Chapter Text
175-186 AC
Purple belonged to twilight, bruises, royalty, and his brother’s gaze — things beautiful enough to ruin a man.
Yet Maekar had entered the world furious and Baelor remembered that part clearly.
Not the blood, nor the maesters rushing anxiously through Maegor’s Holdfast while servants whispered outside closed doors. Not even his mother’s exhausted cries drifting faintly beneath the chamber doors while Aerys hid beneath a table insisting dragons were eating her alive.
Only the sound afterward.
A scream, loud enough that even the corridors had gone still around it.
Baelor had looked up immediately from where he sat cross-legged beside Rhaegel and frowned toward the doors. The cry did not sound frightened.
Not frightened, not at all.
Enraged... As though the child resented the world for laying hands upon him.
“That is the baby?” Aerys asked suspiciously from beneath the tablecloth.
Another furious wail echoed outward.
Baelor thought perhaps it was.
Hours later, when the castle had finally softened back into movement again, their father emerged carrying something impossibly small wrapped in dark crimson blankets.
Prince Maekar Targaryen.
Baelor remembered feeling confused at first, not because the babe looked strange. All newborn children looked somewhat alarming to him. Red-faced. Tiny. Furious at existence itself.
No—
because the moment the child settled against his chest, something within Baelor recognised him.
He had held Aerys before. Held Rhaegel too while their mother slept or servants rushed elsewhere. He had loved them both with all the uncomplicated certainty expected of an eldest son.
This felt different immediately.
The babe smelled warm.
Milk and warmth, touched already by something sharp beneath it — rain from a storm.
Not sweet like Rhaegel.
Not soft.
Sharp.
The infant squirmed angrily within the blankets before opening startling violet eyes directly toward Baelor’s face and stopped crying.
Silence fell so abruptly that even his father, King Daeron blinked.
“Well,” their father murmured after a moment. “That appears promising.”
Baelor looked down at the child in alarm and Maekar stared back with visible displeasure.
At five years old, Baelor decided instantly that the baby disliked everyone except him.
Baelor treasured the knowledge at once.
The attachment only worsened afterward.
At three years old, Maekar refused to sleep unless his cot remained within sight of Baelor’s bed. Nursemaids complained endlessly of it but Maekar simply screamed until returned.
At four, he stole Baelor’s cloaks constantly despite drowning in the fabric. Baelor would find him later curled furiously beneath window seats wrapped in black wool several sizes too large.
“They smell like you,” Rhaegel explained once while watching this with fascination.
Maekar looked deeply offended at being understood.
At five, Baelor found him asleep beneath the library table after vanishing halfway through lessons. Silver hair sprawled untidily across folded arms while one of Baelor’s old tunics served apparently as a pillow.
Baelor crouched carefully beside him afterward. “Valonqar.”
One violet eye opened immediately. “I was not sleeping.”
“You are drooling on the sleeve.”
Maekar shifted irritably before grabbing weakly at Baelor’s wrist without opening his eyes fully. “Do not leave yet.”
The request emerged so sleep-soft that something painful moved through Baelor’s chest at once. He stayed there on the library floor until Maekar drifted properly asleep again.
Afterward, Baelor told himself the fierce warmth inside him was only what elder brothers felt.
Years later, he would understand he had begun lying to himself very young indeed.
He had been taught that the instincts of alphas were built for challenge, rivalry, dominance. Alphas were not made for gentleness with one another. Every maester, every septon, every law of gods and men agreed upon that much.
Never this.
But even as a child, Baelor could always find Maekar blindfolded amongst a crowded hall of princes, knights and courtiers alike. The scent changed with age but never essence.
The desire to keep his brother close never left him, even when Baelor went through the worst moments of his life, one Maekar barely remembered, the only notices of it being the scars he bore on his face.
Baelor remembered though.
He remembered the doors to Maekar’s chamber being left half-open for the maester’s coming and going, and every time they creaked Baelor looked up in fear.
He remembered the room smelling wrong. Sour wine, boiled herbs, sweat. It did not smell like his brother.
And how could he ever forget Maekar laying tangled in the bedclothes, cheeks flushed red beneath the angry little blisters spreading over his skin.
Six years old and suddenly so small that Baelor could not understand how he had ever thought him troublesome.
“He keeps asking for you,” the nursemaid whispered.
And Baelor recalled climbing carefully onto the bed despite everyone telling him not to, and taking Maekar’s hot hand between both of his own.
“Baelor?” Maekar’s voice was thick with sleep.
“I am here, sweetling.”
Baelor remembered this was the first time he used that word for the ones he loved the most.
“You won’t go?”
“No.” The answer had come too quickly, sharp with panic. Baelor tightened his grip. “No, never.”
Maekar’s eyes closed again, but his fingers still curled weakly around Baelor’s hand. Outside, somewhere deep in the Red Keep, a bell was tolling the hour. Baelor hated the sound of it. It reminded him that time was still moving while Maekar burned with fever.
Baelor remembered the maester having said the pox was usually mild in children. Usually. Baelor had seized on that word and hated it at once.
Usually meant sometimes children died.
The thought had hollowed him out so suddenly he could scarcely breathe. He imagined walking the halls alone, no small shadow racing after him, no stubborn voice arguing over toy swords or demanding stories before sleep. No Maekar at all.
The world without his brother felt cold and impossible.
Baelor had bent his head until his forehead rested against their joined hands. He recalled trying to pray, but the words tangled together inside him.
Please, he thought fiercely instead. Please let him stay.
Worst of all, Baelor remembered Maekar stirring at the movement and frowning even in sleep. “Don’t cry,” he had mumbled.
Only then did Baelor realise tears had fallen onto the blankets.
It seemed, after a near death experience. Maekar’s temper worsened as he grew. As a child, he solved many grievances with his teeth. Looking back, Baelor would laugh at how much Maekar’s second son took after him.
For both utilised their sharp pincers more than anyone.
Septas first.
Then maesters.
Then, catastrophically, a visiting Lannister boy after an argument over wooden swords.
“He cannot simply maul every child who irritates him,” their mother said while exhausted servants attempted to pry six-year-old Maekar from golden hair and shrieking outrage alike.
“He started it,” Maekar snarled immediately, the boy hated losing control most when others witnessed it.
“All the boy did was call you small.”
“I will kill him.”
“You are six and a prince of the realm.”
“He was rude.”
Baelor laughed before he could stop himself and Maekar twisted instantly toward the sound, silver hair half falling from its ribbon while fury still burned openly across his face.
Then he noticed Baelor smiling and calmed.
Not wholly, for Maekar never did anything wholly. Yet the violence eased from his posture all the same.
Their mother noticed it too. Baelor knew because sometimes she looked at them strangely afterward. Thoughtfully, as though she had recognised the shape of something unfortunate.
The older they became, the worse it grew.
Or better.
Baelor never quite decided which.
At seven, Maekar bloodied the nose of a boy nearly twice his size for mocking Rhaegel’s softness.
At eight, he vanished midway through a feast after too many visiting lords pressed close around him, their competing scents thick enough to sour the air.
The following autumn, he split open a training squire’s lip for suggesting Aerys would present better as heir.
Only days later, he stood trembling with rage before their father after a master-at-arms called him unstable and would be better sent off to squire under another Lord.
“I am not weak.”
“That is not the question at hand, Maekar. You threw a shield at the man’s head.” Their father sighed, tired from all his sons had to offer him.
“He insulted me.”
“He had to duck for it were to hit we would be facing a wealth of rumours.”
“Then his reflexes served him well,” Baelor offered. Their father looked deeply unimpressed whilst Maekar looked privately delighted.
Baelor received punishment alongside him anyway.
Neither minded very much.
Yet for all of Maekar’s strengths, he still was just a boy at heart.
And storms were worst.
Summer storms made Maekar restless. Winter storms made him furious. Thunder seemed to crawl beneath his skin until he snapped at servants and prowled the halls sharp with agitation.
Yet somehow he always ended up in Baelor’s chambers before dawn, not admitting to his fear. He simply appeared.
“You are awake,” Maekar would mutter from the doorway as lightning flashed pale across Kings Landings stone.
Baelor had already woken by then, the sharp distress beneath Maekar’s anger carrying plainly through the corridor, would lift the blankets silently in answer.
Maekar always climbed in beside him afterward with visible reluctance, as though comfort personally offended him. Then immediately fell asleep, curled close to Baelor like a kitten.
Even then, Baelor preferred him thus, unarmoured by anger.
No snarling mouth or sharpened eyes. No brittle tension wound too tightly beneath skin.
Only warmth.
Only Maekar.
Sometimes, half-asleep, Maekar would drift nearer still, drawn unconsciously toward the place beneath Baelor’s jaw where his scent gathered strongest.
There, the fury always left him.
Safe, Baelor thought each time with quiet astonishment.
Mine.
The first time the thought came, Baelor could not control his warring mind. He was torn, conflicted, his mind raged for hours.
It horrified him enough that he did not sleep at all before dawn.
But, as all things went, their periods of bliss under storm light was not meant to last.
The first sign came in the training yard, when Baelor, merely ten and three, split a shield apart. The crack echoed sharply across the stone courtyard before half the watching squires stumbled backward outright.
Splinters scattered across the ground and Baelor stared at the ruined shield still strapped to his forearm in confusion.
He had not meant to strike that hard.
His hands hurt.
No—
burned.
The sword suddenly felt strange within his grip. Too light and too fragile. The leather wrapping around the hilt scraped unpleasantly against overheated skin and somewhere nearby, the bitter scent of fear rose suddenly through the yard.
Baelor looked up instinctively. The scent came from the boy across from him.
A beta squire. The boy swallowed visibly beneath Baelor’s gaze before taking another step backward and something dark stirred low within him at the retreat.
Maekar appeared at the edge of the yard moments later already wearing the black look he carried toward most of the world.
He was eight, nearing his ninth birthday, thunderous in both his approach to life and the scowl that covered his pox littered face.
“What happened?” Maekar demanded immediately, squinting those deep purple eyes.
No greeting.
Never greetings with Maekar.
Baelor exhaled slowly through his nose. Even that felt hotter than it should have. “I do not know.”
Maekar glanced once toward the shattered shield littering the ground before looking back toward Baelor. Then his expression changed. “You smell strange.”
The words settled unpleasantly beneath Baelor’s skin and the nearby squire had gone very still. So had Ser Quentyn Ball, his master at arms who now stood, knowing look on his face.
Baelor looked between them with growing unease. “What?”
Neither answered quickly enough.
Maekar frowned harder. “Like orchard bark after rain.”
That made Ser Quentyn mutter something beneath his breath and Baelor’s stomach tightened immediately.
By evening the fever had begun.
Heat crawled violently beneath his skin until even King's Landings sea winds felt useless against it. His muscles ached constantly, his clothes clung damply against overheated skin and every sound within the castle scraped raw against his temper.
Servants smelled unbearable. Scents twirled and spiralled and his head could not stand the smells any longer.
By nightfall Baelor had snapped at three maids, frightened a young page into tears and cracked a wooden bedpost clean through after waking disoriented from uneasy sleep.
The sight horrified him afterward.
He had never frightened people before.
His father arrived shortly before midnight accompanied by two maesters and Ser Quentyn alike.
The moment the Crown Prince Daeron entered the chambers, understanding settled heavily across his face. “Oh,” his father murmured quietly.
Baelor sat upright immediately. “What is wrong with me?”
“No illness,” one maester assured him carefully while refusing to step too close. “Simply presentation.”
Presentation.
Baelor knew what it meant, of course. Every noble child did. Omegas vanished into guarded chambers and emerged watched more carefully thereafter. Alphas emerged larger, sharper, more dangerous to everyone around them. Betas simply remained themselves.
Yet somehow Baelor had imagined it happening gradually.
Not like this.
Not as though his body had become something foreign overnight.
Another wave of heat rolled through him violently enough that his jaw tightened.
Gods.
It hurt.
His father approached the bedside carefully afterward, slow enough not to startle him. Baelor hated noticing that.
“I know this feels frightening presently,” his father said quietly, “but it will settle.”
Baelor swallowed hard, his father had gone through this, as had his father’s brother Daemon quite recently.
Sweat already dampened the collar of his nightshirt. “Why does everything smell wrong?”
The Crown Prince’s expression softened slightly. “Because you are scenting properly now.”
Properly.
As though the world had always existed this way but for the first time he was witnessing it up close, personal.
Baelor could smell the sea beyond King's Landing's walls. Smoke from distant torches several corridors away. Oil on Ser Quentyn’s armour.
Fear.
The scent reached him sharply enough that Baelor looked up at once.
One of the younger maesters stood near the doorway visibly tense.
Because of him.
Shame twisted unpleasantly through Baelor’s stomach.
“I frightened him.”
“No,” Ser Quentyn said immediately. "He is merely concerned, my prince."
The falsehood reached him plainly.
Heat surged again beneath Baelor’s skin so violently that he doubled forward slightly against the blankets. His entire body felt too tight suddenly. Bones aching. Muscles burning.
Something worse twisted low in his abdomen afterward.
Wrong.
Strange.
Changing.
Baelor froze outright and the maesters exchanged glances instantly. “Oh,” one muttered faintly.
Baelor looked up sharply. “What?”
No one answered quickly enough and horror crawled slowly upward through him as realisation arrived piece by piece.
Gods.
Gods—
“I require privacy,” Baelor said at once, summoning what remained of his dignity, he felt like ripping his skin from his bones.
Ser Quentyn turned violently toward the wall at once and one maester nearly tripped over himself retreating.
His father remained where he stood. “Baelor—”
“Please.”
Something in his voice must have reached him for his father exhaled slowly through his nose before nodding once toward the others. “Outside.”
The chamber emptied swiftly afterward and Baelor sat there breathing hard in the sudden silence while heat continued rolling mercilessly beneath his skin.
Alpha.
The thought felt enormous suddenly. He did not want it, not like this.
Hours passed strangely afterward and the fever worsened. Sleep came only in fragments between waves of painful heat and sharp instinctive agitation crawling endlessly beneath his skin.
Again and again, he found himself scenting the air in search of something familiar.
Maekar.
The knowledge unsettled him each time anew.
Where was he?
Baelor had not seen him since the yard. He looked toward the doors again. “Where is Maekar?”
His father, now seated nearby, glanced up immediately from where he had been pretending to read. “He is elsewhere presently.”
Baelor frowned. “Why?”
Silence.
Understanding came ugly and immediate afterward.
Kept away.
Something sharp twisted beneath his ribs.
“He thinks I would hurt him?”
“No,” Daeron answered at once. Yet guards remained outside the doors and no one permitted Maekar near the chambers.
That answered enough.
Another surge of instinct rolled violently through him then. Hotter this time. Hungrier somehow. Baelor gripped the blankets hard enough his knuckles ached.
He wanted—
No.
Not wanted.
Needed.
Space.
Air.
Something familiar.
Maekar.
The thought arrived again instantly.
Gods, why?
“Baelor,” his father said carefully.
Baelor looked up too sharply. The Crown Prince went still briefly at whatever expression crossed his face.
“You are entering first rut now,” Daeron explained quietly. “Your instincts will turn toward what they know,” Daeron said quietly. “What feels safe. What the body wishes to claim.”
The last word felt deeply unpleasant.
Baelor swallowed hard.
“Most young alphas become volatile during first rut,” his father continued. “Especially dragonlords.”
“I am not some beast.”
The words emerged harsher than intended.
His father said nothing.
Somewhere beyond the chamber doors raised voices suddenly echoed faintly down the corridor.
Baelor recognised Maekar immediately. “I do not care what he said.”
“My prince—”
“He asked for me.”
“He did not, my prince.”
“He would.”
Baelor sat upright instantly, the scent reached him even through the heavy doors moments later.
Storms.
Relief hit him so sharply it was almost painful.
Maekar.
The frenzy beneath Baelor’s skin eased at once.
Wrongly.
No maester had ever spoken of such a thing.
Outside, the argument worsened.
“You cannot keep me from him.”
“Prince Maekar—”
“I will throw you into the bloody sea.”
The guards smelled alarmed and his father pinched the bridge of his nose wearily.
Baelor almost laughed despite himself. Then the laughter died immediately as another violent wave of heat crashed through him.
Gods.
It hurt.
Before he could stop himself, Baelor called hoarsely toward the doors, “Maekar.”
Silence fell outside immediately.
Then—
“Baelor?”
The answer came instantly. Closer now.
Baelor closed his eyes briefly at the sound, relief spreading warm and strange through his chest.
Safe.
The thought arrived instinctively.
Outside the doors Maekar’s scent sharpened suddenly with distress. “What is wrong with him?”
“He is presenting, little one,” their father answered back.
A pause followed.
“Oh.”
Baelor imagined the exact expression crossing Maekar’s face at that moment. The frown. The stubborn worry poorly hidden beneath irritation.
“Can I see him?”
“No.”
“Why?”
Another silence.
Then Maekar said with immediate fury, “That is stupid.”
Despite everything, warmth flickered unexpectedly through Baelor’s chest.
Beyond the doors Maekar remained there anyway.
Hours passed.
Servants changed and torches burned lower. The fever worsened.
Still Maekar lingered outside.
Baelor could scent him the entire time.
Waiting.
And every time the pain became unbearable afterward, Baelor breathed deeply through his nose and found the scent of storms waiting for him beyond the doors.
Only then did the panic loosen its grip enough for sleep to claim him at last.
Even half-delirious with fever, Baelor understood one thing clearly:
his body had chosen Maekar before he ever had.
After presentation, the castle changed around Baelor. It was announced aloud. The herald declared Prince Baelor Targaryen an alpha before the court.
That same evening one lord raised a goblet toward the royal table with visible satisfaction.
“A strong line indeed,” the lord declared warmly. “The heir to the Iron Throne an alpha, with the possibility of another as one too. Two alphas in one generation. The realm is fortunate.”
Several nobles murmured agreement immediately and Baelor felt his appetite vanish. Across the table, Maekar’s expression darkened at once.
“The gods clearly favour House Targaryen,” another lord added. “Strong sons produce strong heirs.”
Heirs.
Marriage.
Bloodlines.
The words thickened unpleasantly through the hall.
Baelor became sharply aware of every omega noble seated nearby beneath silk and perfume while older courtiers watched the princes with quiet calculation.
Like breeding stock.
Maekar pushed abruptly backward from the table. “I have lost my appetite.”
“Maekar,” their father warned softly.
“I said I am finished.”
Storms cracked sharp through the air before he turned and disappeared from the hall entirely.
The music faltered briefly afterward.
No one looked directly toward Baelor, yet he could smell curiosity everywhere. His hands tightened beneath the tablecloth until the wood creaked faintly beneath his grip.
For the first time since presentation, Baelor understood clearly that the realm no longer saw him as a son.
Only a future sire.
From then on, life within the Red Keep simply shifted subtly around him afterward like grass bending beneath stronger wind.
Servants lowered their eyes more quickly, knights straightened unconsciously when he entered rooms. Even courtiers smelled different around him now.
Baelor hated it almost immediately. He hated the way younger squires watched him in the training yard now as though expecting violence. Hated the way omegas flushed whenever he passed too near. Hated the new heaviness lingering beneath his own skin constantly, instincts coiled tighter now than before.
Everything felt louder since presentation.
Sweeter.
Sharper.
Hotter.
Especially fear.
Gods, he hated fear.
Only Maekar remained entirely unimpressed, not afraid ever of his older brother. If anything, he became worse.
Baelor had scarcely returned properly to court before discovering his brother waiting outside his chambers at dawn with visible irritation.
“You vanished from the yard that day.”
Baelor blinked blearily down at him. “I was confined with my presentation fever for eight days.”
“You failed to inform me when you would return.”
“I was under guard, Maekar.”
“That is not the point.”
Baelor stared at him for one long moment before laughing despite himself.
Maekar looked deeply offended by this. “You smell ridiculous,” he informed Baelor flatly.
“Good morning to you as well.”
“It is too strong.”
The complaint might have carried greater weight had Maekar not stepped directly into Baelor’s space while saying it.
Close.
Far too close for someone supposedly irritated.
Baelor noticed it immediately. Maekar stood nearer now than before presentation, near enough that the sharp storm scent clinging naturally to him settled warm beneath Baelor’s senses.
Comforting.
Then Maekar frowned upward suddenly. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
Baelor blinked once. “Like what?”
“Odd.”
“You are standing almost on top of me.”
“So?”
“So most people avoid me presently.”
Maekar looked genuinely confused by this information. “Well,” he said at last, “that seems stupid.”
Warmth flickered unexpectedly through Baelor’s chest.
The problem worsened afterward for Maekar appeared constantly now.
Training yards. Libraries. Council corridors. Meals.
Baelor would glance upward and inevitably find silver hair already moving sharply through crowded halls toward him with visible annoyance at the existence of everyone else nearby.
Once, halfway through a lesson with the Grand Maester, Baelor looked toward the open doorway after catching the faint familiar scent of storms.
Maekar sat outside the chambers on the floor glaring at passing servants. Baelor stared at him plainly. “What precisely are you doing?”
Maekar did not even glance up from his book. “Waiting.”
“For what?”
“You.”
The Grand Maester looked faintly alarmed by how pleased that answer made Baelor.
The matter worsened several days later during weapons inspection.
The training yard overflowed with knights, squires and visiting nobles alike while new-forged blades gleamed beneath autumn sunlight. Baelor barely paid attention to any of it.
Maekar stood nearby sharpening a dagger with visible hostility toward existence itself and Baelor was keeping him company, attempting to calm him.
Their father's younger brother, Aegor, welcomed into the courts along with his other siblings, laughed suddenly while passing them. “Gods,” the boy muttered before he could stop himself. Baelor looked up at once and the bastard son immediately stiffened. “Forgive me.”
Yet the scent reaching Baelor carried no mockery.
Only unease.
“What?” Maekar asked sharply.
Aegor hesitated too long. Then, reluctantly, “You scent him like an omega.”
Silence crashed downward across the yard and several nearby squires went abruptly still.
Baelor felt the words like a slap. Beside him, Maekar’s sharpening stone snapped cleanly in half.
Their young uncle realised his mistake immediately afterward. “I meant no insult—”
“You should pray harder then,” Maekar said softly, menacingly, glaring at their uncle till he left the training yard to find his older brother.
Storms rolled sharp through the air and Baelor caught the flicker of alarm crossing nearby faces and understood suddenly, horribly, that others noticed this too.
He looked toward Maekar instinctively afterward and found violet eyes already fixed upon him. As though waiting to see whether Baelor would step away now.
Baelor did not.
It became noticeable enough that family members commented eventually.
Rhaegel noticed first, not long after he presented as an omega, to the horror of their parents. “Maekar follows you everywhere now.”
“He does not.”
Rhaegel blinked slowly, bare feet twirling under him from where he sat. “He is literally behind you presently.”
Baelor turned.
Maekar stood several feet away eating an apple while looking deeply suspicious of the entire conversation.
Their eyes met and Maekar immediately walked closer.
Baelor tried not to smile.
When Baelor was just four and ten his father became the King, and in turn he became the Crown Prince. He thought it would change much, it did not, other than his Uncle Daemon was married to a woman from Tyrosh and from what Baelor heard it did not settle well.
Baelor also thought that now he had more responsibilities Maekar would become more distant.
He did not.
Their father noticed next, mostly because Maekar began attending council meetings he had absolutely no business attending.
“He is one and ten,” Daeron said wearily after finding his youngest son half-asleep beside Baelor’s chair during a discussion regarding tariffs. “Why is he here?”
Maekar cracked one eye open immediately. “I can leave if the conversation worsens.”
“It is a council meeting. It was never good.”
Baelor coughed suspiciously into his hand to hide laughter and Maekar looked smug afterward.
Then came the feast.
Looking back years later, Baelor thought perhaps that should have warned him.
The great hall overflowed with heat and noise alike that evening. Nobles crowded shoulder-to-shoulder beneath torchlight while music echoed loudly from the gallery above.
Too much.
Since presentation, large gatherings exhausted Baelor differently. Every scent struck harder now. Perfume. Sweat. Wine. Want.
It scraped unpleasantly against his nerves after a while.
Apparently Maekar felt it too.
Baelor realised halfway through the second course that his brother had gone unusually quiet beside him. He glanced downward instinctively and froze.
Maekar sat half turned toward him, one shoulder pressed lightly against Baelor’s arm while sleep tugged visibly at the sharp lines of his face. His younger brother had not even noticed himself drifting closer.
Or perhaps he had.
Worse, his face rested unconsciously near Baelor’s neck, where his smoked apple scent lingered strongest.
The position looked instinctive.
Comfort-seeking.
Safe.
Warmth moved low through Baelor’s chest before he could stop it.
Possessive too.
The feeling unsettled him enough that he carefully shifted his body away and Maekar woke instantly, violet eyes snapped upward sharp with immediate irritation. “Why did you move?”
“You were sleeping.”
“So?” Baelor stared at him helplessly and Maekar frowned harder. “You smell strange again.”
“Strange how?”
His brother hesitated briefly, then, quieter somehow, “better.”
Before he could answer, Lord Baratheon approached the table laughing loudly enough to make Maekar flinch outright at the sound, mentioning something about the presentation of his oldest son as an alpha also.
Baelor felt it immediately.
Distress.
Sharp and sudden beneath the steel scent curling around his brother. Without thinking, Baelor reached down beneath the table and closed his hand briefly around Maekar’s wrist.
The reaction was immediate and Maekar settled almost at once. The tension eased from his shoulders, his breathing slowed. The sharp scent of agitation softened back toward something calmer.
Baelor stared.
So did Maekar.
Neither spoke.
Yet beneath the table, Maekar’s fingers turned instinctively within his grasp before holding tightly back.
As though the contact soothed something neither of them fully understood yet.
Baelor did not let go for the remainder of the feast.
Maekar presented days later, after stabbing a boy through the hand. In his defence, the boy had deserved it.
“He said Rhaegel smelled weak,” Maekar snarled afterward while two horrified maesters attempted unsuccessfully to clean blood from his fingers. “I barely touched him.”
“You stabbed a prince of House Celtigar with a dining knife,” their father muttered.
“He still has the hand.”
“Maekar.”
“He should be grateful for my restraint.”
The words emerged sharp enough that even the servants hovering nearby went still.
Baelor noticed it instantly. Not the temper. Maekar had always burned hot.
The scent.
Wrong.
Too sharp suddenly.
Heavy wood and storms flooded the room thick enough that even the beta servants shifted uneasily. Maekar himself looked pale beneath the fury now, breathing too fast while sweat dampened loose silver-gold hair against his temples.
Baelor stood immediately. “Maekar?”
His brother jerked toward him at once, the movement looked almost instinctive. Then Maekar blinked hard as though disoriented suddenly before pressing one hand sharply against the edge of the table beside him. “I feel strange.”
The room quieted instantly and their father’s expression changed first.
Then Baelor understood too.
Oh.
Maekar looked between them with growing suspicion. “Why are you both staring at me like that?”
No one answered quickly enough.
Realisation arrived slowly across Maekar’s face afterward.
Then horror.
“No.”
The word emerged instantly.
Violently.
“No.”
A storm scent crashed sharp through the room suddenly thick with panic beneath it.
One nearby maid stumbled backward outright and Maekar noticed. Everything worsened immediately afterward.
“No,” he repeated again, louder this time. “No.”
“Maekar,” their father said carefully.
“I am not—”
His voice broke sharply.
The silence afterward felt terrible.
Baelor had never seen his brother frightened before. Sure he had seen him angry, confused, irate, but frightened—
Never.
Heat already rolled visibly beneath Maekar’s skin now. His pupils blown wide while distress sharpened the air around him enough to sting.
“I do not want this.”
The confession landed soft enough that only Baelor truly heard it. Their father stepped closer carefully. “Presentation is not choice, my son.”
“I know that.” The fury returned instantly, worse now because fear sat beneath it. Maekar shoved backward from the table so abruptly the chair crashed against stone. “I know what alphas are for.”
Baelor could list what alphas were made for.
Marriage.
Heirs.
Violence.
Duty.
Baelor saw all of it cross his brother’s face in one terrible heartbeat. Then Maekar looked down suddenly at his own hands like they had betrayed him personally.
“I do not want to smell like this.”
Storms overwhelmed the room entirely now.
Harsh.
The younger servants had begun quietly retreating toward the doors and Maekar noticed that too. Humiliation hit so sharply through the scent that Baelor moved before thinking.
“Out.”
The room stilled.
Baelor looked toward the servants first. “Leave us.”
No one argued.
Even the maesters fled quickly afterward.
Only their father remained near the doorway watching both sons carefully.
Maekar stood rigid beside the overturned chair breathing hard while fever visibly began taking hold beneath his skin.
He looked furious.
And young.
Gods, suddenly so young.
Baelor crossed the room slowly afterward and immediately Maekar stepped backward. The movement hit harder than expected.
“Do not,” Maekar said sharply.
Baelor stopped. “You think I will hurt you?” he asked quietly.
The question seemed to startle him. “No.”
Yet uncertainty flickered beneath the answer anyway.
Because Baelor was alpha now.
And Maekar—
Gods.
Maekar was alpha too.
Something in the world tilted strangely around that truth.
“You are fevered,” Baelor said gently after a moment. “That is all.”
“I smell wrong.”
“You smell distressed.”
“I smell aggressive.”
“You stabbed someone.”
“He insulted Rhaegel.”
Baelor failed very badly at suppressing a smile. Maekar looked moments from committing murder over it. Then another wave of heat rolled visibly through him hard enough that his knees nearly buckled.
Baelor caught him immediately and the contact froze them both. Storms crashed violently around them sharp with instinctive alarm while Maekar stared upward breathing too quickly.
Baelor waited.
He did not release him.
Slowly the sharp panic scent eased fractionally.
Maekar swallowed hard. “You are not afraid.”
The words sounded almost accusing.
Baelor frowned faintly. “Why would I fear you?”
“Because I am—”
He stopped abruptly.
Alpha.
The word remained lodged somewhere behind his teeth like poison.
Baelor’s chest tightened unexpectedly.
Oh.
This had begun before today.
Somehow, somewhere, Maekar had already learned to dread this.
"Just like you have never feared me, I shall not fear you." Baelor tightened his hold slightly only when his brother failed to pull away. “You are my Maekar.”
The answer came simply, as though nothing else mattered beside it and for one long moment Maekar only stared at him. Then abruptly looked away.
His throat moved visibly.
The fever worsened by nightfall.
Presentation struck Maekar harder than it had struck Baelor. The heat climbed viciously through him until sweat soaked through linen while instinctive aggression lashed wildly beneath his skin at every movement nearby.
Twice he snapped hard enough at servants that they fled outright.
Once he cracked a ceramic bowl against the wall simply because the sound of breathing irritated him.
After that, no one wished to remain within the chambers.
No one except Baelor.
“You should leave too,” Maekar muttered sometime near midnight while lying curled angrily beneath sweat-damp blankets. “I smell terrible.”
Baelor sat beside the bed reading quietly from a history text. “You smell like a storm.”
“That is terrible.”
“I rather like storms, I am heir to Dragonstone after all.”
Maekar looked unconvinced by this.
Another wave of fever rolled visibly through him moments later. Baelor set aside the book immediately before pressing a cool cloth carefully against overheated skin.
Maekar flinched at first, then leaned unconsciously into the touch afterward and the movement felt strangely intimate.
Neither acknowledged it.
Outside the chamber doors guards shifted uneasily every time Maekar’s scent spiked sharply with instinctive aggression. The entire castle seemed tense waiting for violence that never truly came.
Because Baelor remained there. His own alpha scent settled low and warm through the room deliberately soothing rather than challenging.
The first time it happened consciously, Maekar blinked upward at him in confusion.
“You are doing that on purpose.”
Baelor looked up from where he sat beside the bed. “Doing what?”
“That.”
Apples and wood curled softer suddenly around them both. Baelor realised with faint surprise that he had indeed been scenting reassurance instinctively toward him.
Oh.
Maekar noticed the understanding cross his face immediately. “You are.”
Baelor hesitated only briefly before answering honestly. “Yes.”
“Why?”
The question sounded genuine.
Almost wary.
Baelor looked toward him quietly then.
Because you are frightened.
Because no one comforted you before you asked for it.
Because you looked horrified when you realised what you were.
Because I cannot bear your distress.
Instead he only said, “it helps.”
Maekar stared at him for a very long moment afterward. Then, slowly, he shifted beneath the blankets until his fever-hot shoulder pressed lightly against Baelor’s side. As though drawn there unconsciously.
Baelor went still immediately and Maekar closed his eyes without moving away. “Do not leave,” he muttered sleepily.
I will never leave your side.
Baelor looked down at his brother’s exhausted face illuminated softly by dragonfire beyond the windows whilst storms and smoked apples lingered gentler now around them both.
Trusting.
Gods.
Baelor reached up carefully then and brushed damp silver hair back from Maekar’s forehead.
“I will not,” he promised quietly.
That, in the end, became the worst vow he ever made.
Months passed after Maekar’s presentation and King’s Landing settled around the change eventually, they even managed to celebrate the youngest Targaryen’s ten and second birthday.
Outwardly, little changed.
Maekar still argued with everyone, still fought viciously in the training yard, still looked permanently offended by sunlight, lessons and most human interaction alike.
Yet something beneath him had gone quieter afterward.
Baelor noticed it, how Maekar no longer reached for him unconsciously during storms. No longer wandered half-asleep into Baelor’s chambers after nightmares he pretended not to have.
The physical closeness remained strangely unchanged though, shoulders brushing in corridors, knees pressed together during lessons, Maekar draped across the arm of Baelor’s chair during council meetings like some deeply hostile cat, yet something emotional had drawn subtly backward all the same.
As though Maekar had realised needing people could become dangerous.
Baelor hated it, the distance felt small enough that no one else would have noticed. Yet he noticed every moment, especially because Maekar still sought him constantly afterward.
Just differently now, like it was a choice rather than instinctual.
The evening the realisation settled properly upon Baelor arrived cold and rain-heavy with a rare storm over King’s Landing. The sea crashed violently against the cliffs below while storms rolled dark across the horizon.
Most of the court had retired early from the weather, leaving the library unusually quiet aside from the crackling hearth and occasional turning pages.
Baelor sat sprawled beside the fire half-reading something on military history while Maekar occupied the floor nearby surrounded by several open books with visible disdain for all of them.
“You are glaring at literature again,” Baelor observed mildly, a wry smile on his face. These moments he treasured most, just the two of them.
“It deserves it.”
“What did this one do?”
Maekar looked down at the offending text flatly. “Marriage alliances of the Free Cities.”
Baelor snorted softly, closing his book and turning to his younger brother. “Truly unforgivable.”
“Apparently Lysene omegas are especially desirable due to their pleasing temperament.”
“That does sound deeply tedious.”
Maekar made a low sound of agreement before turning another page with visible irritation.
The firelight caught sharply against him tonight.
Gods.
Maekar had changed so quickly after presentation. Taller now, leaner too. The softness of childhood vanishing steadily beneath sharper bone and harder muscle alike. Even his scent had deepened into something darker recently.
Storms remained, but now it carried steel beneath it.
And heat.
An alpha’s scent.
"And Dornish omegas are highly fertile." Maekar glanced upward suddenly catching Baelor staring. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“You are looking thoughtful.” Maekar frowned suspiciously, violet eyes narrowing. “I distrust it.”
Warmth flickered automatically through Baelor’s chest.
There it is, he thought suddenly. There you are.
Maekar returned his attention toward the book afterward with another irritated huff. “These texts are idiotic.”
“In fairness, most political marriages are.”
“No.” Maekar’s mouth twisted sharply. “They speak of omegas like horses.”
Baelor looked up properly at that. Maekar rarely volunteered thoughts gently. “You sound surprised.”
“I am annoyed.”
“That is hardly rare, my love.”
Maekar ignored this expertly and battered harder against the windows while silence settled briefly between them afterward. “Father says we will marry eventually.”
The words landed casually and Baelor felt something unpleasant tighten beneath his ribs immediately. “Yes,” he answered carefully.
Maekar stared into the fire. “It is expected.”
The scent between the two alphas sharpened faintly. Baelor set aside his book slowly. “You are ten and two.”
“And you are ten and six, age does not alter the truth.”
“No.”
Maekar’s fingers tapped once restlessly against the page before going still again. “Omegas calm alphas,” he said flatly after a moment. “That is why the matches are arranged carefully.”
The words sounded memorised.
Learned.
As though repeated often enough to become tolerable.
Baelor frowned faintly. “Who told you that?”
“Someone.” Baelor would skin the person who put words and thoughts in Maekar’s head like that. Maekar’s expression remained fixed stubbornly toward the firelight. “It is biology.” The word sounded almost bitter. “An alpha protects. An omega softens.” His mouth twisted slightly afterward. “Produces heirs. Keeps the household stable.”
Baelor studied him quietly. “I am sensing that you dislike this conversation very much.”
Maekar finally looked toward him then, violet eyes sharp in firelight. Too sharp for ten and one years old. “You presented first,” he said quietly. “Did you want it?”
The question caught Baelor off guard.
Did you want it?
No one had asked that before.
People congratulated alpha sons. Celebrated them. Feasted after presentations. Strong bloodlines. Powerful heirs. Future kings.
Wanted rarely entered the matter.
Baelor considered the question honestly.
“No,” he admitted at last.
Something shifted subtly through Maekar’s scent.
Relief.
Small but quick but almost instantly.
Baelor’s chest tightened unexpectedly.
“You hated it too,” Maekar said softly. He truly did look ethereal in fireglow.
A traitorous thought for Baelor but one he could continue to believe till he met his last breath.
Baelor leaned back slightly in his chair. “I hated frightening people.”
“You frightened no one.”
“That is objectively false, Maekar.”
“You never frightened me.” Baelor looked away first and the silence stretched strangely afterward while rain battered softly against the library windows. Then Maekar spoke again without lifting his gaze from the fire. “You do not scent anyone else that way.”
Baelor went still.
“What way?”
Maekar shrugged once though tension lingered visibly through his shoulders. “Soft.”
The word sounded almost reluctant.
“You scent Rhaegel differently. Aerys too.” Violet eyes flicked upward briefly. “Everyone differently.”
Baelor’s throat tightened faintly.
“And me?”
Maekar hesitated.
Then quieter somehow, “You look at me like your instincts forget we are brothers.”
The world seemed to stop around the sentence. Fire crackled softly nearby. Rain struck stone beyond the windows. Somewhere deeper within the library servants moved faintly through distant corridors.
Yet Baelor heard only that.
Maekar looked almost irritated by his own honesty afterward and turned another page too sharply. “Perhaps all elder brothers are strange after presentation.”
Perhaps.
Yet neither of them truly believed it.
Outside thunder rolled low across the sea and neither alpha spoke for a long moment.
“It does not matter regardless.”
“It matters if it matters to you.”
Maekar laughed once beneath his breath. Not amused. “You sound like an omega.”
Baelor blinked and a wave of something, perhaps irritation went over him then. “What precisely does that mean?”
“It means you think feelings alter duty.”
Baelor was struck by the words not because they were cruel, no, he was used to Maekar’s cruelty.
But because Maekar sounded older suddenly.
Like he was attempting to perform, to sound like something he was meant to be, not what he truly was.
Baelor hated hearing it.
“You are allowed feelings, Maekar.”
“Those seem irrelevant now.”
Baelor rolled his eyes softly before standing from the chair at last. The library had grown overly warm beside the hearth while the storm beyond Kings Landing called sharply toward his senses tonight.
He crossed toward the windows instead. The sea smelled violent below.
Salt. Rain. Lightning.
Much too like Dragonstone. Where Baelor knew he was to be sent soon.
Behind him Maekar shifted quietly among the books. “You have noticed it too,” Maekar said suddenly.
Baelor glanced back. “Noticed what?”
“The omegas.”
The words arrived carefully this time and Baelor frowned slightly. “I suppose.”
“They smell overwhelming.”
That surprised a startled laugh from him. “That is one word for it.”
“Sweet.”
“Usually.”
“Too sweet.”
Baelor leaned lightly against the cold stone beside the windows while considering this.
Too sweet.
Yes.
Exactly that.
The court had become increasingly populated lately by noble omega daughters and sons alike drifting elegantly through halls beneath perfume and silk while older nobles watched the young princes with poorly concealed calculation.
Baelor remembered all of them vaguely.
Flowers. Honey. Spice. Fruit.
Everyone else seemed enchanted immediately.
Aerys certainly was and he was a beta.
Even some of the older knights became visibly softer around pleasant omega scents.
Baelor felt—
Nothing.
Or worse than nothing.
Restless discomfort. As though his instincts searched endlessly for something absent beneath all the sweetness.
“You are staring again,” Maekar informed him flatly from across the room.
Baelor blinked once. “At what?”
“Me.”
Gods.
He had been.
Firelight burned copper-gold against Maekar’s pale hair while smoke curled softly through the warm library air around him.
Familiar.
Safe.
Home.
Maekar frowned harder at his silence. “Why do you keep doing that?”
Baelor looked away first. “I do not know.”
Maekar watched him another moment before huffing softly beneath his breath and returning toward his book once more.
The storm worsened outside afterward.
Eventually Maekar fell asleep on the floor beside the hearth despite insisting moments earlier he was not tired. One arm remained draped across an open page discussing noble bloodlines while silver hair fell untidily across his eyes.
Baelor stared at him for a long while.
At the storm settling warm and quiet through the room. At the familiar tension absent entirely in sleep. At the sharpness of his brother softened briefly by exhaustion.
His chest ached strangely.
Wanting.
Baelor moved eventually only to pull a blanket carefully over him before settling nearby once more and Maekar shifted unconsciously toward his scent almost immediately.
Baelor’s throat tightened faintly.
Outside, thunder rolled across the capital. Inside, the storm of his valonqar curled warm through firelight while Maekar slept beside him entirely unafraid.
The separation began quietly enough that Baelor almost missed the intent behind it.
“Dragonstone requires inspection,” their father informed him one morning over breakfast. “You will remain there several weeks.”
Several weeks.
Baelor looked up immediately and across the table Maekar had gone very still. “Baelor still has to teach me some of my lessons,” Maekar said flatly.
Daeron did not even glance toward him. “Indeed.”
Baelor almost spoke then stopped himself.
Because what precisely could he say?
Do not separate us sounded dangerously close to truth.
The voyage to Dragonstone felt wrong from the beginning. The sea air should have soothed him. Usually it did. Salt and smoke and volcanic stone had always felt familiar. Instead restlessness crawled endlessly beneath his skin.
Nothing smelled right.
Nothing settled properly.
By the third night Baelor had snapped sharply enough at a servant for dropping wine that the boy nearly fled outright.
Shame followed immediately afterward.
The following morning he split a sparring partner’s lip badly enough that Ser Quentyn called an end to training altogether.
“You are distracted,” the knight observed carefully and Baelor looked toward the sea instead.
Meanwhile, word reached him that King’s Landing worsened without him.
At first Maekar merely supposedly became irritable.
Then violent.
A stableboy lost two teeth after accidentally touching one of Baelor’s books left behind in the library.
Three servants refused outright to enter Maekar’s chambers after being shouted from the room.
Twice he disappeared entirely into the city during storms only to return hours later soaked through and furious with himself for reasons no one understood.
“He is unsettled,” Rhaegel admitted quietly in one of his letters.
Baelor stared too long at the words.
Unsettled.
The same evening another letter arrived in Maekar’s viciously sharp handwriting.
When are you returning?
No greeting.
None required.
Baelor read the sentence three times before realising relief had already loosened something painfully tight inside his chest.
He wrote back immediately.
Soon.
The response arrived only days later.
Too slow.
Later, long after the fire burned low in his chambers, Baelor found himself trying unsuccessfully to remember the scents of the omega nobles introduced at court that month.
Flowers.
Honey.
Sweetness.
Everyone else seemed drawn toward them naturally.
Baelor remembered smiling politely. Remembered duty. Remembered expectation. Remembered briefly the girl with the red hair.
Yet when he searched his thoughts for comfort, for safety, for instinct—
Only storms ever answered him back.