with it. I am your wife, and your burdens are my own,” you promised him.
Weeks went on and Daeron kept his promise most of the time. There rarely went a day when he did not seek you out in one way or another. When the urge to drink was sharp and biting, he buried his frustration into your body, taking you in quick, short thrusts that no doubt left you unsatisfied, but you never seemed to mind. When the urge was a dull ache that spread to his whole body, tormenting his mind and making it spin, he would kneel before you and bury his face between your thighs, bringing you pleasure on his tongue.
When echoes of his nightmares came back to him in powerful flashes, he came to you and submitted to whatever you seemed fit for him, and surrendering his desires to you felt right. He rested easy in the acceptance you had shown him, in the assurance that you would be available at all times, day or night, and it never failed to make his mind blissfully quiet.
Whenever he would cave and turn to wine for relief, you did not respond with any sort of anger. Instead you reminded him of your offer with gentle firmness and guided him to a private chamber, either his or yours, and reasserted your hold over him.
One afternoon, a few weeks after that fateful night where he had revealed his burdens, he came to you while you were entertaining company in your solar. A semi-circle of a few ladies of the court were present, sharing tea and gossip, but Daeron did not hesitate to join you.
Without a word or even a glance towards your guests, he gracefully kneeled onto the carpet between your knees and buried his face into your inner thigh, hiding his face in the fabric of your gown. The only acknowledgment he received was your hand coming to find its rightful place at the top of his head.
A shudder ran through him, coursing between the familiar hardness of the floor under his knees and the slight sting at his scalp, and he settled into the position with ease.
The first few times he had sought you out while you had company, you had dismissed your ladies, until one day when you had gestured for them to stay, unwilling to interrupt whatever conversation had been going on. Instead, you had put your teacup down and levelled them with a determined stare.
“If you speak a word of what you are about to see, you will be dismissed from court, and I shall make sure your reputations are tainted with scandal,” you had said in a mild, almost pleasant tone. “Keep your tongue and you will be handsomely rewarded.”
Once your ladies had all confirmed their compliance, you had reached for Daeron, and with a patient smile, guided him to take his place at your feet. Despite the way the back of his neck had been prickling in humiliation, he had obeyed. None of your ladies had said a word or made a sound, but he could feel their eyes on him, caught between his embarrassment and his visceral need, his mind had started spinning much like it did when he was drunk, and the familiarity had settled him quicker than before.
There was an odd pride in kneeling for you, surrendering to your wish, and the public display of your affection for him felt more precious than any verbal declaration.
However this particular afternoon, Daeron could not settle.
He sat there, his face in your thigh and your hand in his hair, carding through his sandy strands. He floated through the gentle click of the porcelain teacups, grounded into the floor by the occasional pulls on his roots, yet a current of unrest still coursed under his skin. It seemed that this time, it would not suffice.
“Leave us, ladies, I’m afraid my husband requires my attention,” you said, easily noticing how he trembled under your hand, occasionally shifting his knees.
As soon as your ladies had left and the doors to your chambers were closed, Daeron fell apart, his hands scrambling up to find your knees, a broken whine escaping from his throat. “What do you need, my sweet man?” you asked, pushing his hair away from his face.
Without a word he ground his face into your thigh, his mouth falling open slightly. From where he was you could only see his profile, one eye looking up at you pleadingly. “Please,” he breathed, you leaned forward, craning your neck to see him.
“Show me,” you commanded, and he obeyed, parting his own knees and pushing his doublet aside to reveal his arousal, obvious under the thinner material of his trousers. One of his hands came down to press its heel there, relieving the pressure.
A shiver went through you at the display, and you leaned back against the back rest of your armchair, pulling up your gown as you went until your bare thighs were revealed. Daeron’s hand came down harder between his own legs, ragged breaths coming from his mouth.
His eyes fluttered close when you reached for his face, your thumb pressing down on his lower lip, and your touch followed him when he bent forward, kissing the inside of your knee, then upwards towards the apex of your thighs.
“Daeron,” you sighed, your back arching, when his mouth settled over your cunt, his tongue licking a broad stripe over it. The call of his name incensed him and he slowly prodded at your core, curling his tongue in a way that made your hand tighten at the back of his head, holding him in place.
Moans fell from his lips at his own touch, his hips grounding into the heel of his hand, while your own hips were rocking steadily against his face. He was caught in a loop that made his mind spin, between the pressure of his hand and the softness of your core against his mouth, or perhaps it was the fact that he could hardly catch his breath.
None of it mattered, the rush of blood in his ears flushing away all remaining worries and thoughts. Now he only existed for the chase of your peak, his tongue licking small, precise strokes over your nub, his free hand curled around your thigh, keeping himself as close as he could. Pleasure mounted in your belly, carried along with Daeron’s desperate panting, until it became unbearable and you fell over the age, Daeron sobbing against you.
In the end, his own pleasure did not matter, and while his cock was aching between his legs, his mind was blissfully quiet. As long as he was simply yours, submitting to your will, the world faded away, and the visions with it.
Daeron felt himself go into free fall, but before he could catch himself, the bed was at his back again, the sheets tangled in his legs, his nightmare lingering around the edges of his mind like a fog. For a moment he stared at the ceiling, nausea rising in his throat, terror shaking his limbs.
He refused to blink, knowing it would drag him back into the horrifying vision he had just seen, and instead his left hand reached out—there you were, sleeping peacefully at his side, and a familiar desperation coiled in his belly.
Daeron kicked the sheets aside and for a quick second marvelled at the expanse of your bare skin in the dark, highlighted by the soft glow of the dying fire. His breath still coming out in pants, he pushed himself up and dragged himself over you, pushing your thighs apart with his knees. Between his own legs, his hand was moving, tugging at his cock in practiced strokes. “My love,” he whispered against the crook of your neck, and you barely
Your body was loose and pliant, your limbs heavy with slumber, open and trusting. The shadows of his nightmare were still creeping up on him, like a monster at his back, ready to pounce, but as soon as he pressed the head of his cock between your folds, the dark receded, surpassed by the desire to bury himself to the hilt.
The first thrust into you made his head spin, and he felt the moment you came back to consciousness, your cunt clenching around him, your hips shifting under his. “It won’t be long,” he whined against your neck, and you answered with a soft, low hum.
Eyes still closed, you burrowed your face into your pillow, one of your hands sliding blindly up his arm until it reached the nape of his neck, curling into the soft hair there and pulling sharply. “Take what you need,” you murmured, voice thick with sleep, and he sobbed his pleasure into the crook of your shoulder.
The stretch of him inside of you burned in the most delicious way, and you quickly fell back into the suspended state between wakefulness and slumber, distantly enjoying his desperate moans and whimpers.
It was shameful, in a twisted way, to use your body for his own selfish pleasure while you were halfway to the land of dreams, but Daeron knew it pleased you to have him turn to you in his times of need, reduced to pleading whimpers. His thrusts grew harsher but still you did not mind, humming softly while the bed creaked and groaned.
Soo Daeron couldn’t swallow his cries anymore and they pierced the quiet of the night, the headboard slamming into the wall a few times before suddenly falling silent again, Daeron biting the pillow over your shoulder to muffle his broken scream. His cock pulsed inside of you, a molten heat pulled from deep within him in hot bursts.
Underneath him, you stretched your body, your hand keeping him close, and hooked one of your legs behind his knee. “Do you believe you can rest, now?” you whispered, and his only answer was a hot kiss to your neck, tasting your skin—inside of you, his cock throbbed.
In the darkness, you smiled, your mind heavy with sleep. “Try not to wake me again, shall you?”