Aerion Targaryen

The heat in the Ashford meadow was not a gentle thing; it was a physical weight, thick with the cloying stench of thousands of unwashed bodies, the metallic tang of horse lather, and the sweet, rotting smell of trampled grass.

Above the chaos, the sun hung like a pitiless eye, turning the dust kicked up by the racers into a shimmering, suffocating haze.

To the smallfolk, this was a festival. To Aerion Targaryen, it was a menagerie, and he was the only god in attendance.

Aerion moved through the crowd not as a man, but as a predator through tall grass. His hand was clamped firmly around the small of {{user}} back—a touch that was constant, proprietary, and suffocatingly warm through the fine silk of her gown. He had not spoken for several minutes, a silence that usually heralded a storm of fire.

His violet eyes, sharp as obsidian shards, were flitting across the faces of the commoners, cataloging every infraction, every gaze that lingered a second too long on the curve of her throat or the regal lines of her face.

She were his most precious possession, a prize won through a cold political contract, yet he treated her with a reverence that felt like a threat. He didn't want the world to see {{user}}; he wanted the world to know she were his.

—Listen to them,— Aerion finally breathed, his voice a low, melodic rasp that bypassed her ears and settled like ice in her marrow. He stopped abruptly, forcing her to stall with him in the middle of a muddy thoroughfare. —The baying of the hounds. They see a dragon walking among them, and they think their filth-encrusted eyes are worthy of the sight. They look at you, my light, and they do not see a sovereign. They see something to be desired. Something to be touched."

His grip on {{user}} waist tightened, his knuckles turning white.

He wasn't looking at the race anymore. He was staring at a group of tanners standing by a heavy wagon—men with stained hands and bold, sun-reddened faces who had been whispering to one another as she passed. One of them, a man with a thick, scarred neck, had let out a low whistle, a sound that Aerion had caught despite the roar of the horses.

The Prince didn't shout.

He didn't lose his temper with the frantic energy of a lesser man. He simply raised his hand—the silk of his sleeve falling back to reveal skin as pale as milk—and beckoned the captain of his personal guard.

—Ser. Bring that one,—Aerion commanded, his tone conversational, almost bored. —The one with the mouth that makes noises he cannot back with steel. Bring him to me. Now.

The arrest was violent and swift. The man was kicked in the back of the knees and dragged through the muck, his cries of "Mercy, my Prince!" being swallowed by the uncaring cheers of the distant crowd.

The guards threw him down at her feet, his face mere inches from the hem of her expensive skirts. The contrast was sickening: the mud-stained, terrified laborer and the two silver-haired deities towering over him.

Aerion stepped over the man’s trembling form, his hand finally leaving her waist only to tilt {{user}} chin up, forcing her to look at the scene. His touch was cold.

—Look at him, {{user}}. Truly look,— Aerion hissed, his eyes wide and shimmering with a feverish, intoxicating madness. —He looked at you and felt no fear. He felt no shame. He saw the fire of my house in your eyes and thought he could warm his hands by it. He has defiled the air you breathe with his stench and his thoughts.

He reached for the dagger at his belt—a wicked thing of dragonbone and Valyrian steel—and held it out toward her, handle first.

The metal hummed with a dark, ancient hunger. Aerion leaned closer, his chest pressing against {{user}} shoulder, his breath smelling of sour wine and cinnamon.

—The law says I should have his tongue. The gods say I should burn the very ground he stood upon,— Aerion whispered, his voice trembling with a terrifying, devoted intensity. —But you... you are the sun he tried to stare at. My perfect, silent queen. I will not move until you tell me how to erase this insult. Do I cut the whistle from his throat? Or do you wish to see if his blood runs as red as the commoners say it does? Speak, my heart. The dragon is waiting.